Travel in Plague Time

How worried should I be about driving from Northwest Minnesota to Boston, then flying home? Teresa and I feel healthy, but we're both in the over age sixty at-risk group. New case numbers and deaths had stabilized in the Midwest and the Northeast. But there were warnings the virus would spike again as Fall approached. Wouldn't it be prudent to stay home and wait this thing out?

Yes it would. But the call of the old New England home and of family outweighed prudence. On July 25, with our masks, our gloves and our alcohol hand wash, we decided to take our chances. We had not seen our three boys or our four grandchildren in a year. Also, my parents house had been sold and there would be a family gathering on August 1, to celebrate the place that had witnessed so many good times in all our lives.

We spent the first night with our friends Alex and Nancy in Apple Valley south of Minneapolis. Alex and Nancy had downsized to a condo and Alex wanted to send his 1994 Ford Ranger pickup to a good home. He said I could have it. We didn't need another truck, but I knew my boys could make use of it, so we planned to load a bunch of stuff our kids had left behind and haul it East. Alex had taken excellent care of the Ranger and I was confident it could make the 1,400 mile trip.

The governor of Minnesota had just ordered that masks be worn by staff and customers in all businesses in the state. After leaving Alex's Sunday morning, we stopped at a convenience store in southern Minnesota and I was heartened to see everyone was obeying the law. A bit later I stopped in Iowa where there was no mask requirement and it was jarring to see all the bare faces.

That afternoon, the truck began leaking transmission fluid and we had to spend a couple of days in Dubuque to get it taken care of. Dubuque is an old river town built out of red brick along the Mississippi. The downtown was partially gutted in the 1960's, before people realized the future lay in preservation.

There were lots of restaurants near our downtown hotel. The trick was finding one with a patio. The (masked) staff at the hotel recommended a place a few blocks away, a sports-bar-brew-pub sort of place. They had set up a few tables along the side of their building. We were the only one's out there. All the other customers were inside, fairly distanced from each other.

I felt sorry for the unmasked waitress having to hike back and forth from the kitchen to our table. We enjoyed the view of the ornate brick buildings as we munched our supper. While waiting to get the truck into the shop the next day, we hiked along the river dike and through the quiet downtown. We found the amazing funicular railway that runs up the steep bluff to where the wealthy reside. If you're ever stranded in Dubuque, be sure to ride it.

We found a transmission shop on the west side of town near the busy mall. We had to stay at a motel out there another night. We got take-out at a restaurant. Mask compliance was like at home in Roseau: food and lodging places had masks, all other places, pretty much no masks.

We ended up having to leave the truck in Dubuque for repairs. We rented a small SUV and transferred our sons' treasures into that, and continued our journey. Just to note, we spotted our first Biden sign in Bellevue, Iowa along the Mississippi. We crossed into Illinois with plans to stop in Indiana for the night.

We were taking two-lane highways to avoid Chicago traffic. but I drifted a bit too far north and we crossed from farm country into the far southwestern suburb of Plainfield. As we drove along the main street I noticed a curious sight. People were sitting on the sidewalk in lawn chairs or in restaurant patios drinking beer. Parked along the street were beautifully restored classic cars. Then I noticed a sign. We had just beaten Plainfield's Tuesday evening Cruise Night by about twenty minutes. It would have been fun to stay, but we had miles to go before we slept.

Now we were caught in the vortex of Chicago rush hour. We gave up the two-laner and jumped on the crazy Interstate. Drive fast or die. We found a hotel online in Elkhart and a restaurant with a patio. Bacon Hill it was called. There was no hill, but lots of smoked meats. Our waitress wore a mask. There was plenty of space between the tables.

The Elkhart motel staff was masked, including our hostess in the breakfast nook. Back in Iowa the hostess had dished up our food and poured our coffee. Here in Elkhart we helped ourselves. Teresa asked the hostess how case numbers were locally. "Oh, I don't pay attention to that," she said before removing her mask for a good cough. Hey, we had asked for this by leaving home.

We took the Interstate across Ohio and when traffic got heavy we went back to two lane roads in  western Pennsylvania, an area the snooty New Yorkers call Pennsyltucky. It's beautiful country and there's a cool little town out there called Wellsboro where we've stayed before. We were making for there when we got to Coudersport on the Alleghany River, also a cool old town. We saw a nice looking place along the road. It was an older place but the sign said "You'll feel like you're home." It had good online reviews so we booked it. They also gave me a veteran's discount. That doesn't happen in the bigger places.

After checking into our "home" for the night, we went downtown for take-out. There was a big home-made sign on the common that said: "Trump Vote Early Vote Often." The base wears its heart on its sleeve. Back at the motel, there was a crew of what I took to be frackers ever present in the lobby, stepping outside from time to to time for a smoke. We had been time-warped back to pre-Covid days here in Coudersport. It wasn't a good feeling. The breakfast hostess did not have a cough, but she didn't have a mask either.

