Lit 2011

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A narrative nonfiction Magazine

A special publication of The Ithacan

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lit a sweet spot

p. 26

p. 2

p. 10

Life is a Fight

p. 18

a glimpse into history

f r uits of

p. 22

contents

p. 6

r ide the char iot

their labor

p. 14

ease on down the road

the house of champions

K ay d i P o i r i e r • C o - E d i t o r Eliz abeth Si le • Co-Editor A l l i s o n U s ava g e • D e s i g n E d i t o r M ichelle Boulé • Photo Editor Ca s e y M u s a r r a • P r o o f r e a d e r M ichael Ser i no • Ithacan Adviser Watch the stories unfold at The Ithacan Online.

Audio Slideshow

Video

Video

Listen to the talented cast of “The Wiz” belt out songs from its first performance of the musical.

Watch winemakers at Cayuga Lake’s oldest winery bottle their latest vintage.

Go inside the octagon with mixed martial arts fighters from Team BombSquad.

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“I don’t know who the characters are at the beginning, I don’t know the story, but I do know the stage of the theater. I find the characters by simply showing up at the ‘theater.’ As I spend more time in there, they emerge. It’s almost as if I imagine them, and then, they mysteriously appear.”

Gay Talese, one of the masters of literary journalism, or new journalism as it was called when the style emerged in the 1960s, said this of a story he wrote about The New York Times newsroom. Writers like Talese, Tom Wolfe, Hunter S. Thompson and Truman Capote, who sought to break free from the confines of traditional reporting, found what they were looking for in new journalism.

As it developed, the genre allowed them to start creating characters from people they interviewed, capture the way they spoke through dialogue and decorate their nonfiction with storytelling tools. The new style required saturated reporting whereby journalists fully immersed themselves in the people, places and things they covered. The stories unfolded in front of them, revealing characters, conflicts and themes.

This magazine is a collection of literary works written by senior journalism students in Todd Schack’s Narrative Journalism workshop. Seniors spent nearly the entire semester fully immersed in their stories. They got in the octagon with MMA fighters and stepped back in time with Civil War soldiers. As the weeks of spring semester flew by, characters and scenes “mysteriously appeared.”

The writers chose their topics and followed where the stories led.

— Kaydi Poirier and Elizabeth Sile

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Old boxing match posters and newspaper articles decorate the walls of the Greater Ithaca Activities Center’s gym. Youth boxers train at GIAC.

The house of champions written by Ma t t h e w B i d d l e

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our ropes of alternating red and blue encase a combat zone of 20 square feet. Standing inside the ropes during his first fight in Syracuse, sixth-grader Canaan has fire in his eyes. The 125-pound Ithaca native’s blue boxing gloves are firmly pressed against his cheeks.

His eyes stare forward at his opponent, a boy of similar size named Reeves.

Only 11 years old, Canaan already has dreams of going pro.

When he trains, he stands roughly a head shorter than most of

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photographs by C l a u d i A P i e t r z ak

the other fighters. Still, he exudes confidence, even in these last seconds before his first fight.

A jab lands on Canaan’s gloves, but he’s unfazed and hauls a hook into the side of the boy’s head. “Keep them hands up!”

Canaan’s coach, David Brown, calls out from the corner of the ring. The crowd roars, a continuous stream of encouragement that propels the fight forward.

“Six of ’em!” Canaan goes on the attack with a series of jabs toward the head. Just before the bell ends the round, he lands a

body shot to Reeves’ side, catching him off guard.

Canaan reaches down, touches his toes and then shoots his arms Another bell dings, and the action starts anew. Canaan springs up toward the ceiling. out of his corner and throws a few more punches to the head.

Two high schoolers arrive — Mike, in a purple sweatshirt and “Very good!” Reeves responds with a pair of punches, but a Sox hat over his long, dark brown hair, and Ken, who towers Canaan bounces on his toes and is able to dart away. Canaan steps over his teammate. The pair goes to change, Mike pulling his into his next assault, issuing two swift hits. “Six!” Though Reeves hair back into a ponytail and sporting a red bandana. After weeks lands a jab, Canaan of conditioning from counters with the Brown, fighters know “You get more than a trophy.

Your fury of six more. not to get in the ring In the third street clothes or go pride will get lifted, your spirits’ll in round, Reeves back on the street in races out of his their workout gear. get lifted. But if you lose, you’re corner, throwWearing a Boxing two hooks at ing Hall of Fame tee not a loser because you’re playing Canaan’s head. over his black hoodie, Both fighters are Brown walks over to on a team. As long as you try, you eager to land as a low set of shelves, many punches as strewn with discarded are not a loser.” — David Brown possible to gain papers, CDs and a extra points. Arms black boom box. He swing and gloves pops in his “Body and make contact with torsos and headgear, a continuous flurry of Soul: Twenty-four Sensual Grooves” cassette tape, and sounds of motion ended only by the ding of the final bell. The judges will Smokey Robinson and Marvin Gaye fill the room. decide the winner of this fight.

“You gotta be able to throw punches on defense,” Brown calls out, the young fighters hurling jabs while running backward ◆ As the sun begins to dip on a dreary February afternoon in around the ring, a padded area of the floor sectioned off with red, Ithaca, a large gray Astro EXT van slows to a stop across from an white and blue ropes. “You might not be able to score too many imposing brick building, spanning an entire block on snow-lined punches on offense, but you can whup your man on defense.”

Albany Street. The vehicle’s Chevy symbol is partially obscured A loud beep signals the last 30 seconds of this round, and the by a wooden cross with peeling white paint attached to the hood. light on the interval timer to the side of the ring changes from The driver of the vehicle, Brown, crosses the street carrying only green to yellow. Long overhead lights illuminate the basement a plastic shopping bag filled with cassette tapes, CDs and a bag of space. It has no natural light, save for a few glass-block windows chips he’ll munch on throughout the evening. toward the top of the walls, but still remains well lit. “Switch!”

Brown props open the outside door with a 10-pound weight Feet shift and move around the ring in the opposite direction, plate and moves downstairs to the basement through a short, dimfaster this time. ly lit corridor. Cobwebs dangling from the corners of the ceiling, Brown offers the boys motivation in the form of an imaginary his feet glide across the hard cement floor. The hallway leads to the man chasing them through the forest with a shotgun. “Gotta boxing gym at the Greater Ithaca Activities Center, better known move, move, get up, get out the woods!” Another loud beep as GIAC. The gym has been a “happy home” for the 54-year-old sounds, and the light switches to red. “Time!” for more than half his life.

This is the part Brown enjoys: teaching boxers who really want After setting down his bag, Brown tacks to a bulletin board to learn. He volunteer coached here for several years before being an old Ithaca Journal article, titled “AAU Ring Card at Central put on the GIAC payroll. After getting hurt, coaching became Gym.” Four men stare out from the photo, fists outstretched.

Brown’s way to stay in boxing, which he says helped him become Brown is second from the left, while trainer Danny Akers stands the person he is today. “They give me something to look forward beside him. Hanging behind the men are fight cards, or posters to,” Brown says. “They helped change my life.” showing details of a fight — the date, time, location, boxers and As a young fighter coming up, on his way to making it to the their weights. Fight cards still decorate the three bulletin boards pro ranks, Brown fought in a brutal bout, during which he fracthat cover the gym’s painted-white brick walls today. tured his opponent’s jaw. His opponent never backed down and Brown speaks with pride about anyone on these walls, from hit Brown squarely in the eye, causing the muscles behind it to former pro fighters to 24-year-old Willie Monroe Jr., the gym’s collapse. Brown felt no pain though. It was clear to him the man current 10-1 amateur star. Monroe started boxing at 6 years old wouldn’t be coming back up for a second round, so he just sat in with his grandfather and was surrounded by boxing greats, like his the corner of the ring on a stool hoping the ref wouldn’t come father Willie “The Worm” Monroe, who also trained in this gym. over to his side.

Willie Jr. is something of a hero around this place.

The referees took stock of the situation and the extent of both In early March, Brown announces that the usual warm-up fighters’ injuries. One ref walked over to Brown’s corner first and routine will now include “Willie Warm-Ups,” a series of exercises awarded the fight to his opponent. The doctor told Brown to stay Willie does every time he works out. Canaan wraps his hands, a out of the ring or risk permanent blindness. precaution to keep from tearing skin or breaking bones. He begins Around the gym, breathing sounds unite with the soul with his arms outstretched in front of him and swings them out music, clanging chains and feet scuffling over jump ropes: Whoo until splayed at his side. Next, standing on the balls of his feet, whoo whoo. Hah hah. Ye-ah, ye-ah. Pow, pow, pow. Exhaling

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when punching can increase power, so these sounds are constant and necessary.

Their workout complete, Brown and his boxers join hands in prayer. In an instant, time seems to slow, sounds of hits fade away, and the gym transforms into a solemn place of reflection. Also a local preacher, Brown leads the prayer today: “Father God, we thank you for watching over these young fighters, that they will fight a good fight of faith. We trust and believe in you, Father God. We ask right now that you protect them, and we ask you to watch over those who are not here, for whatever reason you know, Father God, and we don’t know. We ask you to keep them and guide them back to the gym. … In Jesus’ name we pray.” A united response: “Amen.” ◆ It’s a couple weeks before Jack, a 15-year-old boxer, and Canaan will fight in their first amateur bout, and Brown sits off the side, defeated and drained. Several of the youth boxers, including Ken and Mike, have been showing up irregularly at best, so only Canaan and Jack will participate in this match. One boxer quit altogether. He complained to GIAC’s office that Brown wasn’t working with him one-on-one. Brown feels hurt, like he lost a member of his “little family.”

As Jack sets down his gym bag and moves slowly toward Brown, tears well in the coach’s eyes. He allows just one or two to fall. “I’m sorry for shedding a tear in front of you,” he says sincerely. “That really, really hurt my heart.”

Brown feels betrayed — if the fighter had come to him, he would have been happy to do whatever it took to help the young man. “I’d like to make what’s wrong right with that individual that quit,” he says. “If we need to spend one-on-one time together for 30 days, I’ll do so. We’re not quitters or losers here — we’re winners.”

Brown, emotions bubbling inside, allows all of his feelings to pour out. In a few days, he’ll grieve for the one-year anniversary of his wife Sharon’s death. To top it off, Sharon’s dog, a lovable cockapoo named Sophie, is missing, and a neighbor told Brown she might have even been taken from his yard.

Meanwhile, Jack stands quietly, stretching his arm across his torso, his eyes glancing around the gym before settling back on Brown. “I miss my dog, and I miss my wife,” Brown says softly.

Sharon passed away on April 1, 2010, after doctors found a cyst on her liver four months earlier. A proud supporter of her husband and the boxing program, Sharon made every effort to attend bouts. Sometimes she would even stay in the car with Sophie, both wrapped in a blanket, because she didn’t want the fighters to feel bad for her or lose focus if she came in appearing frail.

The fighters took notice and visited Sharon in the last days of her life, as Sophie waited at her feet and Brown stood by her side. Clasping his second-place medallion, one fighter handed it to Brown and said: “Give this to your wife. She’s fighting the good fight of faith.”

The medallion, along with a picture of Sharon, still hangs from Brown’s rearview mirror as a constant reminder of his dual loves.

Jack and Canaan start their workout. Brown sits in his usual seat near the timer, thinking of Sharon, Sophie, the fighter who left, the fighters who remain and their upcoming bout in Syracuse. Brown glances over to the heavy white bag, where Jack issues several low punches, what would be body shots if the bag were human. His eyes never leave the bag as he begins a series of jabs, jabs, power hits.

“What round, Jack?” Brown asks.

“Fourth,” he responds. The high school boxers used to do three rounds for every exercise, but that changed when Jack complained a few weeks ago. “That man right there said he was

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tired, so he cost everyone four rounds,” Brown recalls. “If I hear someone say they’re tired, you get an extra round as a team.”

Wearing a pair of black gloves, Jack moves around the ring shadow boxing, deliberate in his punches and movements. “Three jabs, three jabs. There you go. Whup him and take his. Double that power punch,” Brown instructs. Jack’s power hand, the opposite hand from which a fighter jabs, betrays his slender frame and arms.

It has real force, certainly what Brown recognized when giving the high school sophomore his nickname, the “Jackhammer.”

“As soon as he hits a person, they just bounce all over the place,” Brown explains. ◆ “So do I get a trophy if I win?” Jack asks Brown. It’s less than a week before the fight, and Jack and Canaan have been coming down to the gym every afternoon.

“You get more than a trophy,” Brown replies. “Your pride will get lifted, your spirits’ll get lifted. But if you lose, you’re not a loser because you’re playing on a team. As long as you try, you are not a loser. Always remember that.”

After the boys do their usual warm-ups and rounds on the heavy bag, Brown gestures toward a pair of gloves and tells them, “Put them on cause it’s time. I’m gonna get you ready. Let’s go. Let’s get in the ring.”

Brown slides his hand into punch mitts and starts issuing commands: “Two.” Jack does a punch with each arm. “Three.” Three hits in fast succession. “Up and under!” Brown swings his arm over Jack’s head. Jack must duck and immediately counter with an uppercut. If he’s a bit off, the sound of the hit is muffled, but when he connects, it reverberates off the glove — a clear sign of success.

“Six.” A symphony of hits. “Eight. Keep your hands up!”

Brown says, swatting Jack’s face to drive home his point. Jack’s hands fall again, and Brown tries a new tactic. “This is a stickup — put your hands up,” he spits. “You look in the mirror before you get in the ring, what you see? A good-looking individual. If you keep your hands down, you gonna come out looking disgusting.” It’s a struggle, but Jack works to keep his hands up and protect his face. ◆ Jack sits in the passenger seat on the way to Syracuse for his and Canaan’s first fights. Jack feels more nervous than he’s ever felt before. He’s trained hard for this moment, not only at the gym, but also at home in his garage on a heavy bag and speed bag he got this past summer. Regardless, he has no idea how he’ll fare and can’t help feeling jittery.

The cars arrive at the West Area Athletic and Education Center in Syracuse a few hours before fight time. A banner out front announces a $10 admission fee for the day’s amateur fights, called “Spring in the Ring.”

Inside, the gym is bright, light shining in from windows near the top of the walls and falling down from fluorescent lights overhead. Signs proclaiming “NO GUTS, NO GLORY” and “Today’s preparation determines tomorrow’s ACHIEVEMENT!” line bulletin boards on the walls.

Jack and Canaan enter the room, their mothers and Brown alongside them. Other kids, teenagers and young men scurry around in their boxers, going to the scale or coming from being weighed. Jack and Canaan weigh in at 132 and 125 pounds, respectively. Besides training in the gym, boxers need to eat healthy and maintain a consistent weight because weight class and skill level determine a fighter’s opponent.

The judges take their places at one of the four long tables on each

side of the ring, and the announcer clicks on his microphone. It’s fight time. As soon as the bell sounds, screaming ignites in the room.

Individual words are barely distinguishable, though fighters make out a few shouts here and there: “Take him out — he done!” “Uppercut central!” “Punch like you mean it!” “BOD-AY SHOT!” Jack and Canaan, meanwhile, sit side by side, wearing their typical workout attire — tanks and gym shorts. Brown has been raising money to try to purchase classic boxing uniforms for the boys.

