Tadpoles and Polliwogs

I can't say polliwog without smiling.  C'mon, say it with me:

Polli-wog.  Pah-lliwog.  Polliwog.

Not only is it just fun to say, it evokes summers - past and future.  It's 1971 again, I'm in Mrs. Johnson's kindergarten class again - bringing home a whopper of a polliwog with his big ol fat belly, legs just beginning to emerge in front of his strong tail whipping rightleft rightleft.

So when Karen leaves me a message, all in a rush,

Hey Nick so we're bringing some tadpoles home (laughter) from the birthday party so we're headed to Petco.  Talk to you later bye.

I shoulda been happy.  Tadpoles and polliwogs?  I don't know about you, but again, for me?  That was Modesto in the '70's.  Skipping around, looking in puddles for that day's wonder.  Baby frogs coming out of the ivy after the sprinklers had doused the clinging vines.

But then I thought, tadpoles and polliwogs?  I couldn't remember just exactly.  Had my polliwog finished his metamorphosis?  Or not?  And if it did, then what happened?

In the full throes of this Dad-worry - would the girls cry when the buggers died?  Would we have to do the pet-funeral thing, replete with a cross made out of Popsicle sticks?

(There's another one that's great to say:  Popsicle stick.)

In the midst of that grumpy Dad moment, I shot Karen a text:  WTF?

Only after I sent it did I see it for what it was.  Cold, overly terse.  Brusque.  Clipped and curt.

So I thought about it, and started to warm to the idea that a polliwog would be fun - life-span be damned.


I mean, it's July 10th.  The middle of summer.  Why am I being such a grump?

I'm picturing my girls running into Petco, their little sandwich bag sloshing with water and polliwogs.  Holding the bag up for inspection, asking what they needed to keep the dinky blokes happy.

Now I'm wondering if Karen is getting a fishbowl or if she'll just use one of our Mason jars.  Colored pebbles for the bottom?  We couldn't put one of those little divers - the guy in a full Jules-Verne suit, inspecting a chest of gold, the chest opening and closing as the diver bubbles there underwater - we couldn't put one of those in a jar, but if Karen got a little aquarium, we could rig one up, no problem.

Before I can go the full 20,000 leagues down, my phone rings.  It's Karen's number, but it's not Karen on the other end.

Dad? Elizabeth says.  The man at Petco said they weren't tadpoles.

What's that, honey? I say, because Kristina is in the background, yelling about squishing something.

Dad? Elizabeth says again.  The man said they were mosquito larvae.  He said we shouldn't take them home so Kristina squished some.  Then we threw them away in the garbage.

Mosquito larvae?  I'm processing that.

Mosquito larvae?  I'm processing that Elizabeth sounds bummed, but not ridiculously so.

Mosquito larvae?  Like my friend Mia said, helluva thing to put into a goody bag at a birthday party.

Or Tracy's response - Hey kids!  Know what I'm gonna get you for your birthday?  Malaria!

Dad? Elizabeth says.  Kristina wants to say something - and then there's the fumbling of the mobile being handed from a seven-year-old to a four-year-old.

Kristina's voice comes along the wire - at about 180 mph.  Dad-they-weren't-TADpoles-they-were-bugs-and-I-squished-one-Mommy-said-they-weren't-good-can-you-believe-it-bye-I-love-you.

Wow.  I'm thinking out loud here, and what I'm thinking is - they're not bringing home an aquarium from Petco.  Really, I'm going to hazard that guess.

But now I'm all geared.  I really want one of those diver-things.  If not an aquarium, maybe hermit crabs?

I forget, how long did my hermit crab live?

Philco Model 620F

This Philco, Model 620F, went on sale in June of 1935.  It originally sold for sixty-five dollars - about a thousand dollars today.  It has three bands:  standard AM broadcast, shortwave, and a police band.

I love its Bakelite knobs.

The V pattern of the cloth covering the speaker.

I love that after you turn it on, you have to wait a few seconds for the Philco to warm up before you hear anything.

But what I really love is that, if you were to turn this particular radio around, you'd see, written in pencil on the cadmium coated chassis:


George Petrulas
Price Trading
Hiawatha Utah



George Petrulas was my grandfather, my Papou.  I don't have the full story on when our name got shortened and then lengthened back.  But when Papou bought the Philco, his name was Petrulas.

