We are in the winter of our lives.  It is dark and dreary and spongy wet.  The air is cold, almost freezing and the chill penetrates the skin, bores in a blanketed assault on the warm core.  And we are inside the crusted walls of what was called home.  You might imagine that outside is worse, and it is.

The spindly woods of trunk and branch and twig, craggy and derelict in the fading light, filter the alien winds that come from the empty fields, mud choked and rutted and encased in a dingy crust of frost.  If there was sunlight forecast, it might burn off, but the fog that clings to twigs is not wet enough and we expect freezing rain in the afternoon.

The weather is coincidental to the bleak outlook for our town.  Shipments of food are a memory and a steady diet of deer meat is taking its toll.  Everyone is undernourished and weak.  Hollow sunken eyes bear witness to failed desires and lank hair falls out in patches.  The uneven sporadic static from the radio waves of fading volume reveal a mirrored wave of suffering that extends down the coast, across the plains and infects the entire planet.

A decade ago the elite decided what was best, and they dictated to the huddled masses.  They had the power and the glory forever.  But verbose and fanciful words strung along in eloquent speeches did little to stimulate the production of needful things, because you cannot dictate production when there is no incentive to produce when it is all stolen away and spent by others for the benefit of others.  And staples evaporated like solvent on the skin.  There was little and then less and less and then nothing for anyone.  Death came among us as aspirinic relief, we awaited in envy without the energy to hasten the inevitable.

I waited to freeze to death.  But in the depths of my soul, through and across my stupor, I sensed an inkling of warmth, a front of thaw.  It was a mirage; I was sure, perhaps the harbinger of the relief of death.  But I did raise my head from my crooked knees, back to blue ice wall and withered ass on hard wood floor.  I lifted my nose in the air, like my remembered dog, and sifted through the scents of damp death and decay, and caught a whiff of clean.

My four companions in the bleak midwinter room remained statue still, knowing that a movement would only bring a renewed feeling of ice.  But I came off the floor and went to the window and rubbed a circle into the pasty grime and rime crystals and put my eye to the glass.

To the east under the layer of low stratus underclouds was a band of blue and a hue of sunlight, a harbinger of hope, which, quite frankly, I refused to accept.  I stood there with my Cyclops’s visions of a future in which I had no faith.  There would be no salvation or miracles.

But I did crack the door and widen the gap and pull it full open.  I faced the east and dared to watch the brightening of the morning.

And then this happened: The bad gave way, the dark was engulfed and consumed and gorged by the sun, and the barren hills of wooden sticks took on a tinge of blush as the sugar red and scarlet maples budded out and the birches came into forgotten shades of neon lime green like breaths of blossoms, and the earth filled out and closed in, buds to little leaves to riots of long forgotten shades of green brought lush and vibrant in the aching sunshine.  The noises returned and song birds bounced on limbs and heralded a new beginning. The gentle renewal swept before my eyes, lush and full and hot bursting with rejuvenation.

The evening came and it remained warm and the peeper fogs serenaded my ear drums and I was not worried about the return of winter’s death.  We had turned the corner and left the disastrous experiment behind and now we could be true to our own natures again and remake mankind as kind man without the pretentious progressive falsehoods of the slipshod elites.

And I could see into the future.  The collective know-it-alls faded and wilted to the strength of the individual men and women who took matters into their own hands, and scraped and gouged dents into the earth and found seeds to push with fingers deep into loam, warmed by the spirit of awakening and possibilities.

The world started to move again, people came out of huts and  hovels and blinked at the brightness and stirred their limbs, sweeping arms in circles and limbering knees to chest and shedding the outer layer of damp woolens so the sunlight could spread the glow of life across the pallid skin.  And they looked to neighbors and ventured a touch of hand then an embrace of arms in celebration of future.  Unbelievable?  I think not.

 

 

So my buddy Bob and I are in my little car headed up one-way Preble Street, T boning on Congress in downtown Portland last Friday, early afternoon, first at the light to turn left, to head down to the boat show.  But the lights are all out-of-whack so when mine is green, my target lane is crammed with cars stopped for their red.  There is no room for me to advance, so Bob says, “Let’s go right.”

I pull over to the other lane and the light changes.  I stare at the sign that says, “NO RIGHT TURN ON RED.”  Bob waves me forward.  To my left there is a diagonal car blocking oncoming traffic.  “Go, nobody will see you.”

So, I pull out, and two seconds later there is a whoop whoop and a carnival display of alternating flashing high beams and rotating blue and a shiny grill that fills my rear view mirror.

