Happy Father's Day!

Living Deliberately in Concord: Part One

We returned a few Sundays ago from our long-awaited American Transcendentalist practicum in Concord, MA. Monday morning the smell of hing and methi still lingered in the car, and visions of America’s most influential thinkers and writers still danced in our heads.

It all began on Christmas Day 2011, when I unwrapped a box containing a bright green 3-ring binder and what felt like thirty or forty pounds of scholarly tomes. Inside the binder, the syllabus and attendant resource materials for a graduate-level course created by Matea: ENGL 446: American Transcendentalism and the Prominence of Place. The self-directed course, which we were to work through together, would become a passage back to the nascent pulses of the Unitarian Universalist traditions we have adopted in Vermont, and the stream of progressive, idealistic New England virtues which we heartily imbibe.

In early January we commenced our course with the introductions of Meyerson’s Transcendentalism: A Reader and Finch and Elder’s Norton Book of Nature Writing. For the subsequent four months we devoted ourselves to the major works of Emerson, Thoreau, Bronson and Louisa May Alcott, and others active in the 19th century transcendentalist movement, making our way through the better part of the Meyerson anthology. The assignment of Little Women in late March was a welcome reprieve from the difficult line-by-line explications of “Nature,” “Orphic Sayings,” and “Self-Reliance.” To synthesize our readings and bring a finer focus on the difficult-to-pinpoint transcendentalist concepts, we finished the course with Schreiner’s The Concord Quartet: Alcott, Emerson, Hawthorne, Thoreau and the Friendship that Freed the American Mind.

On April 25, we embarked on the experiential learning component of the course with a trip to the North Bridge Inn in Concord. The excursion was meant to eliminate degrees of spiritual and geographic separation from our transcendentalist cousins (I was not allowed to call them “trannies” for short) and elucidate some of the more inscrutable passages, most attributed to Mr. Emerson, which we were still mulling over in our heads. As the day approached, we found ourselves “too excited to sleep,” so we decided to append a night’s stay to our trip and overnight Wednesday in Tewksbury, MA. There we treated ourselves to a delicious Greek dinner at a local dive and enjoyed a scrumptious diner breakfast the following morning; Guy Fieri did not make an appearance.

On the official first full day of the trip, it truly appeared that nature was in a wonderful mood to be…communed with…and it was our expressed intent to do so. All week the forecast had promised an abysmal Thursday of rain and gloom, but Thursday morning we awoke to fair temperatures and sunny blue skies that would follow us for the remainder of the trip. On the road to Concord we passed stunning colonial houses whose yards were a profusion of pinks and purples, the hues of early spring and the ubiquitous dogwoods, lilacs, and azaleas in full bloom. As we approached the town center, a proud she-turkey strutted across the road in front of us as if to say, be sure to slow down and take it all in.

First stop was the small but well-executed Concord Museum, which provided a great context for the town’s dual claims to fame: as the birthplace of the American transcendentalist movement and the home of the “shot heard round the world” that unexpectedly initiated the American War of Independence. A favorite among the museum’s exhibits was the exact replica of Emerson’s study, complete with nearly all the original furnishings and Emerson’s own collection of books, which were saved from his home across the street when it burned in 1872 and moved permanently to the museum in 1930. My personal favorite was the large horsehair sofa upon which the likes of Thoreau, Alcott, Hawthorne, Oliver Wendell Holmes, Margaret Fuller, abolitionist insurrection leader John Brown, and Senator Daniel Webster sat a while to visit the “sage of Concord,” and upon whose bulky, protruding feet many of them inelegantly tripped on their way out. Above the couch hung a replica painting of asters and goldenrod given as a Christmas gift to Emerson by Louisa May Alcott’s artist sister May.

In the adjoining room was housed some personal effects of Thoreau, including the chair and rope bed frame from his studio efficiency on Walden Pond and the desk on which he composed Walden and “Civil Disobedience.”

