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Sunday morning Mark was awakened by the sound of sloshing water. He didn’t know the source, but at first thought it was the guys in the other tent, shaking water jugs like maracas. When he connected the noise to reality – two moose walking in ankle deep water five feet from the door to our tent – he reached over and grabbed me.

I was, as he had been, sound asleep. Mark, determined not to let me miss the brown behemoths, grabbed my sleeping bag at my shoulders and shook me – hard. I thought it was Carl Williams, my roommate at IU, waking me up. Instead of, “You slept past your French final!” I heard, “LOOK! MOOSE!”

Encased, chrysalis-like in my mummy bag, I bent at the waist, and fell forward far enough for my head to stick out the door. There they were, the ponderous pair, now about twenty feet from my face. I looked at them, they stopped, looked back at me, and then ambled on.

Another Sunday, another Rick Scalise performance. It was Halloween, and Rick played classical music that might loosely be associated with the event. He began with Gounod’s, “Funeral March for a Marionette,” which is more commonly known as the theme music to …..Alfred Hitchcock Presents. He also played Liszt and Bach and ended with Peer Gynt’s, “Hall of The Mountain King.” Flo and I sat in what Rick refers to as the expensive seats – a couch with the best view of his magical hands.

I counted twenty people, which is fewer than usual, but only one person with their chin on their chest, asleep. Or should I say, one person who fell asleep twice. The second time I woke up, I noticed Flo looking at me with a Santa Claus twinkle in her eye, as if to say, “Yes, you fit right in.” It wasn’t the music, believe me, it was the previous day’s logging adventure.

Diane and I both think that Flo is much closer to accepting her new living arrangement, and at six months, she is right on schedule. She has two new buddies. Sylvia, though she was taken from CP in an ambulance yesterday, and Bessie. In fact, to insure that help were available, should it be needed, they got together with Lois the other morning, and each filled out a three by five card with their names, telephone numbers and addresses.

I met Bessie at the end of the concert. She is another gentle soul who, though she calls Flo, Dot, is very much in the here and now. Diane will argue this point, but I’ve always thought Flo to be the most (as Susan would say) crisp amongst her peers, and I believe that is a big reason she’s been so lackluster about her new living situation.

Bessie provides comfort and empathy, and they both talked about how difficult the adjustment. Bessie compared moving into Concord Park with giving up her car, which she now admits was the proper thing to do. When Flo grumbles, Bessie counters.

Flo: “You eat, and then you go to your room. You come down here for this, and then you go to your room. You play cards, then you go to your room.

Bessie: “But you get up and someone else makes you breakfast. Someone else makes you lunch and dinner, too. The food is good, and you don’t have to do the dishes or your laundry.”

Holding hands with Bessie, Flo smiled and agreed. “I don’t want my daughters to feel guilty forever for putting me in this hole.” When she finished the sentence she laughed as hard as I’ve seen her laugh. I thought she’d double over.

Bessie squeezed Flo’s hand and said, “But it’s a nice hole.”

Siblings – Mark, Jon and Jan.
Saturday was the annual tree cutting day at Mark Queijo’s. Adam and I drove out together and along with Al, Jan, Brett,Jon, John, Dwight, Kevin, Mark and Jan, we chain-sawed nine trees into splitable length logs. T’was another long, hard day, with two notable events. First, Janice Elaine Queijo Carpenter, Mark’s sister, not to be confused with Janice Elaine Queijo, his wife, slipped and broke her wrist. Both bones.

A few words about that. Nobody except the other Jan knew that Jan had fallen. No yelps, no nothing. She walked into the house and returned holding an ice pack on her wrist. Without a hint pain, she announced that she could no longer help clearing trees because she couldn’t lift anything, and besides, she needed to go to the hospital. I asked her to move the ice pack so I could see her wrist. It was an ugly, swollen, bruised peach color with bony bumps in places that should have been smooth. I said, ëIt’s broken.” I thought, I’m so glad I’m not married to you; I know nothing about dress sizes.

Secondly, the tallest oak tree we cut down almost fell onto Mark’s house. Had that happened, it would have crushed it. The Queijo’s live in a Deck House – I don’t know if that is a regional-only company – but its primary function is to be open and allow in a maximum amount of light. It most closely resembles a timber frame house with glass – a mere play thing to the mighty oak.

