German Joe

The Portland waterfront is entirely infused with "characters". They permeate the docks like the smell of fish and diesel fuel permeates the air on Custom House Wharf. Does the place draw these unique people to it? Or do the individuals create the environment? Probably both. No matter... Each person has their own story and with a little patience and the price of a cup of coffee, or a beer, they will often tell you their tale. It was not so with "German Joe", but, over decades of lobstering off the Maine coast, he had revealed himself in bits and pieces, here and there, to this person and that, and the story was collected.

"German Joe" as he is known on the docks, owns one of the finest deep water lobster boat on the Southern Maine coast. Approaching 80, short, stout and balding, demanding and direct, he captains the Mary Lou IV and fishes "outside" in the frigid deep waters of the Gulf of Maine. The vast majority of Maine's 4,000 lobster fishermen fish "inside" along the shoals and islands of the rocky coast. Only the most intrepid and fearless venture into the big waters where no land is visible setting their traps deep, seeking the biggest and best of the hard shelled northern lobster, Homarus americanus. It is tough and dangerous work performed by tough and dangerous men.

He grew up in Germany during WWII. His father served in the German Army on the Russian front. His mother beat him severely. Joe would go to school and get beat by the teacher then go home and get beat by his mother. Every time he opened his mouth he was beaten, so he stopped talking. At one point he didn't utter a word for a year. When he finally opened his mouth to speak, he stuttered. And he stutters today.

When Allied troops overran Germany, his cattle were straffed by fighter bombers. He hid in the attic of his house and peered out the louver vent at the approaching soldiers. Thinking he was a sniper, the troops machine gunned his house and he barely escaped with his life.

After the war, his parents somehow received permission to move to the US and the family entered the country through Ellis Island and resided in New York City. His mother enrolled him in school. Unfortunately for him it was a Jewish school. He woke up every day knowing he would have to fight someone. It was a brutal, violent upbringing.

Joe had happy memories of fishing in the river near his home in Germany and so he set his mind to fish. He dropped out of school and spent his time on the docks of NYC until he gained enough information and a fundamental grasp of English. And then he went to sea.

When German Joe walked into the bait shop, people snapped to. His reputation and terrible temper preceded him and the crew would scamper to stay out of his way. It was the bosses lot to cordially greet him and present the daily offering of poggies, redfish, haddock and skate for his review. He would handle each of the products, dig into the barrels of salted fish, smell them for freshness, determine their firmness and suitability for the long set he required. The boss saved the best to be offered for Joe hoping to avoid his wrath. And once the selection had been made, the most capable of the crew was assigned to load his boat. There were stories of an incident, years before, when his running lights had been damaged by a poorly winched barrel and of the shit storm that had resulted. No one wanted to mess with German Joe.

Joe was uber-paranoid in his craft. He trusted no one. He didn't want any other fisherman to know what bait he purchased, when he planned to ship out or when he returned, where he planned to fish, what his catch was, nothing. Actually, he was not unlike any of the lobster fishermen, but his obsession held a dangerous promise to it. Even his name was uttered only in low whispers by the men who worked the docks. German Joe was a force unto himself.

He had been married to Mary Lou and when she died, he drew further still, if that was possible, into himself. The story was that before each voyage he would visit her grave and sit on the headstone, receiving guidance from the beyond on where to set his traps this trip.

This past summer German Joe was involved in a boating accident. He entered the port between Custom House Wharf and Chandlers Wharf to offload his catch, swung the Mary Lou about to dock starboard and rammed a million dollar sailboat. Reckless inattention? From German Joe? Incomprehensible... But one of the early signs of the passing of a legend.

Just another story, just another character, just another blog.

Georgia Sunset

It was 1,000,000 times more spectacular... just like any photo, just like Life... you had to be there. Glad we are.

Simpson

Michael Rudd Simpson

Michael Rudd Simpson, 37
PORTLAND -- Michael Rudd Simpson, 37, son of Paul and Leigh Builter of Ridgefield, Conn., died on Tuesday, Oct. 26, 2010, in Portland.
Michael loved the sea and attended Massachusetts Maritime Academy before taking various jobs in the maritime industry. He lived in Portland for some 10 years and enjoyed walking the streets and talking to his friends. Michael was also a published author and submitted articles to maritime publications about his adventures at sea.
He grew up in New York and Connecticut. Having attended The Browning School in New York City as a young boy, he went on to graduate from Greenwich Country Day and Greenwich High School in Greenwich, Conn.
He was a loved son, brother and uncle and is survived by his parents; brother Jason, sister Amanda; and niece Ashley. He will be missed dearly.
A memorial visitation will be held on Monday, Nov. 1, 2010, from 6-7 p.m. at Jones, Rich & Hutchins Funeral Home, 199 Woodford St., Portland. A memorial service will follow at the funeral home at 7 p.m. Michael's family invites all his friends to stop by.


I met him on the docks in Portland. He was a big kid, 6'2", thin, yet muscular; muscles built from many years working the waterfront. In truth, he was no kid, in his mid 30s, but he acted younger. Perhaps the decade of heavy drug and alcohol use had stunted his maturity.

He was dressed in dirty orange "skins" and long blue neoprene gloves, the uniform of the bait shop, and he smelled like a bucket of 3 day old herring set in the hot sun. We worked together on the wharf rigging and winching 400 pound barrels of lobster bait down to the boats. He seemed competent, but a little off... squirrelly. It was clearly time for another fix.

One morning as we took our coffee break, we talked. He was from New York and had attended the Massachusetts Maritime College for a time. He didn't elaborate on why he had not finished the program. Heroin probably had something to do with it. Now he lived at the YMCA and worked for Craig when he could. His other job was riding the city garbage truck, tossing trash. He preferred working around boats.

