Beware, gentle reader: this here yarn of Commodore Sootshake Bellows and her Sandbar Impropriety Society may loosen the starch in your Sunday collar and set your toes to unlawful tapping.
SHATAGEE GITASKOG’S INN, UPPER CHATEAUGAY LAKE, N.Y. 12 July 1968
Le Nom Qui Attend dans L’eau
Commodore Sootshake Bellows and The Sandbar Impropriety Society
I have often felt the urge to set down a tale that still brings a quiet smile to those of us who recall the lively evenings along the lower lake in the summer of ’38. It concerns Commodore Sootshake Bellows and her band of merrymakers, known as The Sandbar Impropriety Society—a name they wore with the same pride a farmer shows in a crisp new pair of overalls.
They came ashore one warm July evening from the Commodore’s own steamer, the old Chateaugay Belle, which ran regularly between the points for the hotel trade. The management at the big house had hired the outfit to provide pleasant music for guests gathered on the wide veranda after supper. Folks expected a gentle waltz or two, perhaps a soft rendering of “Beautiful Dreamer”—nothing to ruffle the linen napkins.
What stepped onto the dock, however, had considerably more backbone. Before the first set was half finished, the dockhands were stamping their boots in time, the summer visitors were shouting for encores, and one respected church trustee was overheard declaring that the band had “set the whole shoreline acting above its raising.” The Commodore—a good-natured lass with a laugh like a steam whistle—led her fellows through tunes that made the lanterns swing on their hooks.
By breakfast the next morning, the verdict had come down from on high: Commodore Sootshake Bellows and The Sandbar Impropriety Society were barred from the hotel veranda, the weekly church social, and every other respectable village amusement. The charges? Disorder, plain insolence, and the stirring up of “excessive rhythmic conduct.” The Commodore, they say, received the written notice with a broad grin, read it once through, and tacked it inside the lid of her instrument crate, where it remained for many a season afterward—a private medal of honor.
I often heard my own father speak of that night with quiet satisfaction, for he had been among the dockhands who kept time with their feet and later helped carry the Commodore’s crates back aboard the Belle when the hour grew late. He maintained that no real harm was done beyond a little loosened starch in the collars of the overly proper, and that the lake waters themselves seemed to dance a bit livelier for weeks afterward.
Even now, when the evening breeze carries the faint echo of music across the sandbar, some of the older fellows nod toward the water and remark that the name which waits in the lake has not forgotten how to keep proper time—when the right fellers strike up the tune.
Mordecai Vilecreek
Route 2
Chateaugay, N.Y.
Mais now, you don’ laugh, non —
Steamboat Pirate band, you count it in:
un, deux, trois… pull dat line slow from Widdow’s Cut.
Got a flat li’l skiff, too skinny for muskrat,
Too short for pride, but it float where it at,
I’m driftin’ by de rock where de “Water Witch” sank,
Bear hide, whiskey barrel, all drunk in de plank.
De elders say, “Ho, Gadway, dat place, it remember,”
Every lost boot, every bad November,
Every name you lie on a government form,
It go sink down where de eel keep warm.
Le nom, le nom, le nom qui attend dans l’eau,
(hey-ya, pull slow, let de backbone roll)
Le nom, le nom, le nom qui attend dans l’eau,
If you tug too hard, it don’ wanna show.
I hook somet’ing quiet, not trout, not log,
Pull like a rumor crawlin’ out o’ de fog,
Silver in de moon, but scales all wrong,
Got letters on de back like a swamp church song.
Eel-script wiggle, cursive o’ slime,
Spells out my bones ‘cross Chateaugay time,
“Jean Baptiste Gadway, born wet, kept hid,
Midwife was moss in de old swamp lid.”
So I sing:
“Je suis ce qui remonte,
Name in de mud, not in de book they wrote.”
By gar, I won’t sign not’ing no more —
I jus’ whistle my tune by de beaver shore.
Je suis ce qui remonte,
Forged in de fog where de trap line float;
If de priest want proof, let de otter testify,
I’m de eel on de table, blinkin’ in his eye.
Clerk from Malone, he come wid pen,
Say, “Make your mark, Gadway, like a proper man.”
I say, “Mais, mon ami, you don’ get to choose,
Lake already sign me in otter-chewed blues.”
He got stamp, he got seal, big leather book,
But he ain’t got de shelf where de “Water Witch” shook,
Ain’t got dat bucket, dat kitchen light,
Where my true name curl like a question at night.
Band: Le nom, le nom, le nom qui attend dans l’eau,
Jean-Baptiste: Go fish dere, mon frère, if you wan’ know.
Band: Le nom, le nom, le nom qui attend dans l’eau,
Jean-Baptiste: Your paper say “tourist,” but de lake say “closer than you t’ink,” hé ho.
Oh, by gar, listen now:
De forge smoke keep my papa’s voice,
De frogs keep ma’s lullaby,
An’ de big deep woman-laugh, dat one,
Dat belong to somet’ing float under de steamboat hull,
Countin’ barrel, countin’ lie, countin’ every fool name
Dat never make it to de clerk.
You want your vrai nom, mon p’tit?
You don’ go city hall.
You drop a line where de sun forget,
An’ you wait ‘til de bucket hum.
Je suis ce qui remonte,
I am what come up slow from de silt and de throat;
Not stamped, not filed, not nailed to de wall,
I’m de wet black signature behind it all.
Je suis ce qui remonte,
Named by de current in a tongue no priest quote;
When de steamboat cough, when de storm say “who?”,
Dat’s de lake readin’ roll call, callin’ you too.
So hoist dat line, Steamboat band, pull true,
Cash Bellows skiff got a name for you,
Not carved in de stern, but slippin’ below —
Le nom qui attend dans l’eau.
Go fish dere, mon frère —
Your name is down too.
Still wet.
Still waitin’.
#AdirondackRhythmRebellion #LakeSideImproprietySociety #CommodoreSootshakeBellows #ChateaugayBelleSteamerJazz #1938SandbarUprising #VerandaMusicBanLegend #ExcessiveRhythmicConduct #UpperChateaugayLakeLore #DockhandFootStompTradition #NameThatWaitsInTheWater
What mysteries of Chateaugay Lake haunt you?