Woodman's Lee

On December 31, 1999, we were vacationing at a rented cabin on Augur Lake. Many envision the Adirondacks as an exciting wonderland with endless opportunities for family entertainment. However, we've found that, unless you are prepared to spend one hell of a lot of money, there isn't much to do at night. We've thoroughly explored the village of Lake Placid, a pleasant area with an over-commercialized Main Street. I think the "businesses-that-run-the-government" have aspirations of being another Georgetown (Washington DC). Over the years we've derisively referred to it as Lake Plastic, Lake Acid and Lake Flaccid.

We have also spent a lot of quality time at Stewart's, curiously craving ice cream where ice isn't a novelty. We've taken evening walks, in the crisp and invigorating winter air, then brewed up hot chocolate when we returned.

We did everything stated above on New Year's Eve...and finished up about 7 pm. So we had hours to kill before midnight. I'm ambivalent about annual events such as birthdays and anniversaries, why celebrate another orbit around the Sun? It's important to reflect, but if what you did yesterday still looks good to you today, then you haven't done much today. 

The hype around Y2K, the impending catastrophic crash of computers that apparently control our lives, was entertaining - then boring. Some of our friends, who are a lot smarter than us, were stockpiling food and money. I studied it a bit and determined that there was no basis for concern. I also noticed that many businesses were cashing in on the 'crisis'. I'm a contrarian by nature so it was easy to see that the popular dire predictions of power failures and plane crashes were unlikely. But it seemed sociopathic to sleep through midnight, and if planes were going down in the ensuing blackout I wanted to be awake for it.

So we had to do something to kill time. I opened a nearby book which happened to be a collection of Sherlock Holmes stories. I read the Adventure of Black Peter, which took place at a nasty little cabin (actually 10 x 16 feet) known as Woodman's Lee. Dr. Watson described it as "the simplest of dwellings, wooden-walled, shingle-roofed, one window beside the door and one on the farther side".

Holmes and Watson at
Woodman's Lee

The name referred to the 'lee' or the remnants of timber harvesting by a logger or 'woodman'. Since our property was recently logged and it had a small cabin in rough shape, I decided to call it Woodman's Lee.
As for the Y2K event, it came and went silently and with nary a flicker of the lights. However, one of the very few Y2K casualties around the world was the system of emergency phones on the Northway (Interstate 87). The system failed beyond repair and was unavailable for years.

Rare Y2K Victim:
 I-87 Emergency Phone