The Case of the Burgled Clubhouse

by Annette Dashofy

The other day I was driving down the highway thinking about crimes and crime scene investigations (isn’t that what everyone thinks about when they’re driving?) and I flashed back on what was probably my earliest crime solving effort.

I was eleven years old. My best friend and I had just spent much time and effort “creating” a clubhouse for the two of us. The “clubhouse” was a wooden structure on our farm that had at one time served as the milkhouse, but which had been moved when a cinderblock version replaced it. By the time my friend and I were searching for a place to call our own, the building was used for storage. My grandfather granted permission for us to convert it, but I strongly suspect he never expected two little girls to actually do the necessary work.

But we did. We toted out a couple dozen old chicken crates and a couple of dead carcasses that could have been long-gone farm cats or possibly rats. Or both. Ick. But we did it. We covered the dirt floor with concrete tiles that had been left over from some project one of our parents had been involved in. There were two windows sans the glass. We put up clear plastic and curtains. We applied a fresh coat of paint on the walls. Green. It was left over from yet another parental project. We
decorated the interior with a desk, a toy crank telephone and bookshelves. We even had a ribbon cutting ceremony when we were done.

Never were there two pre-teen girls who were more proud of an accomplishment.

And then someone broke in and trashed the place.

In hindsight, “trashing the place” is too strong a description. But it felt like it to us. Stuff was knocked over and knocked on the floor. Our space had been violated.

We were pissed.

I remember putting it back together again and then sitting down to ponder WHO had done such a thing. You have to realize, we’re talking about an outbuilding on a farm. There weren’t many neighbors. Therefore our suspect list was small. Plus we had one piece of evidence. A shoe print. Too big to be one of ours, but too small to be from one of the grown-ups. And we determined that it was a boy’s shoe. That narrowed it down to two possible perps. One was a neighbor boy and the other was my friend’s own cousin who visited her regularly.

We formulated a plan. We would approach both boys and ask them why they broke into our clubhouse, as if we knew it was them.

The plan worked. Suspect #1, the neighbor, gave us a look like we were idiotic little girls and asked us what the heck we were talking about. Suspect #2, the cousin, got all wide-eyed and asked us how we knew.

Criminals really are stupid.

He never vandalized our clubhouse again. As far as I know, his life of crime ended there with two pre-teen detectives busting him and solving the crime. My friend now plays organ for her church.

I, however, continue to ponder crimes and how to catch the bad guys.

Think back. Can you remember YOUR first attempt at playing Nancy Drew or the Hardy Boys?

Country Mouse/City Mouse

by Annette Dashofy

It’s pretty well known that I’m a country mouse. I’m used to looking out my kitchen window at green pastures and a herd of cattle. The scene out my bedroom window is more green fields and an occasional Great Blue Heron. But every so often I’m forced to step out of my comfort zone of country life to spend some time in the city. With my mom in Allegheny General Hospital recovering slowly from major surgery, this week has been one of those times.

Anytime anyone in my family needs to go to Pittsburgh, I’m the one who gets the call. I like the city. I feel comfortable strolling the downtown streets, although it definitely feels like foreign territory.

I’m not crazy about rush hour traffic, but I can deal with it. I don’t panic if I get lost, even though Pittsburgh is notorious for making it difficult to find your way around. Most cities are built in squares. Make a wrong left turn? Make three more left turns and you’re back where you started. Do that in Pittsburgh and you’re likely to end up in Wexford. I’ve been lost enough in the city that I can usually find something that looks familiar and regain my bearings.

I have even learned how to negotiate Penn Circle, which I used to refer to as the Bermuda Triangle of Pittsburgh.

City life fascinates me. Or at least the vignettes I catch as I drive by: the residents sitting on their stoops which often are little more than a step down onto the sidewalk from their front door; the community of homeless folks camped under an overpass; the old man balancing his grocery bags on the handlebars of his bicycle, darting through traffic. I love driving the variety of cultures in the city’s neighborhoods. I’m looking at it all through the eyes of an outsider, I know. But my writer’s curiosity allows me to imagine what that kind of life must be like.