We hurried on through PA and back onto the more sterile Interstates of NY and MA. These last two states suffered greatly at the beginning of the pandemic. They've gotten their numbers stabilized and they have faith in the mask. Massachusetts' number had ticked up slightly and we had heard from a friend back home that as of August 1, the state was ordering a two week quarantine for all out-of-state visitors. I don't know how they're enforcing that rule. This isn't China. We crossed the state line with a day to spare.

With all of its restrictions, the citizens of Massachusetts have decided how much risk they can tolerate. Mask compliance in all businesses is 99%. (I once forgot my mask while picking up a pizza. I felt terrible.) But people go to the beach and restaurants. Many people on the street or even driving wear their masks. Many don't. Even though we had traveled several days through a danger zone, family and friends were fine with hugging us. Some weren't. Some family members didn't come to the celebration of our parent's house on August first. I can understand that.

Finally: the flight home. Delta emailed that they were sanitizing their jets like crazy and that the middle seat would be empty, though the flight was otherwise full. Logan airport in Boston was certainly empty compared to a typical summer Monday. All the food places were shuttered, but you could download an app to have food delivered to your gate.

The Minneapolis airport was quite different. People were not socially distancing at the busy food venues, though everyone did have masks on. Minnesota has not been hit as hard as Massachusetts. Maybe the George Floyd killing distracted them. Yet it was Massachusetts that had as many "Black Lives Matter" lawn signs as Pennsyltucky had signs for 45.

I have no grand conclusions to draw other than it's a crazy world which promises to get even crazier as the months come on.

"Grandpa, you're soon out of this mess. What about us kids?"

276

The town of Hull, Massachusetts sticks out into the North Atlantic Ocean just south of Boston. It's a sort of mini-Cape Cod, forming the southern entrance to Boston Harbor. The town is a seven mile long peninsula formed over the eons by ocean currents and the mighty storms that have wrecked many a ship on Hull's long beaches.

Since you're reading this on the Internet, take a minute to look up Hull on your map browser. Search for 276 Nantasket Road, then drop down to street view. There's the house my parents, Joe and Mary, bought in 1967. Turn around to see the view that sold them on the place. My mother loved the glassed-in front porch overlooking the water. My father saw a place to moor his boat. 

I was starting my senior year of college in Boston in 1967. I had been wanting to get an apartment near school with friends for years, but my parents said I should save money by living at home and riding the bus to school. Now that they were moving down to the South Shore, an apartment became necessary, so I didn't move into the new house. My brothers Bill, Steve, and Mark were in high school or grade school and Mary-Jo was just going into kindergarten.

Bill graduated from high school the same time I finished college. We both got draft notices and enlisted in the Navy.  During the next four years, we stayed at the new house during our leaves. I shouldn't call the house new. It was built in 1900, and solidly built it was. It had been built for a different era. There was a second floor maid's room in the back. A narrow back stairway led down to the kitchen. There was a double soapstone sink where the maid did the laundry by hand.

Of course the McDonnells never had a maid. My mother did the cooking and a washing machine did the laundry. When I got out of the Navy in  1972, I moved home for my only extended stay in the house. I needed to figure out my next move. Almost immediately I met Teresa and my fate was sealed. I moved to Minnesota the next year and every summer since we have returned to 276 Nantasket Road for at least a week's visit.

Teresa and I had our three boys and, as my siblings added cousins, the fun increased by the year. I hope I'm not flattering myself, but it seemed like our arrival in Hull was an excuse for a week long party. Joe and Mary's house was always the hub of activity. The days involved sailing on my father's boat, or afternoons at the beach, or jaunts up to the city to show the kids points of historical interest.

As the cousins got older, so did my parents. They both lived till age 86. My father wanted to remain at home, and with Hospice and a lot of help from my brothers and sister, he got his wish. My mother lived two more years. The family took turns staying with her in the house, but eventually it made sense for her to move to Mary-Jo's house.

Now it was time to decide what to do with the house. Hull is a beach town. You can do pretty well renting a house by the week during the summer. So that's what they did for seven or so years. They made enough to pay the taxes and do repairs. But being an innkeeper is hard work. and the house was getting older too and needing some serious work.

Finally the decision was made to sell the house. Family members were given the chance to come in and take what they wanted. This was all a two year process. Three dumpsters were involved. Good stuff no one wanted was put on the street with a "free" sign.

The first year the house was on the market, we ran into house flippers. We rejected their offers and eventually took the house off the market for the winter. Things went better this year and we sold the house to a couple who will renovate the place rather than tear it down and build new.

It is absolutely amazing how much stuff our parents accumulated in their fifty-three years there. We had about a month after the sale to empty out of the house. It was a big job and the work was done by Steve, Mark, Mary-Jo and their families. Family members were asked to look over the remaining stuff again and much was taken. More went under the Free sign. And the rest went into a large dumpster.

There was a final celebration for the house on August 1. It would have been a mighty party, but thanks to Covid-19, it was limited to family. Maybe it was better that way. More intimate. And there was still more stuff down in the garage. Every day another corner was cleaned out. I took a small anchor and stashed it at my son's house since I knew it would not get past TSA.

The keys were not turned over till August 10. Almost every night until then we had a mini-celebration. Mary-Jo brought folding chairs from home and we ordered take-out. On Sunday the ninth we had a last get-together. We made a final tour of the rooms, sang one more song, and in the dark, went our separate ways into our future.

