Without Issues

Another run to Jackman to transfer lobsters to a Canadian truck." Dooda" showed up on time and we loaded the truck without issues. He only speaks French so there was no small talk. Plenty of truck traffic on US Route 201, long logs, finished lumber, box trucks and pickups, all with guns hanging in the back window. Moose season opened last week and judging from the many moose warning signs there must be plenty up here in the willy wags.


The two lane road from Skowhegan through Solon, Bingham and Moscow twists and turns along the Kennebec and Dead Rivers. No sunsets this trip. Gray clouds and light rain. The forests on both sides of the highway doing their best to reclaim the ugly strip of black asphalt.


I drove past the Northland Hotel, shaped like a barn, no windows. Not very enticing. And then I came to the Jackman Motel. Now these folks know how to attract the customers! Stay with us and get stuffed! LOL!

Jeff sings "Georgia"

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z1Ns6hpPPR0

Of all the colorful characters on Custom House Wharf, Jeff is among the most prismatic. He is sort of the elder statesman of the dock, his wisdom and experience often sought out especially around issues of sailboats, rigging, music and the day to day events that unfold up and down the wharf. He lives in a comfortable, temporary shanty erected on the dock as he completes repairs on his older wooden hulled sailboat.


Jeff can usually be found engaged in thoughtful conversation, maneuvering his bicycle around the potholes, puttering on his old Volvo or, of course, sailboat...or playing his music. His music is his passion and you can hear it in his voice, see it in the way the rhythm flows through him as he plays. He loves it.

Jeff has sailed his boat down the Atlantic coast (He's a "blue water" sailor.) more than once on his way to the Caribbean or the Florida Keys for the winter, has moored along Saint Simons Island in Georgia, knows where we are headed next month. And so, as our time in Maine draws to an end, he practiced this song, agreed to let me video it and post it on our blog.


Thanks Jeff. Much appreciated. Fair winds buddy.

I knew there were going to be issues...

It started out as a typical Friday... 6 AM run to Georgetown followed by a trip to Harpswell. It was 3:00 when Craig called. "Hey, do you want to drive to Canada today?" ... "Ok, cousin. Whatever you need. I'll be back on the wharf in 15 minutes." "OK", he said, "I'll explain it when you get here. It's complicated."

If you look up the word tenacious in the dictionary, there's a picture of Craig. He never gives up, pounds his head against the wall and usually cracks the wall. So when he said "complicated" I knew this was head banging time.

When I walked in the bait shack office, Pete was talking to Tom, the other driver, about my assignment and he stopped short. "I can't talk to you about this. Craig needs to tell you", he laughed.

Craig walked in soaked from the chest down having just completed packing the 35 crates of lobsters for Canada. He sat down and said "OK, here's the deal. I've got an order from Canada for these hard shells. Good margins. Better net from this one run than from the entire rest of the week. Here's where it gets complicated. I don't have the necessary bar codes to get the truck across the border into Canada and the Canadian truck drivers don't have passports to get into the US. You're the only one who has a current US Passport, no criminal record and a CDL. You need to drive 4 hours to the border, park the truck on the US side, walk across the Canadian Customs, pick up the truck and the bar code from the Canadian driver, drive back through US Customs, hand transfer the 2 tons of lobsters , drive back through Canadian Customs, deliver the truck and walk back across US Customs. I don't know where you can do the transfer. That might be an issue..."

I said, "OK, sounds like a plan. Let's do it." At that point people began flying around, cleaning the bait juice and guts out of the truck, loading the crates, preparing the invoices. I called Connie and asked her to meet me at a truck stop in Yarmouth with my passport. As the last crates were loaded on the truck, the refrigeration unit failed. Small, but critical glitch. New plan. We would have to ice the crates down so the lobsters would survive the trip, so we drove to the Fish Exchange and Craig pumped 3 tons of crushed ice on top of the crates.

I hit the road and met Connie for the Passport transfer. She had brought the entire important papers folio, so I took the whole thing. Perhaps if I hadn't just driven for 9 hours I would have thought better of that decision. At this point I'm just thinking about the mission at hand.

I drove up I-95 to Fairfield and picked up US 201 to Jackman. Once I got above Solon the scenery was awesome, but the road was so twisting and turning, long hills to climb and steep downgrades that I didn't have an opportunity to really enjoy it. Still, I knew I was in God's country. Felt good. Every couple miles there were big yellow signs warning of moose crossings. Hmmm...

I slowly approached the border crossing just as the sun slipped behind the mountains and followed the signs into the US Customs visitor's parking lot. The facility was huge, complete with bright lighting, electronic scanning technology, processing facilities, they even had a couple large windmills. I locked up the truck, looked around for a few minutes. Everyone seemed cool so I walked across the complex, past the line of traffic waiting to get into Canada and presented my passport to the border cross agent. He was puzzled where I was going and why I was on foot. I explained I had to pick up a truck. He allowed me into the country.