Time closes in on Jack’s fight, so the guys begin warm-ups. “See how quick these rounds are,” Brown says. “Just soon as you get warmed up, it’s done.” Canaan and Brown lace up Jack’s gloves and wrap tape around to secure the laces. “How’s that feel?” Brown asks, throwing headgear over Jack’s head and securing it like a belt.

“You’re going up next!” Brown calls. “He hasn’t won a fight. You gonna teach him how to fight. Be aggressive. Be quick. If you’re hurt and need to stop, you say so. But if you’re OK, you say so too. Remember to keep your hands up.”

His opponent, Oscar of Syracuse, stands in the blue corner. Oscar is muscular and toned, especially compared to Jack, who stands in the red corner feeling more nerJack, 15, sets up a jab on a heavy bag April 25 vous. Now, the at the Greater Ithaca Activities Center. bell sounds, and the ref drops his arm. Both burst out of the corners and put up a jab. Oscar overtakes Jack, forcing him backward with a shot to the head. Jack fights back, but a body shot knocks the wind out of him.

Both wail on each other with a flurry of hooks and jabs. No one is clearly ahead yet. “Jack, get your hands up!” Canaan shouts.

“There you go, there you go,” comes Brown’s voice from the corner.

Oscar gets Jack in the corner though and knocks his headgear around slightly. The ref pauses the action so Brown can adjust it for him.

Headgear securely on, the fight resumes. Jack throws a couple jabs, but Oscar quickly outdoes him. Oscar launches punch after punch at his head and gut. Jack manages to force him away, and the two start moving around the ring, with Jack still on the defensive.

Jack’s hands fall, and Oscar capitalizes with a booming punch straight to the head. Jack is scrappy and finds a way out but remains on defense. “One, two, three, four!” Brown calls out.

Jack stumbles, and his mouth guard falls out, a clear sign he’s getting tired already. His face is bright red. Brown rinses the guard and slips it back in. The ref warns Jack not to let it happen again.

Oscar sees Jack’s fatigue and pounces, throwing several punches

in a row. Jab to the head, jab to the head, hook, jab toward the face, hook to the body — an onslaught of hits that Jack tries to fight off as the pair worms its way around the outside of the ring.

Oscar issues two more hits to Jack’s head. The ref pushes Oscar off. Fingers in front of Jack’s face, he issues a standing eight count.

I need to get back in the game, I need to win, Jack thinks. “SEVEN, EIGHT,” the ref shouts. Jack’s hands are back up. He’s not giving up.

The bell sounds. Brown pours water into Jack’s mouth. “How you feeling? Are you hurt? Do you wanna sit down?” Jack declines.

Brown’s advice: “You gotta throw more punches. You gotta keep your hands up.” After a minute that feels like a few seconds, the bell dings, and the fight launches again.

Jack’s exhausted though and gets pummeled almost immediately.

“Punch back, Jack!” He whips out a counter. “There you go!” Jack receives two more standing eight counts and each time fights on, never wanting to give up. Finally, the judges from the front bang on the ring’s floor — The fight needs to end.

“That’s all right,” Brown reassures, wiping blood from Jack’s nose. Jack hangs his head, feeling defeated and ashamed. “I worked so hard to win, and they just stopped it,” Jack says. “I would rather them let it go the whole three rounds and took the loss right there than have them stop it. That just crushed me.” ◆ In the center of the ring, the announcer stands between Canaan and Reeves. The crowd sitting quietly, he speaks directly into the microphone: “Your winner, boxing out of the blue corner …

CANAAN BOWIE!” “WOOO! Hallelujah!” his mom screams.

“YEAH!” Brown hollers.

“Good job, Coach David,” she says, as Canaan, smiling from ear to ear, hurries around the ring to meet them. The trio walks back to Jack and his mom to celebrate one teammate’s victory together.

“Let’s do what we gotta do ’cause we know who did this,” Brown says. As the next bout gets underway, Brown and his fighters join hands. Brown thanks God for being with them and allowing them to put their time in at the gym. Brown asks God to bless Jack and Canaan, as well as the fighters who aren’t here.

“Brother Jack, your turn next,” Brown says. “One down, plenty more to go. Just like Willie — he lost one, won 10 in a row. You might win your next 10 in a row.”

When Jack and Canaan arrive at the gym two days later, Brown still beams with pride. “There’s nothing I wouldn’t do for you since you’re doing this for yourselves,” he tells them.

Still, there’s work to be done. “Jack, what did you learn from that fighting experience?” he asks.

“I need to do a lot more cardio and practice my defense.” Brown agrees and tells Jack to start running more often and take a few extra rounds during workouts for the next couple weeks.

The guys hop in the ring and start shadow boxing. Though their recent fights weigh on their minds, it’s time to get to work.

Willie swaggers in, flanked by Akers. Willie’s yellow track jacket barely conceals his washboard abs and sculpted arms. The two have been in New York City for several days, so high-fives and greetings are exchanged with each of the fighters. Canaan bends down to tie his boxing shoes but continues to look up at the professional middleweight fighter.

Throughout practice, Brown reminds his fighters of his boxing philosophy: “Hard work, dedication and sacrifice bring great rewards. We’re not quitters or losers. We’re winners. That’s why I say, ‘Welcome to the House of Champions, glad you’re back home.’”

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Dorothy (Engy Hassan) sings, “Home,” as Scarecrow (St. John Faulkner) Tin Man (Ben Roach) and Lion (Elias Spector-Zabusky) look on at dress rehearsal.

Ease on down the road written by Elizabeth Sile

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nly a handful of kids are cast as flying monkeys, but tonight it seems the whole cast is.

A March rehearsal for Ithaca High School’s production of “The Wiz” is set to start at 7 p.m.

It’s 6:45.

Kids swing from rafters that hang near the tall speakers on the sides of the stage. One does chin-ups, and others try to replicate.

Other cast members trickle on stage, while a few wait in the aisles, jumping, spinning, dancing in place and picking each other up.

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photographs by Michelle BoulÉ

Gray 2-by-1 concrete slabs stack on top of each other going up, up, up to the ceiling of the auditorium. An odd pattern of gold and red squares sit on top of the slabs of concrete. Stare at the tiles a little too long, and the walls seem to shake.

Seats rest in careful lines, some so new they squeak at the hinges with the sudden touch of a hand. Little lights line the aisles that are so pristine they’ve only been turned on a handful of times.

The room’s cold and sanitized like a hospital or corporate office.

It’s 7.

Kids file in for the start of rehearsal. Loud, high-pitched voices reverberate from the stage in complete discord. The piano player fingers through a few bars from the back of the stage.

“Guys, if people could just warm up,” Lorraine, the director, yells, marching across a stage of actors abuzz. “Please warm up!”

7:20.

“We only have until 8 to rehearse ‘Everybody Rejoice,’ then everyone needs to get fitted for costumes,” Lorraine explains to the cast sitting stage left. “Everybody stay quiet and focused.”

7:25.

“Start stretching,” Lorraine belts out, leaning over a binder she’s examining with Todd, a fireball of a choreographer and dancer.

Daron, the assistant director, has just rolled in, hood up with her head to the ground. From Friday to Sunday, tonight’s rehearsal, she’s had maybe nine hours of sleep. She’s thinking about how she doesn’t want to go to a movie with her mom later as promised.

“I don’t want to do my job,” she says quietly. “I’m tired.”

7:40.

“Are we ready?” Lorraine asks the group on stage. They sit up from their butterfly stretches and figure fours to look at her. Finally, they’ve gone silent, and all of their eyes focus on Todd.

At 16, Todd left Ithaca to go to New York to dance, and performed in “Cats” and the first revival of “West Side Story.”

Now he’s a full-time teacher at Boynton Middle School but choreographs and dances the rest of the time.

“The idea here is joyfulness,” he explains. As the song starts, the cast will dance around the stage. Others will start behind the four entrances to the auditorium. They’ll skip up the aisles to the stage, but not just any skip — it’s more like a gleeful trot.

As the music starts, the cast begins dancing on stage while the rest run up from the entrances, arms flailing and loose as they sing Hallelujah! St. John, a freshman who plays Scarecrow, misses his cue, and the place erupts with laughter. The scene stops.

Dancers struggle to wait patiently as Tony and Lorraine explain blocking to the leads.

“Let’s take it from the top of the song,” Lorraine interrupts.

“Everybody to their places.”

8 o’clock.

After some pointing and pivoting moves, the crew is supposed to form circles. Lorraine says she wants them to get in three circles on stage, hold hands and glide without going too fast, or skipping when they should be fluidly walking.

“No that wasn’t it at all. Just get into the circle as easily as possible. You’re not skipping. And Michael, you were like, running around the circle!”

8:05.

“Guys, guys come on, this looks like crap. The circles should be wide. Your arms should be spread out. Let’s stop wasting time. No one has extra time right now.”

The crew will try it once more, then they really need to do fittings. They repeat the circles a little better, but not perfect.

8:10.

Rehearsal is over. ◆ From the first to the last bell of the school day, Lorraine teaches English classes and goes to meetings nonstop. During her few moments off, she coordinates volunteers, plans rehearsals, gets show tickets printed and handles finances.

She’s got rehearsal from 7 to 9 nearly every night. When she gets out of that, she still has stacks upon stacks of Shakespeare

papers to grade that all pretty much say the same thing.

At 19, Lorraine moved to the big city. She trained with Circle in the Square Theatre School, tap-danced with the first touring production of “42nd Street,” worked with Joe Donovan in “Celebration” and stared as Carol in “Orpheus Descending.”

Lorraine had a real good run.

But she got tired of the city. After moving to Ithaca with her husband, Lorraine enrolled at Ithaca College to get her teaching certificate and did her student teaching at the high school. She’s been there ever since.

Lorraine loves being a teacher and director, but sometimes she’s frustrated. When she was an actress in New York, rehearsals were regimented and focused. Everyone came ready to give 110 percent, because it was their job, their livelihood. When there are high school kids involved though, that’s not always the case.

If everyone worked as hard as they do during tech, she thinks, the show would be that much better.

But Lorraine knows that no matter how chaotic things become, the show always comes together. ◆ “She looks like an old Ithaca lady, to be honest.”

Eva, the assistant production manager, has just taken one look at Harmony’s new getup.

She’s decked out in layers upon layers from the top of her head to the floor in what can best be described as ’60s grandma chic. On top of her green ankle pants is a long, bright red skirt that drapes just enough to still show her rainbow-striped kicks. Her top looks like a tapestry of red, yellow, blue and green swirls, and sitting crooked on her head is a pink hat that moves even when she’s still.

She’s covered in scarves, fringes and bangles.

Early in rehearsal season, Lorraine told Mary, the costume designer, the concept for the show was “urban funky.”

In Lorraine’s eyes, Mary interpreted this beautifully. The munchkins wear neon, flower power prints, while the flying monkeys are dressed as punks with chains hanging from their vests.

Though opening night is only three days away, the sets and props aren’t complete. Day-by-day the scenes will grow, but tonight things are looking pretty sparse. Dorothy’s house is standing but doesn’t have a door.

The rest of the auditorium has gone amuck. Items usually found in junk drawers or garbage cans are strewn about. It’s a sea of wires, coffee cups, water bottles, tape, cords and even more tape.

Todd is eating on the fly. He’s got a Glad container of cereal and yogurt to nibble on. A couple of kids have already started asking if and when there will be a dinner break during the five-hour rehearsal.

Welcome to Tech.

The cast started Tech Week with a four-hour rehearsal Saturday and a six-and-a-half hour one Sunday. From Monday to Wednesday leading up to Thursday’s show, they’ll rehearse for five hours a night. Stage management and crew is there even longer.

It’s the week of last-minute fixes. The sets go up, the acting is fine-tuned and the kinks are tediously worked out. Wednesday’s dress rehearsal is the final run-through before opening night — the last chance to get it perfect.

A single piano plays the overture, its sound quiet and dull without the full pit. Tony clicks his feet on the ground in time with the music. The curtain starts to open and — “Hold, please,” Laura calls.

The rehearsal will follow something of a pattern for five hours.

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“We’re going to start from Engy’s line,” Laura says.

“Thank you five,” everyone mumbles in near unison.

The small group on stage shuffles to its original places and take it Ben settles on the edge of the stage and stretches back to lie from the top. A couple lines, some more shuffling and — down. Engy literally collapses at the center of the stage, curling her “Hold, please,” Laura interrupts. legs under her skirt. She lets out a quiet, nearly inaudible sigh.

During the “Tornado Ballet,” where Dorothy is transported to Oz, there’s confusion on set about where to go, how to move the ◆ It’s Tuesday of Tech week, and by now, the cast should have house and where the house should end up. been running the show from start to finish. Lorraine and Todd are Engy, a junior who plays Dorothy, tries to yell to Laura, but it’s frustrated, but there are still little details to be worked on — like the deafened by noise on stage. last scene.

“Quiet on stage,” Laura nearly yells. It won’t be the first time she Engy starts from the top of her final song, “Home.” says this tonight.

I wish I was home, I wish I was back there with the things I been knowEngy’s costume is the simplest. She’s in a modest, white button ing. Wind that makes the tall trees bend into leaning — up with a billowy yellow calf-length skirt that sails through the air “I can’t remember the words for some reason.” when she moves. Her signature piece, of course, is her silver — not Wind that makes the tall trees bend into leaning. Suddenly the snowflakes red — sparkly pair of pumps, which that fall have a meaning. Sprinklin’ she dons after her house kills the the scene, makes it all clean — Wicked Witch of the East.

“Oh my god!” she cries as she Her costume is innocent and begins to hum the missing lyrics. homely, a stark contrast to Engy’s Take three. Take four. She usual rehearsal outfits, which include looks up to the sky and throws silver hot pants and fluffy slippers. As her hands out in frustration as she she lies on the porch of what would forgets again. be her house post-tornado, she hikes “You are so tired,” Lorraine her knees up. says to Engy.

“Engy! Fix your heels so nobody “I am.” looks up your skirt,” Todd yells.

Engy struggles through the “Jesus, these young women today lyrics again but finally makes it have no modesty,” Lorraine jokes. to the final note. As she misses it, “That’s gonna be stuck in my she sticks out her tongue with a throat,” Todd yells as a sudden huge smile. stink hits the front row. “That’s the Two days to opening night. strongest costume I’ve ever been That’s a wrap. around. Seriously, he’s gonna give me a buzz!” ◆ Engy is running around St. John has made his appearance looking for Daron. She didn’t accompanied by the smell of paint go to classes today and rolled in varnish. His costume is a suit covered around 11. She spent her afterin newspaper and caution tape. It’s noon in a practice room, waiting tight and stiff, but by the end of for seventh period when the cast rehearsal, pieces will have flung off in gave a preview of the show. a more scarecrow-like fashion.

