Finishing a year of blogging

     A year ago I resolved to write two blogs a week for a year about my “virgin” experiences as a 64- (now 65)-year-old and this is the last of them.

     Over the year, I often strayed from my original intention to write about two untried adventures each week – still haven’t climbed a 4,000-footer or sung karaoke in a club, for example – and some of the “firsts” I experienced I wish I hadn’t. Discovering the death of my dear friend, Cissy, for example. Or learning that my cat-loving niece had died of non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma at the age of 32, barely three months after being diagnosed.

     But I also celebrated a new job, learned to rock-climb, got lost on the choppy water of Lake Umbagog, toasted 10 years of marriage to a man I adore and made the climb to an Appalachian Mountain Club hut for an overnight stay.

     It has been a full year.

     At times, I wondered if I were trying to re-create the twice-a-week column I used to write – my favorite part of my journalism career. Blogging does the same thing that writing those columns did. Not only was I recording part of my life, but creating it. Writing helps shape who I am. In organizing my thoughts and looking for ideas or themes, I encounter my own values and reinforce them. I inform myself. I grow.

     So what now?

     I haven’t decided whether to keep up with the twice-a-week schedule. Maybe I’ll only blog when I DO try something truly adventurous. Maybe I’ll do it just for the practice.

      But I will keep writing – and doing.

     There are still all those 4,000-footers out there.

     And a whole lot of karaoke clubs.

Do not attempt this at home

They tell you not to leave your children unattended (“Unattended children will be given an espresso and a free puppy,” reads a sign in my doctor’s office.)

     They warn you not to leave a candle unattended (136 Americans die annually due to this forgetfulness).

     They tell you not to leave a stove burner unattended (burner? What burner?)

     But a mixer? Even just to go to the bathroom?

     I was preparing a New Year’s Eve meal in advance for a group of 10 for tomorrow – a day when I have to work but am still co-hosting a party with Rick – and was working on the last of the menu items, a chocolate mousse.

     Everyone knows how long it takes cream to whip, right? You could walk around the block, close on your mortgage, do a lifetime’s worth of push-ups and still be waiting for those peaks to form. So, a trip to the bathroom seemed so innocent…

     But when I returned, whipped cream was flying everywhere – on the counter, on the walls, on my cell phone, on the bills, on my purse and, soon, on Rick – who was gallantly trying to shroud the mixer with his body, as though to spare other lives.

     The damage was done but the peaks had formed and I proceeded with the recipe – and the cleanup.

     Still, the proof’s in the pudding – or the mousse – right?

     The final product tasted guest-worthy to me.

     And we’ll still get a good laugh when we discover undetected whipped cream spots in remote kitchen sections in the future.

     Anyway, have a good new year.

     I already am.

     

The Christmas of the flying baklava

     We knew in advance it was going to be a different Christmas – Rick and I were traveling to northern Michigan, to the home of one of my sisters, instead of the usual downstate gathering at my brother’s house.

     But we didn’t know HOW different.

     My brother had gallantly offered to lend us one of his vehicles for the drive from southern to northern Michigan so we didn’t have to rent a car on top of our plane fare. Because he and his children were using his truck and SUV for the drive north, the only vehicle he had available was – oh, pity – his Mercedes. No eensy-weensy Ford Focus, like we usually rent. No air-freshener-smelling rental car at all. A sleek, sexy Mercedes coupe that we could drive in style.

     So we set off in our luxury car in the remnants of a mean snowstorm, drove four hours up interstates and ice-slicked side roads, got to my sister’s and parked the Mercedes at the bottom and to the side of her long driveway.

     The family celebration was going to be in a nearby unoccupied former restaurant my brother had just purchased and Annette, my sister, had made most of the food. We helped her pack the ham and vegetarian dishes and salads and desserts and – most important – the baklava her husband, Mike, had so lovingly created.

     Is it any coincidence that so many movies are made about families gathering for holidays and the mayhem that ensues?

     During the gathering, my brother’s 48-year-old girlfriend confided that I reminded her of her grandmother (though, in context, the comparison was actually quite sweet). One family member, whose name cannot be mentioned lest she ever need to job-hunt again, introduced too many glasses of cabarnet to her over-tired body and had to be borne from the place on the shoulders of her 23-year-old son. Mike caught his leg on the wires leading to the Christmas lights on the festooned archway to the dining area and brought down all the decorations.

     And when my sister, arrived – late because she was bringing the last of the desserts – she was shaking.

     “I’m used to pulling straight back out of the garage,” she said with an embarrassed expression. “It was so dark. I forgot where you were parked.”

     Pause.

     “I creamed the Mercedes.”

     Worst of all, she said, was that Mike’s baklava had gone flying throughout her Pontiac Vibe, never to be retrieved.

     And you? Any family drama over your holidays? Maybe we could start a whole new blog.

Michigan Gothic

This week, on our way to a family Christmas celebration in northern Michigan, Rick and I stopped at a diner we had chanced upon four years ago, trying to remember why we had liked it so much at the time.
The exterior could have used a good paint job. The interior was furnished with standard-issue, chrome-rimmed tables and chairs. And the air smelled vaguely like places do when anti-smoking regulations have not been in place very long.
But this was pure small-town America.
The clientele included two or three bikers boasting ZZ Top-like beards and leather vests, a few WWII vets and their wives, families with loud children and a quiet gentleman who quietly surveyed the scene as he ate his farmer's omelet.
The menu included half American farmland fare and half Chinese cuisine and the wall boasted a photo of the Asian-American founders of the establishment. No beer or wine.
How many placesd like this are there in our country -- frequented by locals but welcoming of strangers, unique but oddly familair, reminders of how connected we all really are when it comes to such basics as good food, warmth and civility?
We had two excellent veggie omelets, tomao juice and decaf, but feasted our eyes as much as our stomachs while we were there.
We left after purchasing four mugs imprinted with local ads and the diner's name, Kawkawlin Restaurant.
We'll be back.