After Mark cut the customary pie shape from the side he wanted the tree to fall, he began cutting from the backside – the house side. Instead of falling away from the house it leaned into the saw, binding the blade. From where I stood, I could clearly see the future – two month’s work for me – and I hollered, “It’s falling this way.”

What you can’t see is the house-saving, hefty, yellow, nylon rope tied about a third of the way up, and anchored on the other end by four men who are now desperately trying to pull the tree in their direction. Fortunately for Mark, for all of us, they succeeded.

If you click on the Quicktime movie, you’ll see two things. The tree leaning towards the house and (look closely) Mark jump up and run. He’s not running away, per se, he’s running to his garage to retrieve his maul and wedges. He reasoned, by pounding the wedge into the saw kerf he could tilt the ten ton tree away from his beloved house? Talk about stopping pterodactyls with a fly swatter, but in a panic, what would you do?

Sunday’s phone conversation with my mother. I lead off.

“Have you talked to Peter?”

“Yes. He’s very busy, which is good.”

“That’s what he tells me. And still no place to live. I can’t imagine having to move because of other people’s whims. He’s too old for that.”

“Remember, Mack was forty-eight when we moved to Evansville.”

“I didn’t know that. Hmmm, that helps anchor that move in time. Before I forget, I wanted to ask you about a story you told me. The one where Brian came running into the house and said, ‘Mommy, you have to spank Joan?’ Did he say, mom or mommy?”

“Which one was that? Oh, the black girl. I don’t know if he said Mom or mommy, but he said, ‘Spank her, you have to spank her.’ Can you imagine, a seven year old giving orders like that? I asked why, and he said go outside and you’ll see why. I ran outside and there was a limousine parked next to the Ranger Station. This was when we lived in Indian Hill. There was a little black girl alone in the car without her father, the chauffeur. Joan and her friend Barbara Burdett…Joan would have been about four…they were singing, ‘She’s a little nigger baby, she’s a little nigger baby.’ Can you imagine?”

“I can and I can’t. You’re the one who asked every waitress in every restaurant we ever stopped in if those “We Reserve the Right to Refuse Service to Anyone,” signs meant Negros. I always wanted to crawl under the table. But do you remember Steven Brown whistling at the black woman in Westwood? We were sitting on his porch and the woman, I don’t know who she was, walked past us. Steven gave her a loud wolf whistle and then yelled, ‘Wow, she’s black.’ Someone heard him, I don’t think it was you or Steven’s mother, but I remember you both reamed us out for it.”

“I don’t remember that.”

“The sort of things I’ll never forget.”

“I got a call from a priest this week. He returned my call. I told him I objected to his column in the Catholic newspaper, The Message. He asked why, and I told him he was risking the church’s tax exempt status with his remarks about abortion.”

“If only.”

“What?”

“I said, if only.”

“Right.” She laughed, because she knew there was no chance. “ Anyway, I told him he was electioneering for Bush. He said he wrote about war and social justice too, but I said abortion was a hot button issue for me. I said the old male clergy have no clue about raising children. They don’t know what it’s like to have kids, to get up at night with a sick child. I kept talking because I didn’t really want to hear his rebuttal. I told him the Catholic Church didn’t get involved in this until the fourth century. He didn’t know that, but it’s true, they thought women were unclean.”

“But the fourth century…were they concerned about abortion then?

“Of course. Women have always found abortifacients. My mother’s sister-in-law tried ergot.”

“That’s where LSD comes from.” (You can see the high level of responses this conversation is eliciting from me. But you have to understand that I sensed where this was going, and I wasn’t ready for it. I was tossing tack strips trying to flatten her tires, slow her down.)

“It didn’t work. It made her sick. Her father was a doctor and she asked him. He said, ‘Pat, I never thought I’d have to do something like this for you.’ ”

“Whoa, wait a minute. Here we go again, we’re having this innocent conversation, it’s almost time to hang-up and out comes another one of your show stoppers. (My mother laughed again. The kind of laugh that sounded to me like : You haven’t listened to me for fifty-seven years, and now that I have your attention, I’m not backing off.) You tell these stories so casually, but do you listen to yourself? You’re telling me a father gave his daughter an abortion. This isn’t doctor patient. This is family.”