Daron rounds the corner Later, seniors Ben, the Tin with a tall, white Ithaca Bakery The Wiz (Oseoba Airewele) makes his entrance singing “So Man, and Elias, the Lion, join to cup. She just nuked what You Wanted to See the Wizard” during dress rehearsal. make up the foursome so famous remains of Engy’s tea from the to the story. Tin Man’s costume morning — mostly lemon and is a gray workman’s jumpsuit with a glob of honey in some water. silver spray-painted steel-toed boots. He’s got a silver hat, metal “Be careful, it’s really, really hot,” she tells Engy. elbow, knee and thigh pads, along with a random assortment of Engy’s thankful to have something to comfort her throat, even if metal objects stuck on, from electrical outlet covers to air condiit’s just honey and water. tioning vents. Lion’s done up in overalls made of a fabric meant A minute or two before places, the cast circles up in the black box to look like a brick wall, with an orange extension cord for a tail. for one more vocal warm-up. Everyone picks a note to sing as loud as Dealing with Elias’ mane has always been a problem in the theater they want. The combined sound is ugly and loud. department. Taken out of the ponytail he usually wears, it falls past “10, 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1,” they count down in unison. his shoulders in curly brown strands that each has a mind of its own.

It’s time for places.

In last year’s “Babes in Arms,” it got tucked up in a wig. But in this show it doesn’t need to be concealed. ◆ The curtain lifts.

Two hours in as the cast starts to rehearse the Emerald City scene, Kansas is sparse, with just a tilted house, a porch and a clothesit’s clear everyone needs a break. Actors restlessly push through lines, line. Toto’s run away, and there’s a big storm coming. breaking to hold their heads in their hands or massage their temples.

Backstage, Tornado dancers decked out head to toe in black with “Take five,” Becky finally calls through the PA. rainbow colored ribbons tied to their arms form long lines, waiting

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to swoop up Dorothy and take her to Oz. Their black jazz shoes quietly swoosh on the ground as they start to walk.

“This here’s a big one,” Uncle Henry interrupts a moment between Em and Dorothy as he sprints across the stage.

Dancers come from all directions, some running through the aisles, others flying across the stage. Sparkly cream scarves dance on their heads as they lift, spin and jump around Dorothy. She’s tugged, pulled and moved across the stage into Munchkin Land.

Dorothy’s disoriented, especially surrounded by a little sea of munchkin midgets decked out in highlighter colored clothes. They walk as if their legs are stuck together, hobbling with small steps.

Harmony waits stage right, adjusting her hat to make sure it’s appropriately tilted on the left side of her head. All the layers she wears make for an incredibly hot and uncomfortable costume.

Pinggggggg, an instrument sounds. Addaperle, the Good Witch of the South, emerges from a blue telephone booth, bangles clinking as she swings her hips.

“You probably know me by my stage name — Addaperle, the feeelllll goooodddd witch — ah ha!”

Harmony’s voice booms as she starts singing, sweet thang lemme tell you bout, the world and the way things are. You come from a diff’rent place, and I know you’ve traveled fa-ar.

Yah-dah-dah-dah-dahhhhh, the munchkins chime in.

Now that you’ve told me what it is, I’d better point ya toward the Wiz. New silver pumps on foot, Dorothy moves through Oz to pick up her three companions: Scarecrow, Tin Man and Lion, convincing every one that the Wiz can help them.

Backstage has filled up with Emerald City citizens. They’ve each got at least one green accessory or piece of clothing — be it a suit top or a sash. Some wear their green shutter shades, while others hang them loosely around their necks.

As the curtain closes, a large black sign drops from the top of the stage, sparkling under the lights.

THE EMERALD CITY. Just two weeks ago, Oseoba was still shy as he made his grand entrance into the throne room. He wasn’t standing very tall, and his voice was a little timid. But tonight, he flies out of his green throne and glides across the stage. He owns it.

So you wanna meet the WIZZZarrdd, his deep voice wails.

His challenge for Dorothy and the gang is simple — kill Evilene, the Wicked Witch of the West, and he’ll give them what they want.

They exit stage left, beads of sweat on each of their foreheads.

St. John breezes off, his shoulders moving up and down with every heavy breath he takes. Elias, still in character, crawls off on four legs. ◆ Evilene’s warehouse is red, red, red. Red lights blare down on stage as she strides around in a bright red suit with a sheer red train that looks like a trail of glittery fire. Evil-looking glasses sit on her nose, and an enormous red-jeweled necklace hangs heavily from her neck, covering more than half her chest.

“Mm, it’s so good to be a liberated woman,” she proclaims.

A couple lines in, Felicia busts out her tremendous voice, propelling it at the audience and her minions.

When I wake up in the afternoon, which it pleases me to do, don't nobody bring me no bad news.

“I need you to bring me a lion, a tin man, a scarecrow and a little brat named Dorothy,” she commands a flying monkey after finding out the gang is headed to finish her off. “BRING THEM TO ME!” “Was I good?” Felicia asks as she walks off stage, still not believing she can act the cruel part of Evilene.

Dorothy and the crew become slaves to Evilene, scrubbing floors, washing windows and carrying water out of her castle.

“So Dorothy, when are you going to give me those silver slippersss,” Evilene slithers off her tongue. “I’ll give you some of ma — ha — beauty tipsss.”

“Oh Lord, mama, don’t nobody want nonna those,” Lion jokes.

“WHAT … did you say,” she recoils moving toward Lion.

In a flash, Dorothy throws a bucket of water, clear pieces of confetti, onto Evilene, liquidating the witch.

As soon as she melts, actors are running down the aisles yelling, “Hallelujah” at the top of their lungs. They’re full of energy and joy, liberated from Evilene’s shackles. Lights are on full blast.

Back in Oz, the foursome goes searching for the Wiz, only to find out he is a fraud — just a lonely guy from Nebraska who only wanted the simple things in life: money, power and fame. As promised, he gives Scarecrow some brains, in the form of “All-Brain” cereal. He gives Tin Man a heart in the form of a Mrs. Field’s cookie tin, and to Lion, he gives some courage of the Red Bull variety. Elias has chugged the stuff in rehearsal since Sunday. Who knows whether he’s faking the shakes or not.

For Dorothy, the Wiz will take her back to Kansas on a hot air balloon, but come time to leave, she’s too busy dancing.

Ya’ll got it, ya’ll got it, the Emerald City citizens sing.

“Wiz! Wiz! Wait,” Dorothy calls after the floating hot air balloon exits stage left. “Now I’ll never get back to Kansas.”

Pinggggggg.

“How come you joined the circus, child,” Addaperle says, looking at Dorothy and her new friends.

The company has assembled in the wings again, this time just to watch. Faces are serious and bodies are motionless. They lean on each other as they watch their friends finish the show.

Chimes jingle together as Glinda’s theme song starts to play.

“Oh, oh that’s ma sista Glinda’s theme song,” Addaperle proclaims, watching as her sister is carried in by four guards.

Saia’s maybe 5 feet tall, but her voice is anything but tiny. As she sings to Dorothy, telling her to believe in herself, Engy’s eyes glimmer under the light, holding back tears.

Believe that you can go home. Believe you can float on air. Then click your heels three times. If you believe, then you’ll be there. ◆ “I just cried my eyes out,” Harmony says backstage as she gets ready for the second act of the final show Sunday afternoon.

Lorraine took one step into the girl’s dressing room to find all the girls huddled up with heads in their hands.

“Places,” Carrie calls backstage the final time.

Everyone finds a way to get composed. Evilene’s slaves dab their eyes of tears to keep their makeup from running.

As soon as Lord High Underling says, “Make way, make way, make way for the Wicked Witch of the West,” it’s back to business.

Showtime.

But come time for the final scene, everyone’s having trouble keeping it together again.

One by one as Dorothy says goodbye to Scarecrow, Tin Man and Lion, they take deep breaths, clearing their noses as they try to keep it together. Pairs envelop each other, quietly shaking as Dorothy sings about finally returning home.

Her eyes sparkle under the bright lights just enough to show she’s holding back tears too.

Like yours, like mine, she sings before clicking her heels together.

Like home.

9

An entry from Civil War soldier Doctor Tarbell's diary sits on display at the History Center in Tompkins County. His diary detailed Civil War battles.

A glimpse into history written by J A C Q UELINE Pa l o c h k o

O

n a spring day, when the weather was slowly getting warmer, John Tidd sat on a hill in Annapolis, Md., to write to his childhood friend Amelia Haskell.

He hadn’t seen Amelia in months, and writing to her was one of the few solaces he had.

“This pleasant afternoon as the sun is fast declining the west, I seat myself, pen in hand, to impart a few random thoughts to one who is far away through the medium of this pen,” he wrote.

And from the hill he sat on, about 32 miles away in

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photographs by Michelle Boulé

Washington D.C., John could hear the cannons going off.

Boom boom boom.

But his mind was elsewhere.

“It would be more satisfying to my mind if I could have the pleasure of spending a few hours with you,” he told Amelia.

His country was torn apart, and 23-year-old John was struggling with his own political beliefs as he fought. It was 1862. And the United States was torn apart in the Civil War. ◆

The traffic on East State Street is heavy — the stoplight

blinking green, yellow and red. Drivers honk, anxious to get to Friend Amelia: The Civil War Letters of Private John Tidd.” their destinations. College students totter, trying to stand up on the ice and snow wearing North Face jackets. It’s February in ◆ Every day’s an adventure.

Ithaca, and life hasn’t slowed down.

“I must tell you how we get along and where we are,” John But inside the Gateway Center, up the staircase, 2011 is left writes to Amelia. “We started Satarday [sic] at eleven oclock behind in the History Center in Tompkins County. and got to Williamsport at nine in the evening. … The ladies Right now, from February to July, the center is in the treated us with pies and candles and every thing they had. Such early 1860s — diaries, letters, photoa waveing [sic] of handkerchiefs graphs all remembering the 150th anyou never saw.” niversary of the start of the Civil War. He tells Amelia about marching “I long to have you The exhibit isn’t focusing on Abratwo miles in the streets of Baltimore ham Lincoln or states’ rights or anything and sleeping on the ground. He by me For counsel found in textbooks. It’s about John Tidd spends his days guarding railroads, and Doctor Tarbell — two Tompkins telegraph lines and bridges from and for your love County soldiers who volunteered to fight Baltimore to D.C. for the Union. The letters they sent back He sounds like a little boy and blessings. … You playing War. home to their romantic interests, Amelia Haskell and Mary Conant respectively, are more than all are on display. Next to the faded, yel◆ It’s easy to miss the Hislowed, torn original letters that speak of tory Center. It doesn't seem like the world besides.” the soldiers’ fears, hopes and desperations the kind of place an American are transcripts. The center is also housing Revolutionary soldier’s discharge — Doctor Tarbell artifacts such as Mary’s brown, two-piece papers signed by General George wedding dress, photos and a valentine Washington would be. from John to Amelia.

In the main room, there are no But it’s the letters that give glimpses of the young men who windows except for the ones at the entrance. In the afternoon, fought for their country. the sunlight pours in like a light on a stage. At any given time, it can choose to highlight a certain item. A Victorian dollhouse, ◆ “I don’t think there is any danger of you being under typewriters from the first half of the 20th century, a striped the southern rule — they would get a hard customer!” John barber pole that used to sit outside the Clinton Hotel or a child’s teases Amelia in a letter dated spring of 1862. The last time he rocking horse. Or the object that always stumps visitors — a saw Amelia was when she was waving goodbye to him at the wooden machine that resembles a treadmill. In the 19th century, train station in Binghamton months before.

Ithacans used to hook dogs up to the butter churner to get them He has soft, dark eyes and dark hair. He has a small beard, to do the manpower. and though he doesn’t smile in his picture, he looks kind. The Every single item in the center came here through donamoney he receives for volunteering — $52, about $1,100 today tions, from family descendants to businesses wanting to clear — he uses to help take care of his aging father. space in their offices.

“I’d much rather fight for you and our country’s liberty then The center has been on East State Street since 1993, but it’s [sic] to be at home when our country is in danger. You need been around for about 150 years in different locations in Ithaca. A not be afraid of the rebels coming to Speedsville for you know I potter’s son originally from Westchester County who settled in promised to keep them back.” He tells Amelia he’ll kill two or Ithaca as a carpenter — Ezra Cornell — founded it in 1863. three rebels for her.

It’s the beginning of John’s enlistment. The war, and his ◆ Major Doctor Tarbell (actually named Doctor) was writing to Amelia, is still romantic. He is only 23 years old and a Tompkins County native — raised in Groton, attended hasn’t been away from his hometown, Speedsville, about 30 Cornell University and settled in Ithaca. One of 13 children miles south of Ithaca, that often. But like many of the soldiers who grew up on a farm, Tarbell was part of the first volunteer on both sides, John thinks the war will be over quickly, and he units to leave Tompkins County. He was successful as a solider, will return to Amelia. starting as a private and ending as a captain. One of his accomplishments was leading 100 men across the Chickahominy ◆ John’s letters were discovered by accident. In 1972, a River near Richmond, Va. group of children were playing hide-and-seek in one of their Tarbell also left a sweetheart at home — Mary Conant. houses in Speedsville. Trying to find the perfect hiding spot, “I long to have you by me,” he wrote. “For counsel and one of the children forced open a cupboard that had been for your love and blessings. … You are more than all the latched up for decades underneath a staircase. world besides.”

Hidden under the photographs and old newspapers, wrapped He survived the battles of Gettysburg, Bull Run, Antietam in an old wedding dress, were 35 letters from John to Amelia. and Chancellorsville. But there was so much more besides the The letters were given to Speedsville locals Mary Jordan and battles to survive.

Joyce Hatch — two sisters with a passion for history. The sisters spent more than 30 years transcribing the original letters and com◆ The History Center has one rule when deciding on an piling them in a book. That book was published this year as “Dear exhibit: find the local connection.

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“We always start local,” Scott Callan, executive director of the History Center, says. “We’ll never do an exhibit unless there’s a local connection. But once we go local, we can go national.”

The center wanted something to celebrate the 150th anniversary of the start of the Civil War. Ithaca had visits by Harriet Tubman and Frederick Douglass, supposed stops on the Underground Railroad, volunteer troops marching to Washington, D.C., to fight. But what to focus on?

Mary Jordan donated John Tidd’s letters to the History Center last summer. Then the center had what it was looking for: the local connection to the Civil War told through ordinary people experiencing it. ◆ John is starting to miss Amelia.

“It has been a long, long time since I heard from you last and you cannot imagine how much I want to hear from you,” he writes on June 20, 1864.

Death is becoming a part of life. There is very little medical attention for soldiers. In 1864, Ezra Cornell writes an editorial to the Ithaca Journal urging more experienced doctors and nurses to travel down to D.C. to help injured soldiers. He’s afraid those that are down there don’t know what they’re doing. Ezra himself has already made a few trips to the capital as a member of a volunteer aid committee to deliver medical supplies and has given $500 in aid.

“Let me repeat, that it is more skill which is required — Surgeons, Physicians and experienced nurses,” Ezra writes.

“We hear daily of injuries resulting to the wounded from the inexperience of those who administer to them. Persons who cannot be useful are only in the way, and should not come.”

But for those in battle, those smelling death, medical attention can’t come quickly enough.

“We have’nt [sic] but a few men left in our Regiment. In the battles of Wilderness and Spotsylvania, we lost about 300 men,” John tells Amelia.

War is no longer romantic. It’s reality. ◆ It took awhile for the History Center to decipher the letters. John’s were already transcribed, but Tarbell’s letters were torn, yellowed, fragile.