It was all going like clockwork. The Canadian drivers pulled up to the curb and gave me the bar code. I headed back to US Customs with their truck and they waited on the Canadian side for me to return with the load.

The US Border Agent took my paperwork and asked what was in the truck and I explained it was empty, that I was going to transfer my load from my truck. "He pointed his finger at me and said "That's YOUR truck in the parking lot?" I nodded. He closed the window and got on the radio. 30 seconds later there were four large Border Agents standing around my truck with their holsters unclipped and their hands resting on their Glocks. I attempted to explain to the irate agent. He told me to shut up. "Think about this" he said in an icy voice, "A locked, unattended truck parked at our facility and no one has any idea what's going on." Immediately Oklahoma City flashed through my mind. I apologized profusely.

They talked for 10 minutes and then laid out the drill. I would park the Canadian truck and accompany the biggest agent into the building where I sat in a detention area while he checked my paperwork. As we walked to the building he asked, "Do you have any money on you or in the truck?" "$30 bucks" I said. He said "Well, I ask because we know the seafood industry is largely a cash business and it's against the law to take over $10,000 across the border. " I said, "Yeah, I wish I had that kind of cash."

He checked me out in the computer and instructed me to accompany him to my truck. I was to stand in front of the truck as he search the cab. It took him 20 minutes and I enjoyed watching the last dim light fading in the sky and the blades of the windmills gliding silently on the mountaintop. Finally he seemed satisfied, had me open the engine compartment and then the box. When he climbed out of the box he walked up to me, got close in my face and said "Why are you carrying all you personal documents in the truck", watching my reactions carefully. "Oh, my wife gave me the whole packet when she brought me my passport" I answered. "When were you last in Iraq" he asked. "What? Never..." I answered stunned at the question. "Why do you have $650,000 Iraqi dinar in your possession?" The thought flashed through my mind "Oh, my God... I'm going to jail." Slowly I explained. My cousin was in Iraq. He bought me $500 US dollars of Iraqi dinar hoping the currency would appreciate. You know currency speculation? He put me back in detention, metal bench bolted to the wall.

20 minutes later he came back, had me back the truck over near the other vehicle while he and 3 other agents strip searched the Canadian truck. At this point I had a guard with me. The agent said, "Do you know the Canadian drivers?" "No," I answered," but my cousin does." Do you know that as the driver of that vehicle you will be held responsible for any illicit material we find?" It was going from bad to worse. I saw a light at the end of this long, dark tunnel and it was sounding like a freakin freight train.

Finally the big agent called over to me. "OK, you can transfer your load." I fist pumped the air and climbed into the back of the truck... to find that the crushed ice had melted and refrozen forming a glacier over the crates. It took me 40 minutes of back breaking labor to free the crates and transfer the 2 tons of lobster, slipping and sliding on the ice, heaving the 100 pound crates, unstacking and re-stacking. I was drenched in sweat when I finished and the 4 agents approached me. "You are free to drive back across the border. Sorry for your inconvenience." said the captain. I noticed that their guns had been reclipped.

I apologized for the 20th time and thanked them for the work they did protecting our country, got in the truck and drove to Canadian Customs. They looked at my documents and instructed me to pull into a lighted area, turn off the truck and stay in the vehicle. Again 4 armed agents surrounded my truck and with a French accent I was told to step out of the vehicle. The 2 Canadian drivers walked over and the conversation turned into French. Finally, after they had reviewed my documents and searched the truck, they released the drivers and instructed me to walk back to their complex. As I was walking back across the security complex, one agent walked in front, one on either side of me and one behind me. It was a surreal feeling and I had no idea what would come next. They stopped at a gate, turned to me and said "You are free to leave the country."

I felt a huge wave of relief as I walked the 100 yards down the deserted gauntlet of electronic and radioactive sensing devices in the stark neon lights back to US Customs. Dressed in duct taped pants and rubber boots, stinking of sweat and fish, I presented my passport for the 4th time and stood for 10 minutes as the new guard got up to speed on who I was and what had gone down over the last 3 hours. Finally he passed my documents back to me and said "Have a good evening. Don't hit a moose on your way down the mountain." I started laughing and didn't stop until I hit Jackman.

I was so jacked up on adrenalin from the events of the evening that I decided to make the 4 hour push back to Portland. My body was humming and my ears were ringing as I climbed in bed with my wife an hour after returning the truck to the wharf. When I got up this morning and recounted the detail to Craig, his comment was "I knew there would be issues... there always are." It was then that I really realized that this was the story of his life. He had driven loads to Canada for 20 years. He knew what I was going into. It's but one of the many, many seemingly insurmountable obstacles that he faces every day. He's my hero.

