A Bad Night

Day 4

Another splendid day in Maine. Paula and Ron arrived around noon. There was beautiful weather, swimming, fishing, kayaking, floating on rafts, great fun, a fire in the firepit down by the lake...then disaster.

Several years ago, a libertarian impulse was indulged by the Government of Maine, rescinding a law which had made fireworks illegal. Now, their presence has proliferated, and no day of the year is this more obvious than the 4th. About the time I lit the fire it started, spontaneous fireworks displays all around the lake, and countless others we could hear from beyond the mountains in the distance. While this was thrilling to the eyes, great violence was done to the ears, the thunderous booms amplified by the water. Poor Miss Lucy has never been a fan of fireworks, even the pitiful ones that get exploded in our cul de sac back home. She didn't know what hit her when these howitzers began shaking the windows. At first I thought it might be better if I brought her down to the fire on the leash so she could at least be with us while all hell was breaking out. Mistake. The explosions terrified her to the point of near madness. So, I brought her back up to the house where she was essential inconsolable. After ten minutes of frantic pacing, she finally found a spot to ride out the storm...

And no...that isn't a relieved smile on her face...that's some major panting going on. 

All seems fine this morning. As I write this she is sitting on the edge of the dock with Pam...calm, content and happy. We're just praying that there are no super patriots living on this lake who celebrate the month of 4th of July!!

Lucy Meets Hobbs Pond

Day 3

Miss Lucy is getting the hang of Maine. On day 3, she was introduced to the reality of Hobbs Pond rather than just the possibility and wonder of it. We are starting to feel more comfortable letting her roam around without the leash. She is never happier than when we allow her this freedom. The dog runs around at maximum speed, tongue flying around, eyes wide with pure glee at her new kingdom. Although she has been fascinated by the dock and the shimmering water of the lake, she had not yet jumped in...until yesterday. 

The reason that video cameras are essentially worthless is because you never, ever have them on hand when something truly hilarious happens. I would have given anything to have captured the moment on film, but no such luck, so I'll have to describe it for you. There we were sitting in our beach chairs on the dock enjoying the glorious sunshine and 77 degrees. Lucy was actually sitting in front of me as I was giving her a tummy scratch. Then...it happened. A dragonfly, who she had shown great interest in a few minutes earlier decided to make a bombing and strafing run directly in front of Lucy's nose, then fly away into the distance. Lucy instantly gave chase, forgetting that she was on the dock, forgetting that there was...a lake! Splash!!!!! Before either of us knew what was happening, our crazy dog was completely under water in five foot deep, freezing cold water, the first such experience of her life. Instinct took over, she quickly came up for air and began swimming towards where she thought the dragonfly might be, then suddenly realized she was..."wait a minute, where's Mommy???" She made a quick u-turn and began swimming back to the shoreline, where she emerged and began a series of epic dog shakes. 

We couldn't decide if she was thrilled by the experience or just terrified. But, ever since, she has been a different dog. She seems much more chilled in the house, actually laying on the floor and sleeping instead of her constant pacing. Maybe the cold water was like electro-shock therapy for her, maybe it rid her of some of her fears. Who knows? But within twenty minutes, her fur was dry and softer than ever.

Don't think for a minute that she has forgotten about that dragonfly. No, no. She's still on guard!

Today is Independance Day, and Paula and Ron will arrive this afternoon. Pam has made the initial grocery run into town, so the refrigerator now look like somebody lives here. Today looks like another gorgeous one, 80 and brilliant blue skies, with humidity so low, nosebleeds are a possibility. Tonight, the five of us will sit around a fire pit down by the dock. I will read the Declaration. We will eat s'mores. And all of us will be grateful to have been born Americans.

Getting on Maine Time

Day 2

Our second day of travel was better than the first, since there was no rain...but it still consumed 7 1/2 hours, once again confounding Ursula. To make matters worse, I had to endure a Facebook scolding from my tech savvy niece who could barely conceal her embarrassment that her goofy uncle was still using Mapquest. We finally arrived at our new home at 4:15 at the end of a dirt road, after two days and 18 hours behind the wheel. One of the first things we did was walk down to the dock...

This photograph doesn't need much in the way of explanation. It's more beautiful than my memory of it and much more beautiful than the pictures on the website. The inside of the house seems huge, much roomier than the photographs, which is odd because it's usually the opposite. It smells like cedar and already feels like home. Lucy, however, remains skeptical. To her this giant new place is a house of horrors what with its ginormous windows and ubiquitous ceiling fans. Then there's the matter of the terrifying screen door which emits a bone-chilling squeak every time it opens. She spends most of her time sniffing and whining whenever one of us leaves the room. We must stay together at all times!! Don't we know that if we get separated, even for one minute, the evil squeaking gremlins will make their move and destroy us all???? Fear not, Lucy will get used to the place at some point. No way we can sit on the floor next to her every time she eats, which she insisted on last night! The one thing she doesn't seem at all scared of is...the lake! Each time we've been on the dock so far, she strains against the leash, wanting to dive in. She will get her wish later today. Maybe a swim will sell her on this place!

