20 Years

Love you forever, son. 

Dumpster Treasures

 Dumpster diving and dump picking has always been an enjoyable pass time for me.

Back in the 70's when, to borrow a quote from Elizabeth Warren, we were "just hanging on to the ragged edge of the middle class". I would make a weekly trip to the Fairfield town dump to drop off our trash and pick the dump for whatever. Kids toys, bicycles, building supplies, doors, peg board... a veritable cornucopia of useful items. A local manufacturing plant provided an endless supply of recyclable stuff. I always came home with more than I dropped off.

More recently, we enjoyed the "Swap Shops" of the Yarmouth and Freeport Transfer Stations; foosball tables, beach chairs, aquariums, plastic dinosaurs and a kids fire station. Good stuff.

The other day I spotted a snow covered picture near the dumpster where we are renting in Massachusetts. Curious.

I cleaned it off and found this.

Here is a an expanded view of the bronze plaque.

This didn't seem like a fitting end for a portrait of such a distinguished and accomplished man. He was an Armenia immigrant, graduated from MIT and Northeastern Law School, served in the Army and WWI, and was a Master Mason. I did some research looking for background and family connections. It lead to Cohasset MA and I was excited to find contact information for his daughter, now 89 years old. I called to offer to send the picture to her.

"Hello?"

"Hi. My name is Glen Foss and I have found a portrait of General Zartarian and..."

She cut me off. "I can't talk to you." click.

Curiouser...

Either she thought I was a scammer or she did not wish to engage for reason of some long ago family dysfunction. I decided not to call her back.

I have attempted to make contact with someone who I think is a grandson in NJ. 

Hard tellin, not knowin. In the mean time he sits on the floor of our 3rd floor apartment, safe and sound. 

hindsight

Just read a Forbes article about the apocalyptic media reporting about climate change. I've spent many hours reading and researching the issues trying to determine the truth. Depending on what "facts" you choose to believe, the planet may be 10-12 years from total ecological breakdown (major sea level rise, devastating weather related events like drought, floods, forest fires, hurricanes, flooding, earthquakes, extinction, plague...). Or not. The science and the politics of climate change is confusing and conflicted.

No doubt the impact of humans on the planet has been profound. Pollution, over-population, deforestation, sprawl, fracking. The environment must be protected and regulation is  obviously required. The regulation must be science based and must balance cost, global impact and the welfare of all life on the planet. It is a critical undertaking and demands our best minds to protect the environment. Politicizing the issues has not advanced the cause. Just the opposite.

In college I studied environmental science and drank the Earth Day Kool Aid. My professors convinced me that the earth was entering a new ice age because of human actions. And that the planet could not sustain a human population increase much above 3.7 billion level in 1970. As a result of pollution, starvation, poverty and disease the global population would crash the planet within decades.

Today, 50 years later, the prediction is for catastrophic global warming. Global life span has increased 20% on average. The population is 7.7 billion and rising. And global poverty rates have decreased 78% in that time frame. How could the predictions have been so wrong?

No doubt technology, science and public policy changed the predicted outcomes. So did the cycle of the sun.

I remember preaching the impending Population Bomb to my parents one summer break. I told them that, in light of the impending doom, having children was unethical, immoral. My father was alarmed at my anxiety and my world view. He said, "Calm down, son. I would give you a Valium if I had one. It's going to be ok."

He was right. The world did not end. And it will not end any time soon (baring cataclysmic meteor strikes or self destructive atomic war). Technology and science continues to advance at exponential rates. Nuclear fusion will eventually replace burning carbon for fuel and resolve the CO2 question. Energy from the sun will wax and wane and the earth will warm and cool. And humankind will adjust and adapt as it always has.

And the media and the politicians will continue to terrorize us with sensational claims in order to advance their agendas, their power and their coffers. I think what bothers me most is the degree to which science has been corrupted by politics and self interests. It's discouraging.

Wish I had a Valium...

thoughts

It is important to me that my family understand that I am not an atheist. But I do think differently.

I can no longer follow the main stream of religion. It doesn't make sense to me. The word God has been so defamed and polluted. I use Universe.

I have trouble accepting a personal Universe. My concept is of an Evolutionary Force, a non-random Force, but not a Force that provides me the answers to my prayers and that protects me from harm. I do communicate with this Force, more express gratitude than communicate. Communicate denotes a 2 way conversation. I say thank you. And I do bounce shit off the Universe. Just because it is helpful in my jumbled thought process

My Universe is Love. Love, taught to me by my parents and my family, and kindness, and trying to do unto others. Living a good life. Being a good man. That is what I think the evolution of the Universe is about.