He grew quiet and we sat watching the gray fog run in over the bay mercifully camouflaging all sins, all broken dreams, all regrets. He finished his drink and tossed the cup into the ebbing tide. "I don't like whales," he mumbled more to himself than to anyone else. But I was sitting next to him so I asked, "Why not?"

"They think they're better than everybody else..." he offered.

Some days Simpson showed up. Other days he didn't. No one asked "Where's Mike?" It was just too complicated. Then one morning a police cruiser showed up at the shop. The crew scattered, hid in the coolers, peered around corners and waited for the story to unfold. Someone had broken into the bait shop office upstairs, climbed through the suspended ceiling and stolen some blank checks from the file cabinet; a clumsy, desperate crime. No one wanted to believe it was one of us, but Simpson disappearance and the string of forged checks led to his door. The crew's condemnation was quick and brutal.  Judge, jury and execution, there was no mercy or attempt at understanding his disease. He was out.

Today, 2 years later, I wonder if this final ostracization was his last straw, the straw that broke his final hope, his loss of a final place of belonging.

It was the following summer that news came that Simpson was dead. The story was that he had tied a hangman's noose and walked into a hospital emergency room declaring that he was going to kill himself. They took the noose away and committed him to the locked ward on the 6th floor for observation. Several days later he was released and they gave him back his personal effects... including his rope.

Simpson walked up to the Eastern Promenade, to Fort Allen Park where all the high school kids used to snuggle in back seats on freezing cold January nights, windows fogged with passion and heavy breathing. Watching the submarine races, we used to call it.  And there, overlooking Casco Bay and the ocean he so loved, he hung himself from the limb of a maple tree.

It's been almost two years, Mike. Just didn't want you to think we thought we were better than you. Just luckier.

Remembering you...



November 8, 2010

 Portland Press Herald

Help for the suicidal falls short, chief says

By David Hench dhench@mainetoday.com
Staff Writer

Michael Simpson suffered from depression and anxiety and had attempted suicide at least twice.
Last month, shortly after being discharged from a psychiatric hospital, the 37-year-old merchant mariner took his own life. He was found hanging in Portland's Fort Allen Park on Oct. 26.
Simpson's belongings included a note in which he said the rope he used was the same one he had bought for the task and had brought with him to Mercy Hospital on Oct. 23 when he checked himself in because he was feeling suicidal.
Simpson wrote that he told hospital staff what he intended to do with the rope. Mercy transferred him to Spring Harbor Hospital, which discharged him within two days. When he checked the bag that held his clothes, he found the rope still inside, his note said.
"Would you give a suicidal man back his shotgun?" he wrote.
The note was described in the police report on the incident. The report was obtained from the Portland Police Department under the Freedom of Access law.
Portland Police Chief James Craig said the tragedy underscores the need to improve the way the mental health system responds to people who are suicidal.
"I know we can't always predict when someone is going to commit suicide or cause harm to someone else, but when we have good knowledge, evidence of a problem, it would seem we should do more," he said.
Hospital officials, meanwhile, say they try their best to assess patients' risk of hurting themselves or others. Confidentiality laws bar them from talking about the specific factors relevant to Simpson's case, they said.
Craig acknowledged that mental health is not his profession and said he did not intend to criticize the doctors who treated Simpson. But he said the mechanism for responding to such people needs improvement.
"When he writes a letter expressing dissatisfaction with the system, I think the young man was sending all of us a message (that) the system is broken," Craig said.
POLICE RESPOND TO ATTEMPTS
Police had dealt with Simpson following a previous suicide attempt this summer. Officers were called to the Eastern Prom, where they found Simpson bleeding from a self-inflicted wound. He told the officer he had tried to kill himself by cutting his carotid artery with a box cutter, even doing pushups beforehand to make it more pronounced.
Craig's criticism of how suicidal people are often released back into the community stemmed originally from an incident a year ago. A woman who had been threatening to jump off Casco Bay Bridge almost caused an officer to fall as he was trying to grab her. She was taken to the hospital for evaluation, was released and was back at the bridge the following night, police said.
The hospitals referenced in Simpson's letter declined comment on the case specifically.
"If a patient is in need of acute psychiatric care," said Mercy spokeswoman Diane Atwood, "we make an evaluation and transfer the patient safely as soon as possible to an appropriate provider or facility."

60,000 Hits

The Blog odometer just passed 60,000 hits. I'm stunned.

Five years ago we started this little blog as a way to stay in touch with family and friends as we began our "unplugged adventure"; Connie and Glen on the road. Somewhere along this long journey, we developed a readership. And the blog evolved. It became a vehicle through which I practice my growing enjoyment of writing. It became a pathway by which people, who read Broken Open or who watched the Oprah show that we were on, could Google us and contact us . It has been amazing.

I have the ability to track where the hits are coming from, not the identity of the people visiting the blog, but their locations and the number of visits. People from around the globe, but mostly North America. Some people leave comments and we appreciate that. Others do not and we wish they would. For instance the person in Moscow, Russia and the person near Pottstown, PA, and the person near Mountain View, CA and a hundred other people who hit the blog on a regular basis. I'd like to know who you are. I'd like to hear your stories.

Because that is what this blog is; a collection of stories. That is what our lives are. Stories are how we learn. They are how we teach. They are how we grow and what we leave behind.

It has been an amazing five years and we wouldn't trade it for anything. Hope to hear from you. Thanks for reading our stories.

