Well, I’ve done my part to carry on the autumn traditions. I stopped this past weekend at a farm stand and bought my annual pumpkin, which is perfect and which I’ve named Sunny (I always name my pumpkins, and I keep them until they rot on me, which is true of everything I acquire. Stuff lives with me – and moves with me – ‘til it rots/falls apart/dies on me), as well as a lovely acorn squash, and some enchanting cherry tomatoes.
The place I stopped at was on the other side of the river. On this side the road that runs along the river is a heavily traveled, house-and-business-lined thoroughfare connecting three small towns (Gardiner, where I live, Farmingdale, and Hallowell, where I work) to the “big city” (population about 18,000) of Augusta. On the other side of the Kennebec the houses and businesses are pretty much limited to the Augusta end; in short order you’re driving past fields and farms. And traffic tends to be much lighter. Every now and then I take that route, rather the one I take at least twice every day. There’s a bridge at Randolph that leads back across to Gardiner.
McGee’s Vegetable Stand was very neat and attractive, painted a deep barn red, with pumpkins lined up in front. I caught a glimpse of it as I went zipping by, and immediately slowed – here was a chance to get my autumn pumpkin! At someplace more interesting than a supermarket.
I was very pleased to see the sign that said “Honor system – please leave money in slot on door.” Initially I thought this meant slot on door of nearby farmhouse, but I saw no slot on either of the visible doors, and the man coming out of the house showed me that one end of the produce shed was actually a door, lying on its side...with a slot in it.
One reason this honor system pleased me was that it’s nice to see places and situations that still rely on such a thing. But also, I had only recently been thinking about farm stands and honor systems, probably as the result of passing a house on the outskirts of Hallowell that had a few vegetables sitting out on a little cart, with a sign. I had thought how most people would probably play according to the rules, but all it would take was one unscrupulous person who made off with the contents of the box, to ruin the system for everyone (especially the farmer).
And then, voila, here was a farm stand operating on the honor system. McGee’s has at least solved the problem of that one-in-a-hundred dishonest person making off with the money, but of course, people can still take produce, and leave no money. But I suspect that most people who would bother stopping at a farm stand are not the kind of people who would do that.
This little transaction of six or seven minutes gave me a great deal of satisfaction. It was nice to know that I was “buying local,” helping out a local farmer, in my small way. And the place was so pleasant, with lovely produce attractively displayed. And for me it was something out of the ordinary, though others may stop at every farm stand they see. And finally, I liked doing my part for the honor system.
Monday, September 15, 2008
Tuesday, September 9, 2008
The other side of the aisle
Having commented on the Democratic National Convention (DNC), I feel I should do the same for the Republican National Convention (RNC). I actually watched more of the latter than of the former, since I wanted to hear what the opposition was saying.
Patriotism was the big theme of the convention (its official slogan being “Country First.”) While the DNC concentrated on what was wrong with this country -- the watchword there being “Change” – the RNC concentrated on the valor and sacrifices of our servicemen and women, past and present, with the thread always leading back, of course, to John McCain’s service record. I have absolutely no problem with honoring and thanking those people who serve in such a way that the majority of us don’t have to, but I didn’t see how all this had anything to do with a presidential campaign. And I thought way too much time was given over to McCain’s POW experiences. I don’t think there’s anyone in this country who doesn’t acknowledge McCain is a bona fide war hero. But does that automatically make him good presidential material?
Very interestingly, the big night seemed not to be the last night, when Senator McCain spoke, but the night before, when his high-energy running mate made her highly effective speech (my, but the crowd did love her). One statement of hers really got me: “And I have never been ashamed of my country.” This, presumably, was in response to Michelle Obama’s controversial statement months ago that for the first time in her adult life she was proud of her country. But...our treatment of the Indians doesn’t make Governor Palin feel the least bit ashamed? The fact that for many years (until government stepped in) we were working children as young as five years old 12 hours a day in factories – that isn’t something to be ashamed of? Or our treatment of blacks prior to the civil rights movement of the 1960s? Our incarcerating during World War II thousands of loyal American citizens who happened to be of Japanese extraction doesn’t make the governor feel the tiniest twinge of shame? Or the fact that right now millions of Americans avoid going to the doctor because they have no medical insurance, and if a medical catastrophe strikes it can completely ruin a family financially...this is something to be proud of?