The Price Trading Co. was the company store in Hiawatha, Utah - the coal mining town where my father grew up.  I'm guessing my Papou had to pay for his Philco before it was shipped to the store, before someone scrawled his name and the radio's destination onto the chassis.  A thousand dollars?  For a coal miner?  Yeah, I'll presume they made him pay before placing the order.



 My brother Dean spent three years in Utah when he went to law school.  I envy him those years - years spent with our YiaYia, with our uncles and our Thea, hearing stories I'll never hear - living where my dad lived.  So it only made sense that Dean would get the Philco - the Philco that had been relegated to the basement in the house on Ramona Avenue in Salt Lake City after the family left Hiawatha and headed north.

The Philco was always there when we visited, always there in the basement - the basement where my brothers and I slept during those visits in the '60's and '70's.  The radio mute, a silent link to my dad's childhood.

That's why I also especially love those four Bakelite knobs.  Love thinking about the people who turned them.  My Papou and YiaYia.  My Thea Sylvia.  My uncle Dean, my Uncle Pete.  And my dad.

Of course, my dad.


I talked to my Uncle Dean the other night.  He still lives in Salt Lake City.  During our talk, the Philco came up.

I remember the dial glowed orange, Uncle Dean said.  Guess it hasn't glowed in a long time.  I loved that radio, all of us did.  It was in the front room of our house.  House #402.

What was your street called? I asked, and that made Uncle Dean laugh.  The streets didn't have names, he said.  We just lived in #402.  In Greek Town.  Hiawatha had neighborhoods, not streets.  There was Greek Town.  Jap Town.  Silk Stocking Row.

Our house, he said, had four rooms.  Probably all 10x10.  Three of the rooms had closets - small closets - the two bedrooms and the kitchen.  The front room didn't have a closet.  Your dad, me, and your Uncle Pete slept in one of the bedrooms.  Mom and Dad in the other.  Syl slept on the couch in the front room.  Otherwise, that room was off-limits.  Except on Sundays and during Christmas.  Sunday was radio day, and we got to sit in there and listen to shows like the Shadow.


I'm picturing my dad and his brothers huddled around the Philco on a Radio Sunday (Sylvia wasn't much interested in those programs, Uncle Dean said) fighting over who got to tune the dial, who got to lower the volume when it occasionally spiked.  The three of them sitting there in the middle of Greek Town listening to the shows.  Did any of the Pallios boys join them?  A Patterakis cousin?  Maybe an Orfanakis?


One time, Uncle Dean said, his voice over the telephone growing stronger as the memory took hold, Dad and Maragakis were talking.  Maragakis was a strong Greek, like Dad.  That song 16 Tons came on the radio - You load sixteen tons and what do you get?  Another day older and deeper in debt.  16 tons?  And Dad and Maragakis just shook their heads.  If you didn't load 30 tons, and there they both laughed, the Boss would be there to remind you that you were supposed to be working.

Saint Peter don't you call me 'cause I can't go
I owe my soul to the company store

Tennessee Ernie Ford could have been talking about Price Trading.  Uncle Dean said that my Papou and YiaYia would fight, near the end of the month, over what was owed to the company store.  YiaYia covering for the kids, covering for a little gewgaw that one of them may have picked up during the month.  Then their discussion would be over, Papou would go and pay, and nothing more would be said until the end of the next month.


So it only made sense that my brother Dean got the Philco, I said that, right?  Except now Dean awaits the arrival of his second child in as many years.  A girl then, a boy now.  The boy will be Anthony, for my dad.  So it only makes sense that Dean got the Philco, because he lived there in Salt Lake.  George and I don't have that kind of claim.

But Dean and Laura are in heavy nesting mode, and they're clearing out space for the new arrival.  Getting rid of things that they don't need to make room for things they do.  Need.

Dean calls me and says he's got two things that he'd like me to have.  The trunk that we hauled back from Utah after my YiaYia died, Dean and I driving a much-too-big cargo van - which was fine through the flat of Nevada.  Dean had the good sense to hand over the keys when we rolled into Reno.  There I was, happy to do my part, with no idea that it was soon gonna be all downhill.

In a much-too-big cargo van.

Much-too-big cargo vans have a tendency to fishtail when you're going too fast, downhill, through the Sierras.