Besides the letters, the center was given other valuables of the soldiers and their loved ones — Mary Conant’s brown two-piece wedding dress, a valentine to Amelia, one of Mary’s handkerchiefs and pictures. The valuables added another element, but the letters were the most important part of the exhibit.

They were the connection to the past.

They started work in September and spent months delicately trying to read the letters. They wanted to get everything correct — every misspelling, every word’s meaning, every emotion that went into each letter.

“We’d be sitting there, squinting, looking at it and saying to each other, ‘Does that really say that?’” archivist Donna Eschenbrenner says. “We had to get it exactly right.”

They wanted to make sure readers could see the soldier writing to his loved one. ◆ On any day, Amelia and Mary could receive bad news.

Or no news. No letter from John or Tarbell was bad.

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Sometimes, just a quick note to let their women know they were alive was enough.

“At Owego safe. … I shall reach New York at 10 p.m. and nothing preventing I shall be at Annapolis tomorrow at or near Noon. I shall think of you often this long day — God bless you and preserve you from sickness and pain. And grant a speedy return,” Tarbell quickly wrote in a note to Mary.

For the moment, he was safe. ◆ John’s growing tired of war. In August 1864, he writes, “I did’nt [sic] go into the battle nor did’nt intend to; it has played out, this fighting. I never will shoot another reb, only to save my own life. I consider it nothing but murder.”

The railroads, telegraph lines and bridges he used to guard now seem tedious and pointless.

For the presidential election, he votes for George “Little Mac” McClellan, explaining to Amelia that he thinks if Lincoln is reelected, the war will continue. “Four more years of war and bloodshed, which will destroy the liberty of this country forever.” ◆ For Eschenbrenner, putting together the Civil War exhibit was one of the most difficult exhibits she has done. While reading John’s letters, she felt a strong personal connection.

“This is a guy we could have known,” she says. “He could have lived up the road.”

Eschenbrenner, who spends her time going through all the archives given to the center, has always felt a pull toward letters.

“People are more personal in letters,” she says. “You read something in the textbooks, and it’s just the big picture.”

And the letters give today’s Tompkins County residents a glimpse of what life was like more than 100 years ago.

“If you don’t know where you’re from, you don’t know where you’re going,” Eschenbrenner says.

◆ It started as a chest cold in 1864. John didn’t think anything of it.

“The doctor told me to stay out of battle but I don’t feel as sick.”

But he can’t shake it. He doesn’t see a doctor because he thinks doctors are nothing but “humbugs.” He tells Amelia his medicine is whiskey.

He’s getting weak, too weak to even write to Amelia. In the letters he does write, he’s become cynical and depressed.

“I don’t think I shall live a great while and even if I should, I shall never get well,” he writes on Feb. 17, 1865.

In 1863, the Boston Liberator newspaper reported on Libby Prison in Richmond. Prisoner conditions were terrible. Union soldiers were starved, denied water and confined to damp dungeons.

Almost two years after he left home, in 1864, Tarbell was captured and taken to Libby Prison.

For a year, Mary didn’t hear from the man she loved. Everyone assumed Tarbell had died. ◆ One more letter — one more glimpse at John Tidd.

“I am very sick and don’t expect to live but two or three days.” Oct. 13, 1865. His sister Eliza writes for him as he lies on his death bed.

John Tidd dies of tuberculosis on Oct. 17, 1865.

Tarbell survived. In the photos of him from shortly after his imprisonment, his face is long and thin. He looks defeated. But he’s alive.

When he was released from Libby Prison, he was granted a 30-day absence from the war. He traveled back to New York state and married Mary — just in case anything happened again.

After the war, he moved back to Ithaca, lived on North Geneva Street and raised three children — George, Bertha and Clarence — with Mary. In the years following the Civil War, he was hailed as a hero. He was asked to participate in parades.

He spoke to groups. He was decorated with sashes.

He became a successful businessman, known in Ithaca as being patriotic. When he died in 1905, his obituary in the Ithaca Journal read, “It may be said he was personally known by perhaps more people than any other man in this region.”

But I can’t find him. I find Mrs. Sally, wife of Mr. John Grove, born 1803 died 1855. Her tombstone is gray, bent and looks like it will snap if touched. I find baby Matilda, 2 years old when she died in 1880, buried underneath a small, gray plaque.

But no John. I continue walking, my black flip-flops sinking into the soft, spring ground.

I find Baby Charlie, died the same year he was born in 1903. And here’s Mr. Walter Willesly who is “going home.”

There’s a finger engraved on his tombstone pointing upward toward heaven.

Frustrated, I decide to ask for some help. In the middle of the cemetery, in between the graves from the 19th century and those from the 20th century, is an old man working on a car that probably could have been the very first Henry Ford model.

To his left are graves that are heart ◆ Amelia’s a mystery. Her shaped, taller than my 5-foot-5letters to John have not been found, inch body, decorated with flowers, so how she responded back, what stuffed animals, love. On the other she said to her romantic interside, the graves are tottering over. est, we’ll never know. Other local They’re faded — it’s difficult to read soldiers kept letters showing that the dates and names that date as far Amelia also wrote to them. In 1874, back as the early 1800s. They haven’t she married George Williams, a received love or attention in a long widower who she once worked for time. They’re alone. as a housekeeper. They had four “Hi, I know this is going to children. John was obviously not sound weird, but I’m looking for a the only man to court Amelia. grave, and I can’t find it.”

But there was something about “What’s the name?” He opens John. She died in 1917, but her his mouth and shows gaps where his personal belongings contained teeth should be. all of John’s letters — the only “Tidd,” I say. soldier’s letters she kept — as well “Date of death?” He pats his bald as his picture, all wrapped up in her head with his fingers, greasy from wedding dress and hidden under a working on the car. staircase until 1972. And as John “1864.” grew sicker and knew he was near “You’re in the right spot,” he tells death, he asked her to visit “withme before turning his back on me.

A letter from John Tidd addressed to his sweetheart out fail if you want to see me alive So, I go back to the plot, hoping Amelia Haskell is displayed next to a photo of soldiers. as soon as you git [sic] this letter.” to find him. I want to see where She did visit. he was laid to rest. Imagine what it was like the day of his funeral. Did ◆ In 1862, one Tompkins County soldier, fiercely paAmelia go? Did anyone go? triotic and ready to fight for his country, leaves his hometown But I still can’t find him. I see a tombstone that says, “Mary, ready to fight the rebels. After the war, he starts a family with mother. Benjamin, father. Elizabeth, daughter. John, son.” A his new wife. family. What John should have had with Amelia.

Another Tompkins County soldier, who questions the war’s I’m about to give up and head home. John is nowhere to be brutality, never gets his happy ending. seen. He’s missing.

It’s through the book and exhibits like the History Center’s And then, there he is. Others are surrounded by families, that we come to understand what life was like for him. but he’s by himself. His sister Eliza, who wrote letters to But in July, the History Center will take down the “Dear Amelia for him when he was too weak, and his father, who Friend Amelia” exhibit and another one will go up — an exdied while John was away in war, are not near him. He’s hibit called “Underneath It All” detailing underwear as far back alone. He’s forgotten. as the 18th century.

His grave is gray, the writing fading. He was here, right And John will slip back into the gaps of history. under my nose, and I missed him. He’s set off from the others, closer to one of the few trees in the cemetery. I had ◆ I can’t find John. It’s an afternoon in early April, and I walked by it before and didn’t even glance at his tombstone. decide to drive to the Snyder Station Cemetery in Candor — Like he did in history, John is quietly hiding in the cemetery, about 20 minutes outside Ithaca — to find John’s grave. waiting to be found.

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Bottles rotate through a mechanical bottling line, filling with Lucas Vineyards’ newest vintage of Dry Rosé on April 5 at the winery in Interlaken.

Fruits of their labor written by K ay d i P o i r i e r

S

ix a.m. The alarm clock breaks the early morning silence. Sunbeams cast a soft-yellow glow through the windows of the two-story house that looms from its perch near the top of the hillside. Light falls in shapes across the floor, its source rising up over the lake, turning the ombré sky orange, pink, blue.

The temperature and humidity rise with the sun.

The grapes beckon.

Jeff gets up too, and makes the short morning commute.

Less than 200 yards from home, work begins. And the line between the two is blurry.

Bright orange handboxes litter the slope. Empty. The color

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photographs by K e v i n Ca m p b e l l

of the plastic pops against a backdrop that’s nothing but green, lush. Row after row of leafy green plants spring up from the grass carpet, their vines snaking, twisting, turning, branching off in all directions.

Like ornaments on a Christmas tree, the berries dangle from the vines. Five-pointed grape leaves cradle the fruit, its color ranging from pale whitish-green to blue, deep violet and almost black, depending on the row.

The morning is quiet, but not for long.

The tractor tick-tick-it-tick-tick-ticks, moseying along. Mother Hen straddles the row, picking fruit from her nest as she makes her way across.

The mechanical grape harvester picks about half the grapes on Lucas Vineyards’ 30-acre plantation — Cayuga White, DeChaunac, Baco Noir, Vignoles. Scientists developed these hybrid varieties to be hardy enough to survive the cool climate in Interlaken, the heart of the Finger Lakes. As such, their skins are also thick enough to take a bit of a beating from Mother Hen. The nonnative grapes — Chardonnay, Riesling, Gewürztraminer, Cabernet Franc, Syrah, Pinot Noir — get the special treatment fit for a European transplant: handpicking.

A crew of 17 migrant workers handpick the grapes and perform other tasks in the field throughout the year. Then there are the guys who hardly leave — at least not during harvest.

Jeff Houck didn’t set out to become a winemaker, but he didn’t exactly fall into it either. He gravitated toward it.

It started in 1990, when he met the vineyard owner’s daughter Stephanie through friends — drinking beer — at Pete’s Cayuga Bar. They dated, got married. In 1995, they ventured to the Napa and Sonoma Valleys in California. It was part work — to gather some new ideas for the vineyard — and part vacation.

Driving up and down the mountains from one winery to the next, seeing the throngs of visitors that flocked there, they thought, There’s no reason why this can’t happen in the Finger Lakes.

Jeff began working at the winery — pulling weeds, scouting around the vineyard, doing whatever needed to be done. He began taking winemaking classes at Cornell University’s agricultural experiment station in Geneva, N.Y. And gravitated.

During harvest, Jeff combs the vineyard with the picking crew to ensure everyone knows an acceptable grape from an unacceptable one.

There’s a lot that can go wrong before the grapes even make it to the press deck, so a tainted wine is not always a winemaker’s fault.

A particularly rainy summer like 2009 can sear open the grape skins, causing them to emanate a vinegar scent that wafts through parts of the vineyard. If those grapes make it to the bottle, the vinegary aroma will be one of the wine’s top notes.

One red wine spoilage bacteria, Brettanomyces, is dreaded by most yet embraced by some.

Leather. Horse. Barnyard. Band-Aid. Aromas all symptomatic of a case of Brett.

“You ever open a Band-Aid, and it has a kind of medicinal smell to it? It’s kind of like that.” ◆ They pick. And they pick. And they press.

Today might just be one of those 17-hour days. They’re few and far between, but they happen.

Years ago it wasn’t rare for Jeff and his crew to pick and press all day, then load literal tons of grapes into the press until midnight.

“It’s nuts, but it’s exciting.”

By day, Jeff and Whit break out the 5-hour Energies. From there, it’s one big caffeine-driven, pick-and-press fest. Whit could be a poster child for the grape-flavored motivator.

“The good thing about 5-hour Energy is, no shakes,” he says with a wide, toothy grin, shaking his head slightly, eyes lighting up as he recalls a winemaker’s favorite time of year.

The first of September was like Christmas Eve for the production assistant. The start of the 2010 harvest marked his first at the winery. During the eight months he worked in the tasting room, he spent days off in the back of the

house, getting a feel for things. A cellar worker.

When the assistant winemaker left last spring, Whit Miller stepped in and stepped up to the full-time position he holds now.

“I guess it would be wine production assistant, assistant production worker. Yeah, I don’t really have a title.”

He got into wine “a little bit” as an undergrad at the University of Virginia, touring the few wineries around Charlottesville. With a history degree and no plans, Whit considered moving to West Coast wine country, a good place to get a little more into wine. But that seemed like a big leap, to hop in his car and head for the other coast with no job, no friends, no connections.

So he hopped in his car and headed for the Finger Lakes, a few hundred — rather than a few thousand — miles from where he grew up in New Jersey.

The plan is to stay put, at least through next harvest, then jump coasts — with no job, no friends, to make some connections. This time, with two years’ experience under his red woolen winemaking cap.

“I want winemaking to be able to take me around the world.”

Next stop: Australia. New Zealand. Possibly France, Italy.

“I don’t plan on settling down for a while.”

Chaos. Organized chaos. Over the whirr-tick-it-tick-tick of the machinery, the guys yell at each other, but it’s nothing that can’t be washed down with a bottle of wine and forgotten.

They spread the boxes. The crew loads the boxes. Someone weaves in and out between rows, picking the full boxes up.

Then dumps them out one by one back at the winery.

Meanwhile, Mother Hen doesn’t mess around with any of that. She clucks along, her beaters plucking grapes, but not every last one.

The equipment they use is vital to the operation, but can be temperamental, Jeff says.

The grape press is temperamental. And the “dinosaur” pH meter they use to test acid levels of wine during fermentation. And the bottling line they call Desdemona or Christine, depending on her behavior that day. They work perfectly fine.

Sometimes they’re just moody. ◆ “What we do is not the ice wine people think of, with the romanticized picking of the frozen grapes off the vine in the middle of the night. What we do here is iced wine,” Jeff says.

The ‘d’ makes the difference.

The advantage of the ‘iced’ over the ‘ice’ technique is that the former process gives the winemaker more control.

Because unpredictable temperatures mean unpredictability for grapes hanging from frosted vines, making traditional ice wine is a gamble in the Finger Lakes.

On a Friday morning in mid-February, Mother Nature has gone to the extreme. Temperatures have climbed into the mid-50s, and it’s only 10 a.m. A sunny, blue-sky day like this — a teasing preview of spring sandwiched between months of subzero temps and hammerings of snow — could have sabotaged the fruit.

But instead of thawing out on the vine this morning, the grapes are on the back of a truck, still in a deep freeze. Immediately after they were picked, during the tail end of the harvest late last October, the Cabernet Franc grapes along with their white Vidal sisters, went straight from the vineyard to a freezing facility. They’ve hibernated at a steady 32 degrees for the past few months.

Today the Cabernet Franc fruits, more than two tons of

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them, return to their roots. The Vidal Blanc grapes will sleep The juice, a pinkish-purple liquid, tastes green, fresh. The for another week or so. kind of drink health-conscious parents want to pack in their It might not be as romantic as venturing out to pluck grapes kids’ lunchboxes instead of the kind that comes in a box. from the vineyard’s hills under silvery moonlight, but for this year It doesn’t get much more natural than this. at least, it means the difference between having an ice wine at all.

In the past three years making iced wine, the grapes have taken At least one other winery on Cayuga Lake that typically makes ice anywhere from 24 hours to three and a half days to press. Jeff’s best wine, Sheldrake Point, won’t turn one out this year because the guess is that the Indian spring will speed up the process today. conditions were no good.