Glen

Wounded Warriors

This is the much anticipated week of the third annual Davis Love III McGladrey Classic at Sea Island Golf Club here on Saint Simons Island. The entire community has spent months getting ready for the influx of PGA golfers and thousands of spectators. I have been fortunate to have been able to see it all up close as an employee with my buddy Pete's sign business. We dug all the post holes and installed signage around the course, the island and the county ( I can now claim the title of PHD... post hole digger). Long days, weary bones, it's been a blast.

The private jets scream directly overhead on their approach into the Saint Simons Island Airport. Limos convey the corporate sponsors to their $800/night rooms in the Lodge. Well dressed captains of industry dressed in bright pastel colored golf shirts drive their carts around the course chasing the little white ball. And I remember the days when I was among them... Strangely, I am grateful that today, instead, I am covered in dirt and sweat with blisters on my hands, enjoying the company of a crew of hard working good ole boys. Strange, but true.

 

Earlier this week we loaded the trucks with signs for installation at Davis Love's home up island. It's a magnificent, secluded, marsh-side estate complete with stables and all the fixin's. Golf has been "berry, berry good to him".

On Sunday before the tournament began Connie came to work with me to retrofit some pieces we had constructed for each of the tees. She dressed in one of my company work shirts in order to get through the tight security and looked official carrying around my drill. Afterwards we walked around the course and enjoyed the beauty. The Club is built on an old 1800's plantation complete with tabby building ruins and a slave graveyard.

The festivities officially opened today and the island is hopping with activity. With the surge of visitors, all the businesses are making hay while the sun shines... so to speak. There is, of course, golf to watch, but there are also concerts scheduled, celebrity wiffle-ball games and other special events... such as the arrival of the Wounded Warriors.

 

Corporate sponsors paid for 30 wounded military from the Walter Reed Medical Center in Washington DC to attend the festivities. We joined other island residents in welcoming them this evening. Heart warming... humbling.

And in the evening we were gifted (thanks Sue and George) two tickets to the Gary Allen country music concert under the Live Oaks on the seventh fairway with 3000 other folk.

 

Good times...

Surviving Swimmers Itch

It was the summer of 1979. Our identical twin baby boys were 6 months old. We lived in a little raised ranch in the farming community of Fairfield Center, Maine. I worked at a paper mill and Connie was a full-time mom. We quickly discovered, as do all new parents, that raising babies was more than a full-time job. It was a busy, busy time in our lives and it required both of us to keep up with things. So when my work informed me that I was to spend the last three weeks of June in Finland, we were both stunned... especially Connie.

The day of my departure arrived and Connie put on a brave face as I walked out the door. I remember her standing at the top of the foyer stairs, sleep deprived, holding two crying babies, covered in spit-up and formula, with tears streaming down her face.

We worked twelve hours a day, seven days a week during the three weeks at the paper mill of our parent company in Finland. The jet lag and the northern latitudes midnight sun  made sleep difficult.  I missed my family and I was worried. Every few days I would call home. Connie was exhausted. The boys had colic, weren't eating and the doctor was concerned about dehydration. It was the skin of a nightmare. I needed to be home.

On our last night in Finland, we were invited to visit the company sauna. The sauna was a 200 year old log structure and was hotter than anything I had ever experienced. We endured the heat as long as we could and then bolted to the lake to dive off the dock into the frigid lake. On the way back into the furnace, we would bolster our courage with bottles of ice cold Finnish vodka. On my third dive into the lake, my wedding ring slipped off my finger and sank to the bottom. For half an hour I tried unsuccessfully to recover it. Hans Bjornberg, the Finnish Vice President who had joined us at the sauna, put his arm around my shoulder. "You will have some explaining to do when you get home," he chuckled. "Yeah, she's not going to be happy," I agreed. One more thing...

I was exhausted when I walked through the front door into our sweltering little house on July 3rd. But I put on a happy face, rolled up my sleeves and pitched in to wash dishes and diapers, feed the kids, and allow my wife to collapse on the couch. She was numb with fatigue. But we had survived this ordeal and I was determined to help get things back to normal... whatever that was.

The next day was Independence Day and I convinced Connie that we should pack a picnic and head for the lake to escape the heat. We arrived at a public swimming spot on Great Pond around noon and found that a good deal of floating litter had accumulated in the weedy end of the beach. As Connie sat in the shallow water in the sandy part of the beach with the boys happily splashing in a plastic clothes basket, I waded into the weeds and collected the trash. A dozen ducks swam around me watching my progress. It was a pleasant couple hours, but soon the boys began to fuss. It was nap time and we headed home.

Sometime after supper, I began to notice an intense itching on my upper legs and in my groin. I headed to the bathroom and dropped my swim suit around my ankles to check things out. The skin from my knees to my belly button had broken out in an angry red rash. It looked like I had the bubonic plague and I was perplexed. What had I gotten into? Whatever it was, I was in agony.

At that point, Connie walked into the bathroom and stopped short. She walked over to me cautiously and slowly inspected my situation. "I don't know what this is, but it's itching like crazy," I blurted. She took two steps back, put her hands on her hips and demanded, "Where's your wedding ring?" Ahhhh... "Yeah, I forgot to tell you that I lost it in Finland. But this has nothing to do with that!" I scrambled. The look on her face let me know she was not convinced.

The rash was a common malady called swimmers itch caused by a parasite that lives in weedy fresh water lakes and ponds. It is transmitted from water fowl. Later that evening Connie also developed a few itchy, red spots on her ankle. So my diagnosis and explanation was finally, begrudgingly, accepted. But it was weeks before her mood improved. The swimmers itch on top of the three week ordeal was just too much. She had seriously lost her sense of humor.

