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In response to rakkity’s crotchety comment: those hidden bays and forlorn islands are still there, we just hid from them. The outside was grey, cold and windy. I know, in our youth… .

Dear Susan,

We had a most relaxing time. God is it important to get away, even briefly. I’m going to post a pic or two and it’ll look like all we did was bar hop, and while that is not a bad thing, we didn’t drink all that much. For instance, we drove to Cooleens in Woolwich searching for musical entertainment, but the band, Goldirocks, got lost and arrived too late for us.

The town was virtually shuttered, which maybe shouldn’t have been, but was, a surprise. We had three restaurants to choose from. We rejected out of hand, Chinese/Coastal Fare, gave up on, you need reservations but here’s a table right by the door(if hyphens are needed, you add ëem), and settled for a Cheers-like restaurant with multiple screens showing the Steelers Jets game.
Sitting at the bar were mostly Patriotsí fans, which meant a crowd largely cheering for the Jets. However, the lone Steeler-hatted employee was the most vociferous. Until the last interception. The food was better than good, which was also a surprise. I had fish and chips with a taste bud caressing gin (no cheapo Seagrams) and tonic. Diane’s rice pilaf was so fine, she failed to save room for a broiled sea scallop or two. Sacrilegious, if you know Diane.

Diane also noticed how much friendlier everyone was than back home, and I refused to agree, despite all the evidence, until, finally, on our way back we stopped at a health foods store in Portsmouth. There, a Matthew-aged girl at the register apologized for the moments she spent talking to a pierced, tattooed , leather dressed, eyebrow shaved boy about a CD she so desperately wanted to give her boyfriend. Kasabian, she told us – a UK group named after Manson’s driver. Also, she looked at me and asked how I was doing in a way that young people never seem to engage us older folks.

We did our usual bookstore browsing/buying. Diane bagged four good ones: The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time by Mark Haddon, Where You Once Belonged, by Kent Haruf, Amsterdam by Ian McEwan and Ann Tyler’s The Amateur Marriage. While she was collecting, I was content to skim Dana Sawyer’s Aldous Huxley:A Biography. Particularly the chapter describing his meeting with Alan Watts, Timothy Leary, Richard Alpert and Andrew Weil. Diane devours books like a Great White, small fish and spare tires. The Life of Pi will keep me busy because all I have the energy for these days is the Globe crossword. In the bathtub.
Which was the only thing lacking in our suite at the Admiralís Quarters Inn. No bathtub, but a view to kill for, spacious rooms with a gas stove in the bedroom and a solarium to hang in with its own stove, a plush couch, magazines, gumdrops, cookies and always fresh hot coffee. We heard there were others at the Inn, but we met only one other person, and that was at breakfast. He had driven up to attend to his aging mother-in-law. She is nintey-eight, infirm, living alone and needing the Boothbay equivalent of Concord Park. He said she would never go willingly, that sheíd have to be carried bodily. I told him it worked for us.
Diane reading ; the photographer voyeuring.

I’m at the Finlay’s painting Emma’s bedroom. It’s late afternoon, Kate calls needing a ride home and Emma’s my navigator as we wend our way through the back roads.

As pure dialogue, this conversation sounds morbid. It wasn’t at all.

“My birthday is in five days?”

“Five days? I thought your birthday was in May?”

I had no idea when her birthday was.

“No, it’s January.”

“What are you going to be? Sixteen, seventeen?”

“No, thirteen.”

That much I did know.

“Emma, Do you dream?”

“No.”

“I mean, do you remember your dreams?”

“No. Do you?”

“I used to remember them better than I do now. I have a recurrent dream where I’m lost and I don’t know how to get where I’m going and sometimes I don’t even know where it is I’m going.”

“My friend Molly had a dream that lasted three nights.”

“Three nights? What do you mean? Like she’d get up in the morning and then that night she’d take up where she left off?”

“Yeah.”

“Wow. She should write it down. Do you know what it was about?”

“Did you see The Dawn of the Dead?”

“Yes.”

“It was like that… .”

“With dead people crawling out of graveyards?

“Dead people that were infected. One of them crawled through a dog door.”

“And died?”

“He was already dead. The good guys didn’t think he could crawl through the dog door but he did.”

“And he killed the good guy.”

“Yeah. I died in the third dream.”

“How did you die?”