It could be argued that Governor Palin wasn’t around for, and therefore had nothing to do with, most of the “shameful” situations I mention above. And therefore, she has no reason to feel shame for them. But...what if she had been around then? As many people were, who objected to, were ashamed of, and fought against, the conditions I’ve cited. And who were, without exception, demonized by the status quo. Would Governor Palin have been able to feel ashamed of her country then, at least of some of the conditions it was tolerating? Or what about the last situation I mention above, the health care situation in this country, this “richest country in the world.” Isn’t that condition shameful?
I’ve always had trouble with the “my country right or wrong” attitude, and it’s all-too-often accompanying attitude, well, if you don’t like how things are, go somewhere else. The United States, for all its wealth, power, physical beauty, and yes, warm-hearted, generous, hard-working people, has done plenty of lousy, bad, shitty things, just like every other country has. And, like others of my ilk, I don’t think a willingness to point out when the country is doing something unacceptable indicates a lack of patriotism. What it indicates is an acceptance of the (very American) idea that things can always be made better. And should be.
As to other speakers, I did think Rudy Giuliani got in some good hits about Obama’s “present” votes in the Illinois state legislature. That’s the kind of real information I like to hear about candidates (and I’d say it’s pretty damning for Obama). But then Giuliani got snide. As Sarah Palin was snide. Oh, preserve me from snide. (And isn’t it amazing, my Spell Check knew how to spell Giuliani.)
I was very impressed with Mike Huckabee as a speaker. He was not snide, but relied on affecting personal anecdotes to get his points across. For example, his description of how poor his family was, when he was growing up, followed by the statement (which got tremendous applause, and rightfully so): “I’m not a Republican because I was born rich, I’m a Republican because I didn’t want to spend the rest of my life poor, waiting for the government to save me.” He is way too conservative for me, but I like the man’s style.
And that’s enough about politics for a while. Everybody vote.
Patriotism was the big theme of the convention (its official slogan being “Country First.”) While the DNC concentrated on what was wrong with this country -- the watchword there being “Change” – the RNC concentrated on the valor and sacrifices of our servicemen and women, past and present, with the thread always leading back, of course, to John McCain’s service record. I have absolutely no problem with honoring and thanking those people who serve in such a way that the majority of us don’t have to, but I didn’t see how all this had anything to do with a presidential campaign. And I thought way too much time was given over to McCain’s POW experiences. I don’t think there’s anyone in this country who doesn’t acknowledge McCain is a bona fide war hero. But does that automatically make him good presidential material?
Very interestingly, the big night seemed not to be the last night, when Senator McCain spoke, but the night before, when his high-energy running mate made her highly effective speech (my, but the crowd did love her). One statement of hers really got me: “And I have never been ashamed of my country.” This, presumably, was in response to Michelle Obama’s controversial statement months ago that for the first time in her adult life she was proud of her country. But...our treatment of the Indians doesn’t make Governor Palin feel the least bit ashamed? The fact that for many years (until government stepped in) we were working children as young as five years old 12 hours a day in factories – that isn’t something to be ashamed of? Or our treatment of blacks prior to the civil rights movement of the 1960s? Our incarcerating during World War II thousands of loyal American citizens who happened to be of Japanese extraction doesn’t make the governor feel the tiniest twinge of shame? Or the fact that right now millions of Americans avoid going to the doctor because they have no medical insurance, and if a medical catastrophe strikes it can completely ruin a family financially...this is something to be proud of?
It could be argued that Governor Palin wasn’t around for, and therefore had nothing to do with, most of the “shameful” situations I mention above. And therefore, she has no reason to feel shame for them. But...what if she had been around then? As many people were, who objected to, were ashamed of, and fought against, the conditions I’ve cited. And who were, without exception, demonized by the status quo. Would Governor Palin have been able to feel ashamed of her country then, at least of some of the conditions it was tolerating? Or what about the last situation I mention above, the health care situation in this country, this “richest country in the world.” Isn’t that condition shameful?
I’ve always had trouble with the “my country right or wrong” attitude, and it’s all-too-often accompanying attitude, well, if you don’t like how things are, go somewhere else. The United States, for all its wealth, power, physical beauty, and yes, warm-hearted, generous, hard-working people, has done plenty of lousy, bad, shitty things, just like every other country has. And, like others of my ilk, I don’t think a willingness to point out when the country is doing something unacceptable indicates a lack of patriotism. What it indicates is an acceptance of the (very American) idea that things can always be made better. And should be.