The loss of the wedding ring was forgotten for the most part. Six weeks later the Finns came to Maine and the company threw a party for the management team. 75 employees and their spouses gathered at the company house. Hans Bjornberg stood to welcome the group. "It's nice to be among you. Thank you for all your hard work. We are very pleased with the progress being made here. But I have one question..." He pointed towards me, standing in the crowd with my arm around Connie's shoulder. "Glen, did she believe your story about the lost wedding ring?" I blushed 10 shades of red and the crowd roared with laughter. Connie laughed, too, her wonderful sense of humor regained.

Hans passed away ten years later at the age of 46. Too soon. Too young. But in the intervening years, whenever I saw him, he never failed to tell the story of the lost wedding ring. And ever since that day on Great Pond, I avoid swimming with ducks.

Sean

He was a salty old dog. Sean and his wife lived in the second floor Portland apartment next to Ryan and Kristen in the West End. During the summer I worked on the docks shoveling fish and selling bait to the lobster-men on Custom House Wharf, we lived in the kid's spare bedroom and I would occasionally see him walking slowly in the hall. At first he was stand-offish and then one day, he smelled me.

Sean stood around 5'8" with sparkling blue eyes. He wore a grey beret on his balding head and carried a medical device which delivered powerful intravenous drugs through a picc line into a large vein near his heart. And he wore different colored rubber crocs, one red and one green.

"You smell like the waterfront", he opened. I smiled and apologized, explained my summer job working on the docks. "No need to apologize. I'm a sailor. I find you odor familiar. It reminds me of my life at sea," he replied. Sean went on to talk about his boat. As with many sailors, he went on and on about the obviously critical attributes of his beloved vessel. All of it was lost on me, but I listened attentively, nodded my head and tried to ask savvy questions. "She a beamy boat?" I asked hoping I would get points for at least demonstrating that I knew boats were female. He continued with renewed passion talking about sheets and halyards, jibs and draft. As our conversation came to a close he said, "I have something you need. I'll drop it off at your door." And true to his word, the next morning as I exited the apartment for work at 3:30 AM, I found a rubberized, zippered laundry bag sitting on the hallway floor. Yep, Sean knew what I needed.

We spoke whenever our paths crossed. Some days were better than others. The chemotherapy was kicking his ass. He had moved to this place to be near Maine Medical center and to fight his battle. But he was in heavy seas and he was tiring terribly. I admired him and I ached for him.

The last time I saw him was in the fall as we prepared to head South for the winter. My work was winding down. The leaves on the trees were past their colors, turning brown and littering the street. A cold wind blew them into piles in the gutters. It was rainy, dismal and dreary.

We shook hands. I said good-bye and wished him success in his struggle. He dropped his eyes and shook his head. "But I have a last question for you, Sean. Why do you wear one red croc and one green croc? And why do you wear the red one sometimes on your right foot and sometimes on your left foot?"

He looked at me and a little of the old sparkle returned to his eyes. "Well, it's a nautical thing, you see," he said. "When you are leaving the harbor, headed out to sea, you keep the green buoy on your starboard side and the red buoy on your port. And when you return from sea, it's the opposite. "OK," I offered, "Red-Right-Return." It was a little idiom that I had heard sailors repeat over the years. "So why are you wearing the green croc on your right foot now?" "

He smiled a bittersweet smile. "Just my little thing. Every day I chart my course. I ask myself, "Am I coming or going?" I'm wearing the green on my right and the red on my left because I know I'm going..."

Sean died that winter. He fought and lost his valiant battle. No doubt, he was buried in his red and green crocs and his grey beret. One of the good ones...

Fair winds, friend.

Parable of Immortality ( A ship leaves . . . )
Henry Van Dyke - 1852 - 1933

"I am standing by the seashore.
A ship at my side spreads her white sails to the morning breeze
and starts for the blue ocean.
She is an object of beauty and strength,
and I stand and watch
until at last she hangs like a peck of white cloud
just where the sun and sky come down to mingle with each other.

Then someone at my side says, 'There she goes!
Gone where? Gone from my sight - that is all.

She is just as large in mast and hull and spar
as she was when she left my side
and just as able to bear her load of living freight
to the places of destination.
Her diminished size is in me, not in her.

And just at the moment when someone at my side says,
'There she goes! ' ,
there are other eyes watching her coming,
and other voices ready to take up the glad shout :
'Here she comes!'

Kurt Vonnegut

You Can't Go Home Again

I have fond memories of the years our family lived in the so-called "Northeast Kingdom", Vermont's northern-most counties; Essex, Orleans and Caledonia. In 1955, when I was 4 and Gail was just a puppy, we moved to Barton. Dad worked at the Sutton Pump Station of the Portland Pipeline Corp. and we settled into our idealic life... at least in my childish mind's eye. We moved from house to house to house. Wendy was born on Lincoln Avenue during a January that was colder than a well digger's boot. Eventually we ended up living in a company house at the pump station, when dad was promoted to Station Chief, 10 miles from town and school and groceries, a mile from the nearest neighbor.

Barton became the exciting place where we traveled each week for supplies. There were strawberry ice cream sodas at the Ruggle's Drug Store soda fountain, thick nickle packs of black licorice, occasional hamburgers at the Blue Grill and a rack of comic books... my passion. Life was complete. I vaguely remember Mom complaining about making the long drive on snowy Rte 5 with temperatures hovering below zero for months on end. During the long winters we skated and skied. In the spring we joined friends collecting sap in the maple groves and boiled down the thick syrup over wood burning evaporators in the sugar shack. In the summer we swam in the ice cold glacial lakes and fished the mountain ponds for horn-pout. The autumns were glorious with amazing displays of forest colors. Life was good. I thought we lived in paradise. When Dad was transferred back to Portland when I was in the fifth grade, I grieved the relocation for years.