Last night. Emptied out. 
(Photo by Maggie McDonnell)

Go East Old Man

This is the fourth in my quartet of road trip posts. The previous three took place in the 1960s and 70s. The fourth just happened, which proves I’m still up for adventure and also that I have not learned from experience. 

My friend Alex had a 1994 Ford Ranger, a dandy little pickup with a topper. When he and his wife Nancy moved to a condo, he said he would not be needing the truck and asked if I wanted it. I didn’t really need another truck, but knew our son Joe out in Massachusetts could use it. 

Joe’s brothers Matt and Ned also live in Massachusetts and we figured we could load the back of the truck with all the stuff the boys have left behind at our place and let them deal with it. 

On July 25, we loaded all these treasures into our car and drove to Alex’s place in Apple Valley south of the Twin Cities. Upon arrival, the first thing we did was transfer all the stuff into the back of the truck. The locks for the topper did not work so Alex and I went out and bought some chain and a lock so we could secure the back. 

The Ranger is twenty-six years old. It has 144,000 miles on it and it’s 1,400 miles from Apple Valley to Marshfield, Mass. where Joe lives. But I knew Alex had taken excellent care of the Ranger and always had it in the garage, so I was confident it could make the trip. 

The last few times Teresa and I have driven to Boston, we’ve set the phone maps to avoid tolls and Interstates and we let the phone guide us along a network of back roads. It takes an extra day or two, but the trip is much more relaxing and interesting. 

So on Sunday morning Alex put our car in the garage where the Ranger had been and we said goodbye. We headed south into Iowa. The plan was to drive through Dubuque and cross the Mississippi into Illinois which would get us far enough south to avoid Chicago 

The temperature began to rise and we were glad we had gotten the air conditioning fixed. As we got closer to the river the country got hilly. Then twenty miles north of Dubuque, trouble struck. 

I noticed blue smoke coming out the back. I pulled over and saw the smoke was coming from oil dripping from the engine onto the exhaust pipe. I checked the engine oil. It was fine and the gauge showed good pressure so I decided to try to get to Dubuque and get the truck checked out. 

I didn’t get too far before the transmission started acting up. So it was transmission fluid that was leaking out. We weren’t going to make Dubuque like this. I remembered passing a gas station and I just managed to get turned around and back to the station. If I could get some transmission fluid, I could make it to Dubuque. 

But thanks to Covid-19, the station was “Closed Sundays.” It looked like the owner lived behind the station. I knocked but no one was home. There was a cell number for emergencies, but that went to voicemail. Time to call AAA. 

AAA was experiencing longer than average wait times for a representative. Fortunately there was an awning over the pumps, but now the flies found us. The gas station was in the middle of nowhere and only circling vultures could have intensified our feeling of desolation. 

After 30 minutes we got hold of a representative. They always ask if you’re in a safe place. Physically, yes. I told the rep I did not need a tow, just a few quarts of transmission fluid and a funnel. After an extended period on hold, the rep told me Pam would bring me some fluid as soon as she found the keys to her husband’s truck. The husband was an AAA associate but he was up in Michigan. As soon as she found the keys she’d bring the fluid. 

After another wait, Pam roared up with seven quarts of fluid and the all important funnel. I put in three quarts which seemed to fill the transmission. Did I want the other four quarts?  Yes I did. Pam threw in the funnel. 

The truck was now shifting fine but we kept our speed down. We were past the biggest hills. We stopped after a few miles to check and the leak had stopped. We reserved a room downtown figuring that’s where the repair shops would be. I was hoping the leak was in one of the external lines which would be an easy fix. 

Monday morning I started calling transmission shops, but none could see us for several days. One suggested a tire place which also did light repairs out by the mall. I got an appointment for one pm and drove up the hills to the edge of town with the transmission working fine. 

It didn’t take long for the shop to give us the bad news. The leak was from the front seal which would not be an easy fix. He suggested we call another transmission shop about a mile away. I called that place and the guy said they were very busy, but if we came the next morning he could take a look sometime during the day. 

You may be wondering why we were traveling at all during this time of pandemic restrictions. For one thing, my parents house in Massachusetts had been on the market for a year and had finally sold. My siblings had been cleaning the house out and there would be a final gathering of the family to say goodbye to the old place of so many good memories. Also, we hadn’t seen our three kids and four grandchildren in over a year. With this truck breakdown I felt like fate was telling us to go home. 

But we had too much momentum to go home. We found a motel in the area and began working on options. The guy in the tire shop said the transmission could lock up at any time. I looked up costs for transmission repair or replacement. It was a lot. Should we junk the truck and continue our trip in a rental?

We arrived at Precision Transmission at nine the next morning. Luke the owner was an affable chap who confirmed that our truck, even though it was a very nice truck, was not worth a transmission repair. He felt sorry for us and said we could leave the truck on his lot for as long as we liked while we decided what we wanted to do. He’d ask around if anyone was interested in a ‘94 Ranger. 