The web of life

When I first met Gary Fieldhouse, I found it difficult to look at him because of his physical deformities.
His back arched away from the back of his wheelchair as though trying to escape contact with it. His hands bent forward at the wrist in permanent paraylysis. When he spoke, he threw his head back and garbled out a few words before inhaling and garbling out more.
Yet he would not be silenced at this gathering of disabled people seeking to tell reporters how their depictions in the press affected them. Only two reporters showed up for their press conferece. I was one.
Gary was born with cerebral palsy and I was so impressed with his determination to be heard -- and to advocate for other disabled people -- that we soon became friends. I wrote a series of stories about his efforts to start a group home in the Lawrence, Mass., area for physically disabled adults who wanted to remain independent. Though he never realized that dream, he ended up living independently in a similar situation in western Massachusetts.
But then he was sent to live in a nursing home not five mintues from my Chester, N.H. house after being diagnosed with Stage IV lung cancer -- this man who could never even hold a cigarette let alone smoke one.
He died in March of 2011, but only after realizing two other of his dreams -- reaching the age of 50 and getting his GED. The folks at Pinkerton Academy presented him with an honorary one weeks before he died.
Something unexpected happened when I -- and sometimes my husband and I -- went to visit Gary during his last weeks. We met his immediate family -- sisters and brothers and their spouses -- and started to share in their family celebrations with Gary -- a pizza party for his birthday, a graduation ceremony when he got his GED.
We have stayed in touch with one sister and her husband, Jane and Ken, and last week, they came to our house for dinner for the first time. We talked about Gary, of course, but also about our own lives and how much we have in common -- political leanings, a love of camping, a fascination with the outdoors.
Before they left, we pledged to go camping together this summer. And I couldn't help but think, as they drove away, how strange is the web of life -- that a chance meeting at a poorly attended press conference two decades ago could lead to a new friendship and tender memories of a warrior in a wheelchair.

Small victories

The chintzy printer had barely outlived its warranty when it died, so I was so pleased to replace it with a sleek, black Canon MX882 that was wireless, scanned, faxed, and almost did the dishes for you. So I was most disgruntled when the new Canon suddenly started producing copies with white strikes down the middle of the page, gave me a message the ink was running out when I had just replaced the cartridges and lit up the LED display with a “printer error” message whenever I used it. Hadn’t it been just months since I had purchased it? I called Canon and an agent there spent 45 minutes walking me through various diagnostic tests before agreeing it was just plain broke. If I had purchased it within a year, she said, they would replace it. Naturally, I couldn’t find my receipt so I contacted BJ’s, where I had bought it, and within three hours they had e-mailed me a copy of the receipt with the purchase date – Dec. 3, 2011. My warranty had expired 10 days earlier. I called Canon again and explained that these problems pre-dated my earlier phone call and were well within the warranty period and, well, wouldn’t they take pity on a loyal customer at Christmas time? The agent hemmed and hawed and said they have to go by the purchase date but that he would…. And then the battery in my phone died. I sensed Defeat laughing in the corner somewhere. I called back, got a different agent and explained the whole situation again. “Just a minute,” he said, before turning me over to Muzak. The minute became five, then six, maybe 10 and finally he was back on the line. “Your new printer will arrive within three to five days,” he said. “I love you,” I told him. He expressed no reciprocal sentiment. But it wasn’t my first small victory of the season. Last year, when the plastic lids on my new Anchor Hocking food containers warped and cracked within a week of my purchasing them, I emailed Anchor Hocking’s customer service folks. Three weeks later, new lids arrived – along with new glass containers, too. Bottom line: Have a problem with a product? Try reaching out to the manufacturer. There ARE still some good companies out there that stand by what they sell.

Making friends with money

My husband and I are a saver and a spender, and you can guess which is which. Naturally, this has led to some conflicts within the marriage, and we are still trying to mediate our differences. But now we are turning a new leaf. We have refinanced our home, wiped out credit card and other debt, resolved to live within our means and determined to pay off our mortgage in five years so we can retire while we can still walk. We have also started taking an online course we signed up for ages ago and saved in our bookmarks. It’s called “Healing Your Money Karma” after a book by the same name and it helps viewers see how the money messages they got from childhood influence money habits of today – and how the shame and secrecy that often attaches to those habits can be eliminated by replacing old messages with ones more in keeping with our adult values. One of my perceived childhood messages was that there was a powerful grantor – my father – and I was helpless to procure anything that cost more than my allowance without his approval and checkbook. That message led to some immature, rebellious decisions about money later in life – buying something I wanted despite not having the money for it being a prime example. But I am replacing that message in my thinking with a new mantra – “I am managing my money well.” It’s such a foreign concept to me. But I haven’t used a credit card for more than two months, money conversations with my husband are no longer tinged with fear or shame and I have faith that we can actually accomplish the goals we have set for ourselves. I am managing my money well. At 65, finally, I think I actually am.

Another too-young angel

My niece Leah lost her battle with cancer yesterday. She was 32. Thank you to all of you who prayed for her. I was meditating/praying for her about the time she died at a hospital in Michigan shortly after 5 p.m. For some reason, she had been on my mind all day, even before I got a text from her sister Gayle saying she had taken a turn for the worse and probably had hours to live. Isn’t it strange how sometimes we can sense things, even across miles and years? I was doing a metta meditation for her, where you picture someone and silently makes wishes on their behalf. May you be happy. May you be healthy. May you be free from fear. May you be at ease. And I swear I saw her drifting upward, her shoulder-length hair blowing in the swirling breeze as she ascended with tiny stars glinting around her head. She did not look frightened. Perhaps I imagined it. I will never know. But she is gone from this life and I hope wherever she is, she is out of pain. Happy. Healthy. Free from fear. At ease.

A time for prayer

My niece Leah lies in a hospital bed in Michigan, where she has been for nearly three weeks now. She is unable even to squeeze her mother’s hand. She is 32. In September of this year, she was diagnosed with stage IV non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma and the treatment so compromised her immune system that she now has a fierce infection that doctors are trying to beat back. She remains under heavy sedation, while her mother and other family members visit daily. Diane, her mother, tries to keep her spirits up but it is moment-to-moment struggle. I have not seen Leah for years – her uncle Roger and I divorced years ago – but I have remained close to the family and I feel the pain in their voices when we speak on the phone. There is no more helpless feeling than seeing someone you love gravely ill – as so many of us know. So, a request: please keep her and them in your version of prayer. They could use it now.

The end of the Cissy times as we knew them

Today is the last day that anyone who knew or loved Cissy Taylor will set foot in her Manchester, N.H. condo – the site of countless Derby Day parties, Christmas Eve “orphan” gatherings and other occasions of gaiety and good will. Her brother Richard, executor of her estate, closes on the condo this morning and – after seven months of valiantly executing her wishes – leaves for the long drive back to Ruskin, Fla. Last night, five of us took him out to dinner to thank him and wish him well. Suddenly, it all seems so final. I looked around the table last night at the well-wishers gathered there and thought about how it is so often one person who glues a group together, who brings them face to face when they otherwise might never meet, and Cissy was the one who united all of us present. And I thought about how easy it would be to lose touch with those good people now that she is gone. And how that would be an insult to her memory and a loss for each of us. Several of us exchanged contact information and vowed we would not let that happen. I hope we don’t. So, Godspeed, Richard, and to all of Cissy’s friends, hope to see you soon.