“I don’t remember.”

Spurred on, perhaps, by our discussion, I scored a trifecta this morning. In one dream I was lost AND I was running in molasses. In another I was to give a speech in front of a group of people, but I was in a panic because I had forgotten to prepare.

Peter, Diane, Eileen and Linda. Moving day, Acton, 1983.
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We’re off to Boothbay Harbor and a night in the Admiral’s Quarters Inn . Thank you Auntiesue.

Eileen Foley and Peter Miller.
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Adam listened to many tales of Peter and Eileen’s year-round living in Ed’s cabin on Grok Hill, in Gilsum NH, before he made his first trip past the Preston’s, past the wide metal gate, past the tree-ringed field that served as the Rakitty’s wedding chapel, down the steep hill and up again, left onto Beech Lane, past the Littel’s and finally the long trek up to the hand-crafted cabin heated by wood stove and lit by candles. The first words from an uncharacteristically silent Adam as he poked his head into the cabin? ìWhat a woman!.”

Emily Hopkins
Unrelated to any of the above. Martha’s Vineyard, summer, 1982
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The South of France somewhere near St. Tropez. July 1981.
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Last night was a night
For the constellations
Slept with the window open
The cold sky on my cheek

Watched the earth turn towards the sun’s
Light, moving down every edge of Tantalus
And across the Ko’olau peaks
And the grey dawn shade to blue

Standing not too far from that cow trough; the view across the valley. I’m afraid rakkity is going to tell me this glacier is mostly gone.
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French Alps
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French Alps
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Hiking in the Swiss Alps. July, 1981.
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Guided by an early edition of Outside Magazine (1981, might have been named Mariah then?), we (Peter, Eileen and Diane) searched the Tamworth area of the White Mountains for a peaceful pothole in which to swim*, but found only rain swollen, turbulent streams. Okay, I did jump in, but I shouldnít have.
Here, Eileen kicks back.
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*In deference to Adam.

Ginger and Chris Schreiber, June 1981
I’ve been sorting and scanning old slides and I’ve found many stunning (if I don’t say so myself) photographs.
Many more to follow.
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Diane and I cruised into the Concord Park circle, a bit late, but still in time to ferry Flo to bingo the requisite two hours before the first number is shouted out.

“How’s the place, still dead?”

During the holidays there was no one to be seen, but the glasses askew, professor type, who sits in the first chair and keeps an eye on the new arrivals.

“They all go to their rooms after dinner.” Flo answered as she swung herself up and into the back seat of my truck.

“Even Bessie?” I reached over and snapped her seat belt.

“Everyone. I can’t get them to come to my place for anything. I even offer them wine.”

“Bunch of dead heads. How can you put up with that?” I began playing to my audience of one, Diane.

As we drove away I asked about entertainment.

“There hasn’t been any. One person sang old songs and Rick might be coming next week, but other than that… .”

“What are you paying all that money for?”

“They did have a birthday party with cake and ice cream. It was for the January birthdays. They have parties for everything.”

Ah, the contradiction. Diane pounced. “Wait a minute. How can they have a party for everything and you say it’s dead?”

“Oh, those are just parties.”

I jumped back in, “Flo, if you think it’s dead at your place, try ours.”

Flo didn’t hear me, but Diane laughed so hard, Flo asked what it was I said.

“I said, if you think it’s dead at Concord Park, you should try our house.”

“Whenever I call, no one answers.”

“That’s because we are all in bed, “ Diane answered.

“No. Diane is in bed and Matt’s out and that leaves me with nothing to do. Our place is like a tomb.”

We arrived at St. Bridget’s after the usual, “Where are we?” from Flo, and, “Oh, he’s taking the back roads,” from Diane and the, “I didn’t know it was this far,” from Flo. I pulled up to the door and there were four women waiting outside. The door wasn’t locked, it was as if they were waiting for the star attraction, and as she slid off the back seat and onto the pavement one of the women said, “Hurry up Flo.”

“Yeah Flo, you can move faster than that,” another chimed in.

Flo was clearly delighted by the attention and before they all turned toward the door, Flo kissed me good bye said, “He’s my good luck charm!”

The hurry up woman looked at me and fired back, “If she wins, you’re lining up out here next week.”

He doesn’t move this fast when he’s cleaning his car off to drive to school, but give Matthew a snow day and places to go… .