As to other speakers, I did think Rudy Giuliani got in some good hits about Obama’s “present” votes in the Illinois state legislature. That’s the kind of real information I like to hear about candidates (and I’d say it’s pretty damning for Obama). But then Giuliani got snide. As Sarah Palin was snide. Oh, preserve me from snide. (And isn’t it amazing, my Spell Check knew how to spell Giuliani.)
I was very impressed with Mike Huckabee as a speaker. He was not snide, but relied on affecting personal anecdotes to get his points across. For example, his description of how poor his family was, when he was growing up, followed by the statement (which got tremendous applause, and rightfully so): “I’m not a Republican because I was born rich, I’m a Republican because I didn’t want to spend the rest of my life poor, waiting for the government to save me.” He is way too conservative for me, but I like the man’s style.
And that’s enough about politics for a while. Everybody vote.
Sunday, September 7, 2008
Crime wave
Labor Day weekend my car was spray-painted. Sitting right outside my house, in my nice neighborhood. Fuck Black Cars was the elevated message (silly twits. The car is dark green.) I was moderately miffed when I discovered this little act of vandalism, which was when I went out to make my garbage run on Sunday night (see Note of June 10, 2008). However, the next day, when I went out to wash the offensive message off, I became really disheartened when I discovered it wasn’t written in the egg-based substance I had thought it was (what would make me think such a thing? I suppose because it was yellow), but rather yellow paint. As in difficult to get off, especially off the trunk of the car, without taking the car paint with it.
After realizing this was going to take more than a pan of water with Mr. Clean added, I went back into the house and called the police. Of course there was nothing they would be able to do, but I felt they should be informed. You wouldn’t bother in a big city, where the police are busy with the murders and the rapes and the muggings and the break-ins, but in relatively crime-free small-town Maine, attention was more likely to be paid. Maybe there had been a string of spray-paintings. Maybe I was part of a pattern. Or might be the start of a pattern.
The fellow who came out was 1) my idea of attractive and 2) very nice. Properly sympathetic. “Really nice,” he says with acerbity, of the message. He tells me two things that make me feel a tiny bit better. One is that he’d noticed that a For Sale back up the block had also been spray-painted. And the other is that they’ve occasionally had trouble with this kind of thing when there have been games at the ball field which sits at the end of my street. I had had the uneasy feeling that I might be being singled out, since my car sat right beside the three cars that go with the house next door, all of us with our rear-ends to the street, so equally vulnerable to violation, but only mine was violated. But relief that it probably wasn’t a matter of me having a secret enemy (like my next-door neighbors on the other side? Whose howling, barking dogs, shut up in the house for 10-12 hours a day, I’ve called the police about more than once? The thought did cross my mind...), was almost immediately replaced by the sinking realization that the little creep(s) who did this could do it again, anytime.
However, my immediate problem was the writing on the back window of my car. I really could not be driving around with Fuck Black screaming at people (the Cars part can only be read if you’re standing near the car, looking down at the trunk.) I didn’t know what to use, thought of paint remover – obviously not for the trunk, but maybe for the window? – called first my landlord, to see if he had any, but he wasn’t home (never a landlord when you need one), so called the one of my staff who owns a home, and might possibly have such an item in her possession.
“I have paint thinner,” Barb says. I figure it’s worth a try, so drive to Hallowell (the back way, so as to be viewed by as few cars as possible), to Barb’s house, where she produces a paint scraper she found while waiting for me. The paint scraper actually proves quite efficacious at removing the paint from the window, though it takes a while. So we forget about the paint thinner. Barb digs around in her house some more and finds a much smaller scraper that she uses to help me, and the two of us spend maybe 45 minutes scraping away yellow paint. I’m deeply appreciative for her "being there for me,” as the cliche goes.
I’ve now asked several people for suggestions as to what to do about the trunk. I can’t afford to have it repainted. Acetone, like nail polish, might take the spray-paint off, one fellow suggests. But yes, it might take some of the car paint off, too. Another of the patrons at the library suggests trying a rubbing compound (what’s a rubbing compound?). And yet someone else makes the suggestion that I buy some spray paint in a color as close to the muddy green of my car as possible, and do the repainting myself. “Or paint it all yellow,” he said, with a wicked grin. “Then you wouldn’t have to worry about it not matching.”
No, all I have to worry about is its happening again. But what am I going to do, sit out on my tiny front porch every night with my firearm in my hand? I think not...