Varieties of prayer

The boy was maybe 4 or 5, and he was kneeling on the doorstep of a house that belonged to a dead man when Rick happened to drive by. His hands were folded in prayer, while his parent sat in a waiting car nearby. He was praying for Robert Young, “the man by the side of the road” who had been killed in a freak accident earlier this fall. Robert Young had endeared himself to many with his daily, friendly waves to all the motorists who drove past his house on busy Route 102. The child, apparently, had been one of them. Now, he was doing the one thing that seems to help in the face of inexplicable loss: offering up the pain and confusion to something higher. Then there was our friend Larry “Big Thunder” Schertzer, who joined a group of us celebrating Thanksgiving in Vermont. Larry is a man without an address – not homeless, exactly, but someone who moves from friend to friend, relative to relative, to work and make his sculptures and play his trumpet and move on. On that dazzlingly sunny, sweet-aired day that was this year’s Thanksgiving, he slipped away from the celebrants for a few moments and went outside, where he strolled a bit then lifted his arms to the sky in some kind of prayerful acknowledgement. Then there’s my version. Earlier today, I sat myself on my meditation zafu (a position I do not assume nearly often enough) and let my thoughts go, while my senile old dog whimpered softly downstairs and a cool breeze wafted through the window and I could send loving thoughts to everyone from my dearest friends to the public official I wrote about who would love to run me out of town. Seems to me it doesn’t much matter what form our prayers take, as long as we offer them.

The 64-year-old virgin: Following his bliss

The 64-year-old virgin: Following his bliss: Met a very cool young man at a Thanksgiving gathering in Vermont. He was sitting across from me at a long, family-style table taking in all ...

Following his bliss

Met a very cool young man at a Thanksgiving gathering in Vermont. He was sitting across from me at a long, family-style table taking in all the conversation around him but not contributing much himself. He had thick, dark hair, a square chin and a handsome face and I tried to engage him with a standard question about what he did for a living. He gave a little half-sigh and said he had been an engineer for years, had been employed by the state of Vermont for most of that time, and had worked mandatory long hours and made a ton of money. Then he had worked as an engineer for a green environmental outfit, again working long hours, before he decided to chuck it all. Now he was doing what he loved -- potting -- and he showed me a picture on his iPhone of a table full of voluptuous bowls, vases, urns and other creations, most done in the soft blues and greens he favored. He had also bought a parcel of land, he said, and his dream was to move out of the rented house he was living in, build up a farm on that property and do his potting there. He certainly wasn't making the money he used to, he said, but he was a happy man. I would guess he wasn't yet 30. I love meeting someone who is not only young, but wise.

The power of neighborhood

The plot is an old one, invoked in countless books and movies: Giant corporation seeks to buy up land in order to exploit it for its (fill in the blank) value, offers outrageous sums of money to (usually impoverished) current landowners, pits neighbor against neighbor and either gets run out of town or prevails. But now, that real-life movie is playing in my state. The big corporation in this case is Hydro-Quebec, the world’s largest producer of hydroelectric energy, and it seeks to run a huge transmission line down the backbone of New Hampshire so it can sell power not to folks in this state but to locales SOUTH of here. This weekend, I spent some time with my friends Daryl and Brad and heard for the first time about how some of the New Hampshirites in the path of the proposed pass have been reacting to the plan. And that would be, not well. Three or so years ago, Daryl and Brad built their dream house in Colebrook, N.H., on a site chosen for its remoteness, hunting opportunities, beauty and privacy. They’d barely had a chance to get fully unpacked when they learned that Hydro-Quebec was planning this project, and that Northern Pass towers would march right across their front yard if it went through. So they did want many leading characters in such dramas do – they decided to fight, and to reach out to their neighbors (many of whom they’d never met) to join them. That’s how they met an elderly woman I’ll call Ella, who lives on just hundreds of dollars a month but would rather spit in her shoe than accept the $800,000-plus Hydro-Quebec was willing to give her for her modest property. And a farmer down the road who was offered more than a million for his property but declined, saying he wouldn’t know what to do with a million dollars but he sure knew what to do with the land he’d grown up on. Daryl and Brad themselves have hosted neighbors and state lawmakers for meetings to talk about ways to fight the plan – and to remind themselves there is strength in solidarity. While Hydro-Quebec tells homeowners who refuse to sell that they might end up staring at towers anyway, without the money some of their neighbors have accepted, the hold-outs tell each other that if enough of them say no, the project cannot proceed. Rick and I went through a smaller-scale version of such a battle years back, when a developer was threatening to put in a 13-unit subdivision next to us, practically using a shoe-horn to maximize the number of buildings he could fit on the acreage. We gathered neighbors together, looked for opportunities to fight, learned that the land had once been sprayed with lead arsenate when it was an orchard and passed that information on to our Planning Board. When the developer learned how much it would cost to clean up the lead arsenate, he high-tailed it and the property is now under easement and can never be developed. The power of neighborhood. May it work for the likes of Daryl, Brad, Ella and whomever else holds respect for the land above money.

A break in the clouds

I haven’t written a blog for two weeks now. I’ve been a little on the blue side – maybe having to do with turning 65 and the approach of winter (in so many ways), a sickly dog, working hard. But last weekend came a break in the clouds. It was the annual get-together of Rick’s childhood and high school friends, who call themselves the Loons – hence, a “reloonion.” Most people there were in their 60s, with a couple in their 50s. One is on crutches after almost having died from an infection, and a hospital’s mistake, last year. Another was recuperating from a hip replacement. Another walks with pain from chronic neuropathy in her feet. But there were two notable exceptions – Nuala, who’s maybe 4, and her sister, Fiona, 13 months, the only kids present. They are the children of one of the Loons – a man also in his 60s – who met a woman at church after the end of his unhappy marriage, fell in love, remarried and sired these gorgeous girls. I spent part of Sunday with Fiona in my arms, entertaining her while her parents finished eating breakfast at the restaurant where we’d all met for a farewell meal. I walked her around, bouncing her in my arms, and watched her big blue eyes while I showed her pictures on the wall, lights on the ceiling, plants hanging from baskets – pretty mundane stuff. But to her they were sources of great wonder. I think wonder is something I need more of in my life, especially as I get older. Maybe we all do. “Always be on the lookout for the presence of wonder,” E. B. White wrote, in a quote Rick has taped to our bathroom mirror. Last Sunday, I encountered it. I plan to keep looking for more.

