cincibuck
You kids stay off my lawn!
Day Three
We drove through the western Massachusetts mountains recalling the James Taylor line, “…though the Berkshire’s seemed dreamlike on account of bad frosting...” There’d be none of that on this hot and humid day, but there was still plenty of beauty to be found in the summer-green trees that graced the route.
We sped through Springfield and then headed on toward Worchester. (Will someone please explain to me how the locals get “wooster” out of that?) We were more than sixty miles from Boston and yet the traffic exceeded the capacity of the eight-lane highway. More toll booths, more guessing as to which of the four stalled lanes before us would get moving first. We always seemed to choose the wrong one. Several near misses ensued as lines of cars and trucks traveling along at sixty-five would suddenly come to a halt for no apparent reason. Inventive drivers, sure of their right to go ninety and to be in front of everyone else, created lanes out of the shoulder or the median, or ignored the “This Lane Endsààà” signs to speed to the front and crowd in line, too important to wait their turn like the rest of us mere mortals. I was reminded once again that the asshole is not on the endangered species list. <O:p></O:p>
The Mass Turnpike linked to the New Hampshire and before we realized it we were crossing the magnificent green bridge that connects Portsmouth, New Hampshire with Kittery, Maine. The sun was beginning to race with us, shadows lengthened, the trees turned from hardwoods to pines and paper birch, Road signs announced York, Old Orchard, Sacco, then Portland and we turned to the east and onto two-lane US 1 that knits the tiny towns of Bath, Wiscasset and Damariscota together, each one claiming to be Maine’s most charming seaport.
The desire to find our cabin, by the lake, in the woods, “where moose swim and eagles fish,” and to be settled in for the two weeks shot up by degrees. “Almost, almost, almost,” the tires whispered as we rolled along, carefully reading the directions and measuring the miles, each road becoming slightly narrower, passing one charming clapboard house after another. At last we came to the final turn off onto the gravel road that led to Dale Dapkins’ place. The woods became thicker and the trees taller. We could see little cottages squeezed in between stands of pine. Could one of these be ours?
Then things began to change. The cottages took on a decided trailer-park look. Big hog pick up tucks with dualies, chrome exhaust stacks, gun racks and “Dale Earnhart Jr. for President” bumper stickers replaced the SUVs and vans. Picket fences and flowerbeds gave way to jumbo satellite dishes and camouflaged All Terrain Vehicles.
Kathy looked at the print out of the directions. “It should be right after this turn,” she said. Sure enough, the road bent back to the left and the trees opened up to reveal a beautiful, sparkling lake and something that resembled the set from Li’l Abner. You could hear a sigh of disappointment seep from both cars. I grappled with the urge to put the key back in the ignition and put the car in reverse, heading for the nearest Motel Six. Instead we stepped out and looked at the water. Maybe if we could keep from looking at the house this bad dream would go away.
Mary gazed at the lake, then at the house. She put her hands on her hips and said what we all felt, “Looks FUBARed to me.” Having been the one assigned to research our holiday home I understood exactly what she meant. It was a supreme SNAFU.
Several hundred sun flecked yards across the lake was a small island. A log cabin rested between the island’s trees. From it came the snappy Caribbean beat of a bongo drum, as loud and clear as if the drummer were in our midst. Who could explain? The drummer was good, but we hadn’t come here to listen to Reggae or have our hair set in dreadlocks… although the mental image of Mary and Kathy decked out in cornrows was pretty amusing…
The drumming ceased for a moment and my attention returned to our living quarters. The parts of the house were as mismatched as sets of Melmac dishes at a garage sale. A rusty brown cement mixer sat just off the path to the front door, a bright yellow catamaran, its mast lying across the deck, all it’s lines broken or hopelessly fouled, sat right before our car. Four bikes of differing styles and sizes leaned against the trunk of a nearby pine, leaves and pine needles covering all but the tops of the wheels, the handlebars and the seats. Tom investigated a white vinyl bowl that seemed to have been tossed into the grass and had been collecting rainwater, “Looks like he may be running a mosquito breeding farm.”
It wasn’t a total disaster. There were signs of refinement, especially the twenty foot square garden plot that sat off to the side of the driveway. A row of tomato plants climbed up wooden stakes, a clump of black-eyed Susans sat next to a concrete birdbath, a ceramic Hindu goddess sat in a pot of nasturtiums and reached up to the sky with three sets of arms. But try as we would to be optimistic, we would later conclude that even the garden had a look of shabbiness.