Aside from the literary collections, we also enjoyed the 1775 Revere lantern that alerted militiamen to the British advance on Concord, the special Colonial Treasures exhibition containing letters of John and Abigail Adams, and the permanent exhibit upstairs presenting rooms decorated according to the fashion through different periods in history. We had nearly decided to leave the museum off our self-guided tour of the city, but we both agreed afterwards that it was a must-see for those making a pilgrimage to transcendentalist New England.

Next we headed to the final meeting place of the Transcendentalist Club. Sleepy Hollow Cemetery (not to be confused with that of Washington Irving fame) is a short walk or drive northeast of town center and plays gracious host to most of the major transcendentalist figures, as well as famed Concord sculptor Daniel Chester French (The Minute Man statue and the Lincoln Memorial), inventor of the Concord Grape Ephraim Wales Bull, and education reformer Elizabeth Peabody.

We drove through the stone pillars of the Prichard Gate and followed the meandering paved path around a curving slope lined with a low stone wall and flowering dogwoods, to reach the small parking area of Author’s Ridge. Excepting some noise from the road, the grounds seem as they were 150 years ago, stone markers dotting the hillsides and intermingling with towering pines, woodbine, and azalea bushes.

A dense moss covers the ground on the steep hill leading to Author’s Ridge. Resting in close proximity, in a perpetual pleasing shade, the Thoreau, Hawthorne, and Alcott family plots were the first we spotted. Thoreau’s unassuming headstone, reading simply “Henry,” resides next to that of his sister Sophia among a tangle of exposed tree roots. Visitors who had come earlier in the morning had left tokens at the site: a plastic battery-operated votive candle, a collection of smooth pebbles, and a fresh white chrysanthemum.

We added our own pebbles to the left downward slope of the headstone after contemplating for a moment that the moss under our feet carried forth at least an atomic manifestation of the man himself, as would have pleased him verily. We stopped for a short time at the Hawthorne family plot, where Hawthorne, his beloved wife Sophia, and their daughter Una are interred. Though the Hawthornes were an exceedingly devoted and “cute” couple who found love later in life, the paterfamilias was admittedly not our favorite among his contemporaries. Other fans, however, had left tokens to honor the man who penned The Scarlet Letter, The House of the Seven Gables, and other notable stories. The Alcott family burial site was located just across from the Hawthornes’ and is identified by the intricately-carved monolith standing in the center of the square plot. The family foot stones are marked merely with each individual’s initials and birth and death dates. Placed next to the flat stone bearing Louisa’s full name was the U.S. Veteran medallion marking her service as a nurse during the Civil War.

The medication administered to treat the typhoid fever and pneumonia she contracted during this brief post would, ironically, lead to life-long ill health and her slow death due to mercury poisoning. The rest of the Little Women—her sisters Anna, Elizabeth, and May, who were featured semi-biographically in Alcott’s most famous book—have markers nearby (May is actually interred in France), as well as her beloved mother Abba and her transcendentalist father Bronson, who inspired important reforms in the education system during his lifetime. Further on, at the peak of the hill and looking down upon the greater part of Sleepy Hollow, is the imposing slab of pink granite (which manages to be both the most grandiose and the most unassuming markers upon Author’s Ridge) marking the burial site of the Transcendentalist Club’s most venerable member, Ralph Waldo Emerson.

Many members of the Emerson family are buried here, and Waldo is flanked by his dear wife Lidian and their daughter Ellen. Here, as we had with Thoreau and Alcott, we placed a small stone atop the granite. Emerson himself, certainly not in doubt that it would one day become his own final resting place, gave the cemetery’s dedication speech in late September 1855. On that day, he would accurately portend that, “When these acorns, that are falling at our feet, are oaks overshadowing our children in a remote century, this mute green bank will be full of history: the good, the wise, and the great will have left their names and virtues on the trees…will have made the air tuneable and articulate.” Matea and I, children of this remote century looking out over the sparkling marsh abutting Author’s Ridge, made sure to breathe deeply as we lingered.

The morning had mildly slipped away as we descended the footpath back to the parking area. With the windows down and our fingers strumming at the light breeze, we headed to the picturesque downtown area to make a quick stop at the Concord Cheese Shop, where we procured some delightful picnic provisions before continuing down Route 126 to Walden Pond. A gorgeous pink dogwood greeted us at the gate to the State Reservation area.