It doesn't help when you're brother is laughing at you, at your inexperience behind the wheel of a much-too-big cargo van.

One of the things we were moving from Salt Lake to Modesto was the trunk (more on that later).  And now Dean didn't have room for it.

He didn't have room for the trunk, or the Philco.

I told him that was hogwash.  He told me to shut up.  I told him he'd regret it if he gave the Philco away.  He told me to shut up.  I told him if I did accept it - which I didn't want to, because it was his - that I would get it fixed.

He told me to shut up.

And then he delivered it and the trunk just a few days later.

It's harder than you'd think to get an old Philco radio fixed.  But if you're persistent, you'll find the website for the California Historical Radio Society.  You'll make some calls, maybe talk to a widow or two (the list of contacts for radio repair has been updated, so you might not talk to the bereaved like I did), but then you'll find someone who'll be happy to help.

I found Sam, down in Fremont.  I took the radio to him and he was surprised at the condition.  The plug, with its cloth-covered cord, was still sound.  All the dials were intact.  The cabinet was a little worn, hazed by some water stains, but nothing a little work-over wouldn't fix.

Sam and I got to talking, and it turns out that he worked and went to school at MJC - Modesto Junior College - in the early '60's.  He loved his time in Modesto, he said.  He was working hard for a steel company, but getting paid $2.25 an hour - just a quarter under the foreman's pay.  Sam had more money than he knew what to do with.  He had a fancy car - often drove it to Vegas on the weekends - girls galore.  Who knew the sixties were swinging in Modesto?

And did it seem too perfect that an old man with ties to my hometown would be the first one who returned my calls?  Sure.  Sure it did.

So Sam got the Philco, and I got to go on a cruise.  While I consumed Manhattan after Manhattan - rye, straight up - on the (not so high) seas, Sam snipped capacitors and resistors, replaced the old and worn out with the new and working.

I received Sam's call that the radio could be picked up - on Father's Day.

Of course, Father's Day.  Too perfect, right?

I got home, plugged the Philco in, stretched the wire that will serve as its antenna to full extension, turned the leftmost Bakelite knob, and waited.

First, the dial began to glow.  At the prompting of a Petrulakis, the dial on this Philco, Model 620F, began again to glow.  Orange.

Then, static.  The topmost knob is two knobs - one hidden inside the other.  The outer knob turns the tuning dial quickly - the inner is for fine tuning.

I sought out KNBR - 680 on your AM dial.  After a little of that fine tuning, the dulcet voice of Jon Miller filled the room.  He was describing a tight San Francisco Giants' game, one that Tim Lincecum would win 2-1 by striking out 12.  Not a bad contest to re-christen the Philco.

Karen wasn't home yet, so I called the girls into the office.  We three sat there in the coming dark, surrounded by the books on our new shelves.  The orange glow of the dial getting brighter as the light of dusk grew fainter.  Daddy? Elizabeth asked.  Are you okay?

Of course I wasn't okay.  I was sitting in our house.  In Alameda, California.  700 miles from Hiawatha, Utah.  Sitting with my daughters.  Just listening to the ball game.  On this Philco that went on sale the month my father turned three.

Listening.

My father must've followed ball games on this Philco - must've listened to the Salt Lake Bees.  They played Pocatello on Friday, August 22, in 1947.  The program guide that Uncle Dean sent me, in the book Hiawatha Memories, tells me that KALL 910 began their broadcast that night at 9:30 pm.  8:30 in California.  About the time I turned on the Giants' game.

Come over, any time.  We'll tune in some baseball.  Maybe Perry Como.  His platters were spinning on KDYL 1320.  I'll pour the drinks.  The finest Manhattan you've ever had, or - just name your poison.

We'll sit, sip, and listen.

It's amazing what you can hear, if you just listen.

The Problem with Wikipedia

Representative Michele Bachmann is wonderfully ignorant - which is fine and dandy.  I'm wonderfully ignorant of so many things.  The big difference?  I'm not pretending to run for President of the United States.

Her gaffes are numerous - and again, this would be tolerable if she weren't masquerading as a contender for the highest job in the land.  We laugh when she alleges John Wayne was born in her hometown - Waterloo, Iowa.  The kind of spirit the Duke had, she said, is the kind of spirit I have!