After realizing this was going to take more than a pan of water with Mr. Clean added, I went back into the house and called the police. Of course there was nothing they would be able to do, but I felt they should be informed. You wouldn’t bother in a big city, where the police are busy with the murders and the rapes and the muggings and the break-ins, but in relatively crime-free small-town Maine, attention was more likely to be paid. Maybe there had been a string of spray-paintings. Maybe I was part of a pattern. Or might be the start of a pattern.
The fellow who came out was 1) my idea of attractive and 2) very nice. Properly sympathetic. “Really nice,” he says with acerbity, of the message. He tells me two things that make me feel a tiny bit better. One is that he’d noticed that a For Sale back up the block had also been spray-painted. And the other is that they’ve occasionally had trouble with this kind of thing when there have been games at the ball field which sits at the end of my street. I had had the uneasy feeling that I might be being singled out, since my car sat right beside the three cars that go with the house next door, all of us with our rear-ends to the street, so equally vulnerable to violation, but only mine was violated. But relief that it probably wasn’t a matter of me having a secret enemy (like my next-door neighbors on the other side? Whose howling, barking dogs, shut up in the house for 10-12 hours a day, I’ve called the police about more than once? The thought did cross my mind...), was almost immediately replaced by the sinking realization that the little creep(s) who did this could do it again, anytime.
However, my immediate problem was the writing on the back window of my car. I really could not be driving around with Fuck Black screaming at people (the Cars part can only be read if you’re standing near the car, looking down at the trunk.) I didn’t know what to use, thought of paint remover – obviously not for the trunk, but maybe for the window? – called first my landlord, to see if he had any, but he wasn’t home (never a landlord when you need one), so called the one of my staff who owns a home, and might possibly have such an item in her possession.
“I have paint thinner,” Barb says. I figure it’s worth a try, so drive to Hallowell (the back way, so as to be viewed by as few cars as possible), to Barb’s house, where she produces a paint scraper she found while waiting for me. The paint scraper actually proves quite efficacious at removing the paint from the window, though it takes a while. So we forget about the paint thinner. Barb digs around in her house some more and finds a much smaller scraper that she uses to help me, and the two of us spend maybe 45 minutes scraping away yellow paint. I’m deeply appreciative for her "being there for me,” as the cliche goes.
I’ve now asked several people for suggestions as to what to do about the trunk. I can’t afford to have it repainted. Acetone, like nail polish, might take the spray-paint off, one fellow suggests. But yes, it might take some of the car paint off, too. Another of the patrons at the library suggests trying a rubbing compound (what’s a rubbing compound?). And yet someone else makes the suggestion that I buy some spray paint in a color as close to the muddy green of my car as possible, and do the repainting myself. “Or paint it all yellow,” he said, with a wicked grin. “Then you wouldn’t have to worry about it not matching.”
No, all I have to worry about is its happening again. But what am I going to do, sit out on my tiny front porch every night with my firearm in my hand? I think not...
Wednesday, September 3, 2008
Pumpkins!?
This evening when I went to the supermarket, there were large pumpkins sitting out front, waiting to be purchased and whisked home to sit on someone’s front porch. On September third! Surely it’s entirely too early for this. But there’s no question that once Labor Day is past, Maine goes into autumn mode. We’re still having warm days, but the humidity of deep summer has lessened (though it will undoubtedly rear its ugly head a time or two before disappearing altogether), and the evenings are pleasantly cool. There is even one tree on my commute to work that has been displaying more and more of its autumn foliage for several weeks. Obviously it’s got a gene loose, but any day now the other guys are going to hit the color switch, and things will start happening. And the season that is many people’s New England favorite will be in full swing.
A lot of people in Maine have vacation homes they call camps, though you and I would probably call them cottages or cabins. These are not usually fancy, and sometimes are only about an hour, maybe a couple of hours’ drive away. Their owners will often go up for a weekend, or a few days at a stretch. Folks are now starting to shut these up, and return to home base. This, too, seems way early to me. But life in Maine is so tuned to the seasons. Summer is the time to spend time “up at the camp.” Autumn is the time for pumpkins on the front porch (I always get a little one, and it sits inside my house), visiting apple orchards to pick a bag or two of McIntoshes or Cortlands. (I love to do this), and politics (Maine folk are very involved in local politics). Winter is the time for skiing, snow-mobiling, and shoveling, shoveling, shoveling. This last I do not love, but Mainers of all ages do it, grumbling about it while looking upon it as one of life’s givens. And spring is the time for grumbling about how long the winter has gone on, for rain and mud, for the coming of green, and flowers, for gardening. And then it’s summer and it’s time to open up the camp.