Dale, who we had called from the Portland outer belt, had been expecting us. He came out the door and approached us wearing a sleeveless, faded maroon T-shirt, paint-spotted black shorts, black socks and aged running shoes. We tried to smile as we exchanged names and handshakes. “Welcome,” he beamed, “let me show you around,” He pulled Kathy and Mary aside and beckoned them to follow him to a barn next to the house, “Careful on these steps,” he warned, pointing to six cinder blocks placed to create a wobbly set of stairs, “Let’s start over here first,” he said as he disappeared into the black interior of the building, “This is where the dryer is.”
Curious, Tom and I wandered over to the barn where Mary and Kathy peered through the door, “The washer ‘s in the house, but the dryer ‘s out here,” I heard Dale explain as if such split settings were normal. All of us looked on as Dale crossed the dirt floor, his arms swinging out, trying to clear a path through the spider webs as his feet dodged several items of interest on the floor, including something that looked like the transmission to a long gone Chevy. Barely visible in the barn’s gloom, Dale looked back across the floor to us and tapped the side of the dryer. “Here she is,” he proclaimed.
Mary turned and whispered to us, “Looks like I won’t be doing much drying.”
While the ladies stared into the barn Tom and I turned about. Dumbfounded, we eyeballed a network of plastic CPV piping that crisscrossed the jumbled yard… if yard was the right word. What is this all about I wondered.
Dale re-emerged from the barn, rubbing the remains of the spider webs from his hands, “Don’t mind that station wagon,” he added as our eyes were directed toward a fifteen-year-old mint green Taurus. “I’ve been meaning to get the parts to get her running again and pull her out of here, but I just haven’t gotten around to it.”
At least it wasn’t resting on cinder blocks.
He turned back toward the barn, his arm jutting out to guide us toward a small red structure, just to the left of it, “…and that’s an outhouse in case the toilet doesn’t work. There’s toilet paper and lime in a bucket on the floor.”
A look of terror swept Mary’s face, “Are you telling us there’s a good chance the toilet won’t work, ‘cause I’m not going there.”
Sensing a deal breaker, Dale backed away from the issue, “Oh, no, I’m just saying that if something should happen…” and then he abruptly shifted gears. “Let’s take a look at the house,” he said.
A small, attractive woman emerged from the back door. Her hair was died beach-party-blonde in direct contrast to her oriental good looks. “This is Lola,” Dale said. She had a warm smile and welcomed us, but whereas Dale was oblivious to our disappointment, Lola read our faces and drew a quick conclusion.
We stepped into what we would later come to assume was to be our living room. The aluminum door rattled and squeaked, old desks, boards, bricks, cider blocks, doors and tables were cobbled into shelves and two work areas. I was reminded of some of the decorating skills of my hippie dippy compatriots of long ago college days. Milk crates held magazines and books, two faded life jackets sat on the floor, two paddles, one of which looked as if it had been a chew toy for a good sized dog, and a fishing rod stood in the corner. The floor was covered with a gritty white vinyl tile that had long since passed the point where it could be made to look clean.
The tour continued. The kitchen was jury-rigged. Dale pointed to a blue plastic jug resting on its side, a brass outdoor faucet screwed into the top. “We fill this up at the spring and drink from it. You can wash dishes with the water from the tap, but don’t drink it, or use it to cook or brush your teeth.”
I shot a look at Kathy. She’d gotten Montezuma’s revenge in 1982 during a weeklong visit to Baja California from just such an arrangement. Were we stepping into Maine or some third world setting, I wondered? The sink was a stainless steel model from the fifties. Extension cords, like the PCV on the lawn, snaked out from the few outlets. The one in front of us was providing power for a coffee pot in the kitchen and a pre-cable-ready color TV that sat on an tea cart in the dining room. As we went from room to room I began to notice that all of the light switches were on the outside walls, which meant you had to cross a room to turn on the light. “Ah,” I thought, “better to curse a stubbed toe in the darkness, than to light a room.”