The power of pennilessness

Earlier this week, Rick and I refinanced our mortgage (to a sweet 3 percent) and one of the conditions of the deal was that I close all my credit card accounts except one. This was quite agreeable to me, as I have far too many credit cards and use them far too freely, almost as though charging something made it free. But I had misunderstood which of the credit cards the bank was allowing me to keep and, days before the closing, I had paid off and closed that account myself. Which meant that, as of Monday, I had NO credit cards and – my payday being almost two weeks away – no money, except a little spare change. So, unless I hit up my husband for cash, I had no way to fill my gas tank to get to work, no way to take advantage of that incredible laptop offer I saw on craigslist, no way to purchase airplane tickets for a holiday trip to Michigan, no way to go out to dinner with the girls, no way to do anything except – outrageous thought – live within my means. I decided to try to do exactly that. I am still sitting with the feelings this condition generates. Rebellion. A sickly kind of panic. Some childish anger. Fear (don’t a lot of us worry we are destined to be bag ladies?). And, grudgingly, liberation. The tire of my Honda had a nail in it and this afternoon, I took it to my mechanic to be repaired. The bill was $10. I didn’t have $10. I wrote a post-dated check. And I couldn’t help but think, this is how so many people in the world live, hand-to-mouth, paycheck to paycheck – but also so much better than many people in the world live. At least I have that paycheck coming next week. At least I have someone who would readily help me if I asked. I’m still trying to decide if I will even apply for another credit card later. Perhaps absurdly, the image of a backpacker comes to mind. Though I have only backpacked once, I love the metaphor of it – carrying everything one needs on one’s own back. Maybe, finally, I can learn to do that with money.

Meeting Fatuma

She was standing alone at a temporary bus stop on Hazen Drive in Concord, N.H., waiting for the shuttle that would take her downtown for a rally featuring President Barack Obama and former president Bill Clinton. She looked very young, very black and very beautiful and she stood shivering in jeans, stylish boots, a shirt and blazer, in weather only in the 40s. I describe myself as an independent voter, but with a rare chance to see two presidents at once, I had come to the same bus stop with a group of friends to attend the rally and we struck up a conversation with the shivering young woman. My friend Miriam offered to lend her a spare down coat, which she gratefully accepted, donned and pulled tight around her body. Her name was Fatuma, she said, in perfect but accented English, and she was originally from Uganda. Only as we stood together in the interminable line to get in to the rally did I learn the rest of her story. She had been in the country for five years, and had been a citizen for one. She was 27. She had come from a small village in Uganda that was so insular some people never left it, but she had gone on to university and had graduated with a degree in communications and journalism. She went to work for a publication where she had done a major story on corruption in Uganda and the aftermath had forced her to leave the country – and everyone she knew, including all of her family. Supporters had provided her with some money and, along with some of her own savings, she took it and headed for America, alone, with only the name of a friend of a friend who might be willing to provide her a place to stay. The friend of the friend did provide a place, but along with it came travails she was reluctant to discuss, and she ended up having to leave. She was now living on her own in an apartment in Lowell, working for Visiting Nurses and hoping to go back to school to become a nurse. She was also working her heart out as a volunteer for people she believed in, like Obama and Democratic Massachusetts U.S. Senate candidate Elizabeth Warren. She wanted to support people who believed in women’s rights, she said. She stood slightly in front of us at the rally, which turned out to be so large (14,000 people, the largest political rally ever held in New Hampshire) that none of us ever actually saw the two speakers. But we could see her – all five feet or so of her – and how she held her smart phone above the crowd to capture the scene and the important words coming through the speakers and how she jumped with enthusiasm at a phrase that captured her hopes and how she held up her small arms and waved her support across the masses of people between her and the speakers. After the rally, when a shuttle dropped us off at the same parking lot, we all hugged her goodbye, smitten with her youth, her courage and her conviction. I plugged her cell phone and email address into my phone and told her we would have her for dinner. She said she’d love that. But not as much, I think, as we will love having her.

After the storm

Four or five huge trees in our side yard came down during Sandy and one grazed the house but caused no damage. The electricity was out for less than 24 hours and our small generator kept food in the refrigerator from spoiling. We used camp lanterns to see and cooked leftovers on a one-burner butane stove. It wasn’t nearly as bad as the ice storm that knocked out our power for a week one recent year, or the Nor’Easter that took it down for five days. And of course, it was nothing, nothing, like what people in New York and New Jersey had to face. If anything, the storm taught me gratitude. It taught me how much I take for granted every day – like being able to flush a toilet, or flick a switch and have a room fill with light – and even about things I don’t take for granted, like having a newly chain-sawed stack of wood, thanks to Mother Nature’s pruning. And when I heard what had happened to one of Rick’s customers, it taught me something even bigger. The customer is middle-aged, owner of a large car dealership, well-off and, by Rick’s account, a good human being. During the storm, he was riding in the back seat of his SUV, with his two grown sons in the front, when a 20-inch pine came slamming down and crushed the back of the vehicle. He is now in intensive care at a Boston hospital, in an induced coma. I can’t stop thinking about him or his family, or about the thing that most of us take for granted every day – being alive.

The virgin turns 65

It was a milestone birthday I had been anticipating with trepidation – dread, really. I was painfully aware that 65 is the age at which my father died, the age at which one becomes an official senior citizen, when one starts to be dismissed (at least by some) as “old” (although, now that I think about it, Hillary Clinton turned 65 just four days before me, and who is more vital than Hillary Clinton?) The day proceeded without fanfare, then it was over. But I took strange comfort from an unlikely source, for someone who is not as social-media attuned as my younger friends – and that is all those messages on Facebook, from people who just took the time to drop a line and wish me well. And from the friend who sent an old-fashioned card saying he had dedicated his morning walk to me. Blessings, all. Though I still can’t wait to turn 66.