On this unexpectedly perfect day in late April, we were a bit surprised to find the parking lots largely vacant. We parked next to the replica cabin the park has built to look exactly like the one in which Thoreau lived for two years while conducting his famed social experiment.

The cottage, in its entirety, was smaller than a modern-day master bedroom (10’ x 15’) and was modestly but suitably appointed with a table on which to eat, a bed in which to sleep, and a desk on which to write.

After arm-wrestling with the bronze statue of Thoreau outside the replica cabin, we gathered our picnic accoutrements and headed to the original site of his temporary domicile. Walden Pond sits across the two-lane highway from the parking area, and the site is a pleasant half-mile hike along the water’s edge. Along the way we snapped pictures of the 64-acre kettle hole pond and observed the budding foliage that Thoreau so carefully catalogued over 150 years ago.

The swarming summer throngs had not yet arrived—Walden Pond is an extremely popular tourist destination and swimming hole in the summer months—and we found the journey both serene and surreal. We approached the small cove Thoreau chose as the location of his dwelling and crossed a small foot bridge to reach the site of the foundation. We were surprised to find that the cabin had not been built directly on the water but was located on a small rise about 100 feet into the woods. As we approached the site on the worn footpath, the famous “I came to the woods” sign came into view, and next to it was the cairn of which Bronson Alcott laid the first stone in 1872.

Thousands of medium-sized rocks comprise the stony heap today, and Matea and I added two of our own to the pile, just as Walt Whitman also did in reverence to Thoreau in 1881. The original foundation of Thoreau’s cabin is marked with nine stone pillars about two feet in height.

Inside the rectangle of pillars lays a flat stone marking the cabin’s chimney foundation, and here we laid out our picnic. With the pond still in view and no other visitors to intrude upon our repast, we endeavored to “simplify, simplify” with a ploughman’s lunch of homemade cheese straws, a seeded demi-baguette, creamy and piquant Roquefort cheese, a wedge of English-made Red Dragon, a plug of “fig bread,” and a few crisp cornichons.

It was a wholly satisfying experience, making a quiet visit to Thoreau in his spot in the woods a century and a half later, taking in the natural scenery, and feasting on delectable imported cheeses.

We took a different trail through the woods back to the parking area and, beginning to feel the myriad activities of the day, drove into town to check in to the Emerson Suite of the North Bridge Inn (another detail Matea had seen to as part of my Christmas present). After a brief rest, and for a rather incongruous finish to the day, we ventured over to Lexington to have dinner at a Mexican restaurant located in a strip mall. The day had been all kinds of wonderful. As the sun set and a tease of rain finally began to fall, we sucked the vegetarian-bean-chimichanga marrow out of life to the serenade of a live mariachi band.

This One’s For The Girls

I found myself at the Majestic 10 theater Sunday afternoon for the matinee showing of Ramona and Beezus, a movie adaptation of the ever popular children’s book series by Beverly Cleary. The cinema was packed with moms and their young daughters, mostly. And there were 20- and 30-somethings, like us, who had read the books when we were the same age as the giggling little ones around us. Before the movie there were previews of upcoming films for kids, including a Pixaresque revival of the most beloved little creatures of my childhood (you could argue for the Fraggles, but I personally found them boring), the Smurfs! The sweet “la, la, la, la, la, la” theme music had been jazzed up with a hip-hop beat in the background, but you get the picture. The Hollywood producers have the right idea, coming out with movies that are nostalgic for the parents, who really determine ticket sales, and will be just as enjoyable for the kids. The other thing I noticed is that I didn’t see one previewed movie that wasn’t going to be presented in 3D. And you’ll probably see me at many a one, wearing big, goofy glasses and waving my hands out in front of me to touch the little blue men who aren’t really there. But back to Ramona Quimby.