Connie and I spent 3 months back in Maine this summer. We enjoyed being among family and our time with friends. And when the time came to strike out again, Connie agreed to a trip to Northern Vermont to revisit the place of my childhood. I sold the idea with nostalgic memories and promises of relaxing in beautiful bed and breakfasts in God's country. I did some pre-planning on line and called the 3 listed bed and breakfasts in Barton. All three numbers had been disconnected. Hmmm...

On the day of our departure, we stopped in North Conway, NH. for lunch and discovered that Gail and Roland were also in town with Dan, Lauren and baby Brooke visiting their lot on the Saco River. We couldn't pass up seeing them again and enjoyed a couple hours visiting, walking the woods trails and wading the river. Finally, we headed up through the magnificent Crawford Notch and into Vermont. It was about 4:30 when we rolled off the highway into Barton. Along the way, Connie kept pointing at the luxury resorts and asking, "Are we staying there?" An uncomfortable unease began to grow in my chest. "No honey, not there. I have a special place in mind. I remember some lovely little cottages right on the lake in Barton that I think you will love." I was blowing smoke and I knew it.

The little town was nothing like I remembered it, but was probably entirely as it had ever been. The road crews were laying down new asphalt preparing for the Orleans Fair the next week so it was impossible to get to the lake and the pristine cabins of my memory. The homey little drug store, the former hub of the community, was now a franchise operation. The Blue Grill hadn't existed in decades. Even the Ben Franklin's Five and Dime was gone. The town was shabby. The economy, with the closure of the local mills, was desperate. Connie was beginning to frown. I began to scramble.

There was a little restaurant on the town square and we walked in to use the bathroom and ask some questions. The flies and open food containers at the counter grill disallowed a dining experience. While Connie was enduring a visit to the disreputable restroom, I struck up a conversation with two old-timers at the counter. "Howdy boys. We're looking for someplace to spend the night in town. Any ideas?" They mumbled among themselves and the suspendered, unshaven fellow who had been nominated spokesman pushed back his dirty ballcap before he began. "Well, there is a place. If you go down this gawd-damned road to the gawd-damned river and just as you go around the gawd-damned bend, there are some gawd-damned cabins." I turned to see Connie standing wide eyed behind me. I thanked the fellers and we headed down the gawd-damned road...

Connie's defenses were now on high alert and she began to remind me of my promise for a "nice bed and breakfast". Her tone was just short of shrill. When we pulled into the dirt driveway of the motor inn, we were greeted by 3 road construction workers sitting in rusty lawn chairs drinking from cans of beer, shirts hiked up over their pot bellies. "No... no... no... You've brought me to Deliverance country!" Connie began to rant. "Now honey, let's just check it out" I negotiated. We drove down the drive to another set of cabins facing the river. I rounded the corner and it looked all the world like a scene from the movie "The Grapes of Wrath".  Flat bed trucks, with dirty faced kids sitting on the tailgates, overheated, panting dogs laying in the road, overweight women in house dresses and curious men sitting on porches drinking beer watching us closely. I turned around near the concrete block, lime green swimming pool (It may have been the pool water that was lime green... whatever.) with Connie's persistent encouragement. Not one to give up easily, I said "There was an isolated cabin at the end of the row that might work. I'm going to stop at the office." Connie's back was no longer resting against the seat. She was rigid and at full alert, breathing short shallow breaths.

As I pulled up to the office (there was a piece of paper duct taped to the door that said "Ofice") an old rusted station wagon pulled off the road and parked broadside directly in front of us. Connie was close to panicking "Oh God, Oh God, Oh God...". The passenger side door opened and an old man in dirty cloths, pants hiked up under his armpits and a filthy cowboy hat stepped out. He looked directly at Connie, pulled his hat straight up from his balding head and screeched in a high pitched Festus voice..."Howdy!" Connie began to whimper "no, no, no, no..." At that point, the driver stepped out. She was about 5 ft 6", weighed a good 250 pounds and was wearing a white wife-beater tee shirt over her huge, unharnessed breasts. She had short cropped hair... and a dark, heavy beard. At this point Connie began to scream. "Get me out of here!" and I began to laugh uncontrollably. She verbally assaulted me all the way up the gawd-damned road back to Barton.

I stopped at the only gas station in town for an emergency bottle of wine. I desperately needed to lubricate her sense of humor. We parked next to another car and had to wait as the driver was getting into her car. She was an elderly woman sporting a full head of pink foam pin curlers, most of which were covered by a knotted colorful chiffon scarf. Her knee-high nylons were rolled halfway down her exposed calves below her floral print moo moo and she carried a Hello Kitty purse over her shoulder. She had tubes running up her nose and down to the oxygen bottle she wheeled behind her... and she was smoking a cigarette. I bought two bottles of wine and a big bag of Lays potato chips.

We drove to the Canadian border in stony silence. I did find a delightful bed and breakfast on Lake Memphremagog. I did rent their most expensive suite and we stayed for two nights. We did drink the wine.

The next day, Connie chose to remain at the lake and I drove back to Barton. I visited the old house on Water Street and walked around the school. I visited the Randall's on Breezy Hill and so enjoyed reminiscing with old friends. The House on Lincoln Avenue had been torn down and the house at the pump station in Sutton had been moved. I walked through the woods and the swamps where I had tromped as a boy. I remembered and relived and grieved the loss of my parents and my lost youth. And I realized that, although you can never really go home, our memories, our feelings, our loves, stay with us always. I'm glad I came home to those memories.

It was gawd-damned awesome.

Georgia Sunsets

Everyone has their eye on the weather with tropical storms developing in the Atlantic and roaring up the Gulf.

The sailing yesterday with Ken and Pete on an 18ft Hobie Cat was incredible with 25 mph winds and 5 ft seas. And last night the sunset on the marsh was spectacular.