Then there are the little events that you only find in the city. I was driving home from the hospital on Saturday and stopped for a red light. Music filled the air, blasting through my closed windows. I automatically assumed someone had cranked up their radio. But it didn’t sound right. That was when I noticed that a band had set up in a parking lot to my right, with a good-sized audience gathered. It was a parking lot. Not your normal run-of-the-mill concert venue. I wondered if some local garage band decided to throw an impromptu show when they couldn’t get booked into the corner club. I don’t know. But I thought, “that’s not something you would see out in the country.”

The band was pretty good, by the way. Someone should hire them.

Monday, I had to contend with rush hour traffic on Liberty Avenue. I should have stuck with my usual route of Fort Duquesne Boulevard, but I was feeling adventurous. Pittsburgh is also notorious for jaywalkers. I encountered a few dozen of them. Then there was the lady who was crossing the four lane street (legally, at a light), moving at a pace that…well…do you happen to remember Tim Conway’s old man routine on the Carol Burnett Show? He’d have beaten her in a foot race. The lady was half way across when the light changed. A bus was coming.

I didn’t hear about anyone getting flattened on the news that night, so I assume the approaching bus stopped for her. If she’d tried to cross Route 18 in front of my house, she’d have been mowed down by a 4x4 pickup. No doubt about it.

I envy some things about living in the city. Stores, shops, restaurants, and theatres all within walking distance intrigue me. Where I live, I have to drive at least a half hour to get to anywhere worth going. If I run out of an ingredient when I’m cooking supper, there is no running to the corner store. Instead, I have to make-do without or change the menu.

Could I pull up stakes and live in the city? I think so. It would make for an interesting experiment anyway. But I do think I’d soon yearn for the green open spaces of my rural upbringing. What about you city mice? Would you be able to move to the country if you had to? Or would the quiet and spaciousness drive you bonkers?

Margaritaville Meets Porchville

by Annette Dashofy

I remember the quiet summer evenings of my youth, playing in the yard while my parents sat on the front porch reading the paper and watching the traffic go by. Sometimes I, too, would just sit and watch the cars. The most entertaining part of traffic watching back then was keeping score of red cars and blue cars or learning to name the different automobile models as they cruised by.

Twenty years ago, that all changed. In 1987, a new concert venue opened seven miles from my rural home. Locals predicted that Star Lake Amphitheatre would be a huge flop and called it a white elephant. After all, people from the country drove to the city to attend concerts, not the other way around.

Wrong.

Since then, traffic watching has never been the same. Since we live on one of the main access routes to the facility, the sheer volume of traffic increases ten-fold on concert nights. “Must be someone playing at Star Lake,” one of us proclaims as a steady stream of vehicles whooshes past our house. But it’s not just the numbers of cars. Oh, no. The vehicles themselves and their occupants provide entertainment for those of us porch-sitters along Route 18.

Country western fans largely drive to the shows in large 4x4 pick up trucks sporting Confederate flags. The occupants imbibe large quantities of beer on their way to the concert. I know because, since this is farm country, rest areas are few and far between, so vehicles often pull off just past my house so that the beer drinkers can relieve themselves. I recognize the stance the guys take as they tumble out of their cars, trucks and vans.

What is frightening is that those fans who drink on their way TO the concerts also drink DURING the concerts and then have to drive home FROM the concerts. As a consequence, the numbers of drunk driving arrests and car crashes on Route 18 and Route 22 have escaladed over the years. Our local cops set up sobriety check points in Burgettstown and often have a half dozen cars pulled off to the side of the road at any given moment. Oddly, they always wave my husband and I by when we encounter one of the check points. I guess we don’t have “the look.”