The only problem, of course, is that it was John Wayne Gacy - notorious serial killer, not thespian - who actually hailed from Waterloo.

Oops.

If this were the only flub, you could laugh.  But her mistakes are sundry.  The first battles of the Revolutionary War?  Lexington and Concord?  She professed they were fought in New Hampshire.  Citizens of Massachusetts are grabbing maps, trying to figure that out.  And John Quincy Adams?  She swears he was a Founding Father.  Which is impressive, considering that, during the Revolution, he was nine.

Years old. 

The reason these flubs are especially ironic is that Ms. Bachmann cloaks herself in the mantle of the Tea Party.  If there's any bit of US history, then, that she should bone up on before opening her mouth, it's Revolutionary history.

And if she doesn't have time for study, then really - just shut up.

When pressed, Bachmann doesn't back down.  She's stubborn about John Quincy Adams because she mentioned him in support of her claim that the Founders didn't rest until they had eradicated slavery.  Which, you know, wasn't something the Founders tackled (that whole three-fifths clause muddies her assertion just a bit).

Because Bachmann's pronouncement concerning the Founders and their attitudes toward slavery was untrue, she wants to hold onto Quincy Adams because he eventually did become a strong opponent of our curious institution.  So she continues to insist - erroneously - that Adams was a Founding Father.  Because, see, if true, that would make her earlier contention kind of not completely moronic.

Our sixth President, Bachmann protests, was, like, secretary to his daddy in 1776.  You can, um, Wiki it.  So that, you know, makes him, like, a Founding Father.

Are you getting all this?

Here's the deal - if you make a mistake, admit it.  Don't dig in - especially if you're wrong.

Which brings me to Wikipedia.  We don't do research anymore.  Reference Librarians?  Pshaw.  We all Wiki everything.  And the problem with that is, if you Wiki Founding Fathers, you'll get a brief introduction to the Founders.  You'll be told that most historians agree that the Founders were those who signed the Declaration of Independence, or who worked on framing the Constitution of the United States, or who played major roles in fighting the Revolutionary War.

That's it.

In "their" words, in other words, someone who made a "key contribution" to founding our nation - and gosh, that might leave out nine-year-olds.

You're then invited (if you're still reading the Wikipedia article) to check out Richard Morris' 1973 book, Seven Who Shaped Our Destiny: The Founding Fathers as Revolutionaries.  Morris points to seven men as the main Founders, and Wikipedia lists them.  But wait.  Today, the list doesn't stop with seven - it's been expanded.  An eighth name has taken up residence with those others.

Yes - for all to read, for all to recite from, the page now reads:

Ben Franklin, George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, John Adams, John Jay, James Madison, Alexander Hamilton and John Quincy Adams (in embryonic listening mode)

Wikipedia!  That's where Bachmann's been getting her history lessons.

Just a joke, of course.  Someone having a little fun.  But that's the problem.  Because when Bachmann, or Palin, make ridiculously incorrect statements about the founding of this country (I never knew Paul Revere warned the British - what a fun tidbit) "editors" of Wikipedia can change the content of the site to support the stupid claims.

Am I getting my panties in a bunch over a little buffoonery?  Sure.  But lord, Congresswoman Michele Bachmann is suddenly a major player and her supporters - hell, all supporters of any politician - get their news from this World Wide Web thing, because, you know, newspapers are so unwieldy and who wants to pay reporters to, you know, report?

I need a drink.

And don't tell me that Wikipedia is a masterwork because someone will quickly correct the listing I just described.  I read it.  Others read it.  And if you're not the kidding type, you just might believe it.

Postcard from Cape Breton Island, Nova Scotia -- For the second time since we got up, it's getting dark again

Didn't get further than the Port of Sydney on Cape Breton Island.  Thought at first that it wouldn't be enough, thought it was a shame trooping upstairs into the close quarters of a small pavilion - the world's largest fiddle standing right outside notwithstanding - to listen to fiddle music.  Our time was so short on Cape Breton.

Fiddles?  Really?

Have you been to a ceilidh before? the man said, the man holding the door open.  You're in for a treat.

Ceilidh is pronounced kaylee - those Celts, ya know.  It's a party with food and drink - usually lots of both.  On the stage conducting this round were the young Fiona, the old Lawrence, and Aaron, Aaron in a maroon tshirt sporting the word HANDSOME. 

