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another reversible Neville tragedy
Thursday, October 2 2025
setting: rural Hurley Township, Ulster County, New York
I got up extra early this morning so I could drive up the Farm Road and load the pieces of bluestone I'd cached yesterday into the Bolt in preparation for this evening's drive to the Adirondacks. Temperatures were down in the low 40s for the first time this season, and I was a little worried about the African black-eyed susan outside the cabin up in the Adirondacks (where it is significantly colder). Later, though, when I checked the outdoor temperature graph from the cabin, I saw that temperatures there had not dipped below 40 degrees Fahrenheit.
Because it was so early and because it's October, it was mostly dark for my entire drive to work. So the filth on the inside of the Bolt's window was making it hard to see every time it was illuminated by oncoming headlights. So I stopped at that gas station in Accord where I occasionally get beer or gas. But it turned out that they provided no means whatsoever to wash windows. I'd assumed all gas stations provide that, but it seems I was wrong. So I continued south to another gas station. This one had squeegees and soapy water but no paper towels, and I had to make due despite this limitation.
I had yet another day where I felt moderately useful in the brick and mortar workplace. If this continues, I might survive long enough in this position to collect unemployment when the company inevitably is dissolved or has a round of layoffs (the curse of hiring me is that the company is always doomed unless they get rid of me; I have never left a job on my own initiative).
After I got home from work, Gretchen and I immediately packed up the Bolt for a weekend at the Adirondack cabin. Our friend Fern and her boyfriend Josh (they both now live in Boston, where she has some sort of academic job) will be visiting us there and Gretchen had spent much of the day preparing food in the kitchen. Much of this food depended on high-quality bread that Gretchen had intended to bring with us. But she'd put it in the freezer and forgotten about it, which we didn't figure out until we were in Saugerties. Unfortunately, there were no places to buy bread of suitable quality anywhere along our route, which was through Middleburgh. There's a bakery in Cairo, but it was already closed.
Doing the best we could, we stopped at two grocery stores along our route, the first being the Hannaford in Cairo, where I often get loaves of white sourdough. Gretchen was, of course, disappointed by the options at that Hannaford, but we bought a few loaves there. Then later we bought a few more from among the much fewer options at Valley Market, the store in Middleburgh (this was the first time either of us had been in there). As we were walking into the Valley Market, Gretchen pointed at the big sign that read "Welcome Hunters!" and off in the distance towards the ridge to the east (with its characteristic band of cliffs) I could hear someone target practicing with a semiautomatic.
As is the usual pattern, Gretchen and the dogs got out at the Woodworth Lake gate so they could walk the last mile to the cabin, and I got a jump on putting things away after driving the Bolt the rest of the way. Temperatures outside were a cool 50 degrees Fahrenheit outside, but it was cozy and warm in the cabin. Gretchen and Charlotte arrived just as the last bit of light from the day faded to a nightlike gloom. It was a little after 7:00pm.
Some time passed, and Neville had yet to return. So we started getting worried. I walked out to Woodworth Lake Road and went down it to the west a couple hundred feet shining a flashlight. But I could see no eyes bobbing up and down, which was what I'd hoped to see. So when I got back to the cabin, Gretchen and I set out in the Bolt, driving all the way out to the gate without ever seeing him. Since Gretchen had left the gate open and now it was closed, Gretchen started being paranoid that someone in our HOA had abducted Neville, perhaps because of his Woodworth-Lake-only reputation for being vicious. I thought Gretchen was paranoid, but anything is possible. We drove slowly back to the cabin calling for Neville, but he never materialized.
Fortunately, once we got back to the cabin, nobody had sent us an email about him. We were both worried, but it still seemed mostly likely that he was on some adventure. Maybe he'd chased after some critter or found a corpse (perhaps a human one!) in the woods. All we could do was wait.
But at about 9:25PM, Gretchen decided to set out on foot back down the driveway with Charlotte in hopes that maybe Charlotte would find him . I went out to piss as Gretchen began her walk, but within a minute or two, I heard the a commotion coming from the vicinity of the beginning of the Lake Edward Trail. Charlotte had found Neville, and he was in the process of marching back home. He was not dirty or injured, although he seemed a little extra stiff from whatever hiking he'd done. As always when this sort of thing happened, we were overjoyed, and lavished Neville with love. As I've mentioned before, it's kind of good to have such reversible tragedies happen on occasion to keep us from taking the existence of our dogs for granted. Had Neville not returned, we would've had an extremely miserable weekend full of Monday morning quarterbacking. One result of tonight's experience is that Neville will never again be among those walking the last mile to the cabin.
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