But to be fair, it isn’t only the country western fans who drink. They aren’t even the worst offenders. On June 23, 1992, Jerry Garcia and the Grateful Dead descended southwestern Pennsylvania. With them came the Dead Heads. Every VW minibus still in existence at the time drove past my house. They parked on either side of Routes 18 and 22 for at least five miles in all directions from the Amphitheatre.
They parked in people’s yards and camped there (some with permission, some without). They camped in the parking lot of Burgettstown’s only grocery store. It was as if the circus had come to town. Sadly, Jerry passed away before the Dead could make a return visit. When they came without him, it just wasn’t the same. The festive atmosphere was gone. And I don’t recall any VW minibuses camping along the road. Too bad. Since they weren’t in MY yard, I found it all rather amusing.

In 1999, the Star Lake Amphitheatre became the Post Gazette Pavilion (although if you ask any of us who have lived here more than a few years, we still refer to it as Star Lake). We may not have Jerry Garcia’s fans to entertain us on our front porches any more, but this past weekend, Jimmy Buffet made his annual stop in Burgettstown.
We don’t need a concert schedule to tell us when Mr. Buffet is here. It’s the only time of the year when cars with inflatable sharks tied to their roofs drive past our house. There are some plastic palm trees, too. One SUV had “Margaritaville or Bust” scrawled across his windows. Ah, the Parrotheads.

Back in the days when I baled hay all summer, one of the gals who helped on the farm also worked as a security guard at the Pavilion. She told me that Jimmy Buffet’s fans were the most unruly of any she had to deal with. I don’t know why, but this surprises me. Intense, yes. Loyal, absolutely. Unruly? Having never been to one of his concerts, I have to take her word for it.

Of course, since I live so close, you’d think I’d attend concerts there all the time, right? Hardly. I’ve been to a few, some rowdy (Hank Williams Jr., the Eagles) and some mellow (Chicago, John Denver).

Frankly, the traffic going to the concerts are every bit as entertaining as most of the acts that perform there. And porch seats are much cheaper.

Making Hay While the Sun Shines

By Annette Dashofy

I owned horses for twenty-five years. And for many of those years, we spent every summer baling hay.

We had a deal with Zelda, a neighbor lady who was well into her seventies. In exchange for giving us enough hay to fill our barn, whenever she called stating that she was baling, we would be there to help. With the cost of hay, it seemed like a good idea. At first.

The process of putting up hay begins around Memorial Day. My mom always says that first cutting should be done by the fourth of July. Then you have a couple of weeks to breathe before it’s time for second cutting. In other words, it never stops. The only way I knew I wouldn’t be called to come help with hay was if rained.

You gotta make hay when the sun shines.

Early in the season, we’d have help from the neighborhood kids who thought working on a farm might be fun. And from Zelda’s daughter’s friends who came for all the beer you could drink. There were also home-grown funny little cigarettes for those who wanted them. But baling hay is damned hard work and evidently booze and drugs can be gotten through easier methods. The kids and the stoned friends soon stopped answering their phones.

But we had a deal. So hubby and I went each and every time we were called. All summer long. Year after year after year.

Did I mention that it’s about 120 degrees in a hay mow? Did I mention how heavy bales of hay get especially when you’re throwing them from the ground up (way up!) onto a hay wagon already stacked several rows high? I never had to worry about putting on weight back then. I sweat it off. I walked hay fields stacking bales. I tossed those bales onto the wagon. I stacked them on the wagon. I tossed them off the wagon and onto the hay elevator (a conveyor belt contraption that gives the bales—and an occasion kid—a ride from the ground to the second story of the barn). I stacked those bales in the hay mow. Not usually all on the same day. But there were a couple of times when hubby was working his real job and the neighborhood kids and druggies were otherwise occupied leaving Zelda and me to manage an entire hay field on our own.

Did I mention that Zelda was well into her seventies? Tough old broad. How can you whine about the work when a seventy, almost eighty year old woman is doing twice the work that you are?

All those summers of back-breaking work and no vacation days unless it rained, served as excellent preparation for my writing career. Okay, so now I spend those hot summer days sitting on my backside in air conditioned splendor, pounding away at the keyboard. But long days of hay baling taught me tenacity. If I wanted the horses to eat that winter, I went when called to labor under the scorching sun. If I want to eventually get this novel published, I will stubbornly stick with it and do whatever it takes. Long hours? Hard work? Bring it on!