All good reasons for keeping an eye on the weather...

Our Meaning and Porpoise

I like to think "Big Thoughts", at least that's what they are called on Custom House Wharf. You know; thoughts about God, the future, the Universe, new scientific exploration and how they all tie together. I like to listen to what others have to say and read the ideas of other people.

The more I think, read and listen, the more excited I get about how everything is converging. Well, maybe not everything. There is certainly a lot of stubborn intransigence and selfish humanity, but the pace of exploration and growth in knowledge, supported by technology, is profound... for anyone paying attention. It is reaching an exponential rate and there is concern among some thinkers that, in the not too distant future, mankind will no longer be able to keep up with, to comprehend the scale, scope and speed of the change. Perhaps we have already reached that point. At any rate...

One morning after reading a particularly mind blowing internet article about science and spirituality, the dots began to connect for me and I started to download my thought process to my beautiful and oh-so-patient wife and partner of 36 years. I paced as I laid out my ideas connecting new discoveries in quantum physics with explorations in astrophysics and novel concepts in the realm of human consciousness. I painted a picture of our meaning and purpose, of our reason for living our short lives on this little planet, so seemingly insignificant among the billions of galaxies. Like I said, I get excited.

And my wife sat and listened dutifully. Her eyes did appear to glaze over once or twice, but I was rolling and couldn't slow down to expound on any particular point. When I finished and turned to her expectantly, she nodded her head and said, "Wow. Very interesting. I think I followed everything you said... except for the part about the "Armenian Porpoise"... I was dumbfounded... until it occurred to me that she was asking about "Our Meaning and Purpose"....

I told the story to my friend David and we both howled like a run over dog, as they say here in the South. The next week he presented me with a little gift (picture below).

Big thoughts... Big laughs. Who has more fun than people..

MoreShots of Summer Time in New England

Winding thing up in Maine with some shark fishing with Ryan and Bobby then up through Crawford Notch and into the Northeast Kingdom of Vermont to revisit the old homesteads. We headed South via Albany NY to see the family and onto DC for some time with Kate and Elnur. Onto Charleston SC tomorrow and then to SSI.

The blog has taken back burner this summer. Perhaps I'll do some writing when we get back on the island. There are stories to tell...

 

Summertime on the Maine Coast

Thank you for the great weekend Anna and Brian! Good times...

David

The first time I laid eyes on David was in 1968. We were both playing football for different teams in Southern Maine. He was the kicker for Thornton Academy. I sat on the bench for South Portland. We both went on to the University of Maine and ended up in the same math class. We would study together. The last time I saw David was in 1969. Until today.

David Wagabazza is from Uganda. His father, James, had been a high ranking official at the Ugandan Embassy in New York City for the government preceding Idi Amin. After college it wasn't safe for him to return home, so he stayed. "I love Maine," he said. One day I tracked him down on the internet and today we enjoyed a cup of coffee just down the street from Ryan's apartment and just up the street from his  Danforth Street business. He owns Vespucci's, a well known Portland west end pizza shop and convenience store and about 25 rental properties around Southern Maine. He married a woman from Wiscassett and has a 16 year old daughter who goes to Cheverus.

We talked about how much Portland has changed over the past 40 years. We talked about family and business and politics. He told me about his 32 brothers and sisters, about his father's death two years ago and being named sole beneficiary of his father's lands in Uganda. And of the contention and stress resulting from it. "They showed me their true colors." he said with disgust, "They want to kill me."

He has succeeded and done well as a Maine businessman. That, in itself, speaks volumes and I asked him what he thought of my old neighbor and fellow businessman, Governor Paul LePage. The socialist city of Portland despises our good governor and I laughed as David looked right and left before he lowered his voice, leaned forward and said "Don't tell anyone. I love the guy. He's doing what needs to be done to create jobs in Maine."

We made plans to get together again this summer before our time here in Maine comes to a close. He said "You've got to taste my spaghetti sauce. I learned how to make it working in restaurants in New York City. People think I'm an Italian because I own a pizza shop named Vespucci's. But when they meet me and taste my sauce, they say 'That black guy can cook!'"

Looking forward to it, old friend...

Fighting our way back to Maine

We're back. The journey from Saint Simons Georgia to DC was smooth and uneventful. And our time with Kate and Elnur was great fun. But on Thursday we struck out for Portland and drove into the belly of the beast. The 8 1/2 hour trip turned into 11 hours of 4 lane traffic jams,  abusive toll gouging and excessively high gas prices.We had to literally fight our way back to our home state.Welcome to the Northeast.

Ryan and Kristen greeted us with loving arms and we are enjoying the good weather, family gatherings, baby showers and the Old Port Festival, Good times.

And so, I listened

Tropical Storm Beryl came ashore over the Memorial Day weekend with up to 70 mph winds and heavy rains. The epicenter hit Jacksonville, Florida, an hour south of our location on Saint Simons Island off the coast of Georgia. Winds here peaked at around 40 mph. Nothing drastic.

I headed down to the boat yard at 9:30 to help my buddy, Ken, rig his Hobie Cat and ran into the whole cast of East Beach characters. They are an eclectic group of men and women ranging in age from 40 to 70 and have long histories together; decades of friendships, romances, partying, business dealings and sailing. This morning the windsurfers scurried about excitedly, screwing up their courage to leave the beach and take a pounding in the whitecaps.

Up the beach, the Weather Channel set up to cover the storm. Jim Cantore, of Weather Channel fame, gathered a crowd of picture and photo seekers. It became a bit of a spectacle and the media hyped it for all they were worth.  