“She had nowhere else to turn to. Her husband was this hotshot lawyer, and they didn’t want more children. You know, my mother had an abortion too. My mother told me this right after I had a miscarriage and was feeling sorry for myself. The town doctor did it for her, and I asked her, “You didn’t tell Leroy (her husband, my mother’s father, you get the drift)?’ She said ‘No’, she didn’t see the point. She did it and that was that. Besides, Leroy was a Catholic. And he’d feel awful knowing his wife thought he couldn’t provide for another child. Plus they have her paralyzed grandfather living with them.”

“Okay, stop. You have to write this down. I’ve got the thread, but I won’t remember all these details. Tomorrow you have to sit down and write this out and then send it to me.”

And she did. Today she sent this:

Mike, here is the effort. Some of this may be in the family history but this is close to yesterday’s.
Of course no woman wants to undergo an abortion but some feel they must–greatest good for the greatest number might apply to some circumstances.
I don’t think what follows really applies to that logic. We knew a couple in the C.Z., Johnny and Zoe. He was about 7 years older than she, had been to sea for years, second marriage for him. She was fairly immature, and at the time, I am not sure I could really judge, considering my own state of immaturity at twenty-five. The relationship was pretty rocky but they had a little year-old-boy. We were very fond of Johnny but didn’t find her too interesting. She had a lot of material wants and needs; created a much more pleasant environment in their apartment than I was able to do for us.

One morning she telephoned me and said she had had an abortion and was hemorrhaging.
“Zoe, where was this done?”
“Back alley in Panama City”
I knew I couldn’t get to her soon enough to help in any way so I told her to go on up to Gorgas Hospital which would take her about five minutes. She insisted that they would have her arrested because she had committed an illegal act.
I then said, “Look, Zoe, go on up there to the admittance desk and don’t say anything. Just stand there and bleed on the floor. What ever they ask you, just hold your hands out and look helpless. They will then take care of you and I think you will be fine. Remember, don’t answer any questions.

My very brash and impromptu advice worked. The couple filed for divorce about a year later.

Now as to my mother and her sister-in-law. Mother told me about this some years after Mack and I were married when we were discussing the issue. She said she had had to do that and that it should be legal and safe. I asked her who did it for her, and she said, “Well, Doc, of course.”

Doc was our family doctor and social friend of theirs. She said she didn’t want to do that but that her father-in-law (my grandfather O’Connell) had had a disabling stroke and they were trying to help my grandmother look after him at home, Dad had just started his auto parts business after going out on the railroad strike. It was all too much to handle. I asked her what Dad had thought about that, “Oh, I never bothered him with it.” she said.

She looked thoughtful and then said, “I sometimes think we might have been able to handle it but I’m
sure it would have been very difficult and there’s no telling what kind of complications we would have run into. Even then, we had to put Father O’Connell in a hospital in Kansas City some three years later where he died after about two years.

She then said, “Bea, had to have that done, too. Elmer (her brother) was just starting a new law practice in Parsons, and they had the two children. He has never been overburdened with patience so Bea didn’t want to deal with his reaction. She took ergot but it didn’t quite work so she had to go to her father who was a doctor in another town in Kansas for a D and C. She told me that he said, “Oh, Bea, I never thought I would have to do this for you.”

I just thought of one more which probably took place in the mid fifties. My friend, Mary Helen was divorcing her alcoholic, Army Major, husband, and having an affair with a fellow I never knew. She said she didn’t know how she could handle all the stress. When I asked her where, she told me
Nevada Hospital and a doctor friend.

It needs to be part of history that well-connected women had a great advantage over poor women and will again if Roe V Wade is overturned.

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Sarah and Pat’s Wedding
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I’ve had my present email address for how long? Four years? Yesterday I received my first spam. It arrived from another PC which might means someone who knows me has an infected computer. Anyone recognize these email addresses? bryan.sheridan@attbi.com or kdholden77@cox.net ?

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Outside the Terrace Motel

We were stuffing down pancakes, eggs, beans, and sausages from the $2.95 All-You-Can-Eat breakfast buffet at the Terrace Motel in Millinocket, when an elderly (older than me) man with a talk-to-me smile walked over to our table wanting to know where we were from. We told him, “The Boston area.” He asked, “Can you tell me what it’s like down there?” This was after the Sox dramatic comeback against the Yankees and before the first game of the World Series. As if to encourage the groggy and the mute among us, “I’ve been waiting sixty five years for this.”