“It’s never been this warm for pressing the iced wine,” he It’s a waiting game until the truck pulls up to the Lucas says. “I’m unsure exactly what to expect.” estate, and everything is in place.

The grape press, a large and looming ◆ The Lucases didn’t use a comstainless steel contraption, looks like mercial grape press until 1998. Their a small submarine. Its sliding door first machine, an apple press, because open, the press gleams in the sunthat was all they could afford, cost light, ready to receive the 4,000-plus $1,500 in the mid ’80s. They parked it pounds of grapes soon to be juice. out front of the winery. People came They make their homecoming to watch as the family emptied heaps about midmorning, when the truck of crushed grapes onto a 6-foot rack, turns onto the gravel driveway and covered in cloth, folded the cloth over, comes to a stop around back, by the stacked another rack, emptied ansubmarine and a row of holding tanks. other heap, folded over another cloth.

It’s grape-pressin’ time.

Watched as a hydraulic press bored The Cabernet Franc grapes, hard down on the stack. Gently. as marbles and nearly black in color, “And the juice … ahh, the juice skip the crusher and de-stemmer was fabulous really, but it took hours — typically the first two steps in the and hours,” Ruth Lucas says. winemaking process. Jeff grabs the first So did the laundry. Three loads a handbox and dumps it into the press. night, to get them ready for the next Those first 35 pounds of grapes should day. After a day of pressing, they yield 1 gallon of iced wine. And pressdismantled the machine, shook the ing them with the skins on will give pumice off the cloths. Ruth washed the wine richer pigment. them in her washer, hung them on Stems sneak by here and there as her clothesline.

Jeff pours box after box into the press, Winemaker Jeff Houck places Lucas Vineyards’ 2010 and the occasional grape leaf does too. ◆ By 12:30 p.m., Jeff sees about Dry Rosé into a case April 5 in the winery’s warehouse.

“Can I get some rice hulls?” twice as much juice as he would have Whit is at the ready with a bucket if temperatures were in the 20s. But of hulls, the hard, protective coating not as much as he expected. on grains of rice that aid in pressing grapes, breaking up the Ultimately, the grapes take their sweet time. After 24 hours in mash. He passes a scoop to Jeff every few boxes. the press, Jeff calls it done. He lets any particles settle to the bottom They switch. The press fills. of the tank through the weekend. On Monday, he siphons out the Whit takes a shovel to the grapes, spreading the pyramid clean juice from the top into another tank, a process called racking. that built up in the center out toward the sides to make room He heats the clean juice, adds a higher rate of yeast than he would for the remaining boxes. for a table wine, and moves the tank to the warehouse.

“Can’t shovel any faster up there?” Jeff coaches him, reLeaves the molecules to mingle. lieved from the job that requires the heavy lifting.

The 2009 Cabernet Franc ICED is syrupy — nothing “Those arms are long enough,” Harold chimes in. He you could drink too much of, which is why it’s served in tiny mostly works out in the vineyard and has been here on and off stemware, 2 ounces maximum. A sipping wine with dessert. since its humble beginning in 1980.

Or for dessert.

“Just go swimmin’!”

It tastes like grape juice with a hint of black cherry, waterJust over an hour is all it takes to get 115 handboxes of fruit melon. Raisiny. Jammy. Like strawberry jam. into the press. Now comes the waiting game. A vacuum fills a At least that’s what Jeff gets, before spitting it discreetly into big bag inside the machine — the bladder — with air, squeeza silver bucket they keep handy at the bar. ing the grapes against its cold, clean walls.

“If Whit and I didn’t spit all day long, you’d be coming to visit The juice drips lazily from the press, gathering at the openus in rehab,” he half-kids. ings like water droplets under a leaky faucet before taking the plunge into the catcher underneath the machine. The openings ◆ The bottles are late. look like slits on a cheese grater, just larger. Juice from grapes The Dry Rosé waits patiently in a holding tank outside destined to become table wine, not iced, streams from them the warehouse, ready to take a ride down the hose that snakes during harvest. Not today. across the gravel driveway. It will shoot through a filter before

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hitting the bottler. Jeff is trying to be as patient. It’s early afternoon now, and the bottles’ ETA was 10 a.m.

“I can’t really be too upset that they’re late since I ordered the wrong bottles last week,” he says.

Last Thursday, Jeff and Whit tested the rosé, filling one of the sea-green bottles that came in, just to see how it would look.

The blend of colors, the peachy-pink liquid peeking out from behind the green glass, didn’t look quite right, they decided.

“It’s like the bottle we use for the Miss Behavin’,” Whit says, taking a few long strides across the tasting room and picking up a bottle of one of their popular whites from the Nautie line, which also includes Miss Adventurous and Miss Chevious.

“It makes this one look really fresh.”

But the fact that Miss Behavin’ lives up to her namesake from inside the tinted glass is no consolation to Jeff when it comes to the 2010 Rosé. He glares at it, brow furrowed.

He sends the bottles back.

Finally, around 1:30 p.m., their crystal clear replacements, 2,400 of them, show up. An 18-wheeler hauled them from Waterloo, near the mouth of Cayuga Lake.

“Whit, you wanna grab the loose cases?” Jeff calls out to his apprentice.

“Yeah.” He takes off in a half-jog, half-hop toward the truck.

In a flash he’s back with the first of 200 cases. He sets it on one end of the conveyor belt, stamps the top of the rectangular white box. Peels a label from the wheel that hangs on a spindle jutting out from the conveyor belt. Sticks it onto the narrow face of the box. Turns the box upside down, releasing a neat block of a dozen shiny bottles.

Clink, clink. They settle into place on the conveyor belt.

Judi, the capper, takes over the process Whit started. She’s retired and lives right down the road, so she helps with bottling in her free time, to make a little extra money.

Set. Stamp. Peel. Stick. Turn. Clink.

Judi’s primary duty this afternoon is to place a royal blue cap on each bottle, one by one, after it’s corked.

In short, choppy sentences she explains that the bottler can do it, but they tried that. Some of the caps came out not looking right, and they’d have to redo them by hand. Once, the mechanical capper broke shards of glass off the bottlenecks.

Sometimes it works better the old-fashioned way.

Murrrrrr…wheeeeeeeee.

The machine groans to life. A stainless steel panel of buttons and dials — green, red, white, a few lit up, the rest asleep — sets the bottler in motion like a ride at an amusement park.

Whirrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr. Clink, cli-cli-clink, clink. Clink, cli-cli-clink, clink.

One after another, the carousel admits bottles, each taking its place on a round shiny-silver platform. Spouts drop down, latch onto bottlenecks. Begin to fill.

Jeff sheds his black parka, and all three take their positions along the assembly line — Whit at the beginning, unloading cases of empty bottles, Judi in the middle near the plexiglass-encased carousels, and Jeff at the end of the line. He grabs the bottles — freshly filled, corked, capped and labeled — three, sometimes four at a time, loads them back into the white cases, folds down the flaps, seals the box with packing tape.

“One down, 200 to go,” he calls over his shoulder.

Including the U-shaped conveyor belt that winds along its length, the bottler takes up nearly half the center room in the three-room warehouse that used to be an open pull barn.

In 1980, when the family business graduated from grape farm to winery, there was no filler, no corker, no conveyor belt. An assembly line, yes, but made of people, not machinery. Though the immediate family ran the entire operation for the first 10 years, as teenagers the kids would sometimes have their friends over during school vacations to work at the winery and get paid cash by the hour.

They bottled their wine with a six-spout filler, The Cow. Put a bottle on, take a bottle off. Put a bottle on, take a bottle off.

They corked each bottle by hand. All 4,800 of them.

Fast-forward three decades, and the vineyard puts out upwards of 26,000 cases each year, not bottles. Ruth does the math and sometimes wonders how they did it way back when.

The same feeling crept up recently when she went through old checking account statements, getting rid of them.

“I was looking at the balance, and it seemed kind of like a joke, wondering how we were going to do all this.”

Surely The Cow didn’t moo like its electric successor enveloping the room in white noise today.

Whirrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr. Clink, cli-cli-clink, clink.

Symphony.

Whit moves around and around a finished stack of cases with an industrial-sized roll of plastic wrap, starting at the top and doubling over to reach the bottom as he races around.

“You spin me right round baby, right round,” Jeff sings along. “Ahhh ahhh ahhh ahhh ahhh ahhhhhhh…” ◆ The witching hour.

It’s going on 3 p.m., and the tasting room is packed. The Saturday of Mardi Gras weekend on the Cayuga Lake wine trail is one of the busiest of the year.

Despite the room’s high ceilings, the air feels stuffy. People wander in, weave around, most of them red-cheeked from the wind, or the wine. Or both.

The sweet, spicy smell of chili rises from two bubbling Crock-Pots at the far end of the room. It complements Tug Boat Red, the winery’s No. 1 seller since its first vintage. Ruby red and semidry, the easy-drinking wine pairs well with burgers and pizza, too.

Saturday is always busier than Sunday on this weekend each year, bringing the crowd that’s ready to party. A sea of purple, green, yellow. Beads. Sunglasses. An electric orange wig. Like Halloween, it’s an excuse to put on a costume. It doesn’t have to make sense.

Cases upon cases of wine are stacked in strategic locations throughout the room. In front of a window, against a beam.

“Whaaaa-ahahaha!!!” A cackle splinters the air, much higher in pitch than any other noise in the room.

The witching hour, indeed.

The source of the cackle is a tall blonde woman of large build and even larger personality. She throws her head back and erupts with yet another cackle. The man she’s with fist-bumps the bartender.

The room’s two standard bars are supplemented today by two makeshift ones, each consisting of an oak wood plank laid across two wine barrels. They used to be the only bars, back in the day.

Every few minutes, one of the bartenders runs out of something, either wine or change, and borrows from another. They rattle off deals like car salesmen. Letting customers know how they can get 10 percent off this, 15 percent off that.

No one seems plastered, but almost everyone seems happy.

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From left, Cornell University sophomore Paul Maier and senior Dan Cloutier rehearse with members of the Cornell Glee Club on April 20 in Sage Chapel.

ride the chariot written by C o u rt n e y M i l l e r

T

he door yawns, a quiet heaving permitting visitors into the solitude. Voices echo in the emptiness before anyone appears. No, not simply voices: harmony.

They are coming.

Every Wednesday night, the boys of the Cornell University Glee Club rehearse in their home — the shrunken Gothic cathedral that is Sage Chapel.

A grand cavern, it is somehow comfortable and monumental.

Five rose windows recall the tracery of Chartres and Notre Dame.

Looming circles stenciled by stone, the stained glass cutouts are hand crafted dark cavities tonight. In late afternoon the colors rush through the glass at the western end and illuminate the pews with

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photographs by E m i ly Pa r k

violets and emerald green, but not tonight. Not for the boys.

Lift the chorus, speed it onward, Loud her praises tell — Someone interrupts his own alma mater song with a bounding leap onto another’s back, and song dissolves into laughter. The winter cold trails their entrance, its chill spilling off polyester. These earliest arrivals strip jackets onto pews and prepare their backpack audience while the cold spreads insistently through the shelter, mingling with a faint scent of pizza.

As if realizing a new presence, the walls hiss abruptly. The heating system groans, the door bursts open with more members and the contemporary speakers nestled behind buttresses begin to

pick up sparks of sound — no, it is the natural resonance that a group of tenors and basses employ.

It is a Wednesday night; 7:30 is nearing. The boys are home. ◆ “Close your eyes,” says accompanist and assistant conductor John Rowehl as he leads stretching. “Whatever crappy thing happened to you today, set that aside. Whatever you’re excited for later, set that aside. Close your eyes.”

John’s voice is stern, yet a pleasant tranquility emerges as he leads the club through its breathing exercises. People half-fill the choir loft, Cornell sweatshirt variations dotting vibrant red across the chairs. A few members sit amid scattered belongings in the pews, sickness debilitating their vocal chords today.

“Biceps by your ears.”

A chorus of leaning steeples points skyward as the boys clasp their hands together above their heads. Rolling shoulders and a sprightly dance later, they practice scales while waiting for professor Scott Tucker, the musical director, to arrive and tell them what page to turn to in Johann Sebastian Bach’s Mass in B Minor. ◆ Three and a half weeks before, the Glee Club and the Cornell University Chorus, the women’s choir, formed a caterpillar in the basement of Lincoln Hall. As they massaged each other’s backs, they prepared to dive into Mass in B Minor, an ambitious collaboration.

“Make the A sharp a little higher if you could, please,” Tucker requested. “Put a little arrow over that.”

As the P.E. Browning Director of Choral Music at Cornell, Tucker personally directs both the Glee Club and Chorus. At the late January rehearsal, he stood at the front wearing a black suit, his burgundy tie slightly askew. His long, elegant fingers conducted.

Qui tollis, the sopranos sang, the Latin of the mass ringing from their mouths.

Unsatisfied, Tucker shrugged his jacket off. A few robust whistles shot out, and he smiled. He was just getting started.

“Only the entire Christian mythology is captured in this phrase,” he asserted, looking every member of the section in the eye. “You’re responsible for Christendom.”

With a sweep of his hand, the sopranos began again.

Qui tollis peccata mundi. Stronger this time, vivid, in aspiration of Tucker’s claim.

“Takes away the sin of the world,” Tucker translated over them, raising the alto voices with his other hand.

The other sections fidgeted, waiting their turn.

“A little bit of choral faking there,” Tucker said, pointing at the center. “I know you can hide in there, but —” his eyes flicked serious “— don’t.” ◆ “Announcements!” senior Dan Cloutier calls, bounding down the choir loft steps to beat the rush of chatting. It is Sage Chapel, Wednesday night. As the general manager of Glee Club, Dan is the routine conductor of post-rehearsal announcements.

Tucker and John are already bundled in scarves and leaving the club to wrap up any necessary business.

“After Eight has an Arch Sing tonight at Balch,” someone says, referring to the Chorus’ a cappella group. “Come out and support!”

On the far left, a boy in a sweater stands up. He is tall and slender, his thick, almost rectangular dark glasses perched definitively

on the bridge of his nose. His pale blond hair is short and strangely angelic in the loft.

“At the last Chariot Night, I left my Bach and a very important document … the Midwest tour binder,” announces Paul Maier, ever so slightly ashamed.

The entire club immediately erupts in clapping, launching euphorically into their traditional “You did something faintly stupid” song.

Paul Maier is a horse’s ass, Paul Maier is a horse’s ass, he’s an asshole, an asshole, they sing loudly. Paul shrugs sheepishly, accepting his role, and takes up the required conducting duties as the club begins their chord progression. Their voices rise higher and higher until some are straining as high as they can sing — then going higher. Paul’s arms fling wildly at the circus before finishing in a severe slashing motion. The club cuts and bursts into laughter.

“So if you’ve seen it, let me know!” he says, stepping down.

The crowd breaks, descending into the nave at the back of the chapel.

“Who’s going to Chariot Night?”

“It’s going to be small tonight.”

“I’m going to the Arch Sing.”

Dan approaches Paul in the middle of the aisle. “It’s on top of that box,” he says, clueing Paul in to the location of his music and the club binder at the off-campus house. Dan and Paul are similarly tall and nearly lanky. Dan had, outside of Glee Club, earned the nickname “Noodle” while awkwardly playing soccer a few summers before.

