Journey to Another World

This post was inspired by time spent on the Delaware Shore where my entire family gathered for my brother Proctor's wedding to LaDawn.   Family memories, salt water and sun combined for this one.
This week my family gathered at the beach for my brother's wedding. The mix of sun, sea and reminiscence brought this journey to mind.


The journey started at four in the morning, maybe even earlier, the car packed with the coolers, beach clothes, paperback novels, yellow slickers and sleeping bags.  In among the luggage, there were nests made of blankets, and in the front seat, there would be a bag, greasy with donuts, and two thermoses, one of milk, one of black coffee.

In the earlier years, I would have been carried out to the car in my pajamas. Later, I would walk half asleep, but on my own steam, still in pajamas, These journeys were made long before the day of car seats or mandatory seat belt laws. My older brother and I would lie like two Guinea pigs in the way back of the station wagon for the first part of the trip.

We woke only briefly, as we loaded into the car, long enough to look out at the foggy darkness, to feel the cool damp morning air, then the warm, gentle,sway of the car as we headed out of town. But with the motion, warmth, dark, and the short hours of sleep which had come before, we were soon asleep again.



When we woke for the day, we would be on the interstate, more lanes of traffic than we ever saw at home. We'd probably be on 93, near Concord, or on 128, circling Boston. The sun, just up, the low clouds streaked with light. We would  squirm over into the back seat of the car if our older brother and sister let us, and eat cake donuts, (the only time in the year when we would get them), and drink milk from the plastic cup of the thermos. The car would be full of the aroma of my parents coffee.

If the timing was right, we would be headed south beyond Boston when the commuters were headed in. We'd  watch the northbound lane, slow as molasses, as we shot along with the sun to our right.

Then we would Cross the Bourne Bridge. Soon we'd be driving along the streets of Barnstable, with glimpses of the sea through shade trees, big green crosswalk swatches at all of the intersections. When we would open the car windows, the smell of the sea would hit like a wave of salt, dead fish, and marina oil and gas. The cry of gulls filled the air as we would park in the lot by the dock.

Bouncing on our toes in the parking lot, we looked for Uncle Witt,coming to meet us with a big motor boat. When he arrived, we would hug, and grab coolers, duffel bags, fishing rods, and other gear for the voyage. The weathered structure of the dock rose above the motor boat as we slowly pulled away from the dock, the purr of the motor, like some large, slow cat.  Barnacles, grey wood, rainbows of gas on the water glided by, and then we burst out into the open, heading across the thin band of water, wind, salt, green and blue of the sea, and the roar of the motor as the boat kicked spray and we made the crossing.

When we reached the other land, we eased in to the dock, the center of this little community.   Sometimes the weathered platform and walkway to the shore were level, at high tide. At other times, we would climb a great hinged ramp to a wooden path high over exposed mud, clam flats, sea weed and tide pools.

When we stepped onto that dock, we entered a world with different rhythms, without phones or electricity, or cars. The clocks are the tide tables for clamming, berrying and boating.  There's also  sun for rising in the morning, slapping on tanning lotion when it feels like we might be burning, opening beer or starting dinner when the western angle looks right, or starting Coleman lanterns when the light fades too much for cards or reading.

Family lines shift. Any children in the little cluster of 8 or so houses are tossed together for volleyball, rough theater productions, running in the dunes, card games under the Coleman lanterns, or play in the water. We are untangled by last names only for meals and sleeping.

There are new laws, understandable, practical:   Don't run on the dock, you'll get splinters, or could plummet to the beach below. Don't tread on the grass on the dunes. It holds the land in place, and the sand will blow away, leaving us without a home if the grass dies under our feet.

 Codes of behavior have shifted. Blueberry pie plates may be licked, since we have walked miles, braved poison ivy and worked hard to pick thousands of the sweet bits of sky. Adults take showers. Children are bathed under a bucket of water, cold when the weather is cold, hot when the sun is on the hose. Laundry is "Not Done" we live in bathing suits when possible, and wear shirts, shorts, pants and sweat shirts in flagrant disregard for the rules of cleanliness we would use at home.

For our week or two in this world, our feet will be our transportation, unless we go by boat. There will be no phone calls, alarm clocks, mail, bills, or baths. Cosmetics will be Coppertone, or perhaps lemon juice to bleach our hair. Our connection will be the transistor radios, battery powered, blasting "Sunshine Superman" "Wild Thing" or "the Yellow Submarine." There is news too, I'm sure, but the link is tenuous, drowned out by gulls.


Only when we loaded our near-empty coolers, salty, smelly clothes and sunburned bodies back into Uncle Witt's boat, and made the crossing would the news of the day come into the car on the radio, with gas fumes and exhaust gradually overcoming the salt and dead fish smell of the sea. My brother and I would fight in the back seat, once more our little family unit, still loving each other, but tired from such a journey from sun, sea air and joy.

Once we have made it through the snarls of traffic at the Bourne Bridge, on 128 and 93, once we come back to the winding roads, and the familiar comforts and obligations of home, we will adjust to our old world again. Perhaps it would be easier if we could sleep through this transition as well, but this journey is made in full daylight, in a car full of dirty laundry, and hearts yearning back toward the sand, the tide clock, and the sea.

　

　

Got room for a passenger?

 We stood in the Summit School parking lot while lightning flickered from clouds to mountains and rain began to fall lightly. We'd just finished our last Quebecois and Breton tune class, and were figuring out how we were going to get to Positive Pie for beer and pizza. Normally we would have walked, since it's only a few blocks,  but we had musical instruments, and the weather was more than ominous.
"Susan, I can give you a ride. I just need to clear a few things off the seat." said Todd.

I followed him to his car, and watched as he began rearranging the jumble in the back of the station wagon to make room for the large heap of things on the floor and seat on the passenger's side of his car. it didn't look good.

"Doug, do you have any room in the party van?" I asked. I fully expected Doug to have room. After all, four of us, with musical instruments, camping gear and food for music weekends have fit into his van in the past.

"Sorry." Doug said. "I just have too much junk in here."

At this point Todd had finished clearing the front seat.

Kevin had also walked to class, and was looking for a ride. He laughed and looked dubiously at Doug and Todd's vehicles.

Just when Kevin looked as if he'd given up hope, Tracy came out of the building. She took in the situation quickly and said "I have an available seat in my car, and I don't even have to clear it off."

As the rain intensified, we all climbed into cars, relieved to have solved the problem before the skies really opened.

.  .  .  

Although last night was a little extreme I find most people need to do some cleaning before I can sit in the passenger's seat.    Sunglasses, books, Cds and clothing are tossed into the back seat. Apologies are made for the envelopes, paper cups and junk food wrappers on the floor. I am instructed to just "put your feet on whatever's down there. You can't hurt anything."

In some instances, the clutter on the front seat comes from the convenience of tossing things to the closest spot, where they can be reached easily. In most, the back of the car is as cluttered, if not more so as the front.

One friend lives off the beaten track. He's often on the road, painting and doing minor construction projects all over northern Vermont, and he's dating a woman in Montreal, travelling across the border often.   The back end and back seat of his station wagon are loaded with tools, clothes, cans of paint, drop cloths an accordion, and camping or ski equipment, depending on the season.  I sometimes wonder how that works at the border.

Another friend can't resist a good yard sale, and has small furniture, odds and ends of metal and wood for art projects, unusual dishes or candle holders, and piles of vintage clothing in her car.

Another eats on the road. There are cereal bowls and spoons, travel mugs and food wrappers under the seats. Her books, Cds and work projects fill the back seat.

One friend once kept a rock collection on the dash, along with a boom box for road music. I would spend the ride listening to great tunes and fending off hard objects whenever we braked or went around a sharp corner.

Occasionally I have known friends with neat cars, but usually they have sedans and I have no idea what the trunk looks like, or it's their second car, and I know that the truck at home has piles of rope, cleaning supplies, tools and paperwork in the jump seats and passenger seat.

This leads me to believe that cars fill more than just a need for transportation

They allow people to plan for contingencies.  If they get hungry or cold, or want to take a swim or camp out, or even if they need to repair something, they have it all at their fingertips. If I go out, I must carry it on my back. I can't just have a flashlight on hand, or a bathing suit, or a sweater. I have to make do with what I have.

Cars also expand a person's living space. They act as an annex to an office, a tool shed, a studio, or even a kitchen.

I have no such storage options. The tent has to live in the over crowded closet, the papers all must stay on the kitchen table or in the office. The tools live under the sink or on the covered patio downstairs.

These areas look cluttered, but I am now convinced it's only because I don't have a car for the overflow.

Now there's a thought.

Maybe I should get a big old beater, just to keep in the driveway for the storage.

Sensible shoes

Last week I learned the Texas two-step, and I had cowboy boot envy.