By the way, I recently realized that I made a mistake in my Note ‘And where were you born?’ I said that all the people who know me are five other people away from knowing one another (me being the first of the famous six degrees). But of course, they’re really only one person away from knowing one another, that person being me. Good grief. I’m surprised no one called me on this. But then, maybe no one’s reading...
A lot of people in Maine have vacation homes they call camps, though you and I would probably call them cottages or cabins. These are not usually fancy, and sometimes are only about an hour, maybe a couple of hours’ drive away. Their owners will often go up for a weekend, or a few days at a stretch. Folks are now starting to shut these up, and return to home base. This, too, seems way early to me. But life in Maine is so tuned to the seasons. Summer is the time to spend time “up at the camp.” Autumn is the time for pumpkins on the front porch (I always get a little one, and it sits inside my house), visiting apple orchards to pick a bag or two of McIntoshes or Cortlands. (I love to do this), and politics (Maine folk are very involved in local politics). Winter is the time for skiing, snow-mobiling, and shoveling, shoveling, shoveling. This last I do not love, but Mainers of all ages do it, grumbling about it while looking upon it as one of life’s givens. And spring is the time for grumbling about how long the winter has gone on, for rain and mud, for the coming of green, and flowers, for gardening. And then it’s summer and it’s time to open up the camp.
By the way, I recently realized that I made a mistake in my Note ‘And where were you born?’ I said that all the people who know me are five other people away from knowing one another (me being the first of the famous six degrees). But of course, they’re really only one person away from knowing one another, that person being me. Good grief. I’m surprised no one called me on this. But then, maybe no one’s reading...
Monday, September 1, 2008
Politics as usual
When I first announced this blog to family and friends, my friend Clifford – who was one of my father’s oldest friends (they’d known each other since seventh grade) and thus, clearly, of a very different generation – begged me to please stay away from politics. As might be expected, he and I differ considerably in this area, but I know what he meant. Who needs a lot of ranting about politics, when we all have our own opinions on the topic anyway, and are not likely to be swayed by a few paragraphs in an online blog. People who read politically-oriented blogs are usually reading “rants” that agree with what they already believe.
But I feel compelled to say something about the Democratic National Convention. I support Barak Obama – like many people, I want something as different from the past eight years as possible, and besides promising change Obama is very smart, articulate, seems to be good at collecting good people to advise him.
But. I was really rather put off by the convention, especially by the final night in the football stadium. It all smacked too much of “showtime” for me.
I didn’t watch every minute of the convention, but I certainly watched more than I ever have before. In general, I’m not interested in lofty speeches – talk being cheap and all – and I’m not much interested in spectacle. So political conventions have never had an allure. But in this case I wanted to see who showed up, who had what to say. I admit to being impressed by the couple of turncoat Republicans they trotted out, who announced that, despite being loyal Republicans, they were voting for Obama. I don’t really intend that to be as snide as it may sound – I’m all for people voting for the individual, not just slavishly following party lines.
I was also impressed with Obama’s wife, but I pretty much hated the little video on her, hated the fact that there was a video on her. In fact, this was part of my objection to the convention as a whole: it was all one big, carefully directed and edited movie. (I also hate the fact that there is so much emphasis on a candidate's family. We're electing the person, not the wife and 2.3 kids. But this is not just an element of the Obama campaign; it's across the board. Think how many people didn't vote for John Kerry because they didn't like his wife.)
I missed Hillary Rodham Clinton’s speech, which I regretted, and regretted even more missing Joe Biden’s speech, since I know very little about him. I was surprised by the huge, lengthy ovation that Bill Clinton received, and would like someone to explain it to me. I voted for the man twice because I preferred his politics to those of his opponent, but at the personal level I think he’s proved himself to be a real sleaze, and a dishonest sleaze at that. So why does he seem to be so popular? (P.S. More than once during his speech I muttered, “this guy is good, he’s good.”) I sat through several Regular Joe speeches, by people who had found that working hard and playing by the rules does not necessarily insure that ones life is secure, and therefore I am voting for Barak Obama.
Which actually takes me to my biggest problem with the convention, and maybe with the campaign in general. The suggestion that, with all the things that are wrong, all the problems the country is dealing with, Obama is our Savior. If the man gets into office, he won’t be able to accomplish many of the things he wants to; he certainly will not be able to bring about miracles. That’s the reality of politics. Why do people persist in believing otherwise? Or insist that a candidate assure them otherwise? Barak Obama has proved, in his meteoric rise, to be a savvy politician, and someone who knows how to inspire people with hope. He is not God. Think how disappointed people are going to be when that fact is brought home to them.