Luke told us the fluid had leaked out because it had gotten overheated. He said a possible solution was to drain the fluid and replace it with synthetic oil which can take more heat, but there was no guarantee everything would be fine. I called a car rental place and reserved a small SUV to continue our trip. I asked Luke if the truck would make it to the rental place and back. He said yes, just put it in Drive and not Overdrive. 

Hmmm. I hadn’t noticed there was a specific overdrive setting. Twenty-six years ago Ford put an Overdrive setting right next to Neutral. One more click over was regular Drive. So on that hot Sunday, going up and down those steep hills, I had forced the truck to stay in Overdrive which naturally caused the oil to overheat. Ford quit making that Overdrive option because people like me kept wrecking their transmissions. 

This overheating scenario gradually revealed itself to me as we drove our rental loaded with the boy’s treasures out to Massachusetts. We arrived safely on Thursday and made it to the house’s farewell party on Saturday. Everyone wore masks and kept their distance, mostly. 

We talked to Luke and asked him to change out the transmission fluid. We’ll be flying to Minneapolis on August 10. We’ll drive home and sometime later Steve Reynolds and I will take a little trip down to Dubuque to retrieve the truck. It will be good to see the fine people of Iowa again. 

The Happy Warrior

Hitchhike, Baby

Last week I wrote about my successful hitchhiking trip from California to Boston. When you do a brilliant thing, put it on the shelf and dust it off from time to time. Don't try to replicate it as I did when I finished my course in Vietnamese at the Army's language school in Monterey.

My classmates and I had orders to Goodfellow Air Force Base in San Angelo, Texas. We would spend three months there basically learning how to tune a radio. Our Top Secret clearances would be finalized and we'd be sworn to secrecy, so I'll say no more about that, other than that we were very low level spies. Saigon Sally never attempted to wheedle secrets out of me.

Some of my classmates planned to go home before reporting to San Angelo. I had friends in Austin so I decided to visit them and would go home to Boston after my three months in Texas. I also decided to hitchhike to San Angelo. Bad move. My route would take me through Berlin during the last days of WWII.

They say your dreams can be affected by what you've been doing before you go to bed. During my last days in Monterey. I had been reading The Last Battle by Cornelius Ryan. The book paints a horrific picture of Berlin before the Russians arrived. The Germans put up a good fight, but food and supplies were running short. It was a total disaster for the losing side.

And then there was Sawicki's ghost. Sawicki was this guy from Chicago who was always laughing and joking. Everyone knew Sawicki even though he finished his Vietnamese course a few months before us. He showed up one day in the barracks looking haggard and drawn. "Enjoy your time in Monterey," he said, "because San Angelo is horrible, horrible." Then he melted away.

We finished at Monterey in October, 1969. I was able to catch a ride south with a classmate. Once we left the San Joaquin Valley, I noticed how parched the land was. I saw signs to Death Valley and the Mojave Desert. At about 10 p.m., my classmate and his wife dropped me at Needles, California on the Arizona border. They were headed to a motel.

Ten p.m. is not a good time to be looking for a ride, but soon a beat up looking Jaguar XKE stopped. The driver (I'll call him Jeff) was heading to Springfield, Missouri. "The crossroads of America," he called it. Springfield was his home. He had been living in LA for a while and was sick of it. He said he was sleepy and asked if I would drive.

I was not too good on a stick shift at the time having mostly traveled on Boston's excellent transit system, but I did manage to get us up to speed and Jeff fell asleep. I saw nothing of Arizona, but fell in love with New Mexico when the sun came up over the desert. I saw little Navaho kids running for the school bus in Gallup. I found that highly exotic.

Jeff was fairly taciturn, but he did tell me an XKE was not a good venue for love making. We were in the Texas panhandle by mid afternoon. Jeff suggested I get off in Amarillo and angle down to Austin. That sounded like good advice, but the first guy who stopped was headed east to Oklahoma. It would be a little out of my way, but if I got out in Lawton, Oklahoma I could head down to Ft. Worth and on to Austin. With night approaching, it's always good to be on the move.

It was night when I got dropped at an interchange outside Lawton. Traffic was light and soon it was non-existent. I forgot to mention I was travelling with a heavy duffle bag which contained all my belongings, except for my books which I had mailed home. There was no point in walking anywhere. There were no businesses or homes in sight. just rolling plains, though I could see Lawton's glow in the distance.

I found a soft spot in the ditch and cuddled up with my duffle bag. I was making up for lost sleep when I was suddenly awake. A feeling of oppression overcame me. I thought I was a German soldier somehow cut off from my unit. There were lights in the distance and I started walking towards them. I truly believed I was on the outskirts of war-torn Berlin in 1945.

After a few or many minutes my trance lifted. I was greatly relived to find myself on the outskirts of...where was I? Oh yeah, Lawton, Oklahoma. But where was my duffel bag? I retraced my steps, and now began to see what a tangle of curving interchanges I had gone to sleep in. I walked and walked trying to find where I had gone to sleep. A car passed now and then. Had someone picked up my abandoned bag? It had my orders in it along with all my records. I wasn't supposed to lose those documents.