I was actually excited to see this film, and it really lived up to my expectations. I will say that, despite the name, the movie didn’t have much to do with the dynamic between Ramona and her big sister, nicknamed Beezus, at all. There were a few nice, sisterly love-hate scenes, but it was mostly about Ramona herself. Anyway, that’s not the point. The point is that I liked the movie. If someone asked me, I would say, “Yeah, it was cute.” But it occurred to me that I was sitting between two women (Matea and Georgia) who had grown up in a house full of sisters (two each), and who probably made much more of a connection to the characters than I.

I grew up with good ole Charlie boy. We played and fought and loved each other as much as any two siblings possibly could, I think. He was 5 years younger than me, and I admit to taking advantage and knocking him around a lot. (He should admit that he took advantage of his age and cried unnecessarily at times just to get me in trouble!!) I helped him learn to play baseball on countless nights in the yard. I would make him remove his glove and do “frog hops” as punishment if he let a ground ball go through his legs. You can’t believe how angry he would get. He’d throw his glove down as hard as he could, his little cheeks as red as fire. But he would do those frog hops, and I would throw him ground balls and pop flies again and again, always giving him scenarios a la “if a man’s on first, where are you throwing the ball?” Even today we still laugh at the same things and react similarly when presented with situations that…need reacting to. But Matea has told me for years that, when it comes to the bond between sisters, I “just don’t get it.”

When I first started spending an inordinate amount of time at the Morris household, Matea’s sisters were, I believe, about 10 (Becca) and 12 (Brielle). Brielle, being the loving extrovert she was, took to me pretty quickly. She was inquisitive—good grief, the questions she would ask me—and hilarious and easily became one of my best friends over the years. Becca was not so easy. My first memory of Becca is of her angrily slamming a door in my face. I can’t begin to remember why. I was probably doing all I could to annoy her, which was all I knew about being a sibling. What I didn’t “get,” as Matea would say, is that she might have just been reacting like a jealous sister, not just an annoyed sibling. She was sulking like Ramona did when Beezus called her a pest. But now that Becca has grown up…literally, now that she’s an adult and living here in VT, she is one of my favorite people to spend an afternoon with. Through the years, I laughed and cried with both of “the girls,” as everyone called them. I put them through what could be called frog hops, and they probably did what they could to get me in trouble from time to time. It became sort of a rent-to-buy situation, where they were sort of on loan to me on the weekends, and then they just naturally moved beyond being merely my sometimes sisters.

I never had a Beezus (although I did persuade Charlie to dress up like a girl on more than one occasion), but I did have a Berle and Bekia. Brielle is always in my heart and almost as often on my mind. None of us is as good as we could have been with her guidance and example. And I savor my silent car rides and inside jokes with Becca. We’ll always be there for each other during unpleasant chores, violent movies, and guilty pleasure video games. Becca has taught me graciousness, magnanimity, and patience.

Matea (well, I should really say Marmee), thank you for giving me a taste of sisterhood.

Somewhere Between Acorn and Oak

Today we dined at New World Tortilla on Pine Street. I love their fresh, hand-made corn tortillas, and Matea enjoys the curry tortilla. Towards the end of the meal, Matea noticed a strange guy who seemed to be staring at her. Though she didn’t recognize him, it turned out to be our old neighbor Greg, who lived above us on Decatur Street in the first house we rented in Burlington. He lived with two roommates, Jay and Megan, who we still see occasionally. We truthfully didn’t interact with them much, though we did watch their cat for a week while they were away (which, in turn, introduced us to our favorite pizza, Junior’s, via a thank-you gift certificate). Anyway, it turns out that Greg seems much nicer and more talkative than he did back then. He’s married, and so are Jay and Megan (to each other). The crazy part was that Greg had lived above us for a year or so, then we moved out and he lived in Boston for five years before moving back to Vermont recently. I can’t believe we’ve lived here long enough to run into someone we knew before they moved away for five years! But the truth is that we’ve spent most of our adult lives here. We moved here at age 23, and May marked our 7th year in the Green Mountain State.