They talked - a little island history.  A little about ceilidhs.  Then?  Then they started to play.  Lawrence fiddling hard, Aaron tickling ivories, Fiona beating a Celtic drum, her bangled wrist a blur.

A fine time began to turn into a great time about the time the lovely lass kicked off her rain-stomping boots and danced in her bare feet.  The way we do it anyway, Fiona MacGillivray said.  And my two girls, and their cousin Laura, were happy to join in, dancing there to the side.

I'd forgotten how irresistible the fiddle is - exultant and ecstatic.  Making the grumpiest among us want to dance.  The music makers wanted to show us landlubbers how to do just that, but they needed four couples.  After much prodding, they finally just needed one more dancer.  A man.

No takers.

Karen indicated that I really should take up the challenge - they just needed the one.  I wanted to remind her that she had politely declined when I suggested that we both go up and dance.  Instead, with Karen mouthing Go on, go on, I kicked off my own rain-stomping boots and joined Laura who had already walked on down the line to the square dance.

My walk was accompanied with much applause - mainly all the other guys who were happy it wasn't them.

Funny thing is, once that fiddle took hold, we eight were grinning and swinging our partners and bumping shoulders - all to that fiddle beat.  Beer would've made it better.  Next time I'll know to bring a flask - because if beer would've made it better, whiskey would've sent it over the edge.

The trio started to go over time, and Fiona asked if we were in a hurry.  She let us know that if the Maasdam left port, we could stay with Lawrence.  I've still got six people from the last boat, he told us with a grin.

Kristine and Judy, Wilmar and Laura - all of us had a grand time listening and dancing to this music from Scotland.  Music that the Scots themselves had forgotten how to play, and so fiddlers from Sydney return to Scotland and teach the music back to those who exported it in the first place.

Before Fiona read the Certificate of Induction for the World's Largest Fiddle Association, Lawrence mentioned that during a Ceilidh long past, one gent told another, Look there!  For the second time since we got up, it's getting dark again!  And the second gent thought, What a perfect title for a song.

There's a piper in the corner.
There's a dancer on the floor
Friends around the table,
There's one who calls for more
And there's Gaelic in the fiddle
Like the Gaelic in the glen
And the songs take on new meaning boys
She's getting dark again

And if your feet weren't moving, check for a pulse.  This was the beauty of the music - making the crowd in a stuffy upstairs pavilion think they were in someone's parlor, the music getting louder, the drinks coming soon, chunks of bread getting torn from a warm loaf.  All of us transported because those three on a stage - Cape Breton's tartan running its length - because those three took us there.

There was tea and tunes this morning
Or was it yesterday
When friends and fiddles gathered
Where friends and fiddles played
There were lots of those were good times
And do you remember when
But that was jigs and reels ago
Now it's getting dark again

That's when Fiona read from her Proclamation - inducting us all into that Fiddle Association, the World's Largest.  It should have been silly, but no - we all raised our hands and took that oath as the music echoed in our heads.

Now if any of you were slighted by the deeds that now are done
By the fellowship of music and the fantasy of fun
Well we'd like to say we're sorry
Shed a tear for you but then
We haven't got the time right now 'cause
It's getting dark again

Later, after Elizabeth - instead of just thanking Fiona for the music, instead of just thanking her for the good time - after Elizabeth threw her arms around Fiona's waist instead of just saying thanks, Fiona and Laura chatted about Phantom of the Opera, about Les Mis.  Laura over the moon - talking to another singer - someone who'd met Colm Wilkinson.  Fiona warning Laura not to get her started about him.  Colm Wilkinson? Fiona said.  He started it all, he's the reason I sing.

I knew then that this had become one of those good times they'd just sung about.  That we'd look back on an overcast, spitting day on Cape Breton Island and remember good friends.  The girls dancing, smiles wide.  Wilmar and Karen clapping loud, keeping time.  Judy and Kristine laughing at the dancing girls, dancing so happy.  The words from the Proclamation insinuating themselves:  I undertake that on the anniversary of today's date, June 14th, I will turn toward Cape Breton Island and listen for the sound of the fiddle music being played there, and kick up my heels in a joyful ceilidh-style dance.  I shall also spread the word of its beauty and unique sounds to all my friends.