This morning I awoke to a phone message from Adam telling me the Sox were ahead and the moon was in full eclipse. He wondered if there might be a divine connection. I also had two emails, one from our longtime friend, Jim McMahon, who now lives in Honolulu:

Mike,

So I’m driving home from work and the radio announcer says the 6 pm news
will begin following a wrap-up of the final game of the World Series.

Did he say FINAL game?! Then he says it again, then again. Does this mean they won? My eyes mist up.

I pull into the driveway, enter the house. Bonnie says, Did they win? I say dunno. I turn on the TV. Still no Sox news.

Phone rings. It’s Jack, sister Peggy’s husband. He gives me the news. Wow!

The evening proceeds. I turn to Bonnie and say, “Now they have to figure out…”

I stop. She eyes me warily. I was going to say they need to figure out how they will keep the team together. She knew I was already worrying about next year.

Mike, this is how I always hoped it would happen. Overpower the other team in four games in the Series, leaving no room for agonizing 7th games and ill-timed bingles (bingles is what errors were called in early 20th century).

See you.

Jim

…and the other from Chris Rad:

Did it really happen? I would have been happy with just the pennant. It’s overwhelmingly wonderful made all the more poignant with the shots of the boys in Baghdad. Can’t help but wonder what Nomar’s thinking. It’s rumored they are going to give him a ring. If he gets one I want one. It’s just too fabulous. Matthew going as Schilling for Halloween…complete with fake blood on the sock. Hopefully the police won’t kill anybody during the celebrations. I would have chosen Johnny as the MVP, but that’s just me. That Manny’s pretty good too. And what about Francona…the winningest manager in post season history. Who’d have thought. The press kept calling him Francoma. The Patriots and the Red Sox. My kids are going to think this is the norm, just like I always thought the Celtics would be champions forever. It’s amazing really. Stephen King was writing a book about this season…he’s spooky that one is. At least we know it will have a happy ending.

Okay, Rakcoughity, but where to begin?

With this by baker, “…and the potential injuries of one of your buddies resulting from wearing wingtip hiking shoes.” How did she know that Mark Schreiber forgot his boots and arrived in Acton, fully prepared, but wearing wingtips?

With the absence of Adam, but the presence of a new member, young not only in age, but spirit, and with little respect for the tried and tired ways of the founding fathers?

With the group’s change in plans Friday morning over breakfast, dumping the unpronounceable, Neosourdnahunk, for the all American, Crawford Pond, but then making camp the first night at, “The Grand Canyon of Maine,” Gulf Hagas?

With Mike and Mark Queijo jogging down barely passable, Chinese finger trap-like logging roads in the dead of night searching for that sandy campsite they were mostly certain existed?

With our late evening talk with “Deeds,” the AT hiker from Georgia, who had been in the woods for six months, and was a “mere” eighty-three miles from the end, the summit of Mt Katahdin?

With the long hike to the top of Little Boardman Mountain carrying two liters of wine (Yellowtail), bread, cheese, salmon mousse, and a heavy Zip Lock bag of Jan’s corn chowder but no pot in which to cook it? (sound familiar, Adam?)

Alrighty, this is my blog, and I’m going to write this story from my perspective of Chris’s perspective. I’ll start in the future and then slack-pack, flip flop, but not yo-yo (all AT language we learned from Deeds – short for Centipede) back to the beginning. Here goes:

Saturday night we gathered around our campfire, drinking and listening to the Red Sox on Chris’s transistor radio. Sure, we always bring bottles of good wine, a single malt or two, beer on occasion, but we never huddle fireside chat-like around a radio. I don’t care what is happening in the real world. And we didn’t turn in until 2 AM and didn’t crawl from our tents until 10:30 Sunday morning. Unheard of. Normally, I hear reveille shortly after sunrise and I spring from my tent to brew the morning’s coffee. Not this time, not this trip.

As I walked past Chris’s tent, the twenty-four year old rolled over and said, “Welcome to my world.”

To be continued…

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Yesterday it was windy, grey and in the forties. Dressed in jeans and a black and red wool lumberjack shirt, I sat crouched on a cinder block and helped Matthew change the front pads on his car. We both complained about the cold.

Matt asked, “You’re going camping in this?”

I reminded him the weather was worse last spring. Maybe that’s his vision; his dad’s tent flattened by the weather. No chance. Dad is smarter than that.

Arena Farms

Back Monday.