Tonight we’re going with friends to belatedly celebrate my 30th birthday, so maybe that’s why this being-an-adult epiphany has finally hit me. Though I could come up with a much lengthier list of reasons I am still child-like, here are some recent warnings that I am slowly reaching adult maturity:

1. Last night I edged along the driveway, and I was as proud of that as a 3 year old is a finger painting. I wanted to take a picture of my edging and display it on the refrigerator. A similar warning sign was the fact that I also swept the entire driveway. After swearing as a teenager that I would never even clean my room as an adult, I surely never thought I would be sweeping the driveway!

2. I ordered soup for lunch today. And I eat kale, even when no one’s watching.

3. I am usually out of bed in the seven o’clock hour on weekends.

4. There is no greater happiness every day than the moment my head hits my pillow.

5. Last month I voted at my first neighborhood association meeting and had a serious conversation about waste water compliance.

6. I’m planting my first vegetable garden on Wed evening.

7. I was jealous yesterday of a retired coworker who is taking some UVM mini-courses meant only for those 50 and older.

Anyway, I’m proud to have already established a “history” here. I love Vermont. I love weeding the flower beds. I love vacuuming the baseboards. I love doing favors for my mother-in-law (and do not take having a mother-in-law for granted). I love walking the dogs, even when it rains. I LOVE trash night. I love emptying the dishwasher. I love tinkering in the garage. I excitedly bought myself a wheelbarrow with my Nana’s birthday check. I suggested to Matea that we attend the opera next month.

Oh, youthful Chrissy. I’ve left you behind somewhere along the way and didn’t even know it. I will think kindly of you from time to time. And I promise to write.

Embarrassing Admission #14: The Tesh Offensive

I just may have listened to the John Tesh Radio Show once or twice...on purpose. His “Intelligence For Your Life” segments on easy listening radio here in the Champlain Valley have oft caught my attention. I’ve even stayed in the car listening to extra Lionel Richey songs just to avail myself of his sage advice. He just reels me in with his Teshy teasers. “What’s the one thing researchers say you should never do in the workplace?” he asks. “Stay tuned to make sure this common medical mistake doesn’t happen to you.” “We have some tips on minimizing your pet’s end-of-life suffering, coming right up,” he promises. Too often, though, he leaves me wanting. He never really seems to get around to actually doing these segments. Just teaser after teaser. I try to wait, but you can only sit in the Shaw’s parking lot for so long listening to Billy Joel. Why must you torture me so, John Tesh!! Don’t let the piercing blue eyes fool you, folks. This man is nothing but a playa.

P.S.
Upon Googleing his name today, I find a story hot off the presses that he and Oprah Winfrey lived together in Nashville in 1974 and were romantically involved. According to Kitty Kelly, author of a new Oprah biography, Tesh broke it off with her because he could no longer take the pressures of being in an interracial relationship. Not too intelligent, if you ask me!

Performing for Change can be a Real Dragnet

Every day at 4pm I wait outside the Bruegger’s corporate office for Matea to get off work. As I crossed over Church Street yesterday, I saw a young girl (well, maybe late teens) with an acoustic guitar and thick-rimmed glasses busking for change in front of the pink Bank Street wall of Monelle. The day before I had watched a local homeless man pace back and forth talking to himself, puffing incessantly on a cigar. So, to see this nice, Loeb-esque young woman on the corner next to an open 15-minute parking spot was, to me, a stroke of good luck.

So I pulled in and rolled down both passenger side windows in anticipation of her singing “Kiss Me,” which I just knew would be next on her playlist. But no sooner had I switched off the ignition than the music abruptly stopped. I looked back to see a uniformed officer standing very close to her and flipping through some sort of ticket or note book. She was clutching the guitar close to her body in an almost defensive stance. I mostly could not hear what was being said between them, but I saw Sergeant Joe Friday gesture towards Church Street (she was, technically, firmly positioned on Bank Street, not Church) and then say more loudly, “You put that away and follow me to my squad car.” He said it just like that.