I spent hours wandering those interchanges. When it got light I looked some more, then caught a ride into Lawton. I found the bus station and bought some breakfast and a ticket to San Angelo. My hitchhiking days were over. I also called the police department and reported my missing bag. "How did you lose it again?" The truth was my only option, though I left out the Berlin part. I postponed my trip to Austin. I needed to get to the base and set my affairs in order.

It was a sunny day but a dreary ride to San Angelo. I walked the two miles out to the base. I did not attempt to hitch a ride. I still had my military ID card and was able to get onto the base and start telling my sad story. Maybe they'd kick me out of the service. I'd be ok with that. Maybe they'd send me right into battle in Viet Nam. I'd dreamed of that.

They did give me a bunk and some old uniforms that fit fairly well. I'm sure there was a discussion among the officer class whether to grant me the Top Secret clearance. But they had invested a year in my training and so decided to take a chance on me. My classmates started drifting in and it was good to have an audience for my yarn.

One of my classmates found a 1957 Ford sedan for $75 and asked if I'd like to share the cost with him. This was a good chance to retire my thumb. When our three months training was over my classmate said I could have the car if I wanted it. I thought about driving it to Boston, but I had no mechanical skills at the time and kept picturing the thing breaking down in the middle of nowhere. Or on the outskirts of Berlin. So we sold the car to a member of an incoming class.

I've often wondered what became of my bag. There are some people who on finding a duffel bag in a ditch would make an effort to find the owner. My bag did not fall into the hands of such a person. There wasn't much of value in it. Just some clothes and the paper records of a 22 year old wayfarer. Anything can be replaced. Anything but lost memories, so I'm lucky that way.

Berlin, Oklahoma

Hitchhike

Did I ever tell you about the time I hitchhiked across the country? It was in July of '69.  I was out in California studying Vietnamese at the Army's Defense Language Institute in Monterey. It was a nine month course and the whole place shut down for two weeks in July. You could hang around the barracks if you wanted, but most people went home.

You could fly pretty cheaply on standby, but I got the idea to hitchhike to my parent's home in Hull south of Boston. My classmates thought I was crazy and I asked them not to mention my plan to the authorities who would have frowned on my venture.

After class on Friday I picked up my army-brown laundry bag and a small cardboard sign that read "Boston." Drivers waved and smiled as they read my sign. I wanted to tell them I'd accept any ride no matter how short. Finally someone stopped and took me a few miles down the road.

It took a half dozen short rides to get up to the east side of San Francisco. These were hippie days and lots of hitchhiking was going on. I fell in with a couple of guys about my age and we shared a ride in a van. It was getting dark now and we were standing on a freeway on-ramp in the middle of nowhere. No one was going to pick up three yahoos in the dark.

One of my new friends pointed to a giant spruce tree in the distance and suggested we camp there. The branches of the tree reached the ground forming a perfect tent. I stretched out on the soft needles and went to sleep. I realized later that this was probably the most foolish thing I did on the whole trip.

I awoke the next morning with my throat unslit, but it looked like my bag had been gone through. Perhaps they were looking for something to eat. Back at the on ramp, I suggested we split up and walked further up the ramp and soon had a ride.

By early afternoon I was enjoying the beautiful Sierra Nevada Mountains skirting Lake Tahoe. I began to realize you had to see a place before its name had any meaning. Later, standing just west of Reno, an old farm truck picked me up. He was going to Austin. In this old thing? No Austin, Nevada, just down the way. He took me through downtown Reno, which struck me as a small town. I drove through there a couple of years ago. It's a gleaming metropolis now.

An old Idaho potato farmer picked me up in his plush Cadillac. He told me something I always remembered. If you've been driving your vehicle at high speed for a lengthy time like he was doing, you should let it idle a bit before shutting it off. Give the engine a chance to resume its original shape.

He dropped me off in the Nevada mountains by a crossroads bar. He bid me adieu and popped into the bar for a drink before heading north to Idaho. It was pitch dark by now and traffic was light. I began to look around for a spruce tree to climb under when a young woman pulled over. No, it's not what you think. Maxine was a high school teacher in Monterey of all places and said she stopped because I reminded her of one of her students. My youthful looks had paid off.

We had an enjoyable chat through the Utah night. Maxine said she liked to drive at night when it was cool and traffic was light. All I saw of Utah was some knobby eastern hills as the sun came up. Just into Wyoming, Maxine let me off. She was going to a motel off in the distance. She had told me she was a member of the Sierra Club and said I should join in on one of their hikes when I got back to Monterey. She gave me her number, but, fool that I am, I never followed up.

Traffic was light in Wyoming that morning. Maybe I'd be there in the evening when Maxine hit the road again. Then Denny pulled over in his big wagon. He was heading for Detroit. Alright! Could I help with the driving? Certainly. Denny had just moved his family to California and was driving back to Detroit to get another load of their stuff. He showed me the stack of postcards on the dash that his wife had made up. He was supposed to put one in the mail every day to let her know he was ok.