I haven't gotten on Maine time yet, that is to say, I'm still too aware of time. It always takes me a few days, to let go of things. My kayak guy will be here soon delivering our boats for the week. Dan the man from Duck Trap Kayaks, who I've been doing business with for five years now. That will help! I will go for my first swim later. That will also help. But I will need for it to warm up a bit first...57 degrees feels awfully cold in the morning. This afternoon it's supposed to hit 77 with clear, blue skies. That will really help!

10 1/2 and 438

Day 1...

As we pulled out of our driveway at 9:07 am eastern standard time on Friday the 1st of July, 2016, our friendly Mapquest girl informed us that our ETA at the Hoomwood Suites hotel in Hartford Conneticut was 4:21 in the afternoon. I was skeptical. This is 95 north we're talking about...on the Friday before July 4th. I thought I was prepared for the worse. Uh...negative.

Actually things went quite well while we were in Virginia. Lucy settled down nicely, the weather was perfect and the traffic was manageable, even around DC. Then the clouds began to roll in and thicken. Around Baltimore traffic began to get sketchy. Still, we made it across the Delaware Memorial Bridge and into New Jersey in reasonably good time. Our first stop was for lunch and gas at one of those travel plazas in the garden state. Think, Honey Boo Boo meets the Walking Dead. As we were eating our tuna sandwiches at a picnic table we heard the first rumble of thunder.

It's been 6 years since we have actually driven to Maine, so I decided that my father in law's old hand typed, pre-GPS era spreadsheet of directions we used to use was probably outdated. For this trip I would trust modern technology and depend on Ursula, the female computer generated voice of Mapquest to navigate for us. As the rain began to come down, instead of asking us to take the Garden State Parkway exit off of the New Jersey Turnpike, she sent us onto the George Washington bridge...directly into the rush hour traffic of freaking New York City!! Did I mention that it was raining? By the time we made it through that dystopian nightmare, our ETA was now 6:00 and a tornado watch had been added to the weather forecast.

The entire time this was all happening, the coolest cucumber in the car was Miss Lucy. There she was, sleeping soundly in a tight ball on her bed in the back seat, oblivious. 

At the eight and a half hour mark, everything I had was either cramping up or tingling. Having a white knuckle grip on a steering wheel in bumper to bumper traffic while peering through a rain soaked windshield for five hours will do that. The last hour was the best! Torrential rain. Stop and go traffic. And I really had to pee!! Finally, mercifully, we pulled into our hotel parking lot at 7:37 pm.

The key numbers of our first day are as follows...10 and a half, and 438. It took us 10 and a half hours to drive 438 miles. If my memories from Mrs. Winston's 5th grade math class don't deceive me, that works out to an average speed of 42 miles per hour. For a little perspective, it takes us 9 hours to drive to Nashville, a 600 mile trip. Ugh....

But today is a new day. Ursula cheerfully informs me that our lake house is 293 miles away and we will arrive in 4 hours and 48 minutes. If I was a betting man, I would take the over!

Of course, the worst part about yesterday wasn't the horrendous traffic or the Noahesk storms. No no...its having to admit to my father in law that I should have used his old school directions!!

The Clock Is Ticking!

Ok...I've got exactly 24 hours to get all the last minute stuff done, 24 hours until zero-hour, 9 am. Two appointments this morning. Submission of last minute business. Recording my epic away message on my business phone. Cut the grass. Pack my suitcase. Pack the Pacifica. Consider installing a hitch and renting a U-Haul. Kill a couple of last minute squirrels just to remind them who's boss. Drop by the bank to see if they happen to be giving away any free samples today. Have conference with Kristin to make sure she is fully up to speed on all of my ill-conceived plans for the month. Do some more packing. Consider placing whatever will not fit into a giant box and having it shipped UPS. Talk Pam off of the ledge when she misplaces one of her 16 to-do lists. Constantly reassure increasingly fragile-looking Lucy that everything is going to be just fine, even though the entire time she is casting wary eyes at the growing number of large scary bags and boxes in the staging area and thinking, " Lies. All lies. I'm screwed..."

Sometimes...dreams come true.

A couple of weeks ago I was clearing out some very old files at my office. I have a couple of file drawers full of stuff that at some point I thought was important enough to save. So every once in a while I'll rummage through to see what was such a big deal all those years ago. I found an old faded yellow pad full of dreams. No, seriously...dreams.