Restored faith in humanity

Monday is my lottery ticket-buying day. I do it once a week – no more, no less – and for those of you who pooh-pooh this exercise, I can only tell you that I am my mother’s daughter. She loved scratch tickets and I can’t tell you how many hours we spent giggling over our tiny wins and fantasizing about the big one that would certainly come later. Anyway, this past Monday, I stopped in at the usual gas station to pick up this week’s tickets and I asked the guy behind the counter for four $5 tickets. “Not those,” I said, as he reached for one of those word game tickets that take too long to scratch. So he handed me four tickets and I gave him my $20 and left. Only when I got home and Rick and I were scratching the four (I do let him in on the fun) did I realize that I had four TWO-DOLLAR tickets, not five-dollar ones, and the guy had squeezed me for twelve bucks. Not only that, but there were only $6 worth of winnings in the four. I was indignant. All the next day I stewed at work over how to confront the scammer. Surely he would remember my handing him the $20, but would he admit it? Should I demand the name of his supervisor and relate what had happened? Should I shame him in front of other customers? Finally, the long work day ended and I stopped back at the same gas station. He wasn’t there. In his place was a young, intelligent-looking woman wearing thick glasses and green fingernail polish. I was flummoxed. “You probably can’t help me,” I began, “but yesterday…” and I told the tale. “Oh, but I can,” she replied, and reached over next to the cash register to pull out a receipt with $12 neatly folded in it and numbers showing how a lottery customer was owed this money. The young man I had so vilified in my head had taken the time to set things right in case I came back. What could I do? I told her to thank him, put together the $12 and my $6 in winnings and bought three more $5 tickets. One of them is worth $10. And tomorrow, of course, I plan to turn it in and buy two more, going after that really big win. And if I hit, some guy who works behind a gas station counter is going to get SUCH a tip.

Talkin' ta tas

One of my favorite support groups in the world is the Tanner Ta Tas, a group of breast cancer survivors from Woburn (home to the former tanneries so vilified in the book and movie, “A Civil Action”) and a place where there seems to be an unusually high number of breast cancer cases among YOUNG women. I had written about them many times while editor of the Woburn Advocate but yesterday they asked me to do something I had never done before -- be one of the speakers at their annual Brunch and Learn. I told them about losing my friend Cissy this year. She was a seven-year breast cancer survivor who died of a heart attack and she had been at a Ta Ta event last year, when the group had its annual “turn the common pink” night, where DPW crews flip a switch and the trees on Woburn Common are illuminated with pink lights during Breast Cancer Awareness Month. And I told them how Cissy was a Ta Ta at heart, because the Ta Tas are known not only for their kindness to breast cancer patients and survivors from the area, but for their sustaining sense of humor. (Some members who have lost a breast to cancer affectionately call each other “winkies.”) I recounted how Cissy, when she met with the surgeon who was going to tattoo on a nipple where her real one had been removed, told the guy she’d only agree to the surgery if the tattoo said, “If you can read this, you’re too close.” They loved it. And I told them I plan to keep writing about them, because the story of these young mothers --who are not only demanding answers about their high incidence of breast cancer but are supporting each other in ways I’ve never seen any organization do – is one that deserves a broader audience than Woburn’s. It’s a promise I intend to keep.

What earthquake?

I was driving home from work Tuesday after a long day, with my cell phone unintentionally turned off, when I heard it ping that I had a message. It was Rick’s voice. He said he was sitting in the studio outbuilding that is set in a grove of beech trees at the back of our property, the place we call The Beech House. “Mark the time, 7:12 p.m.,” his voice said. “The building just shook for about 10 seconds. I think we just had an earthquake.” Yea, right, I thought. But I turned on the radio and immediately heard the last of an initial report that a magnitude four-point-something quake had just struck in York County, Maine and had apparently been felt by everyone in New England (and in some cases, beyond) – except by anyone who – like me -- was behind a wheel. No damage, no one injured. But – bummer! – I missed my first earthquake. Oh, well, I’d rather report that I felt the earth move for other reasons.

Gardening by flashlight

“Gardeners, beware,” the meteorologist on the radio had warned that morning while I was driving to work. “A frost is coming.” I tried to leave a little early, thinking of the last of my tender babies in the garden – an acorn and a couple of butternut squash, maybe a zucchini or two, cherry and regular tomatoes, some kale, some chard and a forest of arugala. But what is usually a one-hour commute from Concord, Mass. to my New Hampshire home can be double that on Friday nights, as leaf-peers and weekenders head north for the White Mountains. Even using the traffic report on my GPS, I got home after 6, as dusk was settling. I ran out and picked the winter squash and searched in vain for the zucchini. Rick came out to help, dropping the few remaining tomatoes into a plastic basket. It was cold, even with our winter coats and hoods on, and it was rapidly getting dark – too dark to see. So we finished our harvesting – almost – by flashlight (a first), laughing in the dark and rubbing our freezing hands together. Eventually, we hoisted two large tarps over the arugula and kale and sent up a little wish that they would survive the night. They did. In the morning, I picked a bunch of kale and literally a shopping bag full of arugula. We had arugula salad and pasta with a tomato, arugula and artichoke heart sauce for dinner. I swear, the meal tasted all the better for the memory of tucking in its ingredients by flashlight the night before.

Connecting with a late husband's first wife

It sounds so strange, I know. But I hope to make a small contribution to a book that is being partly written by my late husband Jim Ragsdale’s first wife – the same woman to whom he was married (though they were separated) when Jim and I fell in love. The book is about the historic home they lived in – one in which I also resided for a time. But I care less about the book than about the relationship that Karen and I have managed to sustain across miles and time for more than two decades. Not that we’ve been best friends. Our contacts have been infrequent, but caring. She’s a remarkable woman. The first time we met, under the most awkward of circumstances, she simply gave me a hug. When Jim died, she took me out to lunch one day. She was happily remarried, and had no cause to reach out except kindness. She included me, and later Rick and me, in a couple of family get-togethers. We’d been out of touch (except for Christmas cards) for some time, but when I got a letter asking me to contribute to the book project, I was happy to respond. We’re talking about getting together for lunch to discuss it. I look forward to it. Our shared history might not be one most people would celebrate, but what could be better than spending time with a creative, big-hearted woman? There should be more like her.

Country livin'

So I was picking some forgotten garlic in the garden when a truck rolled into the yard. Out stepped a man I vaguely recognized, who said he was the son of my neighbor, Leroy. Then he something that was a first for me. He just wanted Rick and me to know that he and his dad were putting their cows in the back pasture, meaning they’d be right next to our property, and – not that he anticipated any troubles – but if we should find some cows roaming in our driveway to please give him a call. Then he handed me his card with his number on it. I couldn’t help but chuckle. I could just picture calling my boss to say I was going to be late for work because there were cows blocking my car. “Good thing I’m vegetarian,” I almost said, but didn’t. But I’ll tell you, waking up to moo-ing is a heck of a lot nicer than waking to an alarm clock.

