In the warmth inside, genial John towers behind the register. Tom hunches at the office desk, calling out greetings and jibes to customers. Crystal, serene and unflappable, takes breakfast orders, makes them up, carries them to seated customers.

The early-morning crowd is mostly on the way to work, grabbing coffee to haul along. But there's also a set of idlers like me, up and out early to trade news and complaints about the weather. (I blame my early rising on the monastery; all those years of getting dressed in darkness spoiled me for sleeping in.)

Snowy, windy days are best. That's when the store feels most like a haven. It's bright and warm inside. Every time the door admits another bundled patron, arctic air tries to crowd in, too. As a newcomer slams the door on it and stamps off snow, the first words are fairly predicable. Sometimes it's a monosyllabic, "Cold!" or some mild, apt profanity. Often it's "What'd your thermometer say?" or "Jeez, why do people live here?"

From the seated coffee drinkers, the responses are as regular as ritual. "Waal, if you don't like outside, stay home!" or "Thermometer was no help-it came inside the house around two." or "Card from Don says, down in Zepher Hills, it's eighty-five."

It's all familiar, comforting. Behind the counter, John counsels patient acceptance. Crystal quietly mops up melted snow. From the office, Tom yells, "Try not to walk on the floors, please."

The other morning around seven, the door admitted a man who brings his own warmth with him. Hank Forster, who taught science to hundreds of Edmeston kids, was in from bird hunting and ready for coffee.

He was wearing camouflage, including his cap; and, as always, a big smile. From his neck hung two duck calls. Sitting down with me, Hank provided a quick primer on summoning ducks. He's still a great teacher.

"These two calls are OK," he said, "but not as good as my best one. The tone's not quite right on these." He gave a short quack on one that turned heads all around the store. "See? Wrong tone." Hank explained that serious duck hunters are fanatical about their calls; a classic one is treasured like a Stradivarius.

"It broke my heart last year when I wrecked my best call - lost the mouth piece. But then, one day I was out cutting the grass, and there it was, right in the driveway! Now I don't use it, for fear of losing it again."

Hank told me that there are specific calls to draw birds already sitting on the water, and still others to tempt a flying flock to turn back and land. And here was news to me: The calls all imitate female ducks, Hank told me that the quacking I've heard all my life comes from lady ducks only. The males make only a quiet, guttural sound, a sort of muttering under their breath.

I make no comment on that fact, suggest no wider application.

For the benefit of Kyle Tallman, who was up at the register paying for his mom's coffee, I asked Hank to demonstrate both duck calls. And he did, with gusto enough to have people laughing and walking over to the table. Kyle, of course, loved the sounds. So did I. In fact, if I were a flying drake, that second call would have had me wheeling around to fly straight back to my fate.

Hank's about to head to Florida, where he winters near a huge tract of state-owned land. The wooded tract, he said, is full of wild pigs, descendants of domestic ones that fled farms and went native. The pigs are big and fierce; the boars have curved tusks that are razor sharp. Their meat is rank, and nobody local eats them. But there's an enormous market for the boar meat in Japan, and so the good old boys go after them with packs of hounds, round them up, and ship them to Texas for processing.

To my delight, Hank told me about an early-morning round-up that went badly wrong. Twenty boars were in a sturdy corral, about to be run up a ramp and into a truck. But somebody left a gate open; the wily hogs spotted their chance and ran for it.

All twenty of them headed cross country, with baying hounds and yelling men in pursuit. The boars out front spotted what looked to them like a refuge, a low cave-like space. They rushed pell mell into it, hounds at their heels. In fact, they'd run under a single-wide trailer, home to an elderly couple who were sound asleep, snug in their bed.

The couple was jolted awake, not just by ear-splitting noise, but by the bed and the whole trailer bouncing and rocking. They climbed out of bed, clutching each other, as books flew from shelves and china smashed to the floor. "Earthquake!" the old man shouted, and set the old woman whooping and screeching. He staggered to the phone and called the troopers, the sheriff, and the fire department.

In minutes emergency vehicles roared into the yard, sirens and horns blaring. That was too much for the hogs. They decided something worse than dogs was after them.

Hank said that, as the rescuers headed for the trailer, the skirt boards all the way around it exploded outward as boars and frenzied dogs stampeded in all directions. One boar caught the wire to the TV satellite dish around his tusk and ran down the highway, dish bouncing and clanging along behind him. Cops and firemen leaned against trucks, collapsed in fits of laughter.

Hank shook his head. "Cost them two thousand dollars to put the wiring and water pipes back in place under that trailer. I'd guess that poor old couple is still shaking." He grinned, brightening up the whole store. "But, Lord, that was a show!"

Jim Atwell lives in and views life from Fly Creek. He can be found on the web at JimAtwell.com.