My friend Meg had a modest pair of not-quite-knee-high toad-stabbers, so named because of their pointy toes. Our instructor wore a pair of boots that came up well above her knees, made of colorful, intricately tooled leather, also with pointy toes. I was reminded of my sister's pair, almost thigh high, possibly made of alligator hide, with toes that would have impaled tadpoles. All of these boots had smooth, hard soles, perfect for the slide/glide motion of the two-step on a polished wooden dance floor. They all had heels of at least some height too, perfect for leaning a little into the light circle of a partner's arm as he skillfully guided you backward across the floor.

My Merrells, black, low, crepe soled and practical for day to day use, did not cut it. I wasn't gliding anywhere. If I actually set my feet down on the dance floor, they stayed where I put them. If I stepped carefully, I could follow my partner, but not with the smooth, immediate reaction of the dancers in those boots.

Oh how I wanted to glide, and I wanted the look too, elegant, stylish, exotic.

Shoes are the one item of clothing I never buy used. I buy sturdy, comfortable, non-slip footwear. My feet are my transportation. I use them a lot, and I treat them well. I also have no depth-perception, and the last thing I need is a thin, high heel twisting my ankle if I misjudge a step, or a smooth, slippery sole shooting out from under me if I come off a curb at the wrong angle.

When I was in high school, I had a pair of high platform sandals, from which I learned important lessons about friendship, flexibility and pain

I thought those sandals were some cool, and I wore them up to Burlington, the big city, for the All-State Music Festival. I wasn't a performer. I'd just gone to cheer on my friends in the band. When a student didn't show up to tote their half of the Galloping Ghost banner, my friends needed me. I was bundled into a hot, polyester band uniform, two sizes too large, and given my half of the banner. We couldn't do anything about the shoes though.

By the end of the two mile parade route, my feet were a mass of blisters. The platform sandals disappeared into the depths of my closet. What good were shoes if you couldn't walk in 'em to help out your friends in a pinch, so to speak.

Over the next 20 or so years, I sometimes held jobs that required me to dress up. I bought black pumps with modest heels and teetered my way cautiously down stairs or across grass lawns where the heels sank in and stuck. I believe the intent of such shoes is to make women walk in a delicate, ladylike fashion. For me, they just slowed me down and gave people the mistaken impression that I was tentative. Possibly the unintended deception was useful in my lobbying career, since opponents underestimated me, but as soon as I left the job, the shoes joined the platform sandals in the back of the closet.

When I ran a restaurant, working in a commercial kitchen on wet linoleum with hot, heavy and sharp objects, I got even more serious about shoes. Once, while draining pasta, I lost my grip on the pot and poured a cascade of boiling water down my left leg. My friend Nancy, and Dick the mail man got a shocking, swift striptease as I pulled off pants, shoe and sock and slapped a bag of frozen peas to my already blistering foot. My sneakers had a mesh top which offered little or no protection. I worked the rest of the catering gig with frozen vegetables strapped to my foot, and wore sandals for a month. I drained pasta more carefully in future, and made sure my cooking shoes were solid on top.

Now I buy low heeled, shoes with good support and tread, sandals of the crunchy-granola type, clunky and sturdy, boots that are warm, water proof and non-slip, and for color at an affordable price, I wear crocks. As I walk home with a back pack full of groceries, climb the steep hill to babysit my great nephew, head across town to a friend's house for a jam session, or help my mother load groceries and gear up the mammoth stairway to our family cabin, I know that these are the shoes that best suit my lifestyle.

But maybe, maybe some day a pair of high heeled, brightly colored, tooled leather toad stabbers will come my way, and I'll wear them, just to dance.

Closed Circuit

  For a number of years, I worked as a teacher of blind adults in northeastern Vermont.  I worked with drivers, or traveled with other people who were going my way.  This was a particularly memorable day on the road.   The names and locations of clients in this story have been left out to ensure confidentiality.

I was pretty pleased to be spending a day on the road with Evan. He was handsome, and personable. This was work, however. I was a rehabilitation teacher for the Vermont Association for the Blind and Visually Impaired, working with adults with low vision in northeastern Vermont. The beautiful Evan sold Closed Circuit Televisions, and was going to do home demonstrations for some of my clients who wanted to try them.

The CCTV was a great device for someone with a lot of vision loss. You could place any document, a hand written letter, a soup can label, or a text book under the camera, and it would project it on a screen, enlarging fine print to two inch high letters on the screen. In this day of computer technology and scanners, this doesn't seem so fancy, but back in the early 90s it was the hot item. It also cost around 2,500 at the time, a pretty chunk of change, so Evan was willing to spend a day touring northern Vermont showing my clients his wares.

On this February day, I had four people lined up for demonstrations. It would make for a long day, as they were scattered along a ragged line, along the Waits River, up the Connecticut River, inland to Orleans County, then up to Essex county. Just in driving time the circuit would take us four to five hours. It was winter in Vermont, so we would have to expect the unexpected. We got it!

Evan had a Saab. He spent a lot of time on the road, and he wanted comfort. He didn't have snow tires on it though, and we were headed over Orange heights, and Sheffield Heights, both notoriously snowy stretches of road. Then we were driving into who knew what between Irasburg and Island Pond. We were out on the road on one of those blustery days, with snow squalls sweeping through every few hours.

We set off in good season, leaving Montpelier at 8:30 a.m. Orange Heights was bitter cold and desolate, low, pewter colored clouds and a pale smudge of sun, gusted nets of snow, and not much by way of civilization, but the road itself was not bad.

We arrived at the first home on a country road a little late for our 9:30 appointment, and Mr Y was not there. Evan left the CCTV in the car while we tried to raise him. The house was unlocked, lights on, fire in the stove, so we did a quick walk through. As we opened doors to bedroom, bathroom and study, I hoped we'd find him absent minded and absorbed in a project, rather than collapsed on the floor from a stroke. But he just wasn't there.

I was concerned. I'd talked to Mr. Y the day before to confirm the appointment, and I knew he was very excited about the prospect. He had been an avid reader, and he also wanted to be able to handle his own correspondence without the hovering presence of a neighbor, family member or volunteer, no matter how well meaning And the fire in the wood stove and lights on throughout the house spoke of "just stepping out." Not an easy thing for a legally blind man to do in rural Vermont.

then a neighbor came to the door.

"I saw your car. Are you looking for Mr. Y?"

We allowed as how we were.

"He went out to check his pump this morning. . The snow in that field's awful deep for him, and he's stuck in it. I can't get him by myself."

Evan leaped into action. Soon three snow covered men came back into the house. Mr. Y was clearly exhausted, and drenched in sweat, and more than a little disoriented by the incident. he was in no condition for a demonstration of equipment. We waited while he got into dry clothes, made sure he was warmed up, made him tea, and left him sitting in an easy chair under a blanket.

Back on the road, we wound along the banks of the Waits River on Route 25, down in the valley, out of the wind the road was no worse than usual. We were now about an hour behind schedule.

At the next house, Mr. X was home, and expecting us. He nodded without comment when we apologized for being late.

In my experience, Mr X had been a shy fellow, difficult to engage when I'd been asking him what I might be able to help him with. The first interview had been a series of questions, followed by monosyllable answers. I'd been totally surprised when he'd said he wanted to see the CCTV. But he'd requested it, so we were here. We went in, were introduced to a visiting, protective son, and Evan set up the CCTV

Mr. X got the book he was reading and slid it under the camera as instructed. 2 inch letters popped into focus on the screen " . . .Her breasts were full and round and his . . ." I wasn't quite sure what to do. I couldn't even escape by looking the other way. Mr. X was proudly reading aloud.

Just as I was about to burst out laughing, Mr X bolted from his chair. I had only a moment to be baffled. Then I heard him being violently sick in the bathroom down the hall. It turned out the CCTV gave him motion sickness. Mr X disappeared for the remainder of our stay.

Evan and I packed up the CCTV, making polite conversation with Mr. X's son, and loaded back into the car. Once safely on the road, we both burst out laughing.

Once he could get a sentence out, Evan said"I've never seen THAT before."

"The motion sickness or the reading material? I enquired, my voice shaking with laughter.

"Well . . . either one." Evan said, as we headed for I 91 and our third visit of the day. It was about noon.

We stopped in Wells River for lunch, then headed north again. Just past St. Johnsbury we ran into a snow squall. Evan was chatting away, and started to pass a semi on Sheffield Heights. The left hand lane hadn't been plowed. I grabbed the Jesus handle and suggested, as calmly as I could, that maybe passing wasn't a good idea. It's rare for me to advise a driver, but this seemed like one of those appropriate moments. Evan apparently thought so too, and took my advice and we slowed down and settled in behind the truck. I released my white knuckled grip.

We got to our next demo site at around 2 in the afternoon, quite a bit behind schedule, between the lost client and the snow squalls. Mrs. W was understanding though.