“With the trash?” Paul looks quizzically at him, trying to recall where things sat. Around them, people gather coats and bags.

“No, beside it.”

Paul shakes his head. “I looked there, but I got distracted — the swimsuit edition was on top.” ◆ Sweet land of liberty, of thee I sing.

Heart beating, voice straining, Paul Maier felt the walls of Lincoln Hall closing in around him. As the last days of August dwindled, Scott Tucker’s office could have been as close as he got to the Glee Club if he couldn’t find his stride.

A transfer from Rutgers University, Paul came to Cornell this year as a sophomore and knew, absolutely knew, the club was going to be a part of his life. The professionally trained club at Rutgers was such a massive influence on him that Cornell’s Glee Club weighed heavily in his decision to follow through with his guaranteed transfer.

But at his audition he balanced on the brink, unable to hit his high notes.

From every mountainside, let freedom ring! The finish felt off, something in his voice resisting accuracy, denying his typical precision.

Yet something intrigued Tucker because a few days later, a lucky Paul was back in the office, sitting with the rest of the Glee Club at their callback rehearsal … as a Baritone.

Suck it up, you can do this, the Tenor 1 said in his head. Yes, you sang higher at Rutgers. Yes, you were the highest of the highest range.

Shake it off. Don’t let it throw you like this. Whatever.

Paul obsessed to learn the baritone part. Surrounded by lower voices at rehearsal, he listened carefully as he sang. He practiced Thomas Tallis’ “If Ye Love Me” again and again and then learned every other part — Tenor 1, Tenor 2 and Bass.

If ye love me, keep my commandments, sang the new Baritone.

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He was determined to triumph, but vocal mistakes again abounded, unintentionally coming up from his diaphragm.

And I will pray the Father, and he shall give you another comforter — he pressed on, focused on getting a spot in Sage Chapel.

The looming windows. The crawling ivy. The watching saints. A smile spread across Paul’s face as he sat in the audience in the chapel the week before and watched the Glee Club perform. Dozens of boys in tuxes dazzled the filled wooden pews. Asa Craig, the club’s president and as much a statesman as a college boy can be, stuck out in the lineup with his strong features and dark skin. When Paul approached him after, Asa invited him to the after party. As Paul walked in with Asa and tour manager Patrick Chamberlain, he already belonged.

He’d tasted it. There was no letting go now.

That he may bide with you for ever, ev’n the spirit of truth.

A heavy silence weighed in Tucker’s office after the boys finished “If Ye Love Me.” “You sang Tenor 1 at Rutgers, right?” Tucker asked. Nerves wracked through Paul’s veins.

“Yes, sir.”

“Did you use a lot of falsetto?” A mix of curiosity and confusion hung in the air. After all, in Paul’s initial audition he hadn’t impressed with accuracy.

“No. I just felt comfortable singing Tenor 1,” Paul admitted.

The director pursed his lips.

“Try singing the part with Brody,” he said at last.

Paul stood beside Brody, a small, motorcycle-riding junior who was ranked the No. 1 tenor in the state of Texas his senior year of high school, and repeated “If Ye Love Me.” This time they both sang Tenor 1, and like playing a better opponent, singing with high-caliber talent pulled excellence to the surface.

Given a second chance, Paul believed he nailed it.

“Thank you,” Tucker said.

It would be Brody who called later that night to congratulate the new member. ◆ Across campus from Sage Chapel, members turn out to support the Chorus a cappella group After Eight. Paul and Amar Kelkar walk together toward Balch Hall, a girls’ residence with impressive acoustics in the arched outdoor foyer. Different musical groups frequently hold Arch Sings there.

Despite the biting cold, a tranquil aura surrounds Amar. Behind him, Calvin Kuhr bounces along on the sidewalk.

While most of the Glee Club refers to him as Calvin, Calvin’s given name is actually Dan Kuhr. As a freshman he joined the Hangovers, the Glee Club a cappella group made up of a dozen members. The subset has a rule that no member can have the same name as another, and since Dan Cloutier was a Hangover first, Dan Kuhr was renamed Calvin.

A few students skirt around the edge and slip by the casual concert. The wide arch splitting Balch Hall in two is the gateway to North Campus, and the pathway beyond parts the snow. Orbs of light float in the sky, suspended by six tall lamps. Shadows roam the terrace in the distance.

Under the arch though, the group is colored in antique yellow by the hanging lantern. Patrick stands tall in the middle of the audience. His ginger hair, which varies in vividness depending on the lighting, is muted tonight. His sky blue eyes droop slightly at

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the outer edges, making him look like a loyal basset hound.

Modest Patrick is responsible for the Glee Club’s most recent tour across California, where he packed 49 guys in a bus for 10 days down the coast. Annual tours are a significant club endeavor, and in the past few years they toured the Northeast (the “Visit Your Mom Tour”), the South (the “Tour of Northern Aggression”) and internationally in China. Patrick has passed the tour manager torch to Paul for next year’s Midwest adventure.

There ain’t no load that I can’t hold, the road’s so rough this I know, someone belts out, pace escalating. I’ll be there when the light comes in, just tell ’em we’re survivors!

Gloved clapping echoes through the night. ◆ Sage Chapel, another Wednesday night. A tribal buzzing resonates through the sanctuary. In the choir loft, the club looks fervently ahead. Their hum morphs into monastic intonation. Intense yet soothing.

Tucker has granted the Glee Club a break from Bach, and the boys are swept up in the classical Indian raga “Ramkali,” a favorite from tour. From their inner depth, lyrics emerge.

Hoon tho | vari vari || ja - woon | thu - muhre || gu - sai - yan, the bass voices chant. Hoon tho | vari vari || ja - woon | thu - muhre || gu - sai - ai - ai - ai - ai – yan.

The rich repetition is alluring. Precise but sensuous, the music slips over the pews and floats toward painted heaven. The tenors join, repeating the Hindu phrase, “I am entirely devoted to you, my lord:” Hoon tho | vari vari || ja - woon | thu - muhre || gu - sai – yan.

The deep, low tones return, stepping forward in the choreographed vocal dance.

Thu - muhre | mi - lan - uh || ki as - uh | pi - ya re - “I hope to be with you, my love.”

Tenors surface, and the chant develops further, a spiritual rhythm evolving with fierce strength. Voices beat back and forth, back and forth — the tempo quickens.

Hoon tho | vari vari | ja - woon | thu - muhre || gu - sai – yan, Hoon tho | vari vari | aah - ahh.

Nearly 60 faces focus straight ahead. There are no books, no Latin scripture. Just riveted chanting and a hypnotizing melody.

Hoon tho | va - ah - | ah - ri.

A visceral conclusion. ◆ The crowd snakes between the choir loft and back pews, exiting through the back door. Many are on their way to the optional, but usual, post-rehearsal soiree off campus.

“Ah, noooo!” someone yells from outside.

“CONVERSE!” Ahead feet plunge through snowdrifts, and some try to follow the first brave footholds. Others leap through the thick wetness to get to the road faster, the misting rain curling the corners of any hand-held Bachs.

Several escape the walk downhill with a ride from Amar, whose job at Cornell secures him a precious parking permit.

“Brody, you need to officially appoint me at some point,” Patrick tells the future Glee Club president, referring to his own upcoming position as general manager. The current executive board will soon turn over, and the club awaits election results.

The club historian in Amar emerges without hesitation.

“Technically there’s a committee meeting with the president —” “I have a huge hunting knife in my room. I can knight you,” Brody says brightly from several feet behind on the sidewalk.

“Did you say you’re going to knife someone?”

“Not knife — knight!”

“Ohhhh,” says Calvin, no longer curious about an emerging violent streak in Brody. “With a knife!”

They round the sidewalk toward 125 N. Quarry St. Ahead, the Brick rises. A story’s worth of wooden steps away, it is the host of Chariot Nights.

For as long as the Glee Club has existed, there has been a Chariot tradition, though it took 121 years to acquire that name.

Closed bars and restaurants once hosted post-rehearsal and concert hangouts. The most recent was The Chariot, an underground pizza parlor. When it shut down in 2005, the house at 125 N. Quarry St., became a second home to the next generation of Glee Club.

Opening the door, the boys are slammed by the sickeningly thick reek of gas.

“Don’t light any matches!” someone calls from the kitchen.

Nintendo’s Super Smash Bros. Brawl is frozen on the flat-screen television, and a few people sit at a small table behind the couch.

The next few clubbers arrive with beer, dropping a couple six packs of Yuengling and a 30 rack of Keystone on the insubstantial fake wood table behind the couch.

“Wow, why does it smell like gas?” asks Dan as he steps inside with Asa. “Cooking!” comes the voice from the kitchen.

“Yeah, but that doesn’t mean it should smell like gas,” he says, taking off his coat. “That’s still an issue.”

One lone voice strikes up “The President’s March,” slowly joined by several others as Asa’s presence is realized.

“Last time, last time,” says the president as all the club members at the Brick join in. Asa lets them go on momentarily before interrupting the tune.

“Our president next year is going to be Mr. Eric ‘Brody’ Horn,” he announces loudly. Like Calvin, Brody is technically a product of the Hangovers.

Matt Lepage, Dan and Sam Breslin clink their drinks to Brody.

“You’ve got to drink!” Matt tells Sam. Sam’s lips cover the top of the bottle, throwing his head back to chug half. As the musical director of the Hangovers, Sam holds power over rehearsals. But in the living room of the Brick, the balding boy in the chocolate and white striped sweater appears dwarfish between Dan and Matt.

Matt grins goofily. He is the almost-former vice president and therefore the official social chair of club events.

“Brody, please pick a song,” Asa tells the president-elect.

“Let’s liven this party up with ‘Danny Boy,’” Brody says.

“Yeah!”

“YEAH!” “Oh, Danny boy, the pipes, the pipes are calling,” someone delivers in shrieking falsetto.

Before they even get the chance to begin, popcorn arrives buttery fresh from the bag, and a chorus of hands shoves into the bright plastic cerulean bowl.

“Alec, if you eat popcorn, please try to clean up after yourself.”

“Hey, that was one time!” defends Alec from the beige couch against the stairs.

With popcorn gone as quickly as it came, the promise of singing the Irish ballad compels solemnity.

Oh Danny boy, the pipes, the pipes are calling, they croon in dulcet tones. Beers hang listlessly in hands that swell with spirit. But come

ye back when summer’s in the meadow, or when the valley’s hushed and white with snow.

Some eyes are closed, and others look downward.

Oh, Danny Boy, ohhh, Danny Boy, I love you so.

They finish with heads dipped reverently toward each other, but soon tomfoolery takes over. Ryan reaches out for Sam, grasping his forearm and pulling him across the crowd into a hug against the fridge. Dan wanders by them with his neon yellow “frat glasses” on while Matt samples the nearly empty bottles behind the sofa, draining the last inch of beer from several.

And then the magic returns, sweeping across the room as someone suggests music. Each boy merges with his brothers into a whole being — an organic incarnation of melody — as they naturally gravitate into a circle and then cohesively into song.

My lord, my lord, I’m gonna ride the chariot in the morning, lord, Bodies are thrown zealously into motion.

I’m gonna ride, ride the chariot in the morning, lord, Eyes jump from person to person, a fierce underlying fraternity in every connection.

I’m getting ready, They escalate: louder, higher and more intense.

I’m getting ready for judgment daaaaaaay, Arms extend, necks crane.

My lord, my lord.

Someone steps into the middle of the circle.

Are you ready my sister? he sings airily.

Yes, lord! shouts the crowd.

Are you ready for the chariot?

Yes, yes I am.

The soloist smiles as he plunges back into the verse.

Are you ready for the chariot cause I’m ready to go.

A dramatic pause, then a burst of deep volume from all.

DAYLIGHT COME, AND WE WANT TO GO HOME!

Scott Tucker, P.E. Browning Director of Choral Music at Cornell University, directs the Glee Club at rehearsal April 20 in Sage Hall.

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Gaia Dolan, center, and visitors keep warm over boiling sap during the annual Maple Moon party March 19 at Sapsquatch Sugarbush’s sugarshack in Enfield.

a sweet spot written by Joni Sweet

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arty at 111 Monroe St., a gathering in February to kick off maple season and get everyone excited for the sweetness this spring will bring. Dozens of pairs of boots line up on the stairs, boots with laces and zippers and straps, brown suede, black leather, green rubber, all practical and worn-in, the boots of people who aren’t afraid of a little mud, the boots of people who require more than a couple feet of snow and some blustery weather to keep them indoors.

Maple syrup maker Josh Dolan plays the role of host. His band, Horse and Chariot, keeps the crowd dancing with twangy sounds and bouncing riffs of original country songs.

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photographs by J e r e m y v e v e r ka

He sings from behind his bushy auburn beard and black, square rimmed glasses. The men are all beards: pruned mustaches with handlebars reaching toward the sky, proud muttonchops more an extension of hair from the head than facial hair, wispy whiskers falling on upper lips, big black clouds of fur rolling from chins. The sock-clad, braided-hair wives of band members dance hand in hand with their little girls in the center of the living room, their bright smiles encouraging the little ones. No sooner did the band decide to take a break when Josh’s mother-in-law Linda announces what many had been waiting for.

“Hey Joshua, I’m doing the pancakes now, with the last

pint of last year’s syrup,” she proclaims, more to the guests than to Josh, who had consumed plenty of last year’s batch and would soon begin constant tastings of this year’s. The room cheers, and soon everyone is collecting their share of the warm, pillowy pancakes from a large aluminum pan near the refrigerator collaged with “Free our Midwives” news articles. The pancakes doused in sweet, sticky syrup fare well with graple-maple rum fizz, a grapefruit juice spritzer spiked with maple and rum.

Soon after licking every last drop of the vanilla- and caramel-hinted stickiness from their fingers, the guests, mostly Josh’s family and friends, begin signing up for what Josh calls CSS shares, Community Supported Sugaring.

These shares provide the necessary start-up capital Josh needs to kick off Sapsquatch Sugarbush’s fourth season, while guaranteeing participants a share of the treasure.

Since its founding, Josh has invited the community to take part in his maple adventures.

“Sapsquatch is hosting a community workday tomorrow, and I hope some of you join us,” he announces. “Chop some wood, carry some water, that sort of thing.”

The winter wind howls outside. Gentle snow dances in the air, falling on the frozen earth below, and not even a drop from the 2010 maple harvest remains. Josh knows it must be that time again. ◆ “What does that smell like to you?” Josh’s friend Ian asks from behind the black curly beard billowing from his chin, wafting the thick steam rising from a huge tin of boiling, foaming liquid, toward his face.

The sweet smell — the essence of cotton candy, kettle corn, the perfume of winter woodland fairies — permeates the shack for the first time this season. It’s the first boil, the first time the bubbles bounce around the freshly cleaned evaporator. Prime time for a preview of what this year’s batch will taste like. Josh says every year the syrup tastes a little different.

His first year, the syrup was black as midnight, filled with the nutrients that remained in the old tubes he used. He said it was the best tasting syrup he’s ever made but that most people prefer the “fancy” grade — clear, delicate maple with very little mineral impurities. The big, burly boiler digests the wood feast Josh has fed it throughout the day, performing the magic of turning sap — initially mere sugar-water — into the sticky syrup people pour on their pancakes. The steel beast won’t starve tonight.