Tenacious...

Waterville Hospice Healing Garden

Some new pics from our friend Mary Jo of the Garden, green and blooming. Looks great!

"Eric's Cabin"

Lessons in Humility on the Waterfront

Tasty little crustaceans. They drive Maine's waterfront economy every summer. From the herring and poggie fishermen to the bait shop and the tank room to the truckers driving up and down the coast delivering barrels of fish and picking up crates of lobsters, everyone is in high gear making money while to fishing is good.

Custom House Wharf is a throwback to earlier times, an eclectic mix of fish shops, waterfront restaurants, canvas sail and tote shops and the lobster business. My family has worked this wharf for generations. Great, great grandfather sailed from here. Great Grampa Clarence based his hard hat diving business here. Gramps Davis sold Clams to Boones Restaurant at the head of the wharf. My father ran the oil terminal across the harbor. And now my cousin runs his bait and lobster business on Custom House Wharf. Cousins, nephews, children, spouses, son-in-laws, they all show up to fulfill some function from shoveling fish, to working in the office, to unloading boats and trucks.




My designated role this summer is to drive the big trucks and fill in where needed, but in order to do the job I had to get a commercial drivers license (CDL). I thought "no big deal". Lesson in humility number 1. The process is onerous, a thick manual to digest followed by a written test and a permit. Next driving for weeks with a licensed driver and learning to operate a 52,000 pound GVW, a 10 gear, high/low range non-synchronous transmission, air brakesand suspension, dual axle, 30 foot box, BEAST of a truck. Then three more tests; an off road maneuverability test (back-up, offset drive through, parallel park and truck dock), a pre-trip inspection test and a road test. I visited the DOT testing site and watched 4 people flunk the test. Real confidence builder... I was hesitant to send in my request for the exams until my cousin pushed me to it.

All the trucks on the wharf were working, so I had to rent a rig for a couple days... and practice. I set up the cones and paniced as I repeatedly failed to perform the maneuvers. 12 hours later I was hitting 1 out of 3 times. I was almost out of daylight when I tried a final docking and backed right into the garage door of the business where I had been allowed to practice. Crunched it hard. Lesson in humility number 2.

Somehow I passed the tests. It was just luck or maybe the helpful woman test instructor or maybe divine intervention. Whateva'. To quote Blanche Dubois from Cat on a Hot Tin Roof," I rely on the kindness of strangers". So I'm feeling pretty cocky now. What a hot shot. Passed the first time. Bragging to people that I had to update my resume; Glen D. Foss; BS, MBA, CDL. Pride goeth before the fall...

My first solo trip was the next day to the Georgetown Fishermens Co-op, a route I had driven several times. Up the wharf and through busy Commercial Street dodging traffic and pedestrians with scarce inches of clearance, north on busy I-295 through miles and miles of road and bridge construction, through Brunswick and Bath with snarls of traffic dripping fish juice from the 40 barrels of bait on pallets in the cargo bay, and down the peninsula over a narrow, winding, hilly road.

I was white knuckled and tense, but doing ok, not grinding too many gears, only stalled out once in the middle of a busy intersection and coming down a hill, fully loaded toward the narrow bridge in the fishing village of Georgetown when an elderly woman pulled out of a driveway in front of me and stopped broadside in my lane. My heart almost exploded in my chest as I locked up the brakes knowing full well I could never stop in time. At the last minute, she pulled out of my path. I laid on the air horn, across the bridges, a 90 degree turn followed by a steep hill. I was in the wrong gear and blew the downshift, had to stop on the hill, set my breaks and start up again in low gear, creeping my way up the hill, fish juice pouring out the back of the truck onto the waiting line of traffic stacked up behind me. Utter humiliation. Things couldn't be worse... except perhaps that I might have killed an old lady on my first trip out. Yeah, what's a little humiliation compared to that.

I breathed a huge sigh of relief when I backed the truck up to the wharf and shut down the engine. And then I opened the cargo door. Lesson in humility number 4. 40 barrels had slid off the pallets, fish and juice everywhere. An hour later sweating, stinking and sore, I finished unloading. Lesson in humility complete... for that day.

Every day I have new lessons presented to me. Criticisms from the crew for wearing my boots wrong ("you tuck your pant legs in... not out"), from my cousin for speaking out of school ("Don't talk about the business. You can't trust anyone"), and yesterday from the tank room crew when I dropped four crates of lobsters off a dolly ("The fishermen are all talking about your yard sale... good one.").

So why am I having such a good time? Don't know. But it feels right. Who ever said that by age 60 we should know it all. Remember the lessons from your younger years? "Failure is sometimes the result of trying to learn new things." "Even the best baseball players only hit the ball 30% of the time" .