I saw the girl return her instrument to a soft case and...was suddenly scared to death by Barry, the hearing-impaired maintenance man from Matea’s office. He will occasionally come to my open window as I wait (he’s waiting to lock the doors at 5), and we will try to have a conversation in charades. Not knowing he was behind me, I jumped high in my seat and missed the rest of the interaction between Molly (or so said the sticker on her guitar) and Sergeant Friday. As Barry walked away, the two of them disappeared around the corner. But before they did, I called out a “boooo,” which was rather loud, but not loud enough, I knew, for any of them to hear. I supposed the cop took Molly back to his car, ran a background check, humiliated her, and then either gave her a fine or a warning for singing too close to Church Street, where one must first obtain an official Church Street Marketplace Street Entertainer License.

Performing for money on Church Street, with the blessing of the city, involves applying for a license, auditioning on a predetermined Tuesday at noon, being selected based upon several deciding factors, and then paying a permit fee between $5 and $25 dollars. If selected, there are also 4 pages of strict rules and regulations one must follow at all times. So much for spreading spontaneous joy to the window shoppers of Burlington. I know that some acts in the past have been a nuisance to both the public and the business owners of the Marketplace. But it seems like an easier system of natural selection could keep the bad acts weeded out. If you’re no good, the meager profits won’t be worth your while. If you’re great, folks will be chucking quarters at your case all day long. I absolutely love street performers. I can’t get enough of them, actually, and I love to attend the annual Festival of Fools that takes place in Burlington. I think the red tape and subjective, politicking bureaucracy of an audition process for ordinary Joes or college kids who need to earn an extra buck is a little much. Especially tersely reprimanding and marching an innocent chanteuse off to your squad car just doesn’t jibe with the atmosphere of this laid-back city. I say, Let ‘em Work, Let ‘em Live. Viva la Busker!

Being Bubbly Takes a Toll

Every time we get together with Georgia, we just can’t seem to get enough of her kind smile and easy-going demeanor (and self-proclaimed intellect and wit, as she just mentioned on the phone), and there must be something about us that she also enjoys. So, while I was on my trip to the concession stand to get popcorn for the White (-haired) sisters, she and Matea were busy contriving plans for a quick weekend trip to Portland, Maine. We took said trip last weekend, taking a half-day off work to get a jump on the four-hour drive across Vermont and New Hampshire, and up the Maine seacoast. We stopped almost immediately, in Waterbury, to have lunch at the Cider House barbecue restaurant, which began what I would call a weekend of beverages for my two travel companions (just a few hours later I would be making an emergency pit-stop at a service plaza off of Maine’s I-95 to procure $10-worth (i.e., two!) of Starbucks coffee drinks before both girls expired in road-worn exhaustion.) The food was delicious—it’s the only place in Vermont to get a fried okra po’ boy—and Georgia savored the opportunity to drink beer in the middle of a workday. Later that night, after checking into the Portland Harbor Hotel (finding our beds already turned down, complete with chocolate lobsters) we walked down to the Portland Pie Co. for some pizza…and more beer. Matea, of course, ordered a blueberry beer in honor of Maine’s staple fruit.

The next morning we used the gps locator on Georgia’s iPhone to lead us, eventually, to The Standard Baking Company for yet another round of coffee. Then it was non-stop shopping and window browsing around the Old Port and downtown areas. I have never browsed so many boutique shops in my life. We zigzagged the city at least three times, down Fore Street, up Exchange, across Middle, down Silver, back up Union, across Fore, Free, Congress, and Middle (again). We trekked back down to the wharf area to have an experience in bubble tea. This pearl of a drink was invented in Taiwan in the ‘80s and is largely a west-coast phenomenon in the U.S. But, lucky for Matea and Georgia, there is a little shop in the east-coast Portland that devotes itself wholly to this milky, murky concoction. I, as with most of the other beverage runs, did not partake. But I did take a tiny sip of Matea’s almond bubble tea, making sure to suck one of the black tapioca balls through the oversized straw to give it a try. It was virtually tasteless, with a seemingly indestructible, indigestible Dot-like consistency. It was more fun having Matea shoot one at me than having one slip down my throat like a cold, tiny luggie (OMG! that’s gross). After the tea it was the inescapable trip to Three Dollar Dewey’s, more and more shopping and, amazingly, another trip to Starbucks before the day was over. We wearily returned to the hotel with bags filled with stationery, Provence soap, and gourmet popcorn. (Georgia, I was going to write about the cuticle cream you purchased, but I felt it best left omitted.)