I had a mentor when I first got into this business, an elderly man with an almost saintly reputation for not only production, but a strict code of honor and integrity. His name was Dan Williams. One day, which according to the date at the top of the yellow pad would have been February 1st, 1989, Dan sat down with me and challenged me to write out three sets of goals. He asked me to divide them into three columns. The first were short term goals, things I wanted to accomplish over the next year. He wanted me to stretch myself, to make it a goal that I had a decent chance of hitting, but which would require a lot of effort. Then he asked me to write out my mid-term goals. These were different, these required some vision. He wanted me to try and imagine what I wanted my life to look like in ten years. He wanted me to write out difficult, life-stretching stuff. He told me to not be afraid to dream a little. Finally, he told me to write out my long term goals. For these, he asked me to dream a lot, to imagine the possibilities.

I won't bore you with all the details, because some of them were embarrassing, to be honest. Twenty seven years ago, I didn't have much in the way of confidence in my future. My goals were flimsy things, the sort of goals someone who was afraid of the future might come up with. In my defense, I was struggling in a brutal business that is insanely difficult to break into. I had a toddler at home and Pam was seven months pregnant with Patrick. I was in debt with a 12.5% mortgage with two college loans outstanding. I knew that there was a chance that Pam would want to retire from her teaching job after Patrick was born, making us a one income household. Frankly, I was afraid of the future. Of course, I would never have admitted such a thing to Pam or anyone else. But I couldn't fool Dan. He told me that one day I would look at my list and laugh. He was right.

I tell this story, because despite the laugh it gave me at my own expense...one thing stood out from my list of long term goals...."I would like to be able to take my family to a house on a lake in Maine for an entire month."

Honestly, I had forgotten all about the list. I didn't remember writing it. I did remember how Dan always was getting on me about setting the bar too low, for limiting myself with the tyranny of low expectations. "If you don't reach for great things, you'll always be stuck with the...ok." It wasn't smooth like something  Zig Ziglar would say, but I still remember it 27 years later, so that counts for something.

So, in a couple of days Pam and I will head to a house on a lake in Maine for an entire month. 

God Bless America, and God bless men like Dan Williams.

Problems? What problems?

I ran across a story the other day about a guy who lost his composure in the middle of a cross country flight. Was it because he became claustrophobic? Was he freaked out by the whispering middle eastern-looking couple across the aisle? Did he see snakes on the plane? No, no. His internet connection was not only outrageously expensive, but way too slow and unreliable.

Let that sink in for a moment. The man was sitting in a chair in the sky, hurtling to his cross country destination at 600 miles per hour in a climate controlled cabin, sipping hot coffee...incredulous that the miracle of an invention that didn't even exist twenty five years ago was not cheep and perfectly functional at 30,000 feet.

Conclusion? 21st century men are chumps.

As a disclaimer for what follows, I should point out that I speak as a 58 year old middle/upper middle class man in the United States of America, in reasonably good health and of reasonably sound mind.

But, honestly, when I look around this great big world today and consider all of the problems we're dealing with, I think...what problems? Consider...

1. The year I was married (1984 ) the Dow Jones Industrials was at 1200. Today it stands at 17,500, an astounding return on investment. But let the market drop 600 lousy points because of Brexit and we wail and moan, don our sack cloth and sit in ashes all day!

2. Billion dollar industries exist to sell us stuff to do with our leisure time, when 300 years ago, there wasn't even a word for "leisure time" because nobody had any.

3. Californians complain about the horrible traffic in and around Los Angeles. They do so inside the climate controlled interiors of automobiles equipped with more powerful computers than IBM had forty years ago. The average price of these vehicles clogging LA's freeways would make their owners the richest person within a hundred square miles of over half the land mass of the world.

4. Every night on television, somebody is trying to sell me some new medicine (ask your doctor if expressia is right for you!) to rid me of some ailment I didn't even know was a thing. Discolored toenails? A mere 100 years ago the number one cause of death was diarrhea, the cure for which now costs four bucks and tastes and looks like bubblegum.

5. Today's college students need safe spaces to run to whenever they hear disagreeable speech that offends their fragile world views. Their grandfathers at their age were scrambling for safe spaces from incoming mortar fire in some god-forsaken jungle in the South Pacific. Their grandmothers were assembling tanks in some factory somewhere for ten hours a day, seven days a week. Their great grandparents were probably hungry most of the time.

6. While the developing world's population is exploding, here in the west...the most sex saturated civilization in history, men need the assistance of little blue pills to obtain an erection. So much so that the company that developed Viagra...Pfizer, rakes in nearly 2 billion a year in revenue from it's sale.

Listen, I'm not trying to suggest that we don't have problems today. Sure, there are still bad things happening around the world and here at home. There is still injustice, racism is still with us, and even in the most prosperous nation in the world there are people who don't have enough to eat. But, in the grand scheme of the universe, our problems seem lame when compared to the daily life struggles of even our most recent ancestors. A little perspective and gratitude for our amazing luck at being alive in the year 2016 would seem to be in order.