Adirondack Country. William Chapman White (10).

New York: Alfred A. Knopf. 1954.

Why read it? The history of the Adirondacks, the names, the lakes, the peaks, the guides and impressions of the tourists and the seasons. "As a man tramps the woods to the lake.. .he knows he will find pines and lilies, blue heron and golden shiners, shadows on the rocks and the glint of light on the wavelets, just as they were in the summer of 1954, as they will be in 2054 and beyond; he can stand on a rock by the shore and be in a past he could not have known, in a future he will never see; he can be a part of time that was and time yet to come."

Ideas:

“The Adirondack spring brings not only the quicker pulse of new life but the feeling and fact of freedom, almost forgotten during the winter; it is the freedom of the earth from the blanket of snow, of the lakes from the shackles of ice, of the motorist from slippery hills, of man from heavy boots and clothes.” P. 248. ………. “In earliest May the Adirondack world is one of delicate color.” P. 252. ………. “With mid-May came black flies, the flaw in the Adirondack spring.” P. 255. ………. “No matter in what unlikely spot a lilac appears, some man once lived there and planted it …with grave memory many a lonely lilac bush now growing by an empty roadside in some out of the way place.”  P. 256. ………. “By the end of May the Adirondack world is a green world.” P. 257. ………. “As everywhere else in the land, June goes too fast.” P. 257. ………. “The greens of June have no precise naming…buttery …blackened …silvered …ruddy. …metallic …sunlit …gray-bearded …feathery …waxed …whitened …translucent …feathered …leathery …white-green …velvet … paper…purpled …rubbery …dusted.” P. 257. ………. “Bass fishing is not a simple thing of bent pin and worm, although that system can produce as many fish as five hundred dollars; worth of tackle.” P. 261. ………. “The majority of bass fishermen are plug casters, armed with short rods and, as lures, things made of wood, plastic or metal that are supposed to represent fish, frogs, or just some oddity that the inventor, although never having been a bass himself, imagines bass might like.” P. 261. ………. “So fisherman and his boat go out at dusk; the sunset dapples the still water as a wisp of evening breeze rustles in the pines.” P. 261.

To be continued.