Ultimately we are all just "Bozo's on the bus". When ego and status rear their ugly heads, life gets less fun. A healthy dose of humility, though mighty uncomfortable sometimes, isn't a bad thing. Nobody enjoys failure. But, as Helen Keller wrote, "Life is an adventure... or nothing". Adventures in humility...

The sunrises and the scenery are spectacular.



Who has more fun than people...

Priceless

It was a steamy hot day in Portland on Commercial Street. And behind the window in Maggie's on the corner of Custom House Wharf, she was keeping cool with a vanilla cone. Still the melting ice cream dripped down her arm and smeared the glass. Ah, the joys of summertime in Maine...

Sweet

Katie and Elnur's wedding day was such a wonderful time! We awoke at sunrise in the Peter McKernan Center overlooking Spring Point. The old sailors adage "Red sky in the morning, sailors take warning." proved true and the rain came canceling an outside ceremony. No worries. The backup plan worked flawlessly..

Chairs were set, table assignments staged, pictures displayed and flowers arranged with the help of wonderful friends and family (thank you all so much!).



The bride and groom dressed for the party and guests began to arrive. The mother of the bride was stunning in her blue dress!

It was truly an international gala with family and friends attending from Azerbaijan, England, Brazil, Russia, Belarus, New York, Texas, Arizona, New Mexico, Pennsylvania, Washington DC, California, Virginia, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Maryland, North Carolina, Kentucky and, of course, good old Maine.

Weather not withstanding, no plan ever comes off without a few glitches and Murphy's Law prevailed once again as the pastor got stuck on the Portland draw bridge waiting for an oil tanker to pass. We all enjoyed a good laugh and she soon arrived and conducted a simply wonderful ceremony. Thank you Deborah!!

The bride was radiant if I do say so and Elnur was so happy to see his college buddies from Baku.

Then it was time for pictures,toasts and speeches. dinner and dancing. The food was great, especially the crab cakes, spanakopita, lamb kabobs and dessert baklava. And NOBODY can use a dance floor like the Foss clan and Katie and Elnur's crazy friends. They rocked the house!

More pictures to follow. Thanks everyone for being a part of this wonderful day. As Connie says "We Love love!" and the love was overwhelming. A perfect day...

Bittersweet...

David called around noon and Connie answered the phone.

"Have you heard from Jo today?" he asked.

Connie was confused. "David, I understood that Jo had slipped into a coma yesterday. Has she rebounded?"

David said, "No, she slipped away this morning at 4:00AM in her daughters arms. I just thought that since she is now soaring through the Universe she might have contacted you to arrange for the next poetry reading or a dinner party..."

Our tears were tears of gratitude. Tears for the wonderful, beautiful, unique friend who would no longer be sitting on her front deck overlooking East Beach on Saint Simons Island. Tears for the courageous soul who lived life so fully, with so much love. Tears for her friendship and for the amazing friendship that our friend David provided in shepherding her to the Other Side.

Such a gift...

Karma

Busy day getting ready for next weekend with Katie and Elnur. It's going to be fun. Hope the weather cooperates. Looking pretty good.

We were in Waterville shopping for wedding clothes and getting Connie's hair done. We visited 2 Country Way (open house, being sold again... that was kinda wierd), Eric's Cabin and the cemetery, stopped by the vet for the dogs distemper shots and hit the road south... right into 5 miles of construction, single lane beginning in Sidney.

We queued up in the right hand lane, creeping forward as the 2 lane interstate funneled down to a single lane . And, of course, there were the usual drivers who chose to drive passed the long line, to the front of the line, forcing their way in at the last moment. Sometimes I pull out into the open lane and block these inconsiderate drivers. Today I didn't feel like it. But I sensed my animosity for each driver who pulled the stunt. I was near the merge when a van from New York slowed beside me looking for a way into the line. They were a young family and I slowed, making a space in front of me for them to enter. The driver hesitated and then merged into the line. No biggie. Just a little courtesy.

We drove through the construction area slowly and when it ended we resumed our 70 mph trip south. I didn't notice that the NY van was in front of us as we moved through the toll in Gardner. But when we pulled up to the toll booth and offered our dollar the toll taker held up his hands and said "The car in front of you paid your toll."

Nice. What goes around, comes around. Not often. But sometimes. And that is enough...

RIP Waterville Waver... "It's what I do"

A legend passes...

http://gdfoss.blogspot.com/2010/07/waterville-waver.html

Nothing like family...

A birthday gathering at the old Boone's Restaurant on Custom House Wharf for Aunt Connie... great food (lobster, corn on the cob, mussels, strawberry shortcake... awesome), wonderful people, plenty of kids, lots of hugs and laughter.

Thank you, Johnson family! Great to see the Oklahoma crew. Great to see everyone. Hope you enjoy the pictures. (Let me know if you want me to send you a specific jpg sent so you can have it printed.)