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…….".

Brian

Today’s Portland Press Herald headlines; “Tear gas, arrest end six-hour standoff. Brian Kelley, 48, is charged after a woman is shot in the chest.”

Surprising… only 48.  I would have guessed 60.Then again, gauging a person’s age on the waterfront is hit or miss at best.

Brian was always drunk when the crew gathered at the bait shop each morning at 4:00 AM. He would stumble down the stinking, dark, cobble stoned Custom House Wharf, always on foot.  He had permanently lost his license to drive, served 5 years in the State Prison in Thomaston as a Habitual Offender. If it was raining heavily, he would sometimes accepted a ride in my little red pickup truck. He smelled strongly of  booze, cigarettes and fish, a familiar… and strangely comforting aroma.

I liked him. Over the two years we worked together on the dock, we always greeted each other cordially each morning. It might go like this;

 “Mornin, Glen.”

 “Mornin, Brian.”

“Wet one, huh?”

“Yes-suh. Stay dry”

“Ayhuh…”

He would retreat to his barrels, dumping and hosing the fish slime and blood from the blue and white plastic 55 gallon drums, stacking them 2 high , preparing for another day of filling them with salt and fish that the lobstermen used to bait their traps. I would head for the wharf to take the orders from the fishermen and winch the barrels down to waiting boats. The crew wouldn’t let Brian run the winch or the fork trucks. He was too dangerous.

When the Porthole coffee shop opened at 6 o’clock, I would often bring him a steaming cup of  the  bitter, black brew. He drank it with 2 creamers and 5 sugars speeding the decay of his already rotting, black teeth. When the work flow allowed, we would sit on the dock, smoke hand rolled cigarettes and watch the sun rise out of the ocean. Sometimes we would talk.

He told me about earning his living as a younger man diving for urchins… before his scuba gear was stolen, before his strength was wasted by injuries and abuse. He talked about life in prison and how he couldn’t trust anyone inside the walls. He spoke bitterly about how he had been falsely labeled as a “skinner”, a child abuser, in jail and how he had confronted and beaten the liar to clear his name. On his forearm was a prison tattoo that he bought for $5 from an inmate who used needles and an ink pen to draw a map of the state of Maine behind bars.

On day he was raging about another guy on the crew who had disrespected him. “He better back off. I can get real angry I’ll hurt that son of a whore.” he growled.

All day long, he would work under the fish conveyor, covered in fish guts and salt dust, filling barrels. His eyes were red and irritated. I brought him a pair of safety glasses which he wore until they were stolen. When the fishing season slowed down in December, Brian was laid off and signed up for unemployment compensation.

The newspaper article reported that he had allegedly shot a woman in the chest with a pellet gun. The pellet had not broken the skin, but the Portland police had dispatched swat teams and snipers to bring him to justice. After a 6 hour standoff, the police had tear gassed his 3^rd floor slum apartment and taken him into custody.

 My friend Brian is in a world of shit today. I’m sure there is more to the story, but it’s unlikely he will beat this rap. It’s far more likely he will spend more years behind bars. It’s tragic all around.

The only good news is he’s already got the tattoo.