So that's what I'm doing.  Spreading the word.  When I see you next, ask me to show you how to dance close to the floor. Bring a fiddle if you play, I'll bring a flask.

Getting dark again
Getting dark again
For the second time since we got up
It's getting dark again

Postcard from Halifax, Nova Scotia -- Canada is Too Cold!

We're leaving the ms Maasdam, the ship that's ferrying us through the Atlantic, kinda early because we have a date with a horse-drawn carriage.  That would be me, Karen and the kids, and Grandma Judy.  Judy's being a good sport - she's wearing one of those yellow caps that I've seen on the carved figures of seamen at Fisherman's Wharf.  I thought that was something you'd only see in San Francisco, but of course they had one of those carvings in Bar Harbor.

Seamen are everywhere, apparently.

As the glass door is blown open and the wind rushes over us, Judy grabs the yellow rain cap on her head and prevents it blowing away.  I make a joke about nor'easters.  I don't know what a nor'easter is, but I love the sound, and the chance to use it in a sentence?  For real?  I'm jumping on it.

One of the townies corrects me as he sees Judy keeping her cap in place.  Sou'wester, he says.

It's later, much, when I discover that he was referring to the cap.  Those little yellow slickers are sou'westers - the wind?  Definitely nor'easter.  So I was right, but didn't know it.

Stupid Californian.

Before I know it, Allison, one of the nieces, hands her sou'wester to me.  Aren't you going to wear it? I ask.  She looks at me like the dumb uncle I am.  Do you think, she says, that I'm going out in that?  And she gestures to the wind and rain outside.  But, she says, I want the hat back.


The problem with a horse-drawn carriage, in Halifax?  Halifax is in freaking Nova Scotia, which is practically submerged in the Atlantic.  And it's North.  That means weather.

Boy howdy.

The two black beauties, Denver and Bob (and no - I can't believe Bob/Denver is pulling the coach, who knew they were funny in Canada?) are stamping their big black feet and snorting like horses do - the snorts turning into great plumes in the Halifax cold.

There are seventeen of us passengers loading onto the coach - that equals the numbers of family on the cruise, but except for Judy and us, they're all safely ensconced on the ship

Probably sipping Irish Coffees.

Because of the wind and rain - have I mentioned the wind and rain? - the have these flaps things strapped down on the sides of the carriage.  The flaps are clear plastic, but when combined with the rain, streaking them in rope-thick rivulets, you can't actually see outside.

Which of course is the point of a freaking horse-drawn carriage ride through Halifax, but Ed, our guide, is oblivious to that.

The Scots are like that, I've heard.

Ed's telling us that the historical high for this day is 78, Celsius - and the low is 37.  Also Celsius.  With the wind chill, Ed tells us in his Scottish brogue, we're looking at about 37 today.

I'm taking this in just as he hands back the last of the blankets that they have for distribution.  I worry that it won't make it back to me - I'm the biggest on this carriage, and have the last row of seats to myself.  I guess I'm a Greek windblock for everyone else.  So I worry that the blanket will be scooped up by someone else - but then Karen, god bless her, snags it and turns to hand it to me.

Of course, she has to hand it over the two old people in the row separating us, but hey - blood is thicker than water.

Until Karen looks at those two old people, then at me.  I smile and reach my hand out.  Karen smiles and hands the blanket, that beautiful giver of warmth, to the older lady in front of me.  She says something to her, but of course I can't hear it over the freaking gale force winds.

All the while, Ed's continuing in his brogue - there to the left is the oldest church in Halifax.

Except of course you can't see the oldest church through the rainstreaked flap.  Over there, he continues, just on the left again, is the Maritime Museum with artifacts from the Titanic.  Halifax is where most of the bodies from that tragedy--

Except, again, you can't see the Maritime Museum.

Or the statue of Winston Churchill.  Or the statue of a British sailor with his kip.

God bless Judy, Karen and the kids.  They're just laughing up there.  I can't hear a word they're saying.  I did manage to catch the first words that Kristina shouted, just as we were climbing onto the carriage:  Canada is too cold!


Later, I'll go to the Maritime Museum with Mark and Mary Ann and their kids - Laura, Julia, William and Robert.  I'll stop grumbling about the weather when I see the Titanic deck chair they fished out of the drink.  When I see the shoes they think belonged to the Unknown Child, buried with so many others in Halifax.  Cold?  Of course, I don't know what cold is.  The Atlantic, the Atlantic is cold.