“It’s a little cramped in here with all the wood,” Josh says, motioning to the stacks of firewood loaded into the sugar shack. He doesn’t mind, though; it forces everyone to stay close to each other and close to the source of heat in the center of the shack, essential for surviving the 24 (or more) hours of continuous boiling during frigid winter nights.

“It gets really overwhelming after it gets dark. You start to feel the stickiness all over your face,” says Josh’s partner, Maybe Yell. Sapsquatch is a family affair; it is built on Josh’s uncle-in-law’s property. Maybe’s girlfriend is Josh’s sisterin-law.

“Some say we’re in-laws, but Josh says we’re more like outlaws,” Maybe says.

The shack is an adult’s version of a fort in the woods that kids build out of found items. Two sides are fashioned out of

old plastic billboards (“Third-hand stolen property,” Josh says), one side is built from wood, and the other is open. The makeshift kitchen is complete with a sink, a long wooden counter, a stereo, a Crock-Pot, some mugs and a propane stove. In a corner just past the evaporator sits a large, wooden trunk overflowing with the tools and toys of the craft: spirals of tubing, rusty clippers, wood scraps.

Josh dumps steel buckets filled with slushy sap into the back of the evaporator, where it melts and soon comes to a boil.

The front of the evaporator is violent with bubbles, and each of its five metal troughs boils in its own unique style and pace.

One trough is a soft bubble bath with a light layer of foam on top. Another trough simmers with foam-spewing volcanoes of bubbles. The trough above the hottest part of the fire boils most rapidly, the chocolate-brown sweetness becoming thicker and thicker, ready to flow like a waterfall out of the spout on the side of the tank.

Josh keeps careful monitor over the temperature of the boil. Too cold and nothing happens, too hot and the syrup turns black and runs the risk of warping the evaporator beyond repair. A delicate balancing act.

“215 is my nemesis,” Josh says, crouching to get eye-to-eye with the old, rusty thermometer, waiting for the mercury to climb to the desired 220 degrees.

The highs and lows predicted on the weather report each morning also determine how much, if any, sap will run from the maples. Freezing nights combined with daytime temperatures above 40 degrees make for ideal syrup weather. Sugar-makers obsess over temperature like no other.

“219... almost there...”

“I hear it’s going to be in the 40s this week, we’ll be busy next weekend!”

◆ The transport system Josh uses to bring the sap to the shack is beautiful in its simplicity. Lines of baby blue plastic tubing strung from maple to maple are a superhighway of sap in this neck of the woods. A pregnable yet generally trusty system, as Josh rediscovered when he repaired some of the tubing last week. At bird’s-eye, the tubes map the trees Josh partners with to sustain his quest for nature’s sweetener, a connect-the-dots puzzle leading to the gold. One tree connected to another, connected to another, lines flowing downhill at a precise 2-degree decline, working with gravity to bring the sap home. The fact that most of these lines are firsthand materials is new for Josh; when he first opened Sapsquatch four years ago, he scavenged a fellow farmer’s lines. Things have been improving in this part of the woods ever since.

Josh hopes to switch to an all-bucket system in the upcoming years. Buckets like those hung from the largest trees around the shack — old, tin buckets complete with tin hats hung from the special tree-saver taps meant to maintain the vitality of the tree.

“There’s something that’s spiritually lost with all the tubing, lots of clutter,” Josh says. He instructs volunteers to hang the buckets low enough so children can reach them on the community workdays he hosts.

Electricity is limited within the sugar shack. Most of the time, the sunlight gently illuminates the shack enough to accomplish the day’s tasks. At night, they light one strand

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of large, white Christmas lights, strung from a beam, like syrup boiling, they know spring is on its way. And like the 20 small moons, bright, soft and full. There are also two Iroquois, Josh and his guests encourage spring by celebratsmall spotlights, each aimed at the object of attention. But ing late into the night, singing, dancing, playing music and when things really get going, it still can be hard to see, as the enjoying good times around the fire. gushing steam swirling around the shack absorbs much of “Hey, do you guys know where you’re going?” asks Lou, a the light. Steam so hot and so thick that when it condenses man with long, gray hair and fiddle, flute and wife in hand, from on the beams overhead, it starts to rain inside. Drip... hiss... across the yard. “I went over and asked the goats where to go, sizzle... gone. but they weren't much help.”

Though a blanket of cold wraps the outside of the shack, it’s They slosh through the thick muddy path to the sugar shack, a warm party inside. Josh cracks open a PBR and his friend Ian its translucent walls glowing around the shadows of the group passes a Mason jar of hot sap and bourbon around. Take a swig, gathered inside. The evaporator still steams, keeping the dozen pass the good stuff. Because the sap is only half boiled, it is still guests warm, but Josh has collected less sap than he had hoped, thin as water, the sweetness tickling the tongue, followed by the and by now, most of it is already boiled. splash of bourbon on the throat, each sip heating the body all the For Josh, it’s nothing to be worried about. He sold $200 way down. in syrup earlier in the day, and now it’s time to kick back “There’s no maple trees where this music was made,” Ian and allow the sugar shack to be the place he had intended: a says, in reference to the Cuban beats of Ibrahim Ferrer dancing celebration zone, connecting the beauty of nature with the from the stereo, as he sings along in perfect harmony. comfort of community. Bliss.

“Only coconuts!” Josh says. He and some buddies formed The remainder of the hot sap serves the party well, though.

Horse and Chariot a few years back, but his taste in music is Thomas, a young farmer from Six Circles Farm just down the not genre-specific. At the beginning of the night, ’80s hip-hop road, with short, dark hair and an excitement for the land, sips pounded, and by the end, even Bob Dylan wanted in on the party. maté made with hot sap. Two weekends ago, during an overThe whole process of tree to syrup, earth to plate, is evinight boil, Thomas went on about the possibilities of maple dent in this little shack tucked away off Route 79 in Enfield, soda, but for now, maple and caffeine enter the body by means N.Y. The ground, snow, trees, sap, tank and evaporator work of hot maté. together in a process that has Ian dunks a mug into the evaporator been happening in this area of and carefully pours in a generous splash of “I'm trying to inspire the world since Native AmeriMaker’s Mark. The hot, sticky concoction cans developed it centuries his hands, his chest, his belly. Others other people to get warms ago, when maple was first dip into Grade B syrup made fresh today, cultivated. The process, with drizzling it over fresh pancakes that Gaia, into this. This is a its sense of family and a misJosh’s chubby-cheeked, smiling daughter, sion, is what drives Josh and helped prepare in the kitchen. real viable way our company to return each year.

“It’s all fluid and fire,” Lou says, motionThey have plans for building ing to the evaporator. state can support a better kitchen, real walls, “I was the biggest pyro when I was a even a bed-and-breakfast one kid,” Josh replies. Though they did not itself.” day. But for now, it’s just a few know each other before now, all it took beams, some old billboards was a mutual passion for fire to form a — Josh Dolan and a syrup operation beneath friendship, if only for tonight. That’s how a hanging sign proclaiming these parties are — some know each other, “The Friendliest Place in Town.” others don’t; some frequent Sapsquatch often, others have never been here. ◆ The cool blue moon rests low and large on the horiLou sits down on the large wooden bench and pulls out a zon on the chilly March night as people start arriving to the large drum. He pounds, the low echoes reverberating throughsugar bush for the annual Maple Moon party. Biggest moon out the shack. Bam, bada, bam, bam. Another man with shaggy in 20 years, they keep saying. Known as a “perigee” moon, it hair, a wool cap and scraggly beard pulls out a smaller drum, acappears to be about 14 percent larger and 30 percent brighter centing Lou’s beats. The music seems to hypnotize the guests as than a typical full moon, especially when it sits low on the others start drumming on anything they can: big plastic buckets horizon during twilight. The perigee moon makes it an aus(Thud, thud, thud thud), metal spoons on glass mugs (Ting ting picious time for the Maple Moon party, its name sounding as ting, ting ting ting), even just hands, clap, clap, clapping. authentic as can be.

“Oh, oh, yeah yeah, at the sugar shack, at the sugar shack,” Maple Moon parties have been celebrated since the time Lou sings. One of the canine friends lets out a long, robust howl when the Iroquois nation was the main inhabitant of this land. in perfect timing with the drumming.

They would perform a maple dance to encourage warmer Later, practically a full orchestra emerges in the shack. weather to make the trees flow. As the Nearings put it in, “The Trumpets, guitars, fiddles and the purity of the human voice Maple Sugar Book,” “This intimate fusion of their work and recommunicating with the low, cracking hum of the evaporator, ligious custom is further evidence of the antiquity, the veneration warm the shack in a way fire never could. and the knowledge of maple among them.”

Gaia and her friend Ramnaya dance around the drum Many of Sapsquatch’s visitors say when they smell the circle. Ian belts Spanish melodies from the bottom of his

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heads into the sugar shack as Josh invites them in. They stand near a sign written by a child’s hand on a torn notebook page, “Free tours! All about sap! Tips welcom [sic]!”

Josh shows them around the sugar shack and gives them a few facts about sugaring.

“Gaia has a Japanese word she’d like to share with you,” Josh says after the dad tells him they are from Japan.

Gaia looks down and shakes her head.

“You’re too embarrassed now? I’m sorry; I put you on the spot,” Josh says to his little girl.

“She wanted to say konichiwa.”

“Oh! Konichiwa!” the mother replies with glee, her face lighting up. She looks over at the sticky jugs lining Maybe Yell collects boiled syrup from an evaporator. Sap becomes syrup when it reaches 220 degrees Fahrenheit. the counter, still warm with the day’s boil, and agrees to buy 1 gallon. Josh asks Gaia to take the jugs out to the stream to give them a rinse before chest, eyes closed, chin up toward the light overhead, comthe family takes one home. Down on her hands and knees, she pletely at peace. scrubs the plastic containers on a bridge built a few years ago “I want this to be a community space for people to get down,

by Jewish schoolboys on an alternative spring break trip. She drum, have crazy ideas,” Josh says. “It’s like a laboratory.” proudly brings the cleanest one back into the shack, and the If this is his experiment, maple is surely the catalyst. family takes it home.

“I’m trying to inspire other people to get into this,” Josh says. ◆ “Taking sap from the tree is like giving blood,” Josh says.

“This is a real viable way our state can support itself.”

It doesn’t hurt the tree because they take only about 10 perThe fact that only 2 percent of the tappable maple trees in cent of the stored sap at any given time. Plenty of lifeblood still New York state have actually been tapped is what drives Josh runs through the tree, bringing precious nutrients and minerals to host free workshops and teach anyone with an interest in up through the trunk to the very tips of the branches. Since it the art of maple sugaring. On the first community workday takes about 40 gallons of sap to make 1 gallon of syrup, Josh of the season, most volunteers had never tapped a tree before. attaches a $75 per gallon price to his fine product.

Using a battery-operated drill to make a hole in the trunk The chilly, wet New York State Maple Weekend draws and a hammer to lightly pound the tap into place, each of the visitors from all over to sugar shacks throughout the state in half-dozen volunteers were able to hang a metal bucket from mid-March. Josh chose not to “officially” participate because a tap they put in. the cost was more than $300.

Josh only has about 300 taps, an incredibly small operation Ziiiiiiiiiiiiing, tap tap tap, click. compared to his neighbors at Cornell University’s Arnot Forest, Wood scrap confetti sprinkled on the snow below each tap, giving further cause for celebration. which has more than 2,000 taps.

During the rest of the year, Josh can be found farming wild “It’s definitely hobbyists who are at this scale, but it’s more leeks and working as a community food garden coordinator for than just a hobby for me,” Josh says.

Cornell Cooperative Extension. Though he often works more Still, guests have stopped by Sapsquatch all week. Josh gave a demonstration to an English as a second language class on than 40 hours a week, he still feels strained financially.

Thursday and has continued entertaining visitors since.

“Everyone else is praying for spring this year, but not me,” Josh says. “I’d really like to make some money this year.”

“It’s fun, and it feeds me spiritually for the rest of the year,” Despite the financial hardships, Josh finds farming to be he says. a fulfilling lifestyle. Boiling maple syrup and harvesting wild Gaia, probably the most welcome visitor of all, has been out all weekend as well. Most of the time, she can be found just by leeks already occupy the first two of seasons of the year; no doubt he could find something else delicious to cultivate during the shwoooosh of her sled darting down the hills. the other two.

“It used to be a pain to have her out here, always having to entertain her and give her things to do,” Josh says. “Now she’s “I’m trying to support my family and grow a community,” actually a big help.” says Josh. “I’m tapping into the independent American spirit. It’s a foundation for self-sufficiency.”

A curious family, mom, dad, son and daughter, poke their

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Pat McGreal ’07, a veteran member of Team BombSquad, pins an opponent to the mat during a training session April 18 at Ultimate Athletics.

Life’s a fight written by Ma u r a G l a d y s

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humping rock music pulses through the 23,000-square foot warehouse-like space, while the rhythmic violence of balled-up fists connecting with punching bags accentuates the beat. Bright, fluorescent lights and shiny, white linoleum give it a sterile feel, reminiscent of the Ithaca Office Depot it once was. The pungent smell of sneakers, plastic mats and sweat stings the nostrils.

Mixed martial arts fighters of all shapes and sizes swagger by. Some are short and compact, their bodies like a coiled spring, with power and force popping out of their swollen, bruised ears. Others are mammoth, with big, barrel chests and

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photographs by E m i ly Pa r k

wide, blocky shoulders. Still others are long and elastic-y with sinewy arms and legs that drip and swing like rubber.

This is Team BombSquad.

A small fighter with a wrestler’s build bounces by, two-stepping to the beat of the music and dodging invisible opponents. He ducks and rocks his shoulders as the bass thumps, dancing and boxing at the same time.

Heavyweights Christian Morecraft and Pat Bennett step into the hexagon and prepare to spar. Christian has a fight coming up, and their sparring session is meant to prepare him to deal with his opponent’s strengths. They perch on their toes, their loose T-shirts flopping on their muscular frames. With

arms in a boxing position, they bob their heads back and forth, looking for an opportunity to pounce. Several teammates stand outside the cage, shouting instructions.

Behind the hexagon, Kenny Foster is perfecting his side kick on one of the gym’s many punching bags. Kenny, a soft-spoken Georgian with a lazy drawl, has eyes that are steely and focused, his body calm, his movements methodical. He slowly raises his left leg, twists his hips to the right, and THWAP connects with the bag. Then, he slowly lowers his leg. Raise, twist, THWAP lower, raise, twist, THWAP, lower.

The smack of kicks and the metal shake of the hexagon reverberate throughout the gym.

Pat McGreal, a slim Irishman with sandy red hair, is working by the punching bags. Pat began fighting with BombSquad after he graduated from Ithaca College in 2007.

He took a two-year hiatus and moved home to Boston, but he’s back now and is eager to recapture the success he saw earlier in his career. Pat’s eyes are full of concentration as he focuses on the small swinging bag in front of his head. He gives the bag a nudge to start it swinging. As it moves back and forth, he rocks his body side to side and bends his knees, avoiding the bag, his imaginary opponent.

