EAGLE INN

 

Back in the late 80's, first wife Michele and I lived in the country between Portland and a tiny hamlet of 120 souls called Eagle. The village is located just off I-96 and was the exit to head home. The village had a general store/pizza joint/deer processing plant and a bar/resto called the Eagle Inn. We walked in one Saturday afternoon and immediately felt like a couple of yuppies. No, I never wore khakis with an Izod shirt, but we were clearly overdressed. While having drinks and a bite, a man walked in dressed in what can only be described as a mountain man getup. It was Summer and this bearded cat was dressed in a weird amalgam of buckskin and fur complete with a coonskin hat. He carried a musket. Clearly a regular, he stood at the bar having a beer, chatting with the female bartender. Wow, we thought, this is country!

Late Winter the following year, I was out for a walk on the property directly behind ours. There had been a gravel yard there and one distinctive part of the landscape was a long berm of rounded hillocks. Not terribly cold and most of the snow was gone. There, I met up with the Mountain Man again. He was hunting with his musket, in full regalia. We nodded as we passed each other on the hills. It was a strange event, like momentarily being transported back in time.

The land was owned by a farmer who lived on the next road to the West and we had talked with him about venturing into the woods adjacent to the gravel yard. He was ok with us visiting his land which we dubbed the Magic Forest. It was old growth, with lush stretches of different species of wildflowers in the Spring including big stands of trillium. The previous owners of the house left instructions for finding morel mushrooms. I once saw a scarlet tanager.