Mrs W's husband ran an amazing junk barn. To get into their house we walked through the first floor of a huge barn, full of farm tools, pots, pans, furniture and old sleds. Stairs led up to a second floor at least as crowded as the first. Evan was fascinated.

when we went inside, it was clear that Mrs. W had collected all of the "cute little things" that came in to her husband's shop. The walls on both sides of the hall running the length of the house were lined with low,closed cupboards, topped with glass cabinets up to the ceiling, and there were more shelves in the living room and kitchen as well, filled with glass ornaments, ceramic figurines, little boxes and other nicknacks  

It took some doing to find a spot to set up the CCTV, but when we set it up, Mrs. W was thrilled. She read magazines, bills, letters, and more magazines. She wanted one!! We worked out details for a trial period and another visit in which I'd make sure she was managing well with the equipment, then we went out, got in the car, and spun the tires. We were in a snowy little dip and Evan couldn't get traction. We were stuck.

I don't drive.

Mr. and Mrs W were in their 70s.

I pushed while Evan steered the car out of the snow bank, and there wasn't too much conversation as we travelled through a grey afternoon to our last visit.

We got to Mrs. Z's at about 4:30. There, Mrs. Z, a chatty ex school teacher was more interested in visiting than in the CCTV. As I have mentioned, Evan's a handsome and personable man. Finally at about 5:30, when Evan had heard a lot about Mrs Z's earlier life, and we had been offered tea, when it was clear there wasn't real interest in the equipment, we dragged ourselves away. By now, twilight was well advanced, and by the time we got to Lyndonville and hopped on 91, it was dark. but fortunately not snowy. We chatted quietly as we made our way over the hills of Route 2 to Montpelier. When I dragged back into the house at around 6:30, I poured myself a glass of wine and collapsed on the couch. 

I'd be willing to bet Evan did something similar.

Fairy Godmother's Day Off

This is not a rant.  It's a whine.  Now and then it happens.  It's mercifully rare.

There were no white mice, and there wasn't a pumpkin either.

I had called any of my friends who usually went to the Montpelier contra dance, and no one was available to give me a ride out to the grange.

I wasn't going to call other non-dancing friends. I have my pride, and besides, what would I do when the dancing ended just before midnight. run the couple of miles home in my black Chinese slippers?

I put the skirt I'd bought at a clothing booth at Old Songs away, and tossed my dancing shoes to the back of the closet.

I was staying in for the evening.

I watched the twilight of the late April evening deepen and thought of the band warming up, the caller assembling the first sets for the dance, and at 8:30, much earlier than usual, I got into my bath robe and got into bed with a book and the cat.

I was unashamedly sulking.

It's rare for me to actually be stranded when I want to go somewhere, I can find rides to the most amazing places, a gig up in Glover, a party in Craftsbury, a dance in Nelson NH, a meeting in Brownington. I have succeeded in getting rides to tiny, far flung towns as much as two hours away, and here I was unable to get two or three miles to a dance in my home town!

I didn't like it. I tossed and turned, annoying the cat no end. I paged through my book, skipping passages with an impatient flick and rustle of paper. I thought of the attractive fellow I'd danced with the month before, of how I'd hoped to meet him again, chat with him, flirt a little, maybe even waltz.

I got up, restless and sad. In a fit of masochism, I put in a CD of one of my favorite dance bands, brushed my teeth, took my eye drops and finally went to sleep to Wild Asparagus playing the Spokane Waltz.

Sometimes I guess the fairy godmother needs a day off.

.

The Best Travel Planner Ever

I met Wayne at a party 15 years ago. I was assembling Vietnamese spring rolls, which are much better when fresh. I was a professional cook then, and I made a mean spring roll.

Wayne stood watching me, then, with a quick motion I would come to know well, he picked up a spring roll and took a bite. I didn't realize it then, but this was the beginning of an amazing friendship which has now lasted 15 years, and, I hope will continue for many years to come.

"You know, they won't fall apart if you give them a minute to dry out." I said, edging the comment with humor and a little annoyance. Who was this guy?

Wayne was not deterred.

I could make spring rolls just a little faster than he could eat them, mainly because he was chatting as he bit into the soft rice paper and caught the cascading filling in his other hand.

"The dipping sauce is important too." I said, pushing the bowl of  salt/sweet/sour/hot sauce his way.

His eyes lit up.

We were at a party at the home of my friends Ginny and Nancy, probably for a celebration of their July Birthdays. It was one of their famous deck parties where the conversation, beer and food are excellent and varied. Wayne and Robbie, his partner, were new to the mix.

Most of the action was on the deck, but Wayne stuck with me in the kitchen,  eating a few spring rolls, but mostly being gregarious. In the course of the conversation, he managed to find out about my new take out business "Susan's Kitchen" my husband, my connection to Ginny and Nancy, my politics (politics are important to Wayne), and where I was from. I didn't get as far on Wayne's
biography at the time, but I did find out that he was from Hood River Oregon. I told him of our plan to celebrate my 40th Birthday out in Oregon.

With an exuberance I would come to know well, Wayne began building our itinerary of "must see" places.

"You have to go up to Mount Hood, and to Hood River on the Columbia River Gorge. And you have to go to Oswald West on the coast." He said in a tone that brooked no argument.

He told me about Powell's bookstore in Portland, about the giant, old growth trees along the coast, the trail running around Mount Hood, and Hood River, where he'd grown up, run a blueberry farm, and run for, and won a seat in the Oregon legislature.

I made spring rolls and he made plans for our trip, pausing for a bite of spring roll and a hit of dipping sauce.

Finally, I had to tell him the awful news. "These ideas sound wonderful, but neither of us drive."

I expected him to look embarrassed and politely change the subject. Instead, he gestured expansively with his spring roll.

"Not a problem." he said.

At this point, the spring rolls were done, I took the platter out to the party, chatting with other guests,

When introduced to Wayne's partner Robbie I realized that she had been the creative person at the USDA office who'd helped us to fund ramps and accessible bathrooms for people with disabilities when I'd been working at the Center for Independent Living. I enjoyed her open friendliness, less flamboyant, to be sure, than Wayne. But she was fun, smart and warm.

I liked these people, but didn't hold my breath waiting for Wayne to organize our travels in Oregon. I am cautious about such offers, having been disappointed in the past.  I barely knew Wayne and Robbie and I didn't want to put a strain on what seemed like a fun friendship in the making by expecting too much.

But Wayne didn't forget the conversation. He probably talked to my husband Michael at the party as well, and he immediately set to work.

Within a few days, we got a call from Robbie, inviting us up for what would be the first of dozens, if not hundreds of dinners at their Towne Street home. And Wayne had a detailed itinerary for us.

Day 1, fly to Portland. Go into the city, visit Powell's Book Store. Catch an afternoon bus to Hood River. There you will be met by Roger and Judy who will take you to their home for the night.

Day 2. Roger and Judy will feed you pancakes and  take you to Lost Lake for a day of hiking, beautiful views and boating. Rich will meet you at  Lost Lake, and take you to your camp site on Mount Hood.

Day 3, hike on Mount Hood and move up to Timberline lodge for the night.  Enjoy the sites of this splendid WPA construction project with its folk art, stunning views and excellent food.

Day 4, spend the day hiking on Mount Hood, then meet Larry, who will return you to Rich's house. You'll cook a dinner for Rich, Larry and Tom and Jeanie,  people you have to meet! Stay over night at Rich's house.

Day 5, Rich will take you to the bus in Hood River. Travel to Portland to be met by Dick. From Portland, Dick will take you to the Oregon Coast, where you can check into your Cannon Beach Hotel. Dick will then take you down the coast to Oswald West park for a picnic on the beach and a tour of old growth forest.  Dick will then return you to your Cannon Beach hotel.

From there, we would be able to manage the rest of our travel and lodging on our own.

We had known this man for less than a week. We didn't really even know how we'd recognize his friends when they came to meet us at bus stations, lakeside trails or hotel lobbies. And we were asking a lot of these total strangers, miles of driving, and a fair amount of hospitality.   Wayne gave us a lot of background, enthusiastically telling us how long he'd known each of his friends, what they did for work, what they did for fun, what they liked to eat, who their children and spouses were.

I packed my suitcase with some fun cooking ingredients and made plans to feed our various hosts dinner.

We hopped on a plane, and when we got to Oregon, everything went exactly as Wayne had planned. Wayne had planned it all with a certainty that we would like his friends, and they would like us.

By gum, he was right!

Bailing My Baby Out of Jail

When my husband Michael went off to Concord New Hampshire to a sit in at Senator Warren Rudman's office, we knew there was a chance he'd be arrested. But neither of us had envisioned the hitchhike home from the Merrimack county jail.

Both of us had been working to end US involvement in several brutal governments in Central America. We'd attended peace marches and organized vigils together. We had actually met at the local Peace Center, and our courtship was carried out at concerts, coffee houses, and over late night work on bulk mailings.