And so, for us, Beryl was no big deal. But for the two men on the sailboat that was towed into the channel the next morning, it sure was. I met the captain of the ill fated vessel at the bar at the marina a couple days later. He was around 60, lean, shaggy headed and spoke with a French Canadian accent. His eyes were golden brown and tinged with a glint of hysteria. Considering the ordeal he had just survived, that was certainly understandable. He was drinking a Guinness and seemed to have a need to tell his story to anyone who would listen... so I listened.

He hired on to captain the 50 foot Dufore sailboat from Florida back to the Canadian Maritines. It was something he had done many times before which may have contributed to the cavalier, careless behavior that almost cost him his life. He took on a mate in Fort Lauderdale. The mate had no sailing experience, just needed the work. The Captain didn't see that as an issue.

The Captain said he thought they could slip by the tropical storm developing off the coast and so, set sail. He said he knew he should have had "weather" on board but didn't, which means he didn't have a radio or satellite weather equipment, and so, sailed directly into a named tropical storm. And so....

The first weather band they encountered produced 20 foot seas and 40 mph winds. "That wasn't a problem. I could handle that," he explained. They sailed through that weather band unscathed and into sunny skies so the Captain decided to head out into the Gulf Stream to pick up some favorable wind and the northbound draft. For a few hours he sailed unwittingly directly into the mouth of the storm. His eyes clouded over as he talked about seeing the approaching wall of weather and realizing that he had trapped himself. He had no option other that to sail directly into the wind and waves.

This time he encountered Beryl at her worst. His eyes flashed fear and his hands twisted as he described the 40 foot seas and the 80 mph winds. Still he thought they were going to sail through it. But he was growing very weary after 18 hours at the helm fighting the storm. Finally he rigged a storm sail, instructed his mate, went below and passed out in an exhausted sleep.

He said he awoke to the sound of the mate screaming and the sight of a locker which had been bolted to the floor of the cabin flying into his berth as the 50 foot sailboat rolled over on the face of a 40 foot wave. The boat righted itself, but was now adrift having taken on water, being battered and blown with the storm. The Captain said the mate was hysterical and finally he was convinced to activate the distress beacon.

Within 2 hours the Coast Guard responded with a C130 which dropped them a portable pump which they were unable to retrieve. The Coast Guard offered to send a helicopter and air lift them if they would abandon ship. The Captain declined. Finally the weather settled down and a Sea Tow tug responded to the foundering vessel. They were towed into Saint Simons and tied up at the marina.

We walked down to check out the vessel, It was soggy, the engine not running, but the mast and the rigging looked OK. Gear, ropes, pillows, mattresses laid on the dock drying out. The hull looked undamaged. The mate had fled back to Florida. The Captain was at the bar sucking down beer after beer and telling his story to anyone who would listen.

And so, I listened.

Normal Day

"Normal Day, let me be aware of the treasure you are.
Let me learn from you, love you, bless you before you depart.
Let me not pass by in quest of some rare and perfect tomorrow.
Let me hold you while I may, for it will not always be so.
One day I shall dig my nails into the earth, or bury my face in the pillow,
or stretch myself taut, or raise my hands to the sky and want,
more than all the world, your return."

~Mary Jean Irion

Island Skies

Fishing for Hope

This time, it was our turn to give.

Almost three years had passed since our lives were changed forever.  Eric, our twenty one year old son and brother to identical twin, Ryan, and younger sister Katie, had been killed in a motorcycle accident while touring on the South Island of New Zealand just before coming home for Christmas. He had spent the previous 6 months at Melbourne University in Australia working toward an electrical engineering degree. We were all so looking forward to being together again.

Hospice Volunteers were there for us in the weeks and months following Eric’s death. At first I thought the Hospice Volunteers odd, to come to my home and sit beside us, quietly; leaving books and meals and warm touches behind, only to come again later in the week. I did not know them, was not aware of their work, but they brought comfort especially to my wife, Connie, and for that I was very grateful as she suffered so deeply.

My own grief was beyond anything I had ever dared to imagine, but it soon came time to return to work. It was very difficult, an added layer to the nightmare. One day, Hospice Volunteers showed up at my place of work. There was someone new this time and after we were introduced, the others departed. This man was my age, worked in the same industry, lived in the next county and had suffered the loss of a son in an automobile accident three years earlier.

I didn’t have to tell him how much I hurt, how I raged inside at my ultimate failure to protect my family, how lost and alone and out of control I felt. He knew. He didn’t tell me that this was "God’s will" or that I would “get over it” or that I just had to “get back to work” as had others. He listened a lot and told his story. But mostly, it was the look in his eyes that let me know he understood. I became aware that others also walked this terrible path. It gave me courage.

He would call me from time to time and later, he told me about a Hospice Volunteers event called Camp Ray of Hope. Connie was also learning from her contacts about the weekend retreat at a church summer camp for people who were grieving the loss of a loved one. We decided to attend, though I didn’t think I wanted to spend a whole lot of time with “those people”.

It was a weekend filled with healing and sharing and miracles, a word I have learned not to doubt. “Those people” got “it”. None of them had asked for “it”, and we would have given anything not to be among them. But now we were.

 Following the weekend, Connie plugged into the volunteer training and eventually became a certified volunteer instructor. And I followed her brave example by accepting a seat on the Hospice Volunteers board.

Two years later our turn came to attend Camp Ray of Hope again, this time as support staff; doing dishes, helping with cleanup, providing child care so that a young mother who had lost her mate or the father who had lost his child, might have some quiet time. It had been one of my “lessons” when first attending this camp weekend to learn how commonplace grief is among us, and how skillfully those who had not yet had to face it, previously including myself, were at blocking it from the collective public consciousness. Not that we hid death. Death is ever around us in the media and in our day to day conversations. Rather we hid grief. Or hid from it.

