Hanging Out

Sit around that old camp a good many nights all alone and then I’d hear a noise and in would come Walter, he’d blow in and we’d shoot the breeze just like old times again but it only lasted a short time then he’d go back to his camp and I’d be alone again. After two or three days he’d be back or I’d be at his place and we’d have a few beers together. Kinda nice to have somebody to shoot the breeze with. Keep you from talking to yourself. Especially with Walter who’s an old buddy and we did so many things together. Bob

Death

These old beaver, you might as well get them out because they have some age on them, they’re on their way out and they’re going to die anyway same as everybody else.
That’s something you can’t get away from, death and taxes. They get away from the taxes, but they don’t get away from death. Bob

Trappers

Nobody really likes trappers. They think they’re a heartless bunch of barbarious savages. No, trappers are not well liked. There’s no question about it. Most guys just trap because they enjoy it. The price of fur isn’t enough to make a career of it. It’s nice to get in the outdoors and match your wits with the elements. These animals, you match your wits with them too. These animals all know how to take care of themselves. Walt

The Turnpike

Our old farm, all grown up now. Sold it when my second wife divorced me. Got rid of it. Place is all grown to bushes. I’d have kept that place if the turnpike hadn’t gone through. We’d go out and sit on the steps years ago. Listen to night noises. Owls be hooting. Foxes yapping, coons squalling.
After the turnpike went through I used to sit on the west steps there and all I could hear was vroom vroom vroom. Go back inside and slam the door disgusted. So I got rid of the place. They went through Clarence Berry’s property. Right down through the middle of his big field. Now he was making his living on his farm. It worked him up so he finally hung himself. Found him hanging off a beam one morning. Walt

Reflections

A person can enjoy very little all by themselves. Most enjoyment comes with and through other people. You know, if a man was sentenced to live the rest of his life on an island, totally isolated from all people, he would be just as well off to be dead. the animals are that way. Animals gather in families unless you find one of these old loners. They’ve generally lost their families and are sort of an outcast. You might possibly class Bob and I as outcasts now. Walt

Modern Life

We just lived as everybody else at one time. He just got plain sick of it and so did I. We think everybody’s crazy wanting all this stuff when they could live simple. I lived that way. That’s why I say I got a right to say it. Had 10 kids, lived in a big house, had 11 rooms in it. 2 and 1/2 stories, electric stove, flush toilet. When the bathroom frigged up, had an old-fashioned shit house out back. That always worked. Bob

Working in Greenwich

Worked there in Greenwich. Hey that rat race like drove me foolish. Couldn’t even find a back road to drink a beer. Went clear down to Stamford. Finally we just went to U.S. 1 opened the six pack and went drinking. That was the fall when we left to come home and go trapping. Bob

Jobs

I’ve had jobs that I didn’t like, but I never had too many of those. I worked in the mills for a length of time, but I wanted to get out. Everybody said what do you want to work in the woods for? There’s one thing about it. When I head for the woods in the morning, I enjoy myself all day. When I go in one of them mills I hate myself before I go in there and hate myself all the time I’m in there and I can’t wait to get out. I say life is too short for that. The only trouble going into the woods in the winter was the first thing you knew the day was gone. Time goes fast on a job like that. Jesus you go in one of them mills and eight hours is like forty. Time drags. In the woods, you go in and you wished you had another hour or two. Bob

Work

Well, I suppose it’s healthy in a way, but I’ve worked all my life and I’m beginning to think I didn’t get anywhere by doing it so might as well go out and play a little bit. Time to go around the country to see what’s floating around. Bob

Getting Ready For Winter

I’m trying to get the roofs tight for winter. Battening them up a little bit so we’ll be all right when the snow hits us. Walt’s workin on the snowtravelers. Then we can get out on the trap line. Bob

On Dentistry

Well dentists are all right but Jesus, they want seven and half, eight dollars to just pull one tooth.
Just to pull one tooth, and all it is, is just bango. One snap and the tooth comes right out. You can snap them right out. There’s nothing to it. Just hook right on to them give a good pull. I take a piece of copper wire, but sometimes you get a tooth so close together you can’t pry it apart.
But you get a piece of copper wire and you get it around the tooth, get a good slipknot on it. Put your head against something and bango snap it right out. It’s all over with.
Quicker than what a dentist would do. They grab it and they twist and pull. You know, they just don’t put the power on it. Might as well pull ‘em yourself. Bob

Bob and Walt/DVD and BOOK

It was 32 years ago when we watched a battered VW bus came chugging up the road towards us in West Forks, Maine. A smiling man descended and introduced himself as Walter Lane. We inquired about the smoke coming out of the stove pipe which stuck through the the VW’s window, and sure enough, he had a wood-burning stove in the bus. This was Walter’s current residence, and we thought that was really cool. It seemed a little tight to be burning wood, and subsequently we learned that this was not Walter’s first bus where he had taken up residence. There were others before this one, and they had all caught fire and were destroyed. We stood around talking, and soon realized that not only were the stories that Walter began telling most extraordinary, but he was an extraordinary person as well. After a while, and it didn’t take long, we discovered why Walter had stopped to visit with us. He had heard rumors of people who were from “away,” coming to Maine and cultivating marijuana for fantastic profits, and he believed that we had that special gardening know-how. Walter didn’t exactly move in with us, but he did park his bus next to the houses where we were living, and wherever he parked became his home. We conferred and decided that Walter Lane should be the subject of a documentary film. We broached the subject to Walter, and he almost laughed at the idea. Walter’s ideas of movies all came out of Hollywood. After assuring Walt that he would be an ideal subject for a movie, he agreed, but didn’t feel he could handle the whole thing himself. We assured him he could, but to accommodate Walt, we agreed to meet with his old sidekick and fast friend, Bob Wagg. It was love at first sight, if you could call it that. Bob was every bit as amazing as Walter, and the four of us embarked on an adventure that we would never forget, and our lives would be changed forever. Richard Searls and Stu Silverstein
Available from: www.http://breadhunter.com

Dead River Rough Cut Coffee

Soup to Nuts Cafe in Waterville, Maine makes the best cup of coffee in town, and it's called Dead River Rough Cut. No joke. Check it out. Bob and Walter would have been pleased.

A Bar Table Book

Just released, DEAD RIVER ROUGH CUT
A bar table book with still images and commentary. Available from:
www.http://breadhunter.com

Dead River Rough Cut

DEAD RIVER ROUGH CUT
a Searls and Silverstein production
60 min. DVD
"Most requested" film at the Maine State Prison
To purchase this movie, go here:
http://oldfilm.org/

Bob Wagg and Walter Lane live in a tarpaper shack, hunting, fishing, trapping and logging with oxen. They prefer the sounds of birds to the roar of highway traffic, and scorn the money-chasing syndrome of city life.

Covering a period of four seasons in the remote backwoods of Maine, Dead River Rough Cut presents a revealing look at an individual way of life. Wagg and Lane earn a living and accept their isolation for the independence it allows them. But not everyone would want to draw water from a hole in the ice.
They share their reflections about women, politics, taxes, the lone life and death.