We'd also both taken training on non violent resistance, learning how to become a dead weight in a police officer's grip and how to protect vulnerable body parts from police dogs and billy clubs. We had stood in "hassle lines" role playing either the peaceful, unflappable demonstrator, or the rabid opposition, and had learned about the crucial role of the members of your group who did not get arrested, and provided those who did with support.

When Senator Rudman of New Hampshire took an active role in supporting the government of El Salvador, or perhaps it was Guatemala, or maybe it was funding the Contras to overthrow the new government in Nicaragua, Michael decided he needed to join demonstrators in a civil disobedience action in the Senator's office.

We were part of an affinity group, a close-knit group of political activists who trained together, and organized political rallies, street theater, and participated in Civil Disobedience as a group. But none of the members of our group, Equinox, would be travelling to New Hampshire. Michael would have to hook up with a group down there for his civil disobedience.

I decided not to go with him. I wasn't ready to be so dependent on people I didn't know. I wanted people from my own community handling the support needed in civil disobedience, someone on the outside to make phone calls to legal support and press, and to simply make sure the police knew I wasn't alone. I had a more regular job than Michael did as well, a 9 to 5 with a human service organization in town. Michael, a concert pianist, could take time off for the trip, and truth to tell, he was generally more bold about his political action than I was, more passionate, and more likely to put himself on the line.

So, off he went with a few other Vermonters, people we didn't know, but folks who would at least get him to Concord in their cars, and would, we hoped, make sure he was not abandoned.

Late in the afternoon I got a call from one of the other Vermonters. Michael had been arrested, and the New Hampshire judge had set his bail at $200. For some reason, probably because they were New Hampshire residents, and Michael was not, the other people in the group who had been arrested had simply been let go on their own recognisance. The other Vermonters, it seems, had stayed away from arrest. Michael's fellow demonstrators down in New Hampshire had not been able to pull together bail, and the Vermonters needed to get back to jobs. In short, Michael was on his own, in the Merrimack County Jail, two hours from home.

If I wanted to get him out, I'd have to find a ride to the New Hampshire jail with $200, and collect him.

I called the members of our affinity group, Equinox, and began to figure out how to spring my husband.

For a wonder, I had the $200 in my bank account. After several hours of phone calls, including a brief conversation with Michael who did NOT want to stay in the Merrimack County Jail overnight, alone, if he could help it, I put together the pieces to set him free.

Our friend Alex's brother, who lived near Concord, was visiting, and agreed to give me a ride down to the jail. With my money in hand like some character in a ballad, I walked into the jail and paid Michael's fee. By this time, it was after midnight.

Somewhat shaken at his brief experience in jail, where guards talked about beating their wives, the lights were left on, and my slight, well-educated, Asian American husband felt more than a little threatened by the other inmates, Michael was really grateful to be rescued. Even when he realized that I had not been able to find us a ride home.

We were able to stay at Alex's brother's house over night, and the next day, in the rain, we began the long hitchhike back home.

We almost immediately got a ride with a trucker. I'm not sure if he did it as a joke, or really thought he was being helpful, but he took us maybe two exits up Interstate 89 and left us off at a totally godforsaken exit.

We waited, and waited, and waited, probably for two hours, in drizzle. In that time, only two or three cars hit the entrance ramp, and none of them even slowed to look at us. Finally, a fellow in a huge, ancient boat of a car stopped to pick us up. Oh Joy! He was travelling all the way to White River, smoking all the way, but we were warm and dry, and he was kind, dropping us at the bus station.

I think there was a mercifully brief discussion of whether to try to hitch the rest of the way, or to take the bus. Hitching from White River might have been easier than from that barren exit, and we were poor as church mice at the time, but We were both ready to go home.

Later there was a trial. I got my bail back, and Michael had to do community service which he was blessedly able to do in Vermont. It wasn't the last time he got arrested. Later, he would demonstrate in the rotunda of the Capitol in Washington DC, and would spend more than a month on trial there. He has always stuck to what he thinks is right, a trait which is admirable, but can certainly complicate life.


I will never forget that late night ride, that brightly lit jail, or the long, slow hitchhike home.

I Told You So

I'd been warned, but at 5 a.m. in Shannon Airport, we were in a hurry to get on the road.

Now our rental car sat off to the side of the road, and we unloaded suitcases and musical instruments to get to the spare tire.

There wasn't one.

Mike, Leeds, Meg and Charlotte and I were on the trip to Ireland we'd saved for, planned for and dreamed about for years. Using money Mike and Leeds and I had made from playing weddings, farmer's markets and drunken St. Patrick's day bar celebrations, sales of our very home made CD, and from returning bottles for deposit, we'd saved enough to cover flights to Ireland and a rental car.

When I'd mentioned the trip to my friend Joel at a family party, he'd told me how much he and his wife Val had loved their trip. Joel's usually pretty taciturn, but he was almost poetic about the friendly people and the beautiful scenery, and emphatic about rental car spare tires. The spare in their rental car had not fit. They'd lost half a day dealing with the situation. "Check your spare" he'd warned in his laconic Joel fashion.

I'd told Mike and Leeds the story, and reminded them of the spare at the Shannon airport. There had been a few predawn grunts, we'd loaded our luggage in the car, and hit the road.

The drive was quite an experience. The car was a right hand drive, and Leeds was the designated driver. As we wended our way north toward County Mayo where we would stay with friends of Mike and Meg, we'd spot an ancient stone structure in the middle of an otherwise modern strip of businesses. There were a few palm trees, and wild fuchsia grew on the side of the road, and the stone walls between fields were only one or two stones wide, clear indicators of a climate where the temperature rarely dips below freezing. All the landscape was green under low clouds. Throughout our trip we would rarely see the sun. it's also a climate where the temperature rarely gets above 65.

In the little towns the roads were narrow, and Mike and I frequently yelped as Leeds barely cleared street signs or car mirrors. Leeds laughed at us, and kept driving.

We stopped for breakfast at a road house, and experienced our first Irish breakfast, sausages, "rashers"(bacon), potatoes, fried tomatoes, baked beans and "fried eggs" which were truly fried, cracked into a vat of spitting, hissing oil, and cooked until crispy around the edges. We would not lose weight on this trip.

Further up the road we tangled with a traffic circle, repeatedly taking the wrong spoke of the wheel, and winding up back where we had started. finally, all of us were yelling at Leeds to "pull over and look at the $X%#%1 map." So Leeds did, instinctively beaching our Ford van on the "verge"(shoulder)  on the right hand side of the road. After one more false try, and a brief, almost incomprehensible conversation with a local, we got headed in the right direction.

Even major arteries in Ireland are pretty narrow. And we were north of the River Shannon where stone walls are more common than trees, fields are cut into tiny patches by criscrossing walls which run smack up against the road. Again, Mike and I were cautioning our fearless driver, watching sharp rocks whiz by within inches of our tires. Leeds opened his mouth to laugh at us again, and it happened.

We hit a rock, slashing along it's sharp edge. It didn't puncture the tire, it ripped it open. Again we limped to the right hand side of the road, out of necessity this time. The wall on the left with its protruding destroyer of tires left no room for a "verge"

And we had a patch kit. No spare. I kept my mouth shut. It was ominously quiet on the side of the road. No house in sight, no cell phone, probably another two or three hours from our destination.

Eventually a truck came along, and a fellow rolled down the window.

"You yanks got a problem?" he asked. Now how did he know we were "Yanks?"

He and his friends stopped, talked through the situation, and called a friend of theirs, a mechanic in the next town. The mechanic soon arrived, looked over the situation, and allowed as how he knew where a tire to fit our van could be found. He took Leeds with him on the tire hunt, and the good Samaritans in the truck headed off. We waited by the car.

Within moments, the quiet of our isolated stretch of road was broken as a large vehicle crested the brow of the hill. It was the rig used to paint the stripe down the center of the road. The fellow operating it took a look at us, started laughing, and stopped painting for about 20 feet when he passed us, retracting the arm on his rig. I wonder if he came back and got it later, or just left it, spreading the tale about the crazy Yanks who broke down on painting day.

 

Eventually Leeds came back with a $200 tire, and a hair raising tale of riding with a native. 120 K (70 mph) on narrow roads, through farmer's fields, rounding corners to face tractors loaded with steel beams. As he torpedoed through the country side with a seemingly oblivious stranger at the wheel,Leeds found himself wondering what would happen if they were killed. Charlotte had his passport and no one would even know whose body was in the wreckage, and the rest of us would never know what had happened to him.

The mechanic, unaware of the fear he'd inspired (or maybe chuckling to himself) got Leeds back to us, unnerved, but in one piece, quickly changed the tire, charging $30 for his time, probably two hours of finding, fetching and changing.

We loaded back into the van with Leeds at the wheel, and off we went. The combination of the flat tire and the wild ride had modified his driving style a bit. Mike and I could sit quietly in the back seat, enjoying the stone walls, cottages, sheep and occasional bits of 12th century stone work. We were most definitely in Ireland.    