Maxine had been a listener. Denny was a talker. He told me he used to hitchhike a lot in his younger days. He said he had once accidentally ended up in Minnesota. It was winter and he could not catch a ride. He was so cold he pulled an old tractor tire out of the ditch and managed to set it on fire. Soon the police stopped by. They didn't arrest him, but they let him sleep in the jail and got him a bus ticket out of town the next day. I shivered on that hot July day listening to his yarn, little realizing that in a few years I'd be living in the land of ice cold winters.

I was behind the wheel out on the Nebraska prairies when the State Patrol pulled us over. Denny began blubbering that he had just picked me up and didn't know who I was, etc. Thanks for throwing me under the bus, Denny. The officer said he stopped us because I looked too young to be driving. Good grief! Once the officer checked my license and sent us on our way, Denny and I were buddies again.

We stopped at a café in a small town so Denny could fill his thermos. He loved his coffee. He asked the kid at the counter, "What do you folks do for fun around here. Go to the barbershop and watch people get haircuts? Haw haw haw!"
"I'm not with him," I told the kid.

Denny was providing cheap, long range transportation and I appreciated that. He gave me a piece of advice I've remembered. "When you're hitchhiking, don't let the person who picks you up know you have any money." We were somewhere in Iowa around one a.m. when Denny asked me to take over. He was soon asleep and I began to experience the effects of sleeplessness: hallucinations of multicolored small animals running across the road. I pulled over. I knew Denny wanted to keep going so I grabbed his thermos out of the back. Sipping on that got us across the Mississippi into Illinois.

When the coffee ran out, I pulled over. Denny woke up. "Hey, why are you stopping?" We changed places. I started to fall asleep, but not before I heard a strangled gasp. "You drank all the coffee!" I also remember Denny going into a restaurant for more coffee. I doubted he was in the mood to ask what they did for fun in these parts.

Denny dropped me off somewhere in Indiana, still a long way from Boston. I had been making notes on the back of my sign. I had gotten two long rides and a dozen short ones to get where I was. I could really use another long one. And sure enough, a guy going to Worcester, Mass. picked me up. He was a college professor who did not seem to require naps or sleep. He said he just needed someone to chat with to keep him going, and I did my best.

He dropped me off early in the morning by the entrance to the Mass. Pike, fifty miles west of Boston. I was picked up by an elderly banker who was going to work downtown. After he dropped me off, I hopped on the subway for the final few miles. On the subway train I met Vinnie Natale, our old next-door neighbor when we used to live in the city. I showed him my sign and told him about my adventure. He was gobsmacked.

Everyone was gobsmacked. I was a mini-celebrity, though I refused to take my story on the road.

The body craves home, the soul, the open road.

Tie a Yellow Ribbon

A friend (I'll call him W)  asked me to find a suitable gimcrack for him. He tells me he has two holes in the front of his mailbox where the rain comes in. Rather than patch the holes, he wants to hang a gimcrack on the front door of his mailbox. He called what he's looking for an objet d'art which is French for gimcrack.

Some describe a gimcrack as a cheap and showy object; a knickknack. Others call it a gewgaw, a trinket, a trifle. I see it as an ornament, and the right ornament in the right setting: that would be Mailbox Beautiful.

My friend W knows that Teresa and I are collectors of beautiful ornaments. We are willing to pay for beauty but prefer to find it cheap in a thrift store. We used to haunt garage and rummage sales, but that was inefficient. A thrift store is a condensation of a thousand garage sales, with most of the trash filtered out. The worst thing about garage sales is that I would see something interesting there and it would be, "No, that's my husband's M-16 from 'Nam. It's not for sale.”

 When I got W's request, I took a brief survey of my home museum and found one item that might have worked, but I didn't have time to thoroughly check my archives. We were packing for our first out-of-town trip since the lockdown began in March. We would be spending a couple of nights at our son's cabin in Lindström, an hour northeast of the Twin Cities. We had our masks and we know how to social distance.

The trip would be a chance to get away from home for a bit without tempting fate. It would also be a chance to look for gimcracks. While in Lindström, I planned to run across the river to St. Croix Falls, Wisconsin, home of Vintage 136. If you've seen one antique mall you've seen them all, but what's special about Vintage 136 is Karen Nelson's display of note cards.

I send a lot of notes in a year. If you give me anything or do me a favor no matter how small, you'll get a thank you note from me. What struck me about Karen's cards was their uniqueness. They appear to be illustrated with pictures taken from children's books. There's lots of Sesame Street, Winnie the Pooh, Lewis Carrol, lots of gnomes, nature drawings, b&w photos of iconic musicians and movie stars. Nothing modern, though this time there was a drawing of a "Social Distance Hero," a backpacker heading for the hills, flashing the V sign.

I figured that when I finished picking out my new selection of note cards, I could check out the antique mall for a gimcrack for W's mailbox. Matt and his wife Heather and their two boys had lived in Lindström a few years ago. When we would come down to visit, we'd often hit some of the wineries in the surrounding area. The St. Croix Valley is beautiful. So on Sunday, Teresa and I visited Wild Mountain, a funky winery a few miles north of the cabin.