But at Camp Ray of Hope there was no hiding from the shattered widows and widowers, the broken and grieving parents or the children, teens and young adults suffering the loss of a parent, a grandparent or a sibling: People of all ages, all situations, none “worse” than the other, each story so poignant and real in it’s own way.

And so it was for one so young and struggling family attending camp that year.

The young Korean family had come to the United States two years before. There were three young children. The oldest, Joseph, was eight and spoke English fluently though the mother and younger children did not. His mother was bravely struggling to relocate the family to a safe place following the sudden death of her young husband earlier that year. The younger children, Grace, 3, and Elizabeth, 18 months, were adorable little ones with large dark eyes and long black braids. They wandered happily among the 25 or 30 other children and seemed oblivious to the cruelty that life had served them.

The peak colors of the leaves seemed to explode in the glorious sunlight of that clear and perfect Maine autumn day. It was Saturday afternoon and I was assigned to take a couple kids canoeing on the lake. Joseph and his new friend Eli, 6, let me know immediately that they were tired of waiting  and wanted to catch fish. They bragged, as young boys do, of how large their fish would be and the conversation became louder and louder as I carried the canoe to the dock and helped them select paddles, fishing rods and life jackets. So when, as I paddled us out onto the lake, I asked the boys if they knew how to fish, neither was able to retreat from their boasts of being experienced fishermen. The truth soon presented itself when I handed Joseph a large, juicy night crawler and told him to “bait up”. He gingerly wrapped the worm “around” the hook and I began to understand that he may have never been fishing. He watched intently as I showed him how to put the worm on the hook and how to cast the rod.

Joseph sat quietly holding the rod in the middle of the canoe as Eli splashed the water with his paddle in the bow. I noticed his line as it began to zig-zag in the water indicating that something had taken the bait and so reached out, grabbed the line and set the hook, pleased that Joseph had perhaps hooked up with a sunfish or a small perch.

“Reel in Joseph”, I called, “You’ve got a fish on!” He was shocked, but immediately began to crank on the reel as he had been instructed. Suddenly a very large fish exploded from the water about 20 feet from the canoe. Joseph froze at the sight, eyes wide and mouth open. I reached over and began to hand strip the line and the fish toward the boat. As I pulled the 3-pound bass into the canoe, the hook released from its mouth and giant fish flopped violently around the bottom of the canoe. Joseph appeared horrified so I quickly gilled the fish and held it up for all to see.

“Look what you caught Joseph”, I said excitedly!

He stared  at the fish for a long minute and finally looked into my face and said, “It is a very ugly thing…”. Never the less, the people on shore cheered loudly for Joseph as we released the fish back to the lake. It wasn’t long before Eli began kidding Joseph about being afraid of a fish and the two friends were again yelling and splashing each other with water. After 30 minutes with no more fish, they both asked to go in.

It was clear that Joseph was now a fishing enthusiast and he began to lecture Eli on how to cast. The boys ran from the dock to the shore where they began casting for “ugly monster fish” in the shallow water.  I thought my job was finished until I glanced down and saw little 3-year-old Grace looking up at me. She would not respond to my offer to help her to fish, but showed real interest when I began to pull worms from the can. She was fascinated to watch them wiggle and even ventured to touch one. It wasn’t long before she was standing with me on the dock dangling a line in the water.  Five minutes later she dropped the rod and wandered back to her mother who was sitting with a group of women on the shore.

Just kids and adults having fun, doing normal things though their lives no longer felt normal most of the time. Every now and then, you would see someone stop and gaze blankly into space as some memory flooded in. And when tears began to flow, no one asks “What’s wrong” or “Stop crying and have fun…”. A simple hand on the back or an arm around the shoulder was offered most often. People could be seen connecting in quiet conversations, giving each other the gift of listening, of sharing their stories and their sorrows. From a distance, one could not tell who was the giver and who was the receiver.

When dinner rolled around that evening, all 80 people gathered in the large, rustic dining hall to file through the chow line for some delicious hot food. The room was noisy with people talking and the young children were happily running around. My eyes fell upon Grace at about the same time that she noticed me and to my surprise and delight she ran to me smiling broadly and extended her arms, inviting me to pick her up. I felt the lump grow in my throat as I picked her up and experienced the giggling, tight hug around my neck. Here was so much courage and so much love.  This 3-year-old was giving me what I didn’t even know I needed. I was speechless and blinked back the dampness in the corners of my eyes. When I placed her back on her feet she jumped up to grab my hand and, curling her little hand around my index finger, like a dog on a lease, she began to pull me across the room.

I did not understand what game we were playing, but she definitely had something in mind. We approached her mother who watched with curious interest and spoke to her daughter in a language I didn’t understand. Grace said nothing and continued to pull me forward. And then with her other hand Grace grasped her mothers' hand and spoke to her in that foreign tongue. For a moment she stared at her mother and her mother at her. And then she placed my hand into the hand of her mother.

When we realized what this child was doing, we both fell awkwardly silent. The mother began an embarrassed, high-pitched laugh, which quickly turned to sobs. I met her gaze and saw her pain. There was nothing to say, nothing to do that would fix anything. I placed my hand on her shoulder and smiled. She dropped her stare, bowed her head and pulled her daughter to her. I moved away, flooded with emotions and wonder.

Giving and receiving. You don't do one or the other. When you choose to do one, the other comes with it.

I have often wondered what words Grace spoke when she gave me as a gift to her mother. Did she think I could help her mother in her grief? Did she tell her mother to have hope because life would go on and that we all had to stick together in this world? Did she understand that by thrusting me into giving that I would receive tenfold back? Perhaps.

But if truth be told, she probably said, "Mama, he knows how to fish…….".