Worth Waiting For

Thanks again to the Friday morning writing group for some great advice.  It's a stronger story because of those thoughtful contributions.

I spent my youth being late for any event which required a ride from my father.

I loved my dad a lot. He died 13 years ago, and I still miss him, miss having him work with me on household and garden projects, miss the time he would take to teach me, talk to me, listen to me, and help me with a task, I particularly miss rides with him, the quiet conversations we'd have when we would both forget the time, focused on each other instead of the clock on the dash.

I remember riding home from town with him once, when we were stopped by two pheasants strolling down the middle of the road. Dad stopped the car, hopped out, and ran at the pheasants to chase them out of the road. He was in good physical shape, a skier, a swimmer and gentleman farmer, but that day, he was in a shapeless lab coat from work, spectacles on for driving, the bald dome of his head red with exertion, and that brilliant smile/turning to laugh on his face. He could have just driven at the birds, I suppose, but this seemed like a less frightening way to get them to leave the dangers of the road, and we weren't in a rush.

Dad always took time, often trying to pack a little more into the hours of a day than would actually fit.

He'd try to repair a fence the day we were to leave on vacation, delaying the trip by hours. We'd eat Mom's picnic in our own yard. Once on the road, we would reach our camp site late, sometimes maneuvering our airstream trailer into a tight camping spot in the dark.

As a dentist, he'd take his time, finding out about his patient's family life, making sure the procedure he was about to embark on was clear; slowly, slowly pushing the syringe in, administering anesthetic almost painlessly in his willingness to take time. As his assistant through my high school and college years, I would join him, wolfing down a 15 minute sandwich in the basement of his office instead of going home for what should have been a 1 hour lunch break. For patients with appointments late in the day it sometimes meant 45 minutes in the waiting room, but then they got the same polite, gentle, thorough treatment, and would travel for miles to see him, figuring he was worth waiting for.

My mother always claimed she married Dad to find out what took him so long in the bathroom in the morning. She never learned, and he never moved any more quickly, so I was always late for school

Miss Bee, my 7th grade math teacher, who ran her classes, and my home room, like a drill Sergeant, was not too understanding. Dad was my ride to school, and most mornings of my 7th grade year, I was subjected to Miss Bee's acid tongue. I was wickedly embarrassed at first, urging Dad to hurry, describing Miss Bee's comments, imitating her fog horn voice "Well Miss Reid, Late again?!" I didn't make headway, and eventually learned to ignore the fog horn.. After all, there wasn't much I could do about it.

People who had lived in our small town for a while usually cut me more slack.

Those who knew my family and my circumstances, knew that it wasn't my fault, that I couldn't drive, and never would. They also knew that I was a "good, responsible child." I over-reacted predictably to Dad's tardiness, and turned in homework early, walked from school to music lessons and baby sitting briskly, always on time, often early.

And people loved my dad, even though he ran late. He was seen as a just, thoughtful, kind person, by his patients, on the school board, in church and in his dealings with local merchants and tradespeople. He so obviously enjoyed other people, from "Spot Cash" the trash man, my teachers, the editor of the local paper, to the head of the Randolph National Bank. Being late wasn't much of an issue stacked up against such warmth.

Dad had a beautiful bass voice, and could read music. He was a very popular member of our community chorus, and brought me along to Randolph Singers as soon as I could read the music and be trusted to behave. Because Dad brought me, I was welcomed immediately into the group, although we were a few minutes late to many rehearsals.

When I was 15, I joined the cast of a Randolph Singer's production of Finian's Rainbow, for the first time without Dad. He wasn't as interested in Broadway musicals, nor could he manage the heavy rehearsal schedule that theater requires. To save trips in town, we'd arranged rides with a neighbor who was also in the play. On rehearsal nights Dick picked me up at the end of our driveway on his way into town. All that spring I was punctual.

Then my family and I went on a two week vacation down south. The director, a fierce, humorless and business-like woman from "down country." hadn't liked my plans, but had grudgingly said I could still be in the show, since I'd proved myself reliable, learning music, lines, and stage directions.

We got back into town on the night of a rehearsal, and I hadn't been able to let Dick know that I was back, and in need of a ride. So Dad brought me into town, late, of course, As I came into the darkened theater as quietly as I could, I heard the director complaining to the whole cast about how I'd been gone for two weeks, and was missing yet another rehearsal.

She wasn't making much headway with the cast though.

"I heard Susan explaining that she'd be on vacation." said Diane

"I know they were due back today. Maybe there was a travel delay." said Betsy

"She knows her music, and her blocking better than most of us old fogies do." said Red.

Unnoticed by the cast on the brightly lit stage, with a teenager's embarrassment at being such a focus of attention, I slunk quickly back stage. Once she realized that she was not getting much traction with her criticism, the director decided to rehearse "When the Idle Poor Become the Idle Rich."

In this big chorus number, I played a star-struck young woman, running out from back stage, and doing a very stagy faint into Bill Arnold's arms. I got a kick out of the part. Bill was a friend of my parents. From my 15 year old vantage point, I definitely thought of him as old but also found him to be a grand combination of fun and safe. I waited for my cue. When it came, I raced out on stage, just playing my part. Without a thought, I let myself fall backwards in my stage faint.

Bill, bless his heart, caught me as required, about two feet from the floor, a little low, but he made it.

There was a collective gasp from the chorus. They had all seen the flash of fear as Bill lunged forward to catch me. The director hesitated, then went on with rehearsal, knowing that I was not vulnerable in this place where my roots ran deep. They were looking out for me, whether I was late, or right on time.

The Grandmother of All Road Trips

The Grandmother of all Road Trips

We got under way early in the afternoon. Beth had hugged her sister Meg in the back parking lot of Kinko's, after a short, loud, illegal burst of fireworks, Meg, purveyor of fireworks, was looking tough. Beth, not so much, as we climbed into the U-Haul and she pulled the truck away from the curb.
Jo and San were in the car behind us, which was, packed to the gills with the things too fragile to travel in the van, including a beagle and a cat. The plan was to travel to Skaneateles NY that evening, then to Cleveland to pick up Jo's motorcycle, and on through Chicago to Minneapolis, where Beth would unload her stuff, the motorcycle would go from rental trailer to the moving van, and San and Jo would head for Lawrence Kansas.

I would stay on for a few days in Minneapolis, seeing the sights and helping Beth to settle in, then I'd fly back to Vermont.

It was a bittersweet trip. Beth was, and still is, one of my best friends. We met in the early 80s, when in a community chorus. Over the next 15 years, we'd drunk gallons of coffee, and beer, cooked amazing meals together, supported each other through job interviews, and relationship crises, talked politics, taken classes and been on boards together . We'd come up with the four food groups; coffee, chocolate, garlic and beer. A balanced diet of liquids and solids, sweet and savory. We'd dropped a Thanksgiving turkey on the floor and cleaned up the mess together, laughing hysterically and swearing like sailors. And there had been road trips, of course. I'd ridden in Dorothy, the VW bus without working heat, and in Lui the truck, with rocks and a big boom box on the dash, which flew at me when we stopped fast. We'd gone to concerts in the Boston area, yarn stores in Northampton, camping in Province Town. And she'd rescued me from the White River Junction bus station at 1 in the morning.

Then Beth announced her move to Minneapolis, a city where she had friends from college, and figured she might well be able to reinvent herself. Vermont is small for someone who has a lot of expertise in child care, anti-bias curriculum, and is a lesbian. I was appalled that she'd be leaving. She loved Vermont, and she was so woven into the fabric of my life, it was impossible to imagine her hundreds of miles away.

I am not sure whether I asked or she did, but I didn't hesitate to carve out a week from my work schedule to take what I figured would be the mother of all road trips, riding in the moving van to Minneapolis. A road trip with Beth seemed a totally fitting way to send her off, and I also had, as I always seem to, a need to see where she would be planted. I needed to be able to envision my friend shopping at "the Wedge, a big Twin Cities food co-op, or walking by one of the Minneapolis lakes, hanging out with friends like Ann, Beth and David. It wasn't OK to have her disappear into a landscape I didn't know.

And so, on a cloudy day in late September, once again, Beth and I hit the road.

Moving vans do not move quickly. With the weight of two, albeit small, households, our big box truck was lumbering and slow. It ate gas at an alarming rate, somewhere below 15 miles to the gallon, and would not be rushed.

We'd gotten a bit of a late start. Leaving the state you grew up in, not just for a vacation, or a semester of school, but for the foreseeable future, is a big deal. The farewell breakfast ran long, the last minute packing took a while, the hugs for housemates took time, and the fireworks took a little while too. Now on the road at around 3 in the afternoon, we realized that it would take us a little longer to reach Skaneateles than the usual drive time in a car. What with gas stops, slower speed, a quick break for dinner, a few pee breaks, we wouldn't make it there before 10 or so that evening.
From a pay phone at one of the above stops, Beth called her friend Sarah, our host for the night, and was reassured by Sarah, that a late arrival was fine. Fueled by Bonnie Raitt, the Indigo Girls and junk food, we lumbered west across New York State in the gathering dusk.