After Wild Mountain we planned to visit Dancing Dragonfly a more elegant winery near St. Croix Falls. How does a funky winery differ from an elegant one? A funky winery fills your glass to just under the brim while an elegant one quits at just under the half-way point in their admittedly larger glass. The plan was to stop at Vintage 136 between the wineries.

I was delighted to see that Karen had a whole new selection of cards. They cost between $1.00-$2.50. I gave myself a $50 limit so it took awhile to sift through the cards, each in it's own plastic sleeve. I especially like that there's no logo on the back, so I can add one more amusing comment.

I was about to start on the gimcrack hunt when I noticed Teresa sitting on a bench out front. There was no AC in the building and it was a humid day, so I checked out and we headed to the winery. The next morning we started for home. Family Thrift sits on the corner as you leave Lindström. We pulled in. Family Thrift is well organized with a dedicated Objet d'Art section. It didn't take me long to find a likely candidate.

For the price of a notecard, I purchased a small horseshoe from St. Croix Forge. It had been painted yellow and had been twisted into a ribbon shape. The yellow ribbon was originally created for awareness of our troops back in the Vietnam era, but it's meaning has been extended to POW/MIA, suicide prevention and several types of cancer. It also signifies a welcome to refugees. I knew that would appeal to W.

But if W doesn't want it, that's fine. I'll keep looking. It's what I do. The horseshoe will go in my private collection  where it will remind me of my dear mother. Once many years ago when I was home on leave from the Navy, my mother handed me a Reader's Digest. She wanted me to read a short story in the "Life in These United States" section. The writer of the story was riding a bus when it stopped at a prison gate. A newly-released prisoner sat next to the writer and they struck up a conversation. He was going home after several years in prison. His wife had remained faithful, but he wasn't sure what kind of reception he'd get after his long absence. The writer was a little anxious for his new acquaintance, but as the bus turned onto his street, they could see that every tree in his yard was covered in yellow ribbons. That's the kind of story my mother liked.

Wt. 11 oz. Ht. 5" W. 4"

The Gull

Old Fort Standish

                         

My heart sank when I came over the hill and saw that the mast of my little sailboat was at a funny angle. It should have been upright and bobbing gently up and down. After all, I had anchored it out in deeper water before I went exploring the underground corridors of old Fort Standish on Lovell Island in Boston's Outer Harbor.

Unfortunately I hadn't anchored it out far enough, or I had spent to much time in the fort and the tide had gone out under my 16' boat. If this had been a weekday, I just would have had to wait two or three hours for the tide to return. The Gull was made of wood and was much too heavy for me to move by myself. But it was a Sunday and there were other day trippers to the island. A couple of guys helped me haul the boat into the water. I paddled out from shore, fitted the rudder in place, dropped the centerboard, raised the sails and was on my way to the next adventure.

The Gull, had  belonged to my older cousin Jim. Jim took me sailing and taught me the rudiments. When he finished college and went off to work and marriage, he gave the boat to my brothers and me. I was 13 at the time. The Gull needed a couple of new planks for her hull, and my father was able to do that. He tried to interest me in the work, but I was hopeless, so he gave me the job of stripping and varnishing the wooden mast and boom.

My father was pilot on one of the Boston Fire Department's two fireboats. He hauled the Gull to the wharf between the fireboats, and was able to work on the Gull between fires, of which there were few. In late spring we launched the Gull behind the fireboat. After a few cruises around the inner harbor, Jim, my brother Bill, and I sailed the Gull  10 miles southeast to its permanent mooring in the town of Hull where my grandparents had a summer cottage.

For the first couple of years, my father set limits on how far from home I could sail. My brothers were either too young, or not as much interested in sailing as I was, so I went alone or with a friend, Donny Spring. There were lots of islands to explore or camp on. Way back, the Indians used the islands for fishing. Then the colonists took them over for farming.  Some had military forts on them. In my day, they were abandoned and open for exploration. Nowadays, the islands have been cleaned up and are part of the park system.

When I got a little older, my father extended my range. But you had to use common sense if you expected to be home for supper. You had to be aware of tide times, because the Gull's mooring was up the Weir, a tidal river. The river narrowed at one point and a strong current ran there. Sometimes there was not enough wind to get through the narrows and a kindly motorboat might pull you through. If there was no motorboat, you walked the boat along the shore till you got to a wider place in the river.

I'm a bit of a flibbertigibbet, so the Gull was an excellent grounding for me, though, looking back, I'm surprised I survived. My father made sure I could swim 100 yards, but we didn't wear life jackets. If you fell overboard, your companion would sail back for you. If you were alone, the boat would come up into the wind and you'd swim over to it. In my years of sailing, I went overboard on purpose many times, but never by accident.

It was the islands where the true danger lay. Spectacle Island had the ruins of Boston's horse rendering factory. It was a five story skeleton of rust, a jungle gym which disintegrated as you climbed it. Silly. A friend and I were exploring the third floor of an old barracks on Long Island when my friend went through the floor to his waist. Crazy. One day while sailing alone, a piratical looking old guy in a small motorboat paralleled me for a few minutes before veering off. Disturbing.