The dining table was a seven-foot long curving hunk of tree trunk. Two chairs of indiscernible vintage and style sat on either side. The king-size bed on the first floor was made from four stout paper birch posts. Hindu and Buddhist dolls, crucifixes, statues of Mary and other Christian saints dotted the shelves and tables. Three gas masks were hung on pegs above the first floor toilet. I opened what I assumed was a closet door only to find a water heater and a sump pump. The smell of mildew and mold overwhelmed me and I shut the door as fast as I could. The “private bath” on the second floor turned out to be a toilet on an elevated stand, three steps up from the floor and placed inside an office cubicle, a maroon curtain, not unlike the one hiding the cook in East Boofoo, made the “door.” There was a narrow deck off the second floor bedroom. three plywood and cast iron theatre seats and a worn out folding chair sat there as if looking out across the lake.
“It’s great view from up here,” Dale boasted and that part of his spiel was dead on.
I walked outside to escape the tour and to try and steel my mind to the thought of two weeks in this mess. The next thing I knew Dale and the others followed me out. “This is a hot tub I made for us out here.” He pointed to a home made concrete and lake stone “whatever” nestled between four big pines.
I recalled the sentence in his web site, “Enjoy a relaxing soak while watching seagulls and ducks.”
Ignoring the many smears of bird shit that dripped along the dark gray sides, he went on, “You fill it up with hot water here,” he pointed to another web of PCV that ended at the tub’s edge. “Oh, but first, two hours before you want to use it, you have to come over here…” he walked fifteen feet back to the house, “…and turn on the hot water heater...” A second water heater stood next to the kitchen wall OUTSIDE the house, “… you push this switch, open this valve, and then throw this lever…” he grabbed a foot long metal switch on the side of what appeared to be a fuse box, “… and then give it two hours lead time and it’ll make all the hot water you need. You take one of the canoe paddles and stir the water up if you want it soapy and bubbly…”
As if eight hours of driving, including an hour stint in the Greater Boston peak drive time, weren’t enough, as if the unrelenting heat and humidity which had everyone but the mosquitoes on edge, as if our growling, dinnerless stomachs weren’t enough, as if driving two days to reach this scenic spot, only to find a Dogpatch cabin, weren’t enough, Dale was proving impossible to get rid of. Lola, who had read our faces the instant she met us, pulled on his arm, “Come on honey, we need to let these folks unpack and get ready for bed.”
Perceptive as she was, even she had missed the look of hunger, perhaps because it was covered by our obvious despair regarding the cabin. She dragged him off and we were left to stare at each other and wonder which gods and goddesses we had pissed off to bring about this fate.
We unpacked the cars in silence and then decided to head into town to try and find a restaurant still open. We laughed about it all as we ate our dinner. “You know,” I said, “I don’t think there’s a thing in that place that was bought at retail.” Then we all took turns confessing our guilt at being so materialistic.
“But it is FUBARed,” Kathy reasoned, “and we shouldn’t be ashamed of feeling that way.” We chuckled and the guilt quickly left. Reinforced by a bit of wine and some excellent food, we agreed we could weather even this.
We returned to the cabin and gazed about the place. We had shopped for some groceries, hoping, I suppose, that this would make the place feel more welcoming. We began to place things in the refrig or on shelves.
Then the house karma kicked in. I dropped a contact lens on the floor. It took a strong flashlight and three of us on hands and knees to find it. Kathy opened a carton of Bryer’s ice cream and stabbed her index finger in the process. Tom tried to settle a two-and-a-half gallon jug of drinking water on the countertop and the spout came off, twice, spilling a good amount of water on the floor.
Mary wandered off to the upstairs bedroom. I was dog-tired as I climbed into the king-size, extra lumpy, birch log bed. Tom and Kathy remained in the kitchen, fiddling with the spout on the drinking water. They had a patter of jokes going back and forth, laughing hard at each failed attempt to keep the spout in place before finally turning the jug upside down, wiping up the latest spill and surrendering to the inevitable. Kathy stood in the doorway between the kitchen and the hall that led to our bed. With her injured digit wrapped in a paper towel and scotch tape and pointing to the ceiling, she looked at me. “What do you think?” she asked.
“Tomorrow is another day.” I said in my best Scarlet O’Hara tone, and then, thinking about it a bit longer, I added, “As God is my witness, I’ll never be poor again!”
Tom and Kathy laughed. We heard Mary stir upstairs, “FUBAR!” she shouted and we laughed till it hurt.
