According to Wikipedia, collateral damage occurs when something incidental to the intended target is damaged during an attack. When used in conjunction with military operations it can refer to the incidental destruction of civilian property and non-combatant casualties. Herein lies the tale of Remus and Romulus, the itinerate Seventh Lake twin stumps.  (See One Oar Short 5/29/2012)

Consequent to the One Oar Short column I received a letter from Town of Inlet Councilman Bill Faro on June 6. Councilman Faro’s letter states that Remus and Romulus were evicted from Seventh Lake during a three day period in April by the combined efforts of DEC personnel from Indian Lake and Warrensburg and the Inlet Highway Department.  

The intended target was the boat channel leading to the rudimentary Seventh Lake boat launch. Councilman Faro was successful in persuading the DEC to deepen the channel which is a good thing. Boaters should applaud his effort. Plus, the fishing will be better in the new channel come stocking time.

Evidently Remus and Romulus became collateral damage during the boat channel campaign. The huge stumps are currently stored ashore and dominate a significant area of what’s left of the petite Buck’s Hollow sand beach. Councilman Faro refers to Remus and Romulus as “casualties of war” in his letter. I couldn’t agree more. The twins stood sentinel off Buck’s Hollow beach for a century. They must’ve been asleep at their posts a couple hundred feet from the boat channel and well inside the hazard buoys which mark the beach area when they were overwhelmed by superior forces. Suddenly it was taps for the once proud beach guardians.

The unanswered question is why were they removed? The twins must have offended someone’s sensibilities. Were they in the wrong place at the wrong time? The lake was still drawn down to early spring levels. There they stood, exposed at the water’s edge on hard sand, easy pickings for a front-end loader.

In ‘Apocalypse Now’ the order to annihilate the stumps would’ve gone something like, “Gentlemen man your loaders. Let’s pacify this area while the heavy equipment’s onsite. Forever wild’s for namby-pambies. Nuke those commie stumps. There’s nothing like the smell of diesel fumes in the morning.”  

I’m sure it didn’t happen this way.

Express subscribers should rightly be asking, “What’s this Stan dude’s problem. Does he have a life? What’s up with the stump fetish? He christens stumps? He’s crazy scary.”  I’ll tell you what’s up with the Buck’s Hollow stumps.  

Buck’s Hollow is a microcosm of the world as we’ve made it. Humans, some of whom are well intended, can’t help screwing around with people’s lives and the little semiprivate corners of their planet. I’ve sat on many beaches around the globe thanks mainly to the US Navy, but the one beach I’ve always relished returning to over my 67 years is that tiny patch of sand in Buck’s Hollow. Physically the beach area changed very little throughout my early years, but as with the rest of the world, changes are happening exponentially as we speak. There’s virtually no location on Earth that’s immune to human intrusion.

I’ve always looked forward to spending afternoons on the east coast of Seventh Lake.  We live in the woods and this is our waterfront. I recline in my beach chair, sip a brewski, watch the vehicles zip back and forth on the Route 28 causeway, chuckle at the ineptitude of some boat owners as they struggle to launch and retrieve their boats, periodically wade out looking for cedar waxwings, fill in beach craters left by untutored kids, pickup trash discarded by slobs, breaststroke out around a white hazard buoy and return to shore for another chilled beverage.

It’s about life’s simple pleasures.

Like most beach bums my family and friends recline in our beach chairs and comment about how unlucky the poor slobs in the work-a-day world are while we’re lollygagging at the beach. We often hang out until the sun begins to settle over Murdock Mountain.  Since any of us can remember, our view west down the lake always included the twin stumps. Murdock Mountain remains scarred from a recent aborted development attempt, but it’s recovering. Seventh Lake veterans can deduce the humidity level from the depth of haze blanketing Murdock Mountain. When storm clouds roll in over Murdock Mountain, beach bums have twenty minutes to pack up and hit the road. The old Sixth/Seventh Lake bridge, which also occupies our western view, had the character of an old-timey railroad bridge but it’s gradually being replaced by a new bridge of indeterminate character.  

Time, progress and dubious architecture wait for no man.

The friends of Remus and Romulus aren’t looking for sympathy. They aren’t looking for an apology. They aren’t looking to assign blame. They are looking to have the stumps placed back in the lake where they once stood. Hopefully they’ll settle back in to ward off another couple of generations of wind, ice and fluctuating lake levels.

The fact that the stumps were stored on the tiny beach blocking an ageless view of Seventh Lake just adds insult to injury. It’s the old double whammy. However, what a front-end loader taketh away a front-end loader can restoreth.

People being people they’re gonna screw up. I think even I screwed up once. I threw out a baby with the bath water. Hey it’s human nature. The real test is whether the person(s) causing the blooper can admit that they screwed up and order the appropriate remedial action. That’ll be the legacy of Remus and Romulus.