There’s not much room on Congress Street to pull over, but I ease to the curb with him behind me and we are blocking most of our lane.

Bob shakes his head, “No way.”

The cop comes to my window, full of caution, and stands even with the post between the front and back seats.  I become a contortionist to get a good look at him.  He is all deep blue with lots of dangly chrome and bronze paraphernalia hanging on his chest.  His name is Scott McKenna.  He is my age, no hat, balding, with an open and friendly face.  We are sitting ducks.

“Do you know why I stopped you?”

“Yes sir, I do.”

“May I see your driver’s license, registration and proof of insurance?”

My knees are shaking and I cannot shed a crushing guilt complex and my words are getting scrambled in my head before they get to my teeth.  I fumble around for the license from my front pocket and the documentation from the glove box.

He looks over my papers.  “You’re from Lincolnville.”  He looks in the back seat and sees the golf clubs.  “Down here to play golf?”

“We played this morning, and now we’re headed to the boat show.”

“I’m working the show tomorrow.  Maybe I’ll see you there.”

Things are going well and I get a flash in my head.  It’s worked once before.  So I blurt this out: “I have a good joke.  If I tell it to you and you like it, will you consider giving me a warning?”

Scott stands up straighter and relaxes enough to stand full in the window.  “Go for it.”

I’m still nervous and I don’t want to blow it.  I take a deep breath.

“There is this guy who’s just bought a brand new Ferrari and he’s been driving around town, doing the legal speed limits and it’s making him crazy, all that performance and power going to waste.  He decides to take her out, 3AM Sunday morning, no one on the highway.

He’s out there, no one in sight, and he tags her, gets up to 90 miles an hour and she is sweet.  He glances up and there’s a cop car on his tail.

Hey, he thinks, it’s a Ferrari.  He punches her up to 120 miles an hour, looks in the mirror, and the cop is still right behind him.  Now thinking about all the trouble he’s in, he lets off the gas and coasts into the breakdown lane.

The cop comes up and he’s mad.  “What the hell do you think you’re doing?  Do you have any idea how fast you were going?

The guy wilts. “Yes, officer, I know.”

The policeman takes off his hat and runs a hand through his hair.  “Sir, this violation is a felony.  I’m at the end of my shift and if I run you in, it’ll take hours of paperwork.  Can you give me any reason that you failed to pull over and in fact attempted to out run me?”

The guy looks down on his steering wheel, the little Ferrari emblem, and thinks a second.

“Yes sir, well, last week my wife ran off with a police officer, and I thought you might be trying to bring her back.”

The officer chuckled.  “Good one.”

I wait.  The officer asks, “Do you have a current registration?  This one has expired.”

“Expired?  When?”

“October.”

I’m getting flustered again and my mouth is spitting out fractured words and I bobble through the envelope of important papers.

The officer looks on.  “Tell me you’ve got the stickers in there.”

I cannot find a thing.  “No, sir.  That’s all I have.”

He looks down at me.  “And those straps, they’re called seat belts and the law requires that you are buckled up.”

He hands back my paperwork and says, “I want you guys to have a good, responsible weekend.  Obey the law and get this car registered when you get home.”

“Thank you officer.  I’ll tell my wife that you want us to have a good time.”

“Tell her Officer McKenna says Hi.”

 

 

I worry about taking the boat across the water, with the ice in the bay and the sea smoke.  I am unfamiliar with the vessel, its quirks and feel, and am apprehensive about signals I may misinterpret.  I am comforted somewhat because the ferry is running, out in the bay with me, so I can raise them on the VHF if there’s trouble.  I am concerned that I’ll not be able to operate the radio.

I think that all my concern is speaking directly to what we want to market as a boat yard – selling peace of mind on the water, so the operator knows who to call, what help to seek, if things go wrong.  I am an example.

I am soothed somewhat because I’m qualified. I have experience.  I know boats and how they run, single screw or twin engine.  The docking shouldn’t be a problem.  You go slow, let the wind do its work, and nestle up to the float.  Come in upwind and get blown to a perfect landing.

I’ve been instructed about the peculiarities of running in such cold weather.  The intake, sucking salt water, cannot freeze and starve the engine of cooling fluid.  There is ice in the bay, but it is new ice, slushy and in lily-patch pieces, not hard enough to pierce the fiberglass hull.

When I row out to the boat on the mooring I am careful to dip the oars into water, not onto the patches of ice.  The waterways on Justin time are covered with accumulated ice from spray frozen on contact.  I am careful of my footing as I board, so as not to slip into the killing water.