But I feel compelled to say something about the Democratic National Convention. I support Barak Obama – like many people, I want something as different from the past eight years as possible, and besides promising change Obama is very smart, articulate, seems to be good at collecting good people to advise him.
But. I was really rather put off by the convention, especially by the final night in the football stadium. It all smacked too much of “showtime” for me.
I didn’t watch every minute of the convention, but I certainly watched more than I ever have before. In general, I’m not interested in lofty speeches – talk being cheap and all – and I’m not much interested in spectacle. So political conventions have never had an allure. But in this case I wanted to see who showed up, who had what to say. I admit to being impressed by the couple of turncoat Republicans they trotted out, who announced that, despite being loyal Republicans, they were voting for Obama. I don’t really intend that to be as snide as it may sound – I’m all for people voting for the individual, not just slavishly following party lines.
I was also impressed with Obama’s wife, but I pretty much hated the little video on her, hated the fact that there was a video on her. In fact, this was part of my objection to the convention as a whole: it was all one big, carefully directed and edited movie. (I also hate the fact that there is so much emphasis on a candidate's family. We're electing the person, not the wife and 2.3 kids. But this is not just an element of the Obama campaign; it's across the board. Think how many people didn't vote for John Kerry because they didn't like his wife.)
I missed Hillary Rodham Clinton’s speech, which I regretted, and regretted even more missing Joe Biden’s speech, since I know very little about him. I was surprised by the huge, lengthy ovation that Bill Clinton received, and would like someone to explain it to me. I voted for the man twice because I preferred his politics to those of his opponent, but at the personal level I think he’s proved himself to be a real sleaze, and a dishonest sleaze at that. So why does he seem to be so popular? (P.S. More than once during his speech I muttered, “this guy is good, he’s good.”) I sat through several Regular Joe speeches, by people who had found that working hard and playing by the rules does not necessarily insure that ones life is secure, and therefore I am voting for Barak Obama.
Which actually takes me to my biggest problem with the convention, and maybe with the campaign in general. The suggestion that, with all the things that are wrong, all the problems the country is dealing with, Obama is our Savior. If the man gets into office, he won’t be able to accomplish many of the things he wants to; he certainly will not be able to bring about miracles. That’s the reality of politics. Why do people persist in believing otherwise? Or insist that a candidate assure them otherwise? Barak Obama has proved, in his meteoric rise, to be a savvy politician, and someone who knows how to inspire people with hope. He is not God. Think how disappointed people are going to be when that fact is brought home to them.
Thursday, August 28, 2008
Drive, she said
I suspect Maine has the politest drivers in the country. They are forever stopping to let people in (indeed, I sometimes get annoyed with this gallantry. ‘Come on,’ I’ll fume, “let’s get on with it.’ But then, I’m probably the rudest driver in Maine.) They don’t honk, or yell out the window at you, or shoot you the finger. They stop if a pedestrian even looks like s/he wants to cross the street. I compare this last quality with the drivers in Boston (possibly the country’s worst), who seem engaged in a perennial war with pedestrians.
You encounter relatively few people driving around convinced that they have the god-given right to inflict there music on the rest of the world, and most of them are in the “big city” of Portland. It used to drive me crazy in Colorado Springs, in San Antonio, in Abilene (God, especially in Abilene), all the jerks so damned indifferent to the concept of consideration for others. You could hear the bass from their car radios blocks away. I'm sure wherever you live you get treated to this sort of thing all too often.
There isn't even very much traffic to contend with here in the great state of Maine. Indeed, the fact that traffic is relatively light throughout Maine is one of its attractions for me. I’ve long held that traffic is one of the true curses of modern life. It frays our tempers, raises our stress levels, eats up great quantities of our valuable time, as well as great quantities of that oil that has gotten so expensive. (Aside: I can’t help but feel the silver lining to the rise in gas prices situation is that it has forced many people to reconsider their gas-guzzling SUVs that should never have been invented. Actually, there are two silver linings: people are now taking the concept of alternative forms of energy seriously.)
But what's a body to do? We have to drive, immerse ourselves in that monster, Traffic, in order to get to work, to school, to the store, the doctor's office, our parents in the old folks home, etc., etc. Admittedly there is that wacky concept, public transporation, that I am such a big supporter of, especially the kind, like subways and trains, that do not add to the traffic on the streets. But not everyplace in the U.S. was foresighted enough to build those kinds of systems; and even places that do have public transportation, usually have a lot of traffic anyway. There are just a whole lot of us, and we all have cars, and we all have lots of things to do, lots of places to go. Wherever you live, you probably have to contend with heavy traffic some part of every day.