I don't think the ego survives death. I think conscious energy does. I think love does.

And so, because of our love, we will be connected forever. That is how I think.

And that's all I'm going to say about that....

Dain

I stopped by Allens Seafood in Harpswell. I used to deliver bait there when I drove for Craig. It was a difficult approach and, more than once I almost stuck the truck or backed into a vehicle. But it was one of my favorite stops.

The flies were thick and the unload was strenuous. After each delivery to the wharf boss, "Albert Pogie" I would wander into the office to pick up a check. It wasn't really an office, more like a hovel with jugs of oil and boat parts and tools and paperwork and fly paper hanging from the ceiling. The old man would usually be seated in the corner with a mangy dog or two hanging around. 

Dain was an "old salt". He was Maine. Here is his obituary.

Obituary

Dain Henry Allen died on Sept. 7, 2015, at his home on Lookout Point Road in Harpswell. He was 79 years old. He was a fisherman from the day he could pick up a clam hoe. Yet he claimed to never have worked a day in his life. He simply got up in the morning and went and did what he loved to do. He was hauling his lobster traps two days before he passed.

Over his lifetime, he was involved in nearly every fishery in Middle Bay. Dain dug clams and quahogs. He was the first person in the state to commercially harvest mussels, in essence creating an entire industry. He built the market for mussels in New York by transporting a few bushels to the city for restaurants to try out on their customers. Before that time mussels weren’t considered edible. He was the first to drag for smelts using a net similar to those used for groundfish. He of course went lobstering all his life, and grew to know each ledge and piece of sea bottom where the crustaceans crawled. He also fished for sea urchins, scallops, and crabs. He purse-seined pogies for lobster bait. He went long-lining for halibut, cod, and haddock. Sundays in summer when he couldn’t haul his lobster traps, he often went tuna fishing, bringing home giant bluefin, which at that time were worth nothing so he butchered them with a handsaw and gave the steaks away. 

In the 1960s, his father Henry Irving Allen opened a seafood stand alongside the Harpswell Road. It quickly became a popular spot to buy and eat fresh seafood. Shortly thereafter, they built a wharf on Lookout Point. The operation was called Allen’s Seafood. For the rest of his life, Dain’s day started by going “to the shore.” Over the years, generations of fishermen passed through Allen’s Seafood or as it grew to be affectionately called “Allen University.” It is still operating today. 

Dain is survived by his wife Holly Chase Allen, his sisters Dawn Bichrest and Anne Anderson, a stepbrother Scott Roberts, sons Tom Allen and Albert Rose, and grandchildren Samuel Allen, Kimberly Rose, and Gwendolyn Rose. 

A remembrance of Dain is scheduled for Sunday, Sept. 13 at 1 p.m. at Allen’s Seafood on Lookout Point Road. The food will be potluck. His friends should come with a dish and a story to share. In lieu of flowers, please make donations to Harpswell Neck Fire and Rescue or to the Harpswell Santa Fund.

Dain told me he build a boat every year. Such a talented diamond in the rough.

I spoke with Holly and she cried when she told me he had passed. He was a relic from the past and I so enjoyed my time knowning him.

One Year

Remembering Russ

An extraordinary man. Those who knew him, loved him. 

Miss ya'll.

Leighton

12 years ago in July we sold the house and quit our jobs.

We have wandered ever since, coast to coast 6 times, living where we wanted to live for as long as we wanted to live there. We have seen the country from the road, not from 25,000 feet looking out a plane window. We have camped in National Parks, State Parks, BLM lands, lived in trailers, camps, rentals, motels, RRVs, house sitting.  My wife is such a good kid. Readers, don't try this at home...without the right partner. We enjoy the milder seasons and meeting some incredible people. It has been an amazing adventure.

A couple years into our journey, I figured out that a sustained practice of golf and fishing was not cutting it for me. No Armenian Porpoise... (inside joke). When the big market correction rolled in 2008 I figured I needed to go back to work. But going back to corporate America, labor relations, HR, etc. left me cold. Maybe quaking with dread is more like it. So I decided to work at different jobs. It was a great decision. About the same time I got passionate about writing.