I'll close with a more pleasant memory. One day my brother Mark and I sailed to Spectacle Island. I loved to cook on islands. Nothing fancy. Some bread and butter and a can of tomato soup heated on a small fire under one of my mother's kettles. We took our supplies to the top of the island's wooded hill. The other hill was a smoldering garbage dump for the city. At the top of the hill was a two story concrete observation tower. The wooden stairs had rotted away, but you could climb up on the outside. I started a fire with twigs on the concrete floor and put the soup on.

Out the narrow window openings there was a great view of Boston Harbor and the islands beyond. There was also a view of the tide going out under the Gull far below us. I told Mark to keep an eye on the soup and made the five minute run down to the boat. I reset the anchor and returned to the kitchen in time for a lovely lunch. Thank you Mark.

School of Consequences

How I Got My Knife

I lusted after my landlord's machete, or bolo knife, as machetes are called in the Philippines. There was always a bolo lying about to cut one's way through the lush undergrowth, or open a coconut, or butcher a goat. I loved the long sinuous curve of the blade and the feel of the handle carved from the black horn of a water buffalo. It was a knife with heft, with gravitas. A weapon to warn off pesky salesmen.

I was told a Filipino bolo would never rust because it was made from iron mined near the surface. But I could not find a bolo knife in the local stores. My landlord Adring said I would have to wait till the feast day of St. Anthony to buy a bolo knife. What? The nearest town was named San Antonio. They held their annual festival on St. Anthony's feast day, when itinerant merchants would make their way to San Antonio. That wouldn't happen for a few months, but Adring said I could borrow his. He also promised to go to the festival with me to make sure I got a good price.

I was living in the Philippines in the early seventies, not by choice, but at the behest of my commander-in-chief, Richard Nixon. I worked at a little Navy communications station facing the South China Sea, trying to get dirt on the North Vietnamese. That's all I’ll say about that. It was all very hush-hush. I worked a rotating schedule of two days, two evenings, and two nights with three days off. As a lowly enlisted man, my home was a bunk on the third floor of a large barracks. Tall palm trees waved outside my louvered windows.

Living on a U.S. base in a developing country was like living in a minimum security prison. It wasn't bad, but snce we were free to come and go, some friends and I rented the upstairs of a house out in the barrio. That's how I got a landlord. Adring was great. In fact the Philippine people as a whole are the friendliest, most cheerful group I've ever met. Parents never used physical discipline on their children. Someone told me that when a child misbehaved, he or she was shamed by his or her elders until he or she straightened up. It seemed to work well. Everyone was happy. But the newspapers carried daily stories of murder and mayhem. It was a country of  few rich and many poor, always a recipe for violence.

Back to my bolo knife. My time in the Philippines was coming to an end, but I still didn't have my own knife. The war was going so well that the president said I could go home six months early. Some friends organized a farewell party down on the beach not far from our house. There were open bamboo shelters where the food was set and where people lounged after a dip in the warm sea. There was a goodly mix of Americans and Filipinos, several of whom I had never met before. The food was good, the beer was flowing. One contingent was passing around a marijuana cigarette. Suddenly a young Filipina women was screaming that her wallet was missing. She said she had left it on the bench and now it was gone. Everyone started looking around the shelter and under the benches.

After a bit, one of the Filipino guys said he had to go. As he waved goodby, his jacket fell open and the girl's wallet fell out. As she gathered it up, she said "Mahiya," the Filipino word for shame. The alleged thief tried to explain that he must have picked it up accidentally. No one believed him. He stood there abashed, ashamed. Suddenly he snapped and picked up the ever-present bolo knife and began swinging it wildly. There's not a lot you can do when someone's wildly swinging a bolo knife in your face. But one brave soul caught him from behind, and wrestled the knife away. The thief ran off into the jungle.

That put a damper on my party. Everyone was upset. We gathered up our things and walked back to the house. I felt a bit dispirited by the abrupt end of my party and by seeing a bolo knife pass before my eyes. Darkness falls quickly in the tropics and I decided to go to bed early. As I dozed off, I heard a big crash, followed by yelling and the sound of running feet, in that order. Adring came to our door. "That was______." I forget the name of the thief. I had never met him before.
"He's acting crazy. The men are looking for him. Everyone is angry. Lock your door."

Were they angry at us? I knew there was an undercurrent of resentment against the American influence in the Philippines, something else I learned from the papers. Even though we were a cash cow, some disliked how we appropriated their land for our bases and took many of their women back to America as wives. There was more running and shouting in the street. I imagined bolo knives hacking through our flimsy door. It would make a good story for the newspapers.

But soon things settled down and the only sounds the rest of the night was the occasional dog bark or rooster crow. I learned later that the thief made his apologies and was forgiven. As for my bolo knife, I got it; three in fact. One I gave to my brother. To prevent the knife cutting our relationship, he gave me a British penny for it. The second, our kids left out in the woods one day. I have a rough idea where it is. It may turn up yet, rust free.The third is pictured below. I use it mostly for splitting kindling and for running off pesky salesmen, though I must admit, it was a salesman who brought it to me on St. Anthony's Day, 1972.

Sell crazy someplace else. We're all stocked up here.