We drove through the western Massachusetts mountains recalling the James Taylor line, “…though the Berkshire’s seemed dreamlike on account of bad frosting...” There’d be none of that on this hot and humid day, but there was still plenty of beauty to be found in the summer-green trees that graced the route.
We sped through Springfield and then headed on toward Worchester. (Will someone please explain to me how the locals get “wooster” out of that?) We were more than sixty miles from Boston and yet the traffic exceeded the capacity of the eight-lane highway. More toll booths, more guessing as to which of the four stalled lanes before us would get moving first. We always seemed to choose the wrong one. Several near misses ensued as lines of cars and trucks traveling along at sixty-five would suddenly come to a halt for no apparent reason. Inventive drivers, sure of their right to go ninety and to be in front of everyone else, created lanes out of the shoulder or the median, or ignored the “This Lane Endsààà” signs to speed to the front and crowd in line, too important to wait their turn like the rest of us mere mortals. I was reminded once again that the asshole is not on the endangered species list. <O:p></O:p>
The Mass Turnpike linked to the New Hampshire and before we realized it we were crossing the magnificent green bridge that connects Portsmouth, New Hampshire with Kittery, Maine. The sun was beginning to race with us, shadows lengthened, the trees turned from hardwoods to pines and paper birch, Road signs announced York, Old Orchard, Sacco, then Portland and we turned to the east and onto two-lane US 1 that knits the tiny towns of Bath, Wiscasset and Damariscota together, each one claiming to be Maine’s most charming seaport.
The desire to find our cabin, by the lake, in the woods, “where moose swim and eagles fish,” and to be settled in for the two weeks shot up by degrees. “Almost, almost, almost,” the tires whispered as we rolled along, carefully reading the directions and measuring the miles, each road becoming slightly narrower, passing one charming clapboard house after another. At last we came to the final turn off onto the gravel road that led to Dale Dapkins’ place. The woods became thicker and the trees taller. We could see little cottages squeezed in between stands of pine. Could one of these be ours?
Then things began to change. The cottages took on a decided trailer-park look. Big hog pick up tucks with dualies, chrome exhaust stacks, gun racks and “Dale Earnhart Jr. for President” bumper stickers replaced the SUVs and vans. Picket fences and flowerbeds gave way to jumbo satellite dishes and camouflaged All Terrain Vehicles.
Kathy looked at the print out of the directions. “It should be right after this turn,” she said. Sure enough, the road bent back to the left and the trees opened up to reveal a beautiful, sparkling lake and something that resembled the set from Li’l Abner. You could hear a sigh of disappointment seep from both cars. I grappled with the urge to put the key back in the ignition and put the car in reverse, heading for the nearest Motel Six. Instead we stepped out and looked at the water. Maybe if we could keep from looking at the house this bad dream would go away.
Mary gazed at the lake, then at the house. She put her hands on her hips and said what we all felt, “Looks FUBARed to me.” Having been the one assigned to research our holiday home I understood exactly what she meant. It was a supreme SNAFU.
Several hundred sun flecked yards across the lake was a small island. A log cabin rested between the island’s trees. From it came the snappy Caribbean beat of a bongo drum, as loud and clear as if the drummer were in our midst. Who could explain? The drummer was good, but we hadn’t come here to listen to Reggae or have our hair set in dreadlocks… although the mental image of Mary and Kathy decked out in cornrows was pretty amusing…
The drumming ceased for a moment and my attention returned to our living quarters. The parts of the house were as mismatched as sets of Melmac dishes at a garage sale. A rusty brown cement mixer sat just off the path to the front door, a bright yellow catamaran, its mast lying across the deck, all it’s lines broken or hopelessly fouled, sat right before our car. Four bikes of differing styles and sizes leaned against the trunk of a nearby pine, leaves and pine needles covering all but the tops of the wheels, the handlebars and the seats. Tom investigated a white vinyl bowl that seemed to have been tossed into the grass and had been collecting rainwater, “Looks like he may be running a mosquito breeding farm.”
It wasn’t a total disaster. There were signs of refinement, especially the twenty foot square garden plot that sat off to the side of the driveway. A row of tomato plants climbed up wooden stakes, a clump of black-eyed Susans sat next to a concrete birdbath, a ceramic Hindu goddess sat in a pot of nasturtiums and reached up to the sky with three sets of arms. But try as we would to be optimistic, we would later conclude that even the garden had a look of shabbiness.