The key is in the ignition.  That means that the engine has not been laid up and the through-hull intake valve is open.  I go below and check, to make sure.  It is open.

The engine starts hard, and the alarm beeps intermittently as the engine warms up.  I watch the temperature gauge and wait for the needle to register some warmth.

I walk the narrow port waterway up to the bow, one gloved hand sliding on the hand-rail, the other pulling the row boat along behind me. I struggle to unwind the pennant from the forward cleat because it has frozen itself around the bit.  I tie in the row boat then toss the whole mess off the bow and the boat drifts away.

The boat, named Justin Time, pushes chunks of ice out of the way as I approach the dock.  The dock is covered in packed snow and is ringed by a skirt of ice, splashed and congealed in the chop.

I concentrate on all the little things, and work the controls with forethought.  My passenger comes slowly down the incline, both arms spread out to grasp the railings.  The tide is almost low and the incline is very steep and slippery.  He comes aboard and I back the boat off the dock and spin her around and head towards Islesboro.

February is a private time to boat in Maine.  The summer riff-raff is months gone and months to come, and only we serious boaters are on the water – the boat yard boats and the occasional scallop dragger.  The prevailing wind is from the north and the skies and sea are slate gray, and the water is cold enough to kill you in five minutes.  If anything goes horribly wrong on this three mile stretch of water, and the boat sinks, there is no hope for rescue.

Travelling across the bay is more special because there is no room for error and you are alone.  The boat is like an arrow head and cleaves the waves and lays down a carpet of wake.

This is serious business and you are in control.  The rolling of the waves and the drone of the engine pull you towards complacency, but you fight that and pay special attention.

I pick up the other two passengers on the Islesboro side and we all huddle in the warming pilot house as I maneuver Justin Time through the mooring balls and out into open water, around Spruce Island and into Cradle Cove where the boat yard sits.

The northerly wind has driven ice into the little cove and around the front pilings and the floats.  Here it is a solid mass.  I slow the boat and we cut a path to the dock.  The fiberglass pierces the ice crust and it sounds like chewing.

All goes well with the meeting, but I am concerned that the wind has freshened and this may complicate the return across the bay.  We leave the island and the bow hits the chop and raises spray that freezes on the windshield and reduces my visibility.  I work the wiper toggle switch and fresh water washes some of the ice to the side.  I can see enough through the lower quarter of the windshield pane.

My passenger speaks to me about the meeting, but I am annoyed that he is diverting attention I am trying to pay to the coming landing and then putting the boat back on the mooring.  I plot my technique to catch the mooring buoy and tall pennant stick.

But all goes well. I drop my passengers at the float and when I am finally secured back on the mooring, and the rowboat is tied tightly to the stern, I breathe a sigh of relief.  As instructed, I lay up the engine.  I close the intake value, drain the hose, then restart the engine and pour two gallons of antifreeze into the strainer.  I shut down the engine and close the engine box.  I row back to the dock and realize I worry too much.

THE WAVE

The origin of the stadium wave –

So, I’m sitting in the bleachers out beyond left field.  I’m bored.  The sky is blue.  The sun is bearing down and hot.  The grass is green.  The beer is cold.  The game is in the late innings, a pitcher’s duel and no baseball has made it out of the infield.

The Red Sox are up.

I stand up to stretch.  I raise my arms.

The good looking redhead three seats to my left stands up and puts her arms in the air.  She looks over and winks.  She sits down.

I sit down, puzzled.  I stand up and put my arms in the air.  The redhead immediately does the same.

What looks to be a clump of drunk fraternity boys in a center field section all stand up, scream and wave their beers in the air.

Cause and effect?

I repeat.  They repeat, and several people over in the right field bleachers get up and wave their hands.  We are getting the attention of other bored fans.

It starts small, a suggestion.  Then there builds a sense of expectancy to participate, so as not to disappoint.  Even the reluctant ones give in and stand up and wave their hands.  They didn’t think they’d like it, but they do.  It brings a smile and then they laugh.  Everyone watches to their left and cheer as more and more people become part of the phenomenon.

Left field, across to center, through the right field bleachers, down the first base line, around home, screaming out the third base line and veering right at the foul pole and coming again.  Now the whole stadium is involved.

The wave is born.

Why participate?  What’s in it for me?  It’s to be part of something bigger, a collective power that takes on a life of its own.

Literary Wave Making 101 (call to action):

Re: Vacationland  – buy/review/share with all your friends, and have them share with all their friends, ad infinitum.

Let’s get this literary wave going, and see what happens.  It’s the New Year.  Let’s GO!