If you have read back in this blog, unlikely but possible, you will have read about the many jobs I have had these past 10 years. From shoveling fish to loading trucks and boats, from construction work and limo driving to over the road trucking and sign installation, from handyman jobs and pressure washing to finish carpentry and art hanging. It has been eye opening, and provided plenty of writing material.

I've learned a lot and met some amazing people. Here in Georgia  my buddy Pete introduces me  as his "Snow Mexican", a title I wear with pride because the Mexican workers are such hard working and capable people.

It was on one of Pete's jobs that I was introduced to Leighton. He was a big man with a long ponytail, tattoos and scars and a gravelly voice. The voice was in part due to his profession as a painter. The fumes from spray painting does a number on the vocal cords. He always wore white painters clothes and a ball cap covered in paint.

One day I was working with him delivering some furniture. The old Ford pickup was also covered in paint and full of empty paint cans, beer cans, vodka bottles and rubble from past jobs. We threw the furniture on top of the junk and drove up Island. The right front tire squeaked with every revolution. And we talked.

Leighton was a sergeant in the Army and spent some time stationed in Africa in some dangerous, hell hole location. He lived on Mallery Street on the Island, divorced and was a heavy drinker. His reputation as a painter was solid and he worked long hours. A decent, hardworking good old boy.

One morning we showed up at a job site and he was looking pretty rough. I was looking for work for a friend from the mainland who was also a painter and a heavy drinker. Occupational hazard?

"Hey, Leighton."

"What's up, Brother" he growled.

"My buddy is looking for work. He can spray and has his own gear" I said. I knew he was short handed because his man had just been arrested for domestic.

He paused for a long moment. And he mumbled in his deep, cement mixer, Southern drawl voice;

"Is he sober?"

Another pause. "And does he want to work today?......."

And he finally finished the thought. "Because I'm not... And I don't."

Quintessential Leighton. Not that I knew him well, but I knew enough of who he was to like and respect him. 'Roger that', as he used to say.

I was in our condo rental when Pete called to tell me Leighton had shot himself. Don't know why. Doesn't matter. His family and the community circled and supported each other and mourned him. His memory will live on.

OOB

Stuff going on...so haven't posted much...which doesn't made sense because writing helps me sort stuff out. Anyhow, here's one that made me laugh. Laughing is good...

We moved into an oceanside condo in Old Orchard Beach (OOB) on May 1st and, for the most part, we have revelled in the experience. The morning sunrise views from our bedroom, the beach walks, the family time boogie boarding in the surprisingly warm ocean have been glorious.

It was a hot July day when Connie and I walked the 2 miles down the beach to the Pier, through the hoard of French Canadians with their colorful beach umbrellas and their skimpy speedo suits. It was something we did regularly and enjoyed thoroughly.

On this particular day Connie wanted to sit among the tourists and eat some pier fries followed by some tee shirt shopping for the grandsons. While she shopped, I headed to the public bathroom. When I was a teenager cruising the Pier for hot French girls, it cost 10 cents to use the pissery. Times change...

The short, round, frizzy haired, 50's something woman sat on a stool behind the counter.

"50 cents," she demanded.

"Sure." I acquiesced. "I remember when it was a dime."

"You're fucking old," she said with a chuckle.

The facility was much as I remembered, especially the odor of stale urine and the rusted, gray stalls. After getting my 50 cents worth, I headed back through the entrance, which was blocked by a mother and a young man in a wheelchair.

The mother said, "But I need a handicap stall."

The round woman replied, "There is a handicapped stall in the men's room."

The mother was perplexed.

"Can I help you," I asked.

The young man looked up and grinned giving his unspoken permission. "Thank you so much," the mother agreed.

I wheeled the 15 year old, severely muscular distrophied  young man into the handicap stall. I helped him stand, pulled down his shorts and pivoted him onto the hopper. He looked up and grinned.

"What's your name, buddy?" I asked.

"Timmy."

"And where do you live?"

"Spring Street." he smiled.

Sweet kid. "What town?" I asked.

"Norway."

"So you guys came to Old Orchard Beach to do some rides?"

"Yeah, but I had to pee... And I'm done." he announced.

I stood him up, pulled up his shorts and got him into his chair. We exited the men's room and the mother effusively thanked me for the help. As I turned to leave the short, round woman pointed a finger at me.

"Thank was really nice." she declared. "Next time, you come see me, because, from now on in OOB, you pee for free."

Who has more fun than people...