Dale, who we had called from the Portland outer belt, had been expecting us. He came out the door and approached us wearing a sleeveless, faded maroon T-shirt, paint-spotted black shorts, black socks and aged running shoes. We tried to smile as we exchanged names and handshakes. “Welcome,” he beamed, “let me show you around,” He pulled Kathy and Mary aside and beckoned them to follow him to a barn next to the house, “Careful on these steps,” he warned, pointing to six cinder blocks placed to create a wobbly set of stairs, “Let’s start over here first,” he said as he disappeared into the black interior of the building, “This is where the dryer is.”
Curious, Tom and I wandered over to the barn where Mary and Kathy peered through the door, “The washer ‘s in the house, but the dryer ‘s out here,” I heard Dale explain as if such split settings were normal. All of us looked on as Dale crossed the dirt floor, his arms swinging out, trying to clear a path through the spider webs as his feet dodged several items of interest on the floor, including something that looked like the transmission to a long gone Chevy. Barely visible in the barn’s gloom, Dale looked back across the floor to us and tapped the side of the dryer. “Here she is,” he proclaimed.
Mary turned and whispered to us, “Looks like I won’t be doing much drying.”
While the ladies stared into the barn Tom and I turned about. Dumbfounded, we eyeballed a network of plastic CPV piping that crisscrossed the jumbled yard… if yard was the right word. What is this all about I wondered.
Dale re-emerged from the barn, rubbing the remains of the spider webs from his hands, “Don’t mind that station wagon,” he added as our eyes were directed toward a fifteen-year-old mint green Taurus. “I’ve been meaning to get the parts to get her running again and pull her out of here, but I just haven’t gotten around to it.”
At least it wasn’t resting on cinder blocks.
He turned back toward the barn, his arm jutting out to guide us toward a small red structure, just to the left of it, “…and that’s an outhouse in case the toilet doesn’t work. There’s toilet paper and lime in a bucket on the floor.”
A look of terror swept Mary’s face, “Are you telling us there’s a good chance the toilet won’t work, ‘cause I’m not going there.”
Sensing a deal breaker, Dale backed away from the issue, “Oh, no, I’m just saying that if something should happen…” and then he abruptly shifted gears. “Let’s take a look at the house,” he said.
A small, attractive woman emerged from the back door. Her hair was died beach-party-blonde in direct contrast to her oriental good looks. “This is Lola,” Dale said. She had a warm smile and welcomed us, but whereas Dale was oblivious to our disappointment, Lola read our faces and drew a quick conclusion.
We stepped into what we would later come to assume was to be our living room. The aluminum door rattled and squeaked, old desks, boards, bricks, cider blocks, doors and tables were cobbled into shelves and two work areas. I was reminded of some of the decorating skills of my hippie dippy compatriots of long ago college days. Milk crates held magazines and books, two faded life jackets sat on the floor, two paddles, one of which looked as if it had been a chew toy for a good sized dog, and a fishing rod stood in the corner. The floor was covered with a gritty white vinyl tile that had long since passed the point where it could be made to look clean.
The tour continued. The kitchen was jury-rigged. Dale pointed to a blue plastic jug resting on its side, a brass outdoor faucet screwed into the top. “We fill this up at the spring and drink from it. You can wash dishes with the water from the tap, but don’t drink it, or use it to cook or brush your teeth.”
I shot a look at Kathy. She’d gotten Montezuma’s revenge in 1982 during a weeklong visit to Baja California from just such an arrangement. Were we stepping into Maine or some third world setting, I wondered? The sink was a stainless steel model from the fifties. Extension cords, like the PCV on the lawn, snaked out from the few outlets. The one in front of us was providing power for a coffee pot in the kitchen and a pre-cable-ready color TV that sat on an tea cart in the dining room. As we went from room to room I began to notice that all of the light switches were on the outside walls, which meant you had to cross a room to turn on the light. “Ah,” I thought, “better to curse a stubbed toe in the darkness, than to light a room.”