The final day of the trip, Sunday, was a test of my abilities as a not-for-profit chauffeur. By Saturday night the wind had begun to pick up due to a low-pressure trough (prob. not the correct term, but I like the way it sounds) that was moving up the eastern seaboard. On Sunday we were met with blowing rain and intermittent flakes of snow. We made our way to the requisite Sunday brunch, this time at Hot Suppa! on Congress Street. It required several U-turns and an aggressive parallel park. Outside the car, it seemed like somewhat of a flash-flood in the streets of Portland, and my socks were quickly soaked through thanks to the many access points in my dark-green Crocs. After brunch we hit the interstate in search of the Mecca for bargain hunters in the Downeast area: the Kittery, Maine outlet malls. By the time we hit Kittery, the wind was wild and unyielding, so I followed in my father’s footsteps and let Georgia and Matea out at the doors of their favorite shops. The back seat and trunk were filled with purchases in no time, and it was on to my second chauffersorial* duty: communing with the I-95 toll-takers. Matea told me once, though I have not been able to confirm, that toll-takers are among the professions with higher rates of suicide, due to the brevity of their interactions with other people over the course of their undoubtedly monotonous workday. The article stated, in a nutshell, that the rate could potentially be decreased by engaging your friendly toll-taker in a mere five-word exchange as you hand over your fistful of quarters. So it has become my mission, my life-saving responsibility, to work in, at minimum, a “Hi, how are you? Thanks very much,” at every booth. I count myself a savior of state toll plaza workers, a “cash only” vehicle amid a current of cold, non-communicative EZ-Pass whizzers-by. At the final booth, near the Hookset exit, I was greeted by surly-looking man in his eighties. As the gale-force winds and rain whirred around the plaza structure, I smiled at the man and said, “You enjoying this weather?” The man’s face turned as pleasant as if I had presented him with a gold bar rather than my measly 75 cents. “Not at all!” he replied emphatically. He chuckled and maintained eye contact for a few seconds before giving me the green light to continue on my way. It was only four words, but they had been effective.

Then, blah, blah, blah, New Hampshire was flooded, yada, yada, yada, we made it home safely, etc. But thinking about this toll-taker flash confabulation in which I have come to find great value, on both sides, reminded me of another solitary figure I encounter along the road.

Every morning on our drive in to work, we pass an open field where a gorgeous red-tailed hawk has made his home; the extensive teal, metal roofs of Paya’s auto dealership; a little dribble of a creek where I have seen several doe stealing a drink of water; the grand lawn of the Trinity Baptist Church compound; and a faithful friend we have come to call Merle Johnson. Around 6:48 am, just as our amazing view of the Adirondacks, cloaked in morning fog, descends below the tree line, Merle emerges in his gray, Carhart-like jacket, jeans, and flannel button-up, taking his morning solo walk down the eastbound lane of Mountainview Road. He is often carrying a plastic grocery bag, probably containing his lunch for the day, and on chilly mornings has his hands tucked deep into his jacket pockets. We have never interacted with Merle, save the occasional eye contact and acknowledging smile, but spotting him is something we have come to count on. On rare mornings when he does not appear, we wonder Where’s Merle Johnson? His presence each day brings the comfort of familiarity and constancy, especially since we have named him and created a sort of mythology of his life and journey. On mornings when we made it out the door a little earlier, we have seen him as he turned right onto Mountainview from Route 2A, and once, when we were running late, Matea believed she saw him reach his destination, Paya’s. Walking every morning with his head down, bathed in the diffused morning light like an apparition, he, too, looks like the kind of guy that could use five words. Perhaps we will drop in to Paya’s one afternoon and ask for the gentleman in the flannel shirt. And we will say, “Nice to meet you, Merle.”


*Again, not a real word, but I like it. :)

P.S.
Thanks to Portland for recharging our batteries, and for reminding us that everyone occasionally requires the gentle caress of kindness to brush away their own perception of invisibility.