Standing among (amiable) ghosts

They were barely more than an arm’s-length away – a primitive desk, a simple chair and an old, low-to-the-ground metal bed frame. But they were the very furnishings that Henry David Thoreau had used during his time at Walden Pond, where he wrote some of the most memorable lines in American literature. I had been a major admirer when I studied him in college – writing down his instructive observations (“Beware of all enterprises that require new clothes,” comes to mind) in a special notebook and even christening my first car, a used Volkswagen Beetle with a peace sign I applied to the side, “Henry David Car.” And here I was, standing before the desk where those lines had likely been written, and the bed – brought with his other furnishings back to his family home after he left Walden Pond – where my hero had actually died. It was my first visit to the Concord Museum in Concord, Mass., but the first of what I’m sure will be many. For not only were Thoreau’s belongings on display, but, in the very next chamber stood Ralph Waldo Emerson’s furniture, arranged exactly as the pieces had stood in his study in the Emerson House across the street – including the desk where he wrote. It is a special place, this museum, with more than 35,000 objects spanning the history of historic Concord, from the time of the Native Americans to the present. Even a lantern, taken from the steeple of the building where Paul Revere began his famous ride, is there. Thoreau and Emerson were great friends in life, of course, and I couldn’t help but wonder what conversations might still go on between those two great men after the visitors leave and the lights in the Concord Museum go out every night. I wish I could be there to listen.

Memorial service for a stranger

A steady stream of people trickled through the basement of the Masonic Lodge in Derry, N.H. Friday afternoon and evening, the guests there to pay tribute to a man many of them had never met. He was Robert Young, 75, “the man by the side of the road,” who died the previous Saturday when he was struck by a car. Tables lined the walls, each bearing an exhibit that added a page to the chronicle of his life. Newspaper clippings outlined the years when he ran an art gallery in the barn across the street from his home on busy Route 102. Samples of his artwork, raw and gripping, stood nearby. Pictures of him and his longtime partner, who predeceased him, captured the love they had once shared, showing the two of them arm in arm, smiling as though love has no end, and maybe it doesn’t. Cut-out silhouettes of hands paid homage to the habit for which he was most well-known – sitting in front of his house on a chair, waving to every passing car. “Never underestimate the power of a smile and a wave,” read one hand-made poster, which had been left at his home after his death and brought to the Masonic Lodge for his service. The tributes left at his home and brought to the lodge were perhaps the most moving because they had a theme. “I am the blonde teenager in the SUV who always waved back so excitedly,” read one scrawled message. “I always meant to stop and talk to you but I never did.” Another note, written in childish handwriting by two siblings, explained how they always pressed their noses against the window of the schoolbus when they went by his house so they could see him wave and wave back. Another note, presumably written by a fellow waver, said only, “I never felt so bad about losing someone I never met.” Rick, too, had always planned to stop and talk to him, but had always been too busy. Now, the “busyness” seems so secondary. If only we could all go back in time and take those few moments to act on our impulses and stop and say thanks for the momentary but important joy he brought each day. If only we could remember to act on those same impulses when a future opportunity comes along. And recognize it when it is there.

The man by the side of the road

He was the man by the side of the road. He lived in a tidy brown house close by busy Route 102 in Derry, N.H., and every morning you would see him sitting on a chair in his yard, smiling and waving at every car that passed, stunning commuters so much with his foolish courage that many would wave back. I would always return the wave and beep my horn, which made him wave back all the harder. He was also a master gardener, known for the tall, exotic grasses that flanked the flower patch in his back yard and in late spring or early summer, you could count on him to put up a wooden, hand-painted sign that read “Peonia” with containers of fluffy peonies underneath it, for sale for $5. Rick often said he wanted to stop by and give him a copy of Sam Walter Foss’ poem, “The House by the Side of the Road,” because the words reminded Rick so much of him. The poem ends, “Let me live in my house by the side of the road,/ Where the race of men go by-/ They are good, they are bad, they are weak, they are strong,/ Wise, foolish – so am I./ Then why should I sit in the scorner’s seat/ Or hurl the cynic’s ban?/ Let me live in my house by the side of the road/ And be a friend to man.” Now Rick will never get the chance. Robert Young died last Saturday at the age of 75, as he was walking into a convenience store in Chester, N.H., and a woman apparently confused her accelerator and brake pedal and struck him with her car. A garden of tributes quickly sprouted outside the door of his house – balloons, baskets of mums, candles, scrawled notes, ceramic angels – many of them left, I have no doubt, by people who had never actually met him. He represented something – innocence, kindness, sweetness in the face of a hostile world, perhaps – the “friend to man” of the poem. A memorial service is planned for Friday, from 4 to 8 p.m. at the Masonic Hall in Derry and I expect it will be crowded with many of his unmet friends. I was standing outside his door Tuesday morning, reading the information about the memorial service pinned to his door when something brought tears to my eyes. A woman drove by in her SUV, looked over, honked and waved. His foolish courage lives on.

The first (annual?) CissyFest

We could never have enough tributes for Cissy Taylor, the southern belle, longtime Union Leader crime reporter, former Eagle-Tribune New Hampshire editor, past press aide to the New Hampshire Speaker of the House, veteran board member of the Manchester Police Athletic League and – perhaps her proudest accomplishment – friend to many incredibly lucky people. Soon after her body was discovered in April, following an apparent heart attack in the condo where she lived alone, hundreds came to the funeral home service arranged by her brother Richard, who has faithfully and valiantly continued to execute the wishes she left in her will. On Saturday, we had another kind of celebration – a “CissyFest” hosted by her good friend and Union Leader compatriot Paul Tracy – this time on the shores of Squam Lake, where many of us, including Richard, gathered to share stories and testimonials, eat good food (essential at any Cissy party) and drink wine she had left behind, which Richard brought along to share. We shared her favorite Malbec, laughed at stories of her irreverence (belching in the newsroom?), recounted camping adventures and looked at old photos as the sun went down over that lovely lake. It felt like the beginning of a tradition. And I, for one, hope it will be.