The dining table was a seven-foot long curving hunk of tree trunk. Two chairs of indiscernible vintage and style sat on either side. The king-size bed on the first floor was made from four stout paper birch posts. Hindu and Buddhist dolls, crucifixes, statues of Mary and other Christian saints dotted the shelves and tables. Three gas masks were hung on pegs above the first floor toilet. I opened what I assumed was a closet door only to find a water heater and a sump pump. The smell of mildew and mold overwhelmed me and I shut the door as fast as I could. The “private bath” on the second floor turned out to be a toilet on an elevated stand, three steps up from the floor and placed inside an office cubicle, a maroon curtain, not unlike the one hiding the cook in East Boofoo, made the “door.” There was a narrow deck off the second floor bedroom. three plywood and cast iron theatre seats and a worn out folding chair sat there as if looking out across the lake.
“It’s great view from up here,” Dale boasted and that part of his spiel was dead on.
I walked outside to escape the tour and to try and steel my mind to the thought of two weeks in this mess. The next thing I knew Dale and the others followed me out. “This is a hot tub I made for us out here.” He pointed to a home made concrete and lake stone “whatever” nestled between four big pines.
I recalled the sentence in his web site, “Enjoy a relaxing soak while watching seagulls and ducks.”
Ignoring the many smears of bird shit that dripped along the dark gray sides, he went on, “You fill it up with hot water here,” he pointed to another web of PCV that ended at the tub’s edge. “Oh, but first, two hours before you want to use it, you have to come over here…” he walked fifteen feet back to the house, “…and turn on the hot water heater...” A second water heater stood next to the kitchen wall OUTSIDE the house, “… you push this switch, open this valve, and then throw this lever…” he grabbed a foot long metal switch on the side of what appeared to be a fuse box, “… and then give it two hours lead time and it’ll make all the hot water you need. You take one of the canoe paddles and stir the water up if you want it soapy and bubbly…”
As if eight hours of driving, including an hour stint in the Greater Boston peak drive time, weren’t enough, as if the unrelenting heat and humidity which had everyone but the mosquitoes on edge, as if our growling, dinnerless stomachs weren’t enough, as if driving two days to reach this scenic spot, only to find a Dogpatch cabin, weren’t enough, Dale was proving impossible to get rid of. Lola, who had read our faces the instant she met us, pulled on his arm, “Come on honey, we need to let these folks unpack and get ready for bed.”
Perceptive as she was, even she had missed the look of hunger, perhaps because it was covered by our obvious despair regarding the cabin. She dragged him off and we were left to stare at each other and wonder which gods and goddesses we had pissed off to bring about this fate.
We unpacked the cars in silence and then decided to head into town to try and find a restaurant still open. We laughed about it all as we ate our dinner. “You know,” I said, “I don’t think there’s a thing in that place that was bought at retail.” Then we all took turns confessing our guilt at being so materialistic.
“But it is FUBARed,” Kathy reasoned, “and we shouldn’t be ashamed of feeling that way.” We chuckled and the guilt quickly left. Reinforced by a bit of wine and some excellent food, we agreed we could weather even this.
We returned to the cabin and gazed about the place. We had shopped for some groceries, hoping, I suppose, that this would make the place feel more welcoming. We began to place things in the refrig or on shelves.
Then the house karma kicked in. I dropped a contact lens on the floor. It took a strong flashlight and three of us on hands and knees to find it. Kathy opened a carton of Bryer’s ice cream and stabbed her index finger in the process. Tom tried to settle a two-and-a-half gallon jug of drinking water on the countertop and the spout came off, twice, spilling a good amount of water on the floor.
Mary wandered off to the upstairs bedroom. I was dog-tired as I climbed into the king-size, extra lumpy, birch log bed. Tom and Kathy remained in the kitchen, fiddling with the spout on the drinking water. They had a patter of jokes going back and forth, laughing hard at each failed attempt to keep the spout in place before finally turning the jug upside down, wiping up the latest spill and surrendering to the inevitable. Kathy stood in the doorway between the kitchen and the hall that led to our bed. With her injured digit wrapped in a paper towel and scotch tape and pointing to the ceiling, she looked at me. “What do you think?” she asked.
“Tomorrow is another day.” I said in my best Scarlet O’Hara tone, and then, thinking about it a bit longer, I added, “As God is my witness, I’ll never be poor again!”
Tom and Kathy laughed. We heard Mary stir upstairs, “FUBAR!” she shouted and we laughed till it hurt.
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