When we arrived at Sarah's house, late and weary we were able to park in such a way that we didn't have to back out in the morning. We just rolled in, sat up briefly to chat with Sarah, slept, rolled out and had coffee and a light breakfast and hit the road, probably by 8 or so.

There is something about the stretch of Pennsylvania on Route 90. It is not long, and it's pretty straight. In my years of college in Ohio during the late 70s, and again on this trip in the late 90s, it has always been under construction. I fancy that, some 16 years later, it still is. We didn't make Cleveland until about 2:30 in the afternoon, taking 6 and a half hours for a trip that usually takes five hours.

Beth had been hoping to make the motorcycle pick up a quick one, and to get through Chicago before we stopped for the night. As we sat with Jo's friends, hearing long, animated conversations about people and places we didn't know, the minutes stretching to an hour, then two, I could practically feel Beth's tension. finally, we mobilized folks and went to pick up the U-Haul trailer for the motorcycle, and spent the next 45 minutes filling out paperwork, and waiting for the guy who could hook the trailer to our van so that all of its break and turn signal lights worked properly. Then we went to get the motorcycle.

The motorcycle was in a garage down a narrow driveway, about 100 feet off the street. We expected that Jo would just hop on the bike, ride it out to the street and we would wheel it up the ramp

Jo didn't have the keys, so the mountain had to come to Mohamed

Beth has darned good spatial sense, and gradually, with a lot of guidance, got the hang of the odd backward steering needed to move 17 foot moving van and trailer in the desired direction. It took a while, but she did manage to angle into the impossibly tight driveway, back to the shed, where we were then able to muscle the motorcycle onto the trailer. It took a lot of argument, strategizing, angling, and brute strength, to finally get the beast loaded. By now it was close to 7.

Then there was a brief argument about stopping for the night where we were, but Beth's new landlady was expecting her the next evening. We knew that a ten and a half hour trip, under normal circumstances, would take us more like fourteen in the moving van. Beth was still determined to put Chicago behind us before stopping. I'm sure she was also driven by being in limbo, between old home and new. Once she'd left Vermont, she just wanted to get to Minneapolis and be done with it. She can be persuasive, sometimes downright forceful.

We got back in car and moving van just as the sun was going down, and headed west.

I took a turn in the car with San, discovering that she watched TV while she drove, and didn't put the cat in a carrier.

I got back in the moving van with Beth, and we continued on through the dark of the Midwest, listening to country stations on the radio. The miles and hours went by, surreal, unchanging on the flat, featureless highway.

Finally, at a gas/pee break after midnight somewhere in Indiana, we convinced Beth that we were not going to make it across Chicago's huge, congested Dan Ryan Express Way that night. It was not easy to convince her, but we were all exhausted, and decided to book a room in a Super 8.
Picture 4 exhausted women, badly in need of showers and sleep. At one point, I looked around and not one of us had a stitch of clothing on. There was a fair amount of hysterical laughter, lots of running water. I am sure the other people in that motel resented our noisy, late night presence. The noise didn't last long though. Soon we were sound asleep.

Both Beth and I rise early, and after some persuasion, we got Jo and San up, had a hearty, greasy breakfast, heavy on the coffee and got on the road in the early morning sunlight.

We hit the Dan Ryan Express Way at some point after 9 a.m.. The traffic was still heavy, fast, and stupid. How many drivers of little red cars get flattened by big trucks each year, I ask you? I have been told by a few people recently that for some unknown reason, time of day has little to no effect on traffic on the Dan Ryan, morning, noon, or night.

A moving van does not stop on a dime, no matter how close that little red car is to the front bumper. We did not flatten anyone, but by the time we got to the western edge of Chicago, Beth was about willing to do it intentionally. Somehow it seems that the nightmare trip took three hours. Is this possible?

In a parking lot after exiting the Dan Ryan, our little cavalcade broke up for the rest of the trip. Jo and San wanted to be more leisurely. Beth wanted to visit a Vermont friend who lived nearby, then hit the road for the twin cities as soon as possible.  We'd meet up with Jo and San again in Minneapolis, where we'd have to unload the damned motorcycle from the trailer, and move it to the moving van, but for now, we went our separate ways. 

We stopped in on Tama, grateful for the chance to just stop moving for a while. I am sure Beth's nerves were shot, and a cup of tea and a visit with a good friend helped a lot.
Back on the road, somehow it felt more relaxed. We ambled across the rest of Illinois, into Wisconsin, stopping at the bluffs in the late afternoon, walking among trees and looking at the startling huge stone outcroppings, looking like buttes out west. We figured we would be in Minneapolis by 8 or so.

Then we hit road repair, and not just a short stretch of it, but miles and miles of barrels and concrete barriers, a cruel obstacle course for Beth at the end of three days of hard travelling.   Beth reminded me of the two Minnisota seasons,  snow removal and road repair, or was that road removal and snow repair.  We laughed, briefly, but the note of hysteria creeping in worried us both.  The sound track for the rest of our trip was AM radio.

Finally we got to the Twin Cities, and with what must have been the last of her reserves, Beth followed directions to the house in south Minneapolis where she'd be renting a room. We pulled up in front some time well after 10 that evening.

Her new landlady wasn't too friendly. At the moment, it didn't matter much. We were too tired to care, collapsing onto mattresses in the room that would be Beth's.

For the next few days, we would sponge paint her room like a misty forest, unload stuff, go for walks, connect with Beth's Midwest friends and I would get the sense I needed of her new place. Then I would fly home having settled my friend in a community that I could now visualize. We were already sure that the housemate situation was awful, but there were some good friends, some great neighborhoods, and I could see my friend settling in here.

It was quite a trip, but then, what are friends for?

post script.  When I ran this by Beth for accuracy, she let me know that she's hoping to move back to Vermont  this year.   Perhaps she'll have someone else drive a container of her belongings across 6 or 7 states, or maybe I'll be on the van again.  Still friends!

Behind the Wheel

I sat in the 1950s  army issue jeep, the family farm vehicle, with hand operated windshield wipers, dicey brakes, and a confusing array of pedals. I was in the driver's seat, breathing the smell of partially burned oil, old canvas and new hay. My brother Proctor sat in the passenger's seat, giving me instructions.

I was probably 14. Proctor was 16, recently licensed, and infinitely knowledgeable. I don't know if the driving lesson was sanctioned by my parents or not, but there I was, behind the wheel.

To give him credit, Proctor was sensible about this. After a childhood of rough and tumble games on our farm, with one or two near death experiences thrown in, this was unusual. He gave me my lesson down in the big hay field below our house where there was a lot of room to maneuver. There were no steep hills, no oncoming cars, and no obstacles.

He also probably taught me more than I needed to know, or could really absorb at one sitting. I learned which of the pedals did what, and then, how to start the jeep. I don't remember the exact order, but think I may have turned the key, dome something with the choke, or maybe the clutch, then the gas,. He taught me the mysterious pattern of the jeep's gear shift, and then we were off.

The bucket seat in the jeep was not too stable, and set back for a man's longer legs. Short, and more than a little terrified I was not steady on the pedals, so we moved jerkily around the field, leaving big erratic loops of flattened grass and wildflowers.

Then my brother told me to cross the land bridge over a small brook to the second of our haying fields. I don't remember breathing as I aimed at the narrow track, but I made it. The second field was much like the first, open, green and without obstacles. I never relaxed into the task of driving though. We still jerked our way around, crushing grass and flowers.

After a while, I braked with a few spasmodic lurches and brought the jeep to a stop, hopped out and traded seats with my brother and we were done. He did the driving up the steep hill to the house. I hopped in and out of the jeep to open and close the fences along the way, a job I knew.

Thus ended my one and only driving experience.

Since then, several friends have offered to teach me to drive. And every once in a while a family member suggests that it would be good if I could drive down from our family cabin in an emergency. I remind them of the steep, sharp curve at the bottom of the hill, the road clinging to a wall of rock and dirt,poised over a deeply cut stream bed. The offer is, sensibly, withdrawn.

I dream of driving now and then, but the dreams are not comfortable. Usually I'm in a position where I either know I Will be caught as illegal, or I know that I can't safely handle the trip. It's definitely an anxiety dream.

I even wrote a short story called "the Hot, Hot Car" in which I fantasize about "borrowing" a car and taking it for a spin. I consulted with my buddy Leeds about the technicalities, and will probably post that one here some day as well. Remember, it's FANTASY.

It took a number of years for me to realize an important truth about my non-driver status though. After a day of friends telling me of their car woes and expenses, a grumpy conversation about a $1,500 dented bumper at breakfast, a mournful tale about replacing the all-important battery on a hybrid when I ran into a friend in the co op, and a string of repair/insurance/mechanic conversations on Face book, I had an epiphany.