Celebrating a crazy and wonderful 10 years

We met 17 years ago, when both of our hearts were broken. He was grieving the woman he thought might finally be the one, who had abruptly broken up with him after a months-long but intense romance. I was grieving the year-old death of my husband, who had died after a months-long but intense battle with pancreatic cancer. I wasn’t looking for a hot romance, just someone to see a movie with now and then, or maybe give me a hug occasionally. He was looking for – well, I won’t put words in his mouth. I answered his personal ad in The Boston Globe – which said he was single and 48, loved Cajun music (whatever that was), had a place in Maine (I loved Maine) and was self-employed. He sounded kind of interesting. I called the recorded message associated with the ad and heard his voice, which elaborated on his written words and included a phone number. It also included the intriguing line that he liked “unconventional travel.” I thought he sounded kind of scattered. His phone number also had an area code suggesting he lived on Cape Cod, a good two-hour drive from my New Hampshire condo. I hung up. But unconventional travel? I love to travel, especially unconventionally. I called back and left my number. We spoke on the phone several times over the course of, maybe, a month, and finally met for dinner at a restaurant on Route 128 in Woburn, Mass. No bells went off. No whistles sounded. He was kind of scattered, but also an incredibly sweet, sincere man. I thought we might become good friends. So… let’s flash forward. We married seven years later, on the same island in Maine that had been dear to both of us even before we met and on Friday, the 21st, we celebrated 10 years of marriage at a restaurant on that very island. In the meantime, we had traveled to Mexico, St. Croix, remote portions of the American Southwest, the Maritimes, Quebec City, the Pacific Northwest, Tennessee and Georgia and several other places, most of the time in a tent. I cherish the times we have sat someplace (like on the lowered tailgate of a rented SUV, in the pouring rain, in an empty campground in the mountains of northern New Mexico), clinked our plastic wine glasses together, laughed and repeated the phrase, “unconventional travel!” The thing is, we did become good friends. And so much more. I really do love that man.

Looking up an old love

     He was probably the first guy who broke my heart.

     He came to mind the other day and I looked for him online – not to reconnect, but to see what had become of him, and to learn what might have become of me had we stayed together.

     We met when I was in college and drove a Good Humor ice cream truck during the summer to make money for the fall.

     One day, I stopped for lunch in my truck at a drive-in restaurant and next to me happened to be a good-lucking guy in his Corvette convertible.

     We started talking and I told him his car was beautiful and we ended up exchanging phone numbers.

     I was maybe 19.

     We started dating.

     He lived in Dearborn, in one of those modest, two-story homes you see everywhere in Michigan and his bedroom was on the top floor -- a little room with slanted ceilings -- and I always hoped his parents would never walk up to visit us and discover what we were doing.

     We fell in love. He even introduced his friends to some of my friends and some of them started dating. He took me to the cottage his parents owned on Lake Ontario and introduced me to French fries with vinegar.

     I thought the relationship was really going somewhere. He was a high school teacher and I could see myself becoming a teacher and getting married and living happily ever after.

     And then... he broke up with me.
     I bawled my eyes out. My parents tried to minimize my distress, which only made it worse. I can remember screaming at them, "How would you feel if your spouse left you?" and storming into my room.

     I won't lie to you. It hurt for a long time. Really hurt.

     But then I met someone else, and moved away and traveled the world and the world started to feel bigger and he started to feel smaller.

     When I finally found the person I think is him through an Internet search, I discovered he hadn’t moved very far away from that community in Michigan where he grew up.

     I remember he really loved his junk food and I expect he's probably a little on the chunky side these days.

     And my guess is that, if he and I had stayed together, I'd be living in a modest, two-story house not too far from where I grew up, spending my nights sitting in front of the TV and eating Cheetos and never knowing what else life had to offer.

     From this vantage point, years later, I'm glad things worked out the way they did.

The Potato Eaters... or not

No doubt you’ve all been waiting for the sequel to my spring blog about our virgin effort to grow potatoes vertically.

     Instead of digging trenches, putting in seed potatoes and mounding them as the plants grew – the traditional method – we decided to build a large crate-like structure in the middle of the vegetable garden with the seed potatoes buried inside, then add dirt as the plants grew.

     We (mostly Rick, really) have tended the structure (we call it our redneck hot tub) for all these months, gradually adding soil as the potato plants grew taller.

     Today, I decided it was time to see if our experiment had worked.

     I got out a potato fork and started digging through the dirt. I got through about half of it then quit in discouragement because…

     THERE WASN’T ONE SINGLE POTATO!

     So, there you have it. A little time in the sun and a little aerobic activity were all we got for our efforts.

     But you know, one of Van Gogh’s first great paintings, The Potato Eaters, is considered one of his most intriguing because he had not yet mastered the techniques that would later make him famous. The painting is considered imperfect. But it helped in the development of those techniques that would one day make him a master.

     Maybe next year we can say the same about our potato-growing efforts.

     In the meantime, there’s always the farmers market.

Wearing a burqa

Today I did something that might have gotten me arrested had I done it publicly in France.

     I wore a burqa, “an enveloping outer garment worn by women in some Islamic traditions to cover their bodies when in public,” as Wikipedia defines it.

     It was only for a while and entirely in the privacy of my home, but it stirred many thoughts about women and religion and liberties and plain old comfort.

     It wasn’t what I expected.

     It was tight-fitting at the top of the head – to secure it, I suppose – and so flowing and unusual that my dogs circled and barked when I first put it on.

     And it was dark. I had trouble seeing through the mesh in front of the eyes, even with the kitchen lights on, so much so that I had to lift it to read the mail.

     It was also hot inside, even on this coolish September night.

     But it is what many Muslim women around the world wear, in keeping with ancient religious tradition, and what many of them fight to continue wearing, even as some other European nations considering joining France in banning burqas in the name of national security.

     I’m not Muslim and I didn’t wear the burqa (borrowed from a friend) for religious reasons, but to try to understand another culture and religion (wouldn’t the world be a better place if we all did more of that?).

     A small part of me found it appealing – the anonymity it granted, the cocoon-like security – but not so much that I’d consider wearing one again.

     The better part of me found it unfamiliar and uncomfortable, which is why I won’t.

     But ban it?

     It occurred to me only after I tried on the burqa that I was doing so on 9-11, the anniversary of the worst terrorism attack in U.S. history, initiated by Muslim fanatics.

     They were attacking our freedoms – including freedom of religion, freedom of expression.

     Seems to me wearing a burqa is one of those freedoms.    