I'm lucky; I don’t. A number of things wrong with my life these days, but that ain’t one of them. Oh, being the demon of impatience that I am behind the wheel I may get irritated on my ten-minute commute from Gardiner to Hallowell, if I get stuck behind someone who insists on going the speed limit, but that doesn't always happen, and I can always take the back roads between here and there, that tack on three or four minutes, but are aggravation-free because nobody but me is usually on them.
I’ve been in Maine this second time around almost three years now. And slowly but surely the penchant for driving with courtesy is rubbing off on me. Today I even let somebody in.
You encounter relatively few people driving around convinced that they have the god-given right to inflict there music on the rest of the world, and most of them are in the “big city” of Portland. It used to drive me crazy in Colorado Springs, in San Antonio, in Abilene (God, especially in Abilene), all the jerks so damned indifferent to the concept of consideration for others. You could hear the bass from their car radios blocks away. I'm sure wherever you live you get treated to this sort of thing all too often.
There isn't even very much traffic to contend with here in the great state of Maine. Indeed, the fact that traffic is relatively light throughout Maine is one of its attractions for me. I’ve long held that traffic is one of the true curses of modern life. It frays our tempers, raises our stress levels, eats up great quantities of our valuable time, as well as great quantities of that oil that has gotten so expensive. (Aside: I can’t help but feel the silver lining to the rise in gas prices situation is that it has forced many people to reconsider their gas-guzzling SUVs that should never have been invented. Actually, there are two silver linings: people are now taking the concept of alternative forms of energy seriously.)
But what's a body to do? We have to drive, immerse ourselves in that monster, Traffic, in order to get to work, to school, to the store, the doctor's office, our parents in the old folks home, etc., etc. Admittedly there is that wacky concept, public transporation, that I am such a big supporter of, especially the kind, like subways and trains, that do not add to the traffic on the streets. But not everyplace in the U.S. was foresighted enough to build those kinds of systems; and even places that do have public transportation, usually have a lot of traffic anyway. There are just a whole lot of us, and we all have cars, and we all have lots of things to do, lots of places to go. Wherever you live, you probably have to contend with heavy traffic some part of every day.
I'm lucky; I don’t. A number of things wrong with my life these days, but that ain’t one of them. Oh, being the demon of impatience that I am behind the wheel I may get irritated on my ten-minute commute from Gardiner to Hallowell, if I get stuck behind someone who insists on going the speed limit, but that doesn't always happen, and I can always take the back roads between here and there, that tack on three or four minutes, but are aggravation-free because nobody but me is usually on them.
I’ve been in Maine this second time around almost three years now. And slowly but surely the penchant for driving with courtesy is rubbing off on me. Today I even let somebody in.
Friday, August 22, 2008
Coincidence
I recently read Agatha Christie’s autobiography, which I found quite interesting. She would seem to have been a nicer person than her sister English mystery writer, Dorothy Sayers, who was a vastly better writer. Do you suppose there’s some significance there?
At any rate, reading this book has made me want to read a biography of Christie, to get more of an objective take on various aspects and incidents of her life. For example, she doesn’t even mention the fact that she disappeared for eleven days in 1926, after she learned her husband was having an affair with another woman (though she does mention the affair). And supposedly her second marriage was happy in the early days, but less so later on because of her second husband’s frequent philandering (oh, those men). However, her autobiography gives no hint of problems in the second marriage. I suppose it’s prurient of me to want to know about that sort of thing – although the disappearance was a bona fide mystery, and wanting to know more about it is not necessarily indicative of an unhealthy interest in other people’s sex lives.
But the real reason I’m bringing this book up is that it produced one of those coincidences that make life seem so amazing at times. Christie’s second husband was the well-known archeologist Max Mallowan, whom she met in Iraq in about 1929 (among other things I didn’t know about Christie, was that she spent so much time in Iraq, and loved it). She met him while he was working with an even more well-known archeologist, Leonard Woolley, who was at that time excavating the ancient Sumerian city of Ur, in southern Iraq. Yes, yes, all very interesting.