I have far fewer issues with not driving than most people have with car ownership, maintenance, insurance, payments, and gas. And we're not even talking about the idiocy of other drivers, bad weather conditions, and heavy traffic.

Getting around is complicated now and then, but my life is organized for not driving, so those complications are rare. I live in town, and there are weeks at a time when I don't even need to get in a car or on a bus. I can walk to groceries, pharmacy, restaurants, book stores, the movies, the theater, the post office, my doctor's office, the dentist, friends houses, music classes and jam sessions.

For the occasional trip out of town, I can usually find someone who is going my way, or I can ask a friend for a favor, knowing that I'll be feeding them dinner, teaching them a tune, helping them paint a room, or just being a friend in some fashion. There's no big deal, now big owed favor. As for the finances, I would never spend on public transit, or shared gas expenses, what a car owner spends each month on payments, gas, and insurance,

when I hear about a blown transmission, a rusted truck frame, a cracked windshield, or the irritating habits of other drivers, I'm glad my only driving experience was back in the day, in an old jeep, on a sunny, flower-studded field. Thank you Proctor.

April Ride

As I stepped out the door, sleet pelted down, coating the stone steps with a treacherous glaze. It would be a slow and miserable walk home. But first, I had to go to the post office to mail taxes.

"Ain't April in Vermont grand?!" I thought grumpily, snapping open my umbrella and planting my feet carefully on the squish-slippery ground.

Four years ago, I fell on a patch of ice and broke my wrist. The shocking speed with which I had gone from upright to prone, whole to broken, and the five weeks of claustrophobic inactivity that followed had left me with an outright fear of slippery winter footing. I now walked at a pace that would have made my 85 year old mother impatient.

So when I ran into a friend in the post office and she offered me a ride, I accepted gratefully.

She apologized. her car was across the street at the far end of the lot, right next to the river, so we had a bit of a walk through sleet and slush. Then came the process of getting the car out of its awkward parking spot.

I am not a driver, but even I knew that there wasn't much leeway here. The only way to back out involved backing toward the river with a stomach wrenching little drop off from the dirt of the parking lot to the sleet covered grass of the river bank , and inching forward, slithering a little on the sleety grass, backing again, inching again, and each time, I waited to feel the ground truly drop away, to feel the car plunge backward into the North Branch.

The hand holding my umbrella, hidden from driver-view by my hip, was clenching each time the wheels dropped from dirt onto grass, each time the tires spun on sleet.

"If only I had just walked home?" I thought to myself. "Instead, I'm going to drown in the waters of the North Branch in April, all because I didn't want to get wet!"

We didn't land in the river, obviously, but all the way across town to my neighborhood, I was tense, watching each pedestrian, each intersection, tensing at the sudden jerk of the brake, the slight slithering fishtail of acceleration.

It wasn't that she was a bad driver. Frankly, as some one who has never driven, and never will, I'm not in a position to judge. I just couldn't get over the feeling of impending disaster from that river bank parking spot.

"You can drop me at the corner." I said.

"Oh, I can take you right home." my friend said cheerfully.

"Monsignor Crosby Street is a mess." I said "Lots of pot holes. Besides, you'll want a little head start to make it up First Avenue."

I was being thoughtful and polite. I was also ready to get out of that car.

I knew that I would need to walk carefully to get to the safety of my porch, but I could be careful. Despite my years of dependence on others for transportation, this was one instance where I much preferred to rely on my own balance and caution, rather than on the reflexes and judgement of another person.

On the Road with Cathy Stanley

If I had driven my own car, how different would my experience have been? I was a Vermont girl, young, educated, a stranger with the wrong sentence structure and accent, the wrong last name. Not to be trusted.

But because I couldn't get around on my own, I spent much of my time when living in Clintwood Virginia going places with Cathy Stanley. Usually we were in her heavy, sleek red Camero. It was built for speed, not for comfort. Not much leg room under the dash. The radio was tuned to country stations blasting Alabama or The Oakridge Boys, or to Christian stations where wheezing preachers told of hell and damnation.

There were butterfly decals on the driver's side door, an odd touch for such a tough, sporty vehicle. Cathy informed me that they covered bullet holes, and I had no doubt that it was true. The Council of the Southern Mountains, where both of us worked, was not a popular outfit in this coal mining community. The little non profit worked on mine safety, environmental issues and mineral rights ownership cases, hitting mine owners in their pocket books, and because coal was the only game in town, the miners were also not friendly. I never did find out if the bullets had hit the car while it was parked, or while Cathy was in it. Given some of our travels in the car, I really didn't want to know.

I was a "Volunteer in Mission" at the Council. My rent, utilities and food bills were reimbursed, and in exchange,I worked upwards of 60 hours a week for the quixotic organization. It was my first job out of college.

Mainly I wrote for "Mountain Life & Work" which went out to about 4,000 souls, mainly the converted; environmentalists, labor organizers, radical church organizations such as the one I was volunteering for, and the like. I covered labor disputes, strip mine violations, unsafe working conditions, land grabs, and other topics largely ignored by the outside world. It was 1982, with the Reagan Administration cutting budgets, reducing staffing among mine safety inspectors, removing regulations and going after organized labor, so we had plenty of work.

Cathy, who had grown up in Clintwood, had been at the Council for years. She was one of a huge clan of Stanleys, related in some obscure way, to Ralph Stanley, the bluegrass musician. Cathy also had a cleft palate and a thick, Appalachian accent. We spent so much time together that I didn't have trouble understanding her for long. She had a wicked, somewhat cynical sense of humor. From Cathy I learned that "I reckon" could convey rich layers of sarcasm. She wrote articles, did much of the photography (and developing) for the magazine, and did whatever other jobs needed doing, from researching bogus land deeds to fixing the mean old coal furnace which often filled the office with smoke. And Cathy and I somehow became the travelling correspondents.

. . .

In December of that year, we travelled to Whitwell, Tennessee to follow up on a mining disaster, driving through the night and staying in an unheated bedroom at an off-season conference center. Cold and exhausted from only two or so hours of uncomfortable sleep, we talked to a miner who refused to give us his name, fearful of the mine owners. He was still in shock at the narrow escape he'd had, all for refusing to work in a mine with high methane levels. When one of his friends lit a cigarette, 12 of his other friends died in the explosion.

On that same trip, we attended obscenely speedy funerals, attended by grieving and baffled family members and friends. But no one would talk to us. When we drove to the mine entrance at dusk, too tired to be sensible about safety, we were escorted off the hill between two coal trucks.

. . .

Later that winter, we went to a little town in Kentucky, swamped in black sludge from the breakage of a coal slurry dam. When we got to the devastated town, we got no answers from the close lipped men in the convenience store. Cathy took pictures of the now-solid slide of waist-deep toxic mining residue, cursing through tears because the woman she'd interviewed just weeks before about the shoddy dam had been killed by the deadly wave of sludge. Later, as I transcribed Cathy's taped interview with the woman, her scratchy voice would come back to me from the dead with it's Kentucky twang "Hit wa'ant holdin'"

. . .

Trolling for stories, we travelled through towns named Mousey, Frog Level, or Jeff or, most appropriately, Dante (pronounced to rhyme with "plant") Towns which were little more than strings of houses along the rim of a pit mine. Following a lead about a wildcat mine, we contemplated passing as "Sangers" harvesting ginsing in the woods to get photos of illegal highwalls, naked walls of earth left by wildcat miners which washed dirt, coal and the toxic chemicals of mining into nearby streams. Good sense and bad weather kept us from that plan.

Small wonder I was unnerved by those bullet holes.

. . .

Not all of our travels were so sinister. We went to hear bluegrass gospel groups high up in the hills, and once to a revival, where I was surrounded by people speaking in tongues, weeping, confessing their sins and going forward for altar calls.

And, fortified with bad coffee and chocolate covered cherries, we fought sleep on the two hour trip to Pikeville to the low cost printing company which would print "Mountain Life & Work".

Every month, we frantically wrote and edited articles for the 48 page magazine, proof read articles as they came out of the cranky "composer" an archaic piece of typesetting equipment, then laid out the pages using a light board, graph paper, blue pencils and exacto knives (not a terrific job for someone who's legally blind, mind you). Sometimes I was even drafted into drawing cartoons if we had a space in need of filling. James Watt was Secretary of the Interior under Ronald Reagan, and each time he relaxed strip mining laws, or removed funding from clean up efforts, I got to draw that bald, high crowned head.

When we had a magazine ready to print, usually after 36 or so hours of working straight through, living on soda from the machine outside and Hardee's burgers, Cathy and I would pack the magazine boards carefully and, borrowing her "PawPaw's truck, we'd hit the road. We took the curves of the corkscrew road fast in the pre-dawn darkness. We had a 2 hour trip to Pikeville Kentucky, and the main goal was to get there before we fell asleep.