Partying in another language

Our little friend Nathan just turned 2, and his parents, our friends, were kind enough to include us on the guest list for his birthday party yesterday.
     It was a typical Brazilian party – one meant for adults as much as children, with a themed backdrop for the birthday cake table and artful little favors created by his talented mother, a trampoline and potato sack races for the kids, beer and wine for the adults and, of course, the usual spread of incredible Brazilian food. (Who barbecues better?)
     Most of those present speak at least some English, though one or two had arrived from Brazil within the week, and it was a chance for me to practice the Brazilian Portuguese I’ve been learning by listening to CDs on my way to work.
     I know only a few basic phrases – like “How are you,?” “pleased to meet you,” “I’d like red wine, please,” and “where is the bathroom?”
     But I haven’t had as much fun talking to people in a long time. We laughed at each other’s attempts to converse, provided the fill-in-the-blank word for the sentences the other couldn’t complete and shared our thoughts on the difficulties of learning a new language.
     They, of course, need to know English if they’re going to continue to work and live here for as long as their visas allow. I want to learn Portuguese because it’s fun to learn anything new, but mostly because I have grown to like and admire many of them and I want to meet them halfway in this effort to communicate.

     I’ve never partied in another language before but, based on my experience, it’s “muito divertido.”

     Now you, too, know at least two Portuguese words – “very fun.”

Rediscovering roots

When I was a little girl, my best friend was Polish and lived in the house behind mine. We wore the chain link fence between us down with our constant climbing over for visits, much to my father’s disapproval.
     Her mother would say things like “let’s go by Aunt Mary’s house to visit” instead of let’s go to Aunt Mary’s house to visit, and when I started unconsciously imitating that phraseology, my mother immediately corrected me and told me not to talk in that “Polish” way.
     Aunt Mary lived in a Polish enclave of Detroit called Hamtramck, and I often did visit there with my friend Judi and her family. There were two-and three-story tenement houses there, unlike the low-slung ranch houses in my suburban neighborhood, but there was food like kielbasa and pierogis and other unpronounceable things and I always had a good time.
     At Polish weddings, there was always a band with an accordion and they played things like “The Philadelphia Polka” (remember that from the movie “Groundhog Day”?), “Roll Out the Barrel” and other ethnic songs that non-Poles, probably including me, tended to dismiss as low-brow.
     In fact, the many Poles in my neighborhood and school faced a lot of subtle derision, like the Polack jokes that none of us thought anything about repeating. Even they laughed, probably in self-defense.
     I’m ashamed now, of my childhood insensitivity.
     Why does all this come to mind today?
     Because I spent Labor Day weekend at a fantastic music festival in Rhode Island, Rhythm and Roots, where many of the musicians work hard to preserve ancient musical heritages.
     And not all of them are on the stage.
     In the camping area, little mini-festivals go on day and night, and one of them, on Sunday morning, was hosted by a group called Polka Dan and the Beetbox Band – and they were every bit as good as the paid help.  They had maybe a hundred people dancing on the grass to polka tunes (sans accordion) like the ones I mentioned (and “You Can Have Her, I don’t Want Her, She’s Too Big For Me” and “Who Stole the Keeshka”) and Dan was very clear about his message – he wants to preserve his culture’s music and celebrate it in a way the mainstream culture never has. Besides, as he says, polka music is “fun music.”
     His was just one of the many groups I had never seen before. Did you know Hugh Laurie, of “House” fame, is a damn fine musician with a blues band of his own? Or that an incredibly talented, intelligent, group called The Carolina Chocolate Drops is researching and performing some of the lost, beautiful, early works of black American musicians?
     I’ve always known that what we experience as children helps form who we are, but I never that about how what we hear as children does, as well – from generation to generation.
     I wish Aunt Mary was still alive so I could go by and visit her.

Starting a new job, at 64

After five years as editor of the Woburn Advocate, this week I started a new job as editor of the Concord (Mass.) Journal.
     It’s a larger paper, with an engaged, exacting readership, and I am grateful for the challenge.
     I’m still getting my feet wet, but already I have fallen in love with some of the town’s female elders.
     There’s Dot, who’s 90-something and writes a weekly column for the paper, delivering it by hand every Thursday.
     And Phebe, who’s lived in places as far-flung as China, helped start a local feminist group in the 1970s and still motors around town on her trademark bicycle.
     And Marion, now in assisted living, who knows more about Concord’s historic cemeteries, and the famous authors buried there, than anyone alive.
     Those are just three of the people I’ve met so far.
     I think I’m going to like it here.

Miracle in a jar

     It was about an inch long, bullet-shaped and a leafy shade of green, roped with sparkling gold rings that my nieces would call “bling.”
     “A chrysalis,” Rick pronounced. The hard-shelled pupa of a moth.
     So, like two 7-year-olds undertaking a science project, we did something I have never done: We put it in a jar with a twig and few leaves, poked holes in the top and waited.
     We didn’t have to wait long. Less than a week later, Rick said he could start to see orange and white stripes appearing inside the translucent shell.  On Monday, there appeared before us a monarch butterfly, full grown and moving its wings uncertainly.
     We named it Harantis, after our street.
     Yesterday, before work, in a driving rain, we took the jar outside and gently deposited its contents on top of a tarp inside our open garage. I took one last picture and left.
     I was still at work in the late afternoon when Rick called.
     “Harantis is gone,” he said, and I swear I thought he was going to cry. “Off to Mexico.”
     And here is the magical part.
     Monarchs are the only butterfly that migrates both north and south, like birds do (though no individual one makes the entire trip, females depositing eggs for the next generation to continue the journey).
     By the end of October, Harantis will indeed be well on the way to Mexico, likely the Mariposa Monarca Biosphere Reserve.
     That little inch-long thing we found on a plastic lawn chair in our yard is an intercontinental flyer.
     Who says we don’t encounter miracles every day?

A new Spin on things

Never been to a farm-team game.
     Never thought I wanted to.
     But thanks to some free tickets from work, Rick and I found ourselves Friday night in the stadium of the LowellSpinners – the Red Sox farm team based in the one-time mill town that was once one of the largest producers of textiles in the world. That accounts for the team’s name – “spinners,” as in the turning spools of thread used in the mills.
     We had a ball, no pun intended.
     This year’s team isn’t ready for prime time (as if this season’s Red Sox are) but we fell in love with the ambiance of the place on that perfect summer night. The between-inning entertainment that ranged from two girls racing to see who could put on firemen’s hats, jackets and boots the fastest to the amazing border collie that could run halfway across the field to catch a Frisbee.  The basement Gator Pit, with its sumptuous grilled offerings. The mascot, an alligator (I don’t know why either). And, especially, the stadium itself, a low-slung, open structure over which the towering smokestacks of old Lowell still towered.
     As Rick said, Kerouac (a Lowell native) would have loved it – the laughing people, the beer, the good times.
     We loved it ourselves.
     BTW, Lowell won over the Connecticut Tigers 7-6.
     I think we might be back.