Spring in the Country

by Annette Dashofy

I’ve lived my entire life surrounded by pastures and farmland and I suspect that life here has a few differences from life in the city. I could be wrong. I previously posted about the presence of coyotes and learned that they have encroached on town dwellers, too. So my musings on life in rural USA on this first day of spring may only serve to teach me that we city-folks and country-folks are more alike than not. Following are a few experiences from rural Washington County.

1. We’ve been awakened on several occasions by the rat-a-tat-tat of a woodpecker pounding on the outside of our log cabin. Usually the feathered beast chooses the wall by the head of our bed. Not sure why. But let me tell you, woodpeckers are loud! And they leave a neat little pile of sawdust under their work areas. My hubby, the Great Hunter decided that the one little woodpecker (along with some assistance from a swarm of bore bees) was going to eat our entire house. He tied an old-fashioned mouse trap to a string and hung it outside our bedroom window at a site where the bird chose to frequent. He only intended on scaring it away, imagining the snapping trap would send it looking for bugs elsewhere. I, on the other hand, had visions of a flopping woodpecker stuck in a mousetrap tied to our house and me, the animal lover, desperately trying to free it. Instead, it moved to another part of the house and took up its search for a meal there.

2. I’m pretty sure those previously mentioned bore bees are not solely country pests. If you’ve got a wood house, you’ve likely got bore bees regardless of location. For the uninitiated, bore bees are those large, generally slow moving bees that sound like a military helicopter buzzing past. They drill precise holes in wood and deposit their eggs in them. Wood preservative does not deter them. Insect repellent only makes them mean. Once again Hubby AKA Great Hunter fears they will destroy our humble abode. His weapon of choice? A tennis racket. He’s creating a new sport called Whac-A-Bee. Similar to Whac-A-Mole, except the goal is to swing the racket, make contact with one of those buzzing menaces and send it, if not into outer space, at least into the next county. That would be Allegheny, so if you Pittsburgh folks notice an influx of large buzzing insects, blame my hubby.

3. With the arrival of spring also comes the arrival of spring peepers. These tiny frogs with very large vocal cords begin serenading me at this time of year. They usually start with one brave (foolish) peeper before being silenced by a blast of snow and/or cold. But they return and before long hundreds of voices fill the night air with their song of “Knee Deep.” Surely you’ve heard the ages-old question “How deep is a frog pond?” Peepers supply the answer. “Knee deep.”

4. I hate to admit it, but this time of year my shoes are always muddy. Just walking from the front porch to my car in the driveway entails two or three steps through what will be grass in another month or so. Right now with the melting snow and the early spring showers, it’s mud. If I need to look pulled together and must wear dress shoes, I carry them to the car, my feet encased in Muck Boots. If you don’t know what Muck Boots are, you probably live in the city. But mostly I have mud on all my sneakers and boots and shoes. If you see me anytime in the next month, don’t look at my feet.

5. Besides the spring peepers and the abundance of birdsongs, my favorite sound of spring is the call of baby calves to their mama cows. Baby colt whinnies are even better, but since we no longer have horses, I’m stuck with the neighbors calves. Newborn calves are adorable. And their adolescent “Maaa!” brings a smile to my face every time. Unless they’re “Maaa-ing” in my back yard. You see, baby calves by their very nature are small and curious and tend to find the tiniest breaks in the fence that have occurred over the winter, but no one noticed. Adult cattle didn’t find the minute holes…if they had, they’d have worked at them and made them big enough to escape through themselves. But the youngsters find them and end up in my yard with no clue how they got there or how to get back. Rule number one about cattle: they never return through the same hole in the fence from which they got out. Rule number two about cattle: they will not return to their own pasture through an open gate, regardless of the number of farmers or the amount of coaxing, swearing and herding. They prefer to make a new hole and squeeze through it thus creating more work for the cattleman.

Anyone have any urban spring tales to share? Suburban? Anyone else from the country want to add to my list?

Happy First Day of Spring everyone!