We would wind our way through steep valleys, tiny houses edging along the flat of the road bed, stopping only for battery acid coffee and greasy sausage and biscuits. We had a scheduled time with the printers, and had to be on time.

When we arrived, the printers took the boards and turned them into negatives for printing. Cathy and I would look over the negatives, and once they passed inspection we would climb up on huge rolls of paper, topped with mattresses and dirty magazines, and go to sleep for a few hours. The ratchety roar of the printing press would wake us. A group of friendly, chatting women in their 50s bundled the magazines, tying them in heavy stacks. We'd wearily load the twine bundles into the back of the truck and make the two hour return trip. Once we'd off loaded them at the office, Cathy would drop me off at my house where I would fall into bed as if cut down by an axe.

If I could have a memento of that time period, I suppose it would be one of those Appalachian road signs, indicating curves in the road. As a Vermonter, I'm used to winding roads, but these signs are epic, looking more like complicated letters in some alien alphabet. They capture the complexity and danger of the isolated, mineral rich, impoverished valleys, and my hours of time on the road with Cathy Stanley, all in one.

Full of Surprises

Last night as some of us sat with plates on our laps at a Welsh tunes pot luck, we got to talking about Village Harmony experiences, and the stories were quite wonderful.  Here's my contribution.

Full of Surprises.

The Village Harmony bus never sounded great. It's engine always was a little louder than you thought it should be, like an over-sized Volks Wagon with a smoking habit. But as we headed down Interstate 91 on a hot June day, the engine missed a beat, then several, then, sputtering in earnest, it stopped.

Larry eased the brightly painted, aged school bus over to the side of the road without comment. He did it easily. He'd done it before, I guess.

With the outside temperature in the mid 80s, we soon decided to wait outside the bus, which heated up almost instantly, sitting still, no air rushing in the windows. Sprawling on the grass we watched Larry pop the hood on the engine, disappearing behind the brightly painted blue metal. He didn't say anything, and whatever was happening behind that hood wasn't visible to us.

My mind was racing.

We were headed to Stratton Mountain Academy for Village Harmony Camp, and I was the cook. The bus wasn't full of campers. There were only a few of us inside. Otherwise, the seats, overhead racks and storeage area at the back of the bus were packed with food for campers, a lot of it perishable.

I'd known Larry for a number of years, and he was a wonderful choir director, dynamic with music, a reasonable cook, a little vague about practicalities. I didn't hold out much hope for engine repair.

In 1999 we didn't have cell phones, at leasst not amongst the vegetarian singers of rural Vermont. I wondered if we should be flagging down a ride, trying to find a mechanic, and, given the age of that bus, figuring out other ways to get cream cheese, milk, lettuce and tofu to Stratton. At least there was no meat. I was running through the list of campers I knew, where they were from, what vehicles they had and wondering when I should check in with Larry or Patti about hitch hiking to the next exit.

This was my second cooking gig with Village Harmony. For the teenage camps, which had been running for years, the kids cooked their meals, beans, rice, pasta and stir fries, but when Larry started running adult camps, I'd offered to cook in exchange for camp. The experience at Burke Mountain Academy the previous year had taught me that singers eat a lot, and that they can be enticed into helping in a kitchen if there is good singing to be had. I'd learned which menu items went over well, and felt pretty confident that I'd manage well this year. I had also negotiated a salary this time. It had been a lot of work. I was looking forward to it. Then, several weeks before camp I'd gotten a call from Larry. He sounded pretty hesitant over the phone.

"I just found out there's been a change in the. . . uh . . . dining situation at Stratton Mountain" He said "But don't worry, I've got some help for you."

"What's up?" I asked, with the beginning of a sinking feeling in my stomach.

"Well, there will be some kids cross country ski camps running at the same time as our camp, and . . . um . . . if we want to use the kitchen, we have to feed them too."

I was silent on my end while my stomach finished it's plummet, then asked, clearung my throat nervously "how many campers?"

"20 or so 10 - 12 year olds, then they leave and 20 or so 14 to 16 year olds come in, but I've got help for you. Patti's son Ken is going to work with you."

I had never met Ken, and when Larry told me he was 18, I wasn't too reassured, but I didn't have much choice. I also was younger and more energetic then by about 15 years. "OKay, I guess we have to make it work." I said heavily.

So we had a lot of milk and butter and cheese in the bus, not just for our 40 campers, but for 20 additional, athletic teenagers.

Ken, my helper, had been asleep on the bus, and was asleep on the grass. Things didn't look good.

Then, still without a word, Larry slammed the hood of the bus down, climbed in the driver's seat and started the engine. It worked!

"OKay, everybody back on the bus." He called.

Ken struggled up out of the grass, and we all wedged ourselves back into the bus. And by the time we reached Stratton, Ken woke up and began loading in, and cleaning with a thoroughness and willingness unlike any I've seen in a teenager before or since. And when we unpacked the refrigerator items, the milk was still cold.

　

　

　

Crossing

Crossing

I was furious with my boyfriend Marty. He'd been hassling me about my political leanings all throughout lunch, and was continuing to do so as we walked back across campus to class. When we got to Beal Avenue, I impatiently shook off Marty's hand and strode out across the road.

Tires squealed, and a motorcyclist swerved around me, barely missing me. Shaken, I darted to the other side of the street to be greeted by the exclamations of students waiting on the curb. "Didn't you see?" "What are you, blind?" "Are you NUTS!?"

I plowed through them, and roughly shook off Marty's hand, practically running to get away from his officious, anxious questions and comments.

"Leave me alone!" I yelled, and finally, he did.

It wasn't the first time I'd heard brakes.

Because of the visual impairment that keeps me from driving, I am generally respectful to fearful about crossing streets.

When I was in elementary school, there was no light at the corner of Sand Hill, Route 66 and Route 12. I had to cross there to get home, and would tag along with other students making the crossing in a herd if I could. Once, I followed an older student, but I was not quick enough, and I heard the high scream of brakes as the driver of some piece of heavy equipment, a road grader, I think, did his best not to squash me flat. Probably the only reason I'm here today is that graders just don't move that fast to begin with.

When I was in highschool, my parrents had Joe Ingram, a mobility instructor, come to town and spend several hours with me, just crossing streets, giving me tips on where to cross, and how to move at a steady pace so that a driver would be able to predict my whereabouts.

But I have never been comfortable crossing. When I spent the summer as an intern in Oregon, I needed to cross a major road to get to work. Every morning, my heart would be in my throat until I was safely on the other side. I would have to wait for a major lull in traffic, then race across, ignoring all of Joe Ingram's advice about a steady pace. Coming home, I would do my best to latch onto another staff person, or I'd have to do the same heart-stopping exercise over again.

The reality is, that I can't gage speed and distance reliably. Nor can I see if a driver has acknowledged me, or is on his or her cell phone. This is not one of those disability things I can "overcome"

I joke about my motto being "better safe than flat" but there is a grim truth behind the humor.

It is a surprising restriction, I've missed tourist sites in foreign cities because I feel too at risk as a pedestrian. At night, I'll go out of my way to use an intersection with a traffic signal, knowing that drivers are even less able to see me. I'll take off my hat on bitter cold days to make sure I have all of the audio information I can possibly get, even when crossing relatively quiet streets. When there is construction which changes how sidewalks and cross walks work, I may put off errands, or ask for rides to places where I'd normally walk with ease.

And it's become a true measure of trust when I will jay walk with someone. I've had intense conversations with friends, and lovers about letting me know what they are doing when, and about how frightening the experience is for me if I have to move quickly, in fast, heavy traffic. The intensity in my voice is off putting,I know when I tell them how unpredictible bursts of speed or sudden stops can leave me shaking with a combination of fright and anger. There have been lovers dumped and friendships damaged after such conversations if I am not taken seriously.

So, "didn't I see?" well, no, maybe not. "Am I blind." Well, as a matter of fact, yes. and "Am I nuts?" Well, looking at the reality, no, I am not. It just took me a long time to realize that my caution is justified, and that "better safe than flat" is a good motto, even if It does mean that I can't manage certain things on my own

Given the alternative, I can live with that.

　

　

　

Getting There,

Finally, I've gone and done it!

I am legally blind, with enough vision to see a fair amount of detail, but not enough to drive, read road signs, or even reliably tell if there's a person or a post box on the corner of the street a block away. Walking in unknown areas, crossing streets in heavy traffic, and sorting out transportation to other towns and states, has made life challenging, interesting, entertaining and down right frightening at times.

Whether I've stepped out into a cross walk, driven the family jeep, gotten a ride with a stranger, or crossed the Dan Ryan Expressway at rush hour in a moving van, my experiences of getting from one place to another have often had their unique twists. Many's the time I've walked through my door at the end of a trip and thought "I shold write this down."

And so, I have.

What follows is a series of short stories about the complications, interractions, amusements and learning experiences of getting there.

Wanna come along?