When we walk back to the Maasdam, and all the umbrellas are flipped inside-out by the wind, again and again, all I'm thinking is that a hot toddy would be quite nice.

I imagine Judy and Karen and the kids still laughing about the foolishness of heading out in the weather.  Ah well, laughter is warming, too.

Postcard from Bar Harbor, Maine

From the boat, Maine's beautiful - even overcast it's beautiful, what with it being so green, what with the few white, clapboard homes thrusting their peaks out through the trees.  No beach to speak of, just the shore cragging itself down from the waterline to the Atlantic.

We always try to hit bookstores when we're someplace new - and sorry, that doesn't include the two behemoths.  One cookie-cutter behemoth in Oakland is the exact same as the cookie-cutter in Boston.  So no thanks.

In Bar Harbor, conveniently enough, we stumbled upon Sherman's, Maine's oldest bookstore - since 1886. The gold letters of their sign above the red awning assure that it's The Place To Browse.  So we did.

The girls went through the aisles, sporting the new knit caps we purchased across the street from the knitter herself.  Pink and mouse ears on top for Kristina, purple and flowered for Elizabeth.  The girls happy with their new stuffed mooses (meece?)

To support Sherman's - because this is what you should do, support local stores.  Can you do that for me?

To support Sherman's, I bought postcards, Karen picked out a paperback Anne of Green Gables (to prepare the girls for Prince Edward Island), I scored a Moleskine notebook - and an oversized copy of Robert McCloskey's One Morning in Maine.  Yes, he won the Caldecott for Blueberries for Sal, and he's more famous for Make Way for Ducklings, but when in Maine...

I figure I can get everyone to sign the inner cover of the book - their are seventeen of Karen's family on this trip, us included, and the seventeen names will look good, later.  Will remind the girls, later, of everyone who was on the trip.  With luck, will remind the girls of a happy morning in Maine, mooses (meece?) in hand, and mommy and daddy reading them new books on board.

Boston Postcards, #2 -- Check how many roomies are left before slipping out into the dawn

Woke up early my second morning in Boston, and to quote that eloquent New York thug, Hoppy Uniatz - I had a toist.

My toist wasn't for coffee, or anything as pedestrian as water.  My toist was for God's drink - Diet Coke.

We'd shut tight the hotel room curtains the night before - after Kristina had gotten her second wind.  After Kristina had commenced to jumping, in the dark, from bed to sofa to ground, and back again - all whilst yelling Action Girl!

Indeed.

So the drapes were shut to help quell the sound.  Perhaps the dark where the curtains met was a bit less than night.  And me, lying in that dark, next to the Lump that was my daughter, Elizabeth.  Lying there trying to disregard the cravings of thirst.  Attempting to imagine something - anything - all things not Diet Coke.

Negative.

Everyone else in this blackish room was tired.  Tired from the second day of our vacation.  Tired from the time change - West to East.  Tired from the shenanigans of Action Girl!  My accomplices would surely snooze longer.  Would not miss me if I slipped into the cool wet murk of this Boston dawn.  To search like the Ripper for the only thing that would slake my thirst.

Would Karen forgive me if I left?  For only the five minutes it would take to prowl those cobbles outside for a drink, for a drink, for a drink?

Karen would understand.  Karen must understand.

Scootched from bed, slipped on my Going-Out clothes.  Quiet, quiet.  I was at the door, opening it so gently, when I remembered my wallet, forgotten on the bureau.

My wallet is actually a sterling cigarette case from the '20's - but it does the job.

I crept back through the pitchy room, palmed the cool silver, and turned to creep back for the door - and that's when my eyes slipped across the two Lumps in our two beds.

But there should be three!  Karen, Elizabeth and Kristina.  I squinted hard through the inky not-light:

One Lump + One Lump = Two.  Elizabeth in my bed, Lump One.  Kristina in Karen's, small Lump Two.

Where was Karen?

Horrors!  Not out, no - not out.  But she must be!  Must have awoken before I, with her own toist.  A toist that we call Grande Nonfat Latte.

Had she debated the merits of her rash decision?  Tossed and turned until she could toss no more, then left us lying, by ourselves, in those two beds?  Leaving the One Two and Three without a second thought?

The early bird, satisfied again.