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First Posted: 5/29/2013 As they sit at their usual table in the local diner, Billy surprises his girlfriend, JoAnne, by pulling out a little black box with a ring.
&#8220;Will ya?&#8221; he proposes.
&#8220;Are you asking for real, in a restaurant?&#8221; she responds.
&#8220;I couldn&#8217;t think of a better time, JoAnne,&#8221; he says. &#8220;It&#8217;s not the easiest thing to ask.&#8221;
The two don&#8217;t have much time for tender talk at this point in the original play &#8220;Treeline Fever,&#8221; because Billy&#8217;s supervisor, Miguel, that &#8220;flat-lander&#8221; from Oklahoma, is shouting, &#8220;Let&#8217;s go. We&#8217;ve gotta roll.&#8221;
Billy&#8217;s job as a driver in the natural-gas industry claims a lot of his attention. And soon, he worries, he might get laid off and have to follow the work to another state. It&#8217;s not something he wants to do.
But if you come to the Russian Hall in the tiny town of Lopez to watch Derek Davis&#8217; original historical play, you&#8217;ll see how workers faced similar challenges some 140 years earlier when lumbering rather than natural-gas excavation was the big, new industry in Sullivan County.
While modern-day Billy ponders moving to Ohio for a job, many of the men who worked as &#8220;wood hicks&#8221; in the Lopez area more than a century ago crossed an ocean hoping for fresh opportunity.
&#8220;You&#8217;re Irish. I&#8217;m German,&#8221; an olden-days character named Shandy points out to one of his contemporaries. He&#8217;s trying to placate Ennis, who seems annoyed that newer immigrants, &#8220;the Huns,&#8221; are &#8220;taking a job for cheap.&#8221;
But weren&#8217;t there enough trees for everyone to chop?
Actually, playwright Davis said during a rehearsal break last week, the supply of trees was exhausted by about 1910.
&#8220;They basically clearcut everything,&#8221; he said. &#8220;All the wildlife disappeared. Later, they had to import deer from Michigan&#8221; to re-establish the species. &#8220;It took a long time for the forest to come back.&#8221;
When you hear the playwright talk about the toll lumbering took on the environment in the late 1800s, it makes you wonder if he&#8217;s worried about the effects of natural-gas extraction.
That&#8217;s not the case, said Davis, who with his wife, Linda White, lives about 200 yards from a well pad.
&#8220;We&#8217;re not a propaganda theater,&#8221; said White, who is directing the play. &#8220;We don&#8217;t have a particular message.&#8221;
&#8220;Basically, it&#8217;s entertainment and history,&#8221; Davis said.
&#8220;We are trying to say human beings are human beings,&#8221; White said. &#8220;People in the past were very much like we are.&#8221;
As the action of the play transports audiences back and forth between past and present, you&#8217;ll see parallels in the teasing of co-workers and in the banter between waitresses and their customers.
&#8220;For you, love, the whole chicken,&#8221; an old-time waitress tells a man who asked for an egg in his ale.
&#8220;People do spend a lot of time eatingin the play,&#8221; Davis admitted with a chuckle. &#8220;They work a lot, so when they eat might be the only time they have to talk.&#8221;
Davis&#8217; research has included searches of genealogical websites, a cardboard-bound 1919 catalog that advertised a Philadelphia company&#8217;s new saw and the historical account of how Col. Robert Bruce Ricketts came home from the battle of Gettysburg with a new valet, a former slave named John Greene who eventually earned a doctor of divinity degree and became Ricketts&#8217; right-hand man.
&#8220;He was an expert on many topics,&#8221; Davis said of Greene. &#8220;And he was a gourmet cook on top of it.&#8221;
Local actor Darwin Hatch plays Ricketts, and his real-life wife, Connie Hatch, portrays Ricketts&#8217; wife, Elizabeth.
It&#8217;s Elizabeth Ricketts who deserves the credit for the preservation of the waterfall area and old-growth trees of Ricketts Glen State Park, Darwin Hatch said.
As for Col. Ricketts and many of his contemporaries, Hatch said, &#8220;They just didn&#8217;t think about the environment.&#8221;

<strong>History repeats itself on stage</strong> Industries change, but people remain the same