Ryan Ciotoli, founder, manager and owner of Team BombSquad and Ultimate Athletics, the gym where the team trains, stands by the front desk, cradling a phone to his ear and throwing left hooks into the air. Ciotoli has short, light brown hair, big ears and a perpetually calm, even demeanor.

Ryan is the force behind BombSquad’s success. He started it as a club at the college in 2004 when he was a graduate student coach of the college’s wrestling team. He began with a small group of amateur fighters, but the club soon grew big enough for Ryan to make it a pro fighting team. In 2006, things picked up in Ryan’s personal life too, when he and his girlfriend bought a house, married and had their son, Anthony.

As Ryan’s family was growing, so was BombSquad, which expanded to 25 fighters. This made juggling all aspects of his life extremely tough. Anthony would spend his days with Ryan at BombSquad practice while Ryan’s wife worked.

Conveniently, BombSquad practice was literally in their backyard. A large metal building, a lot like a barn, became the home of the BombSquad.

“We didn’t really know what we were doing or what we wanted, but it seemed like a good idea,” Ryan said. ◆ It’s 2008, and a bunch of fighters are on their way to train with Team BombSquad at its practice facility in Cortland.

BombSquad produces fighters who compete and win at the sport’s highest level, in leagues like Ultimate Fighting Championship, Bellator and Strikeforce. These fighters are eager to see what makes BombSquad great.

They drive into Cortland, past picturesque rolling hills and farms, and roll up to a barn-like structure with Tyvek paper around the door. They step inside the “gym” and are met with one small, steamy room consisting of a blue wrestling mat that takes up the entire floor space, a blue punching bag hanging in the corner, and a few lockers with gym bags, sneakers, T-shirts and pads strewn in front of them — the home of Team BombSquad.

“Guys would come in and be like, ‘Are you kidding me?’”

Ryan said. “They would come in expecting this,” gesturing to the pristine Ultimate Athletics gym he’s in now.

But the sparseness of the barn focused the fighters.

“We only had one thing on our mind out there,” Pat McGreal said. “It was like, ‘This is fighting. This is life.’

There was nothing out there except fighting and that created a real ‘me-against-the- world’ mentality.”

Opponents saw that.

“We definitely had a gunslinger attitude,” Ryan said.

“You know, an ‘If I can’t beat you at least I’m gonna hurt you’ kinda thing.”

They outgrew the barn. When the opportunity to purchase a bigger space in Ithaca arose, Ryan took it. Now, instead of fighting out in the middle of nowhere, they had a brand-new facility with pristine equipment, including two fighting cages and a boxing ring, things the barn could never have housed. The move to Ultimate Athletics has also created more opportunities for the fighters, including the chance to train with more specialized coaches and earn extra money teaching public classes. But the fighters were careful not to lose their “barn mentality.”

“We needed to take that mentality and apply it to here,” Pat McGreal said. “’Cause in the end it’s not about where we train, it’s about our hard work, dedication and commitment.”

Back in the cage, Christian pins Pat Bennett up against the side of the cage and maneuvers him into an arm bar, to lock Pat’s elbow and shoulder joint. MMA comprises more than 10 fighting disciplines, including boxing, Muay Thai, karate, wrestling, judo, jiujitsu and kickboxing, so Christian’s mind races with possibilities for how to defeat Pat. He wraps his foot around Pat’s ankle in a tight leg lock and sweeps him to the floor. Once on the ground, Christian climbs on top of Pat’s back and begins peppering him with punches.

Pat throws his bulky arms above his head to protect himself from Christian’s fists. After 45 seconds, the automated timer sounds, and the two rise from the floor, tap fists and exit the cage, allowing the next two fighters to enter and begin their own brawl. ◆ It’s a dreary Thursday afternoon in late March at Ultimate Athletics. Ryan and a few other guys are hanging out at the front desk. Ryan and Mike Stewart, a big beefy fighter, are watching footage of last night’s practice. Ryan has each sparring session videotaped on two small Flip cameras. Now Ryan and Mike critique his sparring session in preparation for an upcoming fight.

“I’m just trying to get used to getting hit,” Mike says, throwing his arms in front of his head as if he’s protecting himself from punches. Ryan intently studies the screen, squinting at it.

“I mean, the main game plan is still putting him up against the cage, right?” Ryan says. “He doesn’t train in one, never fought in one. The whole fight should be you pressuring him and fighting in the clinch. It’s real important to keep the pressure on this guy for 15 minutes.”

Ryan’s 1-year-old daughter Mia waddles over to him, stretching her tiny arms upward. Ryan’s son goes to day care, but Mia spends her days with Ryan at the gym. She’s not afraid of any of the hulking men and uses her wispy red hair, cherubic face and coy smile to wrap the guys around her finger. If she wants some of Pat’s yogurt, it’s hers. If she wants to play, Christian will toss her up in the air for hours. With Ultimate Athletics

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serving as her own personal jungle gym, she’s got it made. ◆ Pat McGreal is sore. He’s always sore. Everyone here is.

That’s just the by-product of fighting for a living. But he’s especially sore today. He took a nasty punch in the back at practice last night and hasn’t been able to lift his arms over his head all morning. He hasn’t missed a practice since rejoining BombSquad last July and doesn’t want to start now. He knows he needs to take advantage of every moment, every opportunity to get back on the path he was on two years ago, a path that brought one of his first MMA buddies stardom and glory.

On the night of May 8, 2008, Pat McGreal and Jon Jones stood in front of a mirror in a hotel room in Ledyard, Conn., and proclaimed they would be champions. One of them was right. Jones and McGreal would fight in the United States Fight League’s War in the Woods at Foxwoods Resort Casino the next night, and they were giving each other fresh haircuts.

“I’m gonna get you looking fancy for this fight,” Jones told McGreal as he trimmed a chin-strap beard out of McGreal’s red hair. The two of them joined BombSquad around the same time and forged an immediate bond. They trained together, shared tips and techniques, learned the sport together.

Entering the War in the Woods, both fighters were 3-0 with bright futures ahead of them. They goofed off in front of the mirror, yelling that they were going to be champions, that they would celebrate as soon as they knocked out their opponents the next night. Doing that “swag thing,” as Pat puts it. The next night would be one of the best nights of McGreal’s career but would also mark the divergence of these two fighters’ career paths. ◆ Pat’s chest heaved up and down as he leaned against the ropes of the fighting ring, waiting for the third round of his bout against Barrington Douse to start. He and Douse had been boxing for most of the first two rounds, which drains strength more quickly than grappling or wrestling. As the third round started, Pat’s punches fell a little less cleanly, his arms feeling the drain from the previous two rounds of swinging. But he managed to connect solidly with three wide hooks to Douse’s head.

Then, out of nowhere, he threw it. He had never thrown it before, not in practice, not in sparring, not in any other match.

Pat took a step forward with his right leg, pivoted quickly, and as his body turned, carrying with it all the momentum from his 145 pounds, he swung the back of his left fist directly into Douse’s face. The spinning back fist. It was the perfect punch, and Pat knew it as soon as he made contact. It felt like punching through nothing. No pain, just contact.

“It’s like in football,” Ryan said of the punch. “With the flea-flicker ... you never see it, but sometimes guys just hit it.”

As Pat’s body finished its spin and regained its equilibrium, he stood over a sprawled-out Douse and looked down into his wide-open eyes. He was staring into a pair of eyes, but there was nothing behind them. Pat had knocked him out in one punch.

Pat started screaming, his blue mouth guard getting in the way of his whoops and yells. He ran over to the metal turnbuckle at the far side of the ring and headbutted it out of sheer adrenaline. Ryan appeared in the ring, and Pat jumped into his arms.

Later that night, Jones knocked out his opponent just like they predicted, and the two met up to celebrate. They “partied like rock stars,” like the champions they boasted about in the mirror. Neither

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alcohol nor lack of sleep could touch the intoxication of a victory.

Pat stayed up for about five straight days, still high on adrenaline.

“We knew that we went out and did our thing,” he said.

“That was our night.”

Despite Pat’s undefeated record, money was still tight.

Two weeks after his one-punch knockout, Pat returned to his native Boston.

About a week after his departure, Jones joined the UFC, the highest tier for MMA fighters. As his stardom continued to rise, Jones left BombSquad for Jackson’s Submission Fighting, an MMA powerhouse in New Mexico.

On March 19, he defeated Mauricio “Shogun” Rua to Ryan Ciotoli, owner of Ultimate Athletics, talks become the UFC with members of Team BombSquad on April 18.

Light Heavyweight World Champion — the youngest fighter in history to do so.

“I knew he was really good,” Pat said. “It was just a matter of how far he’d go. For every Jon Jones, there are 100 other guys trying to make it.” ◆ They only make guys like Christian Morecraft in the pages of comic books and cartoons. With a hulking 6-foot-8-inch, 265-pound build, a jawline that could cut glass and fierce, penetrating black eyes set behind a granite forehead, Morecraft is more superhuman than human. But only until he opens his mouth, crows in his Kennedy-esque Cape Cod accent, and begins swaggering around the gym and playing air guitar to the heavy metal music blasting overhead.

Morecraft came to Team BombSquad in 2009 as Pat Bennett’s training partner but has emerged as one of the team’s most promising stars.

He had his second UFC fight March 26 in Seattle. The second fight of his four-fight contract, he’s taking on Sean “Big Sexy” McCorkle, a 34-year-old veteran known for his trash talk.

Ryan approached the UFC about the fight. He thought McCorkle would be a good fit for Christian, two guys that liked to boast, and that he would have a good shot at beating him. The UFC agreed.

As soon as the fight was finalized, Ryan and Christian went about developing a game plan and training camp schedule in anticipation of McCorkle.

Unlike regular training, training camp is a more focused regimen tailored to prepare a fighter for a specific fight and includes a weight lifting routine, a conditioning plan and some skill work. During his training camp, Christian worked on perfecting his striking, McCorkle’s weakness, and defending from takedowns, McCorkle’s strength — two things that would prove essential when Christian took on McCorkle in the octagon.

◆ Lights flash and spark like fireworks in front of Christian and I was just like, ‘Donny, shut up,’ because you don’t wanna Morecraft’s eyes, but he doesn’t see them. He doesn’t see anytake the chance of striking him there and giving the guy an opthing. He just feels the beating fury, pulsing inside of him. He portunity to rest.” can barely hear music playing somewhere far away. He’s inside As soon as the match resumes, McCorkle charges at Christian his head right now. like a bull at a matador. Christian immediately clamps his arm He smacks his big, meaty fists onto his chest but doesn’t feel down on McCorkle’s neck, works his arms into a comfortable it. He lets out a primal yell, neck muscles bulging. He’s about position and begins squeezing. to step into the cage. He removes his white T-shirt, pectoral The actual term for the hold is a “standing guillotine,” muscles red from the beating. Ryan and Don, the building but it looks more like a boa constrictor squeezing the neck manager of Ultimate Athletics and Ryan’s right-hand man, are of its prey. Christian’s mind is focused only on choking out standing by him, stoically. He turns and hugs each of them, then McCorkle. He works his biceps and forearms, making them steps into the cage. He’s on his own now. tighter and tighter, and contorts his face like he’s trying to Big Sexy enters the cage, eyes blank, demeanor even, a stark open a stubborn jar of pickles. He feels the life draining out of difference from Christian’s wild-man routine. The referee and Big Sexy. announcer go through some perfunctory pre-match details.

McCorkle’s arm drops, limp. Usually a fighter will tap his opChristian hears them but doesn’t listen. ponent to signal surrender, but McCorkle blacked out before he The match starts, and Christian is all focus. McCorkle had the chance. comes toward him. Christian’s mind chugs methodically, going “Some guys tap, some guys just go out,” Ryan said. “It’s just through the strategy and game plan he and Ryan talked about. like taking a short nap.”

Christian gets McCorkle on the floor and maneuvers on “Stop! Stop!” calls the referee, and Christian releases his arms. top of him. He starts throwing elbows onto the left side of McCorkle’s body drops to the canvas like a sack of rice as his McCorkle’s head, smashing it into the floor. After a few more trainers rush to him. punches, Christian shoves himself up to his feet and waits for Christian backs away, takes one last look at McCorkle, then McCorkle to do the same. He doesn’t. turns and showboats to the crowd. He sticks his huge, Gene Christian raises his fists, ready to box, but McCorkle remains Simmons-length tongue out, making his eyes wide. He slips his on his back, legs cocked in the air, his left arm resting behind T-shirt back on. Immediately, it is soaked with sweat. his back, reclining. Christian gives him a quick kick, but it does McCorkle has recovered enough to stand for the official nothing to make him get up. decision. The referee raises Christian’s meaty arm in victory, “He knew the ground was the only chance he could win,” and sideline reporter Joe Rogan, also the host of “Fear Factor,” Ryan said. rushes to Christian for an interview.

“Come on, come on,” McCorkle yells, waving with both He asks about the choke out. hands, beckoning to Christian to reengage on the ground.

“I just kept squeezing like a boa constrictor. Fight ’til you die, After 45 seconds, Christian decides right? We love you Seattle! Yeaaaaaooooo!!!” to try to engage without giving too much “We only had ground. He starts raining down punches, ◆ The Tuesday after Christian’s victory, making sure to stay on his feet. Eventually, he was back at Ultimate Athletics, swaghe jumps on top of McCorkle and begins elgering around the gym as usual. Teammates one thing on bowing again, grinding his elbow into Mccongratulated him on his win and asked Corkle’s face as he strikes, making the pain about the choke out, which he gladly exour mind out linger, irritating the bruises that are already plained and demonstrated. starting to form on McCorkle’s face.

But there’s little time to soak in the victhere. It was The round ends. Christian finds tory. That was reserved for those few minutes his corner and sits on the stool, his in the cage in Seattle and the subsequent like, ‘this is chest heaving in and out, the gigantic celebration afterward on Saturday night. His “MORECRAFT” tattoo on his belly fight was just announced, so he’ll start fighting, this is next expanding and deflating with every watching tape and preparing for his next opmassive breath. ponent within the next two weeks. life.’”

“I want you to come out this round, The rest of BombSquad’s fighters will hit your fake and then commit to that continue training, fighting and chasing their — pat mcgreal cross. You see him bite on it? You see it? dreams, applying the dedication and commitFake and cross,” Ryan instructs. ment borne out of the barn in Cortland. For Christian rises, thriving on adrenaBombSquad, each day is a fight. line, ready to finish off Big Sexy, who is looking anything “The mental anguish that I have seen guys go through ... no but, with his bulbous, swollen, red and purple face and glassy one will ever understand,” Pat McGreal says. “But that builds eyes. The bell rings for round two, and Christian gets right to a camaraderie here that most teams don’t have. You go to dark business. He pins McCorkle against the cage. Gets him to the places when you’re in the ring, but if you work hard and stay ground. Elbows. Ground and pound, ground and pound. together, you’ll have a supportive team to fall back on.

Christian throws a knee into McCorkle’s groin area, a foul, “That’s how this team is built. To be able to get hit, get and McCorkle is awarded five minutes to recover. beat up, but still get up and keep going. This team is built “Donny was standing next to me yelling ‘Knee! Knee! Knee!’ to endure.”

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