But here’s the coincidence. Another book I had started, when I was about halfway through the Christie book (I usually have two or three going at once), was called Looking for Dilmun, about the archeological excavations on the island of Bahrain, off the Arabian coast, in the early 1950s. The author, Geoffrey Bibby, mentions Leonard Woolley and the excavations at Ur several times. This might not seem so very amazing, but consider that when I started reading the Christie book I had no idea that there would be anything about archeological excavations in it, and that when I pulled Looking for Dilmun off my shelf it was just a second-hand book that I’d had for a long time and thought I might try reading, when biography began to pall.
But this coincidence is as nothing compared with the coincidence of starting up a conversation with a good-looking man in a bar in Harvard Square, Cambridge, Massachusetts in 1983 and discovering that not only was he a fellow Texan, but he had been at the University of Texas in the fall of 1967, when I was, AND our mothers had both lived in the Dallas suburb of Duncanville. I mean, what are the odds? Rick and I are still friends, by the way, 25 years after that illuminating conversation at the Casablanca.
But even this pales when compared with the coincidence of running into the wife of a friend of Friend Ernest’s (a native and all-but-life-long resident of Long Island, if you’ll recall from a previous Note) while strolling through the Luxembourg Gardens in Paris. This was in the summer of 1974, when I was just beginning my six weeks stay in France. Zoozie and I had known that we were going to be in France at about the same time, and we had agreed that we would try to contact each other to see about getting together, once we were settled at our respective destinations. But here I was in Paris on one of only two days that the study group I was traveling with would be there, before going on to our final destination in Brittany, and here was Suzy, strolling with a friend through the very park that I just happened to be cutting through on my way to the subway. Incroyable!
I find coincidences fascinating, and maybe in another life I’ll write a dissertation about them.
At any rate, reading this book has made me want to read a biography of Christie, to get more of an objective take on various aspects and incidents of her life. For example, she doesn’t even mention the fact that she disappeared for eleven days in 1926, after she learned her husband was having an affair with another woman (though she does mention the affair). And supposedly her second marriage was happy in the early days, but less so later on because of her second husband’s frequent philandering (oh, those men). However, her autobiography gives no hint of problems in the second marriage. I suppose it’s prurient of me to want to know about that sort of thing – although the disappearance was a bona fide mystery, and wanting to know more about it is not necessarily indicative of an unhealthy interest in other people’s sex lives.
But the real reason I’m bringing this book up is that it produced one of those coincidences that make life seem so amazing at times. Christie’s second husband was the well-known archeologist Max Mallowan, whom she met in Iraq in about 1929 (among other things I didn’t know about Christie, was that she spent so much time in Iraq, and loved it). She met him while he was working with an even more well-known archeologist, Leonard Woolley, who was at that time excavating the ancient Sumerian city of Ur, in southern Iraq. Yes, yes, all very interesting.
But here’s the coincidence. Another book I had started, when I was about halfway through the Christie book (I usually have two or three going at once), was called Looking for Dilmun, about the archeological excavations on the island of Bahrain, off the Arabian coast, in the early 1950s. The author, Geoffrey Bibby, mentions Leonard Woolley and the excavations at Ur several times. This might not seem so very amazing, but consider that when I started reading the Christie book I had no idea that there would be anything about archeological excavations in it, and that when I pulled Looking for Dilmun off my shelf it was just a second-hand book that I’d had for a long time and thought I might try reading, when biography began to pall.
But this coincidence is as nothing compared with the coincidence of starting up a conversation with a good-looking man in a bar in Harvard Square, Cambridge, Massachusetts in 1983 and discovering that not only was he a fellow Texan, but he had been at the University of Texas in the fall of 1967, when I was, AND our mothers had both lived in the Dallas suburb of Duncanville. I mean, what are the odds? Rick and I are still friends, by the way, 25 years after that illuminating conversation at the Casablanca.
But even this pales when compared with the coincidence of running into the wife of a friend of Friend Ernest’s (a native and all-but-life-long resident of Long Island, if you’ll recall from a previous Note) while strolling through the Luxembourg Gardens in Paris. This was in the summer of 1974, when I was just beginning my six weeks stay in France. Zoozie and I had known that we were going to be in France at about the same time, and we had agreed that we would try to contact each other to see about getting together, once we were settled at our respective destinations. But here I was in Paris on one of only two days that the study group I was traveling with would be there, before going on to our final destination in Brittany, and here was Suzy, strolling with a friend through the very park that I just happened to be cutting through on my way to the subway. Incroyable!
I find coincidences fascinating, and maybe in another life I’ll write a dissertation about them.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)