Pride Goeth Before a Fall

Yesterday morning around 7:00 was the moment of truth. I had been putting it off ever since we got back from Maine. It was time…time to step on the scale. After two weeks of eating incredible food, devouring snacks of every description, and enjoying more adult beverages than is my custom, I was expecting the worst. Sure, I had lots of exercise, spent almost every day outside in the fresh air and all…but all that bread!! I turned on the shower, brushed my teeth while the water warmed up, then reluctantly stepped up to the plate and…nothing. I had gained…nothing. I was the exact weight I was before I left! I celebrated with a fist pump and stood under the hot water for a minute, about as self satisfied and cocky as I have been in a long time. 

…Then while reaching for the body wash I pulled a muscle in my neck. I could practically hear my mother’s voice, “Pride goeth before a fall.”

So, I have been in pain ever since, head cocked ever so slightly port side, a hand under my chin propping my head up to ease the spasms. However uncomfortable this has been, it has not prohibited me from feasting on post season baseball and the incredible runs being put on by the Red Sox and the Braves. I have enjoyed every minute of these games. I can’t remember watching a team hit quite as well as the Red Sox are hitting this post season. And watching any team beat the Dodgers has been glorious. Sure, I have my qualms with certain aspects of modern baseball. Eduardo Rodriguez goes 6 innings and gives up three runs and you’d think he was the reincarnation of Cy Young to hear the announcers gushing. Bob Gipson, Sandy Koufax, and Mickey Lolitch must be shaking their heads in disbelief at what passes for dominant post season pitching these days. But, I quibble. Its still baseball and I still love it.

Saying Goodbye to Maine

Friday will be our last day here, bringing to an end what has been seven weeks in Maine for 2021. As I was on the lake fishing this morning I tried to calculate how much time I have actually spent up here in my 63 years. It’s fuzzy and all runs together in my memory, all the trips to Webb Lake with the kids, and the ten years of coming to Midcoast. The best I could come up was just a couple weeks shy of an entire year. Then, this afternoon, I started reading a book by the famous Maine man of letters, John N. Cole. He makes this statement which I found both jarring and profound, “I have not lived all my life in Maine, but Maine is the only place I’ve lived my life.” Although it is not completely true for me since I love Virginia and am proud to be a Virginian—a title that still means something—it is at least partially true. The time I spend here has had a greater impact on me than any place I have ever been. I think differently here, eat differently, do different sorts of things. Life feels different, less rigorous with fewer anxious moments. Time loses its relentless grip, freeing you up to stay in the moment…something that I have always struggled to do.

This will be my last blog about Maine for quite a while. We don’t return until July 8th of 2022. That means that from now until then life gets serious again. Back home we have stuff to do, jobs that require our attention, people to see, places to go, grass to cut. I will have two stacks of mail to open. At home it will be 75% political attack mail warning me about how diabolical some candidate is and warning me of how absolutely vital it is that I vote for the other candidate.  My office mail will be 75% junk that wild horses could not make me open. Sometimes I think if it weren’t for junk mail, the Postal service could cut back to three days a week delivery and no one would notice or care, not to mention how much less trash would wind up in the landfill. I received no mail in the seven weeks we spent here. It felt like a great cleansing.

Plenty of bad things happened while we were here. The world doesn’t stop just because we have withdrawn temporarily. A close friend of mine lost a dear family friend to a surprise blood clot in the middle of the night. He was 41 years old. Two family members got COVID. William Shatner went to space. This world keeps on turning. Sunday afternoon when we roll into our driveway, we will be right back in the middle of it all, having been refreshed body and soul by a place that never seems to change. The wind is still fresh in our faces, the lake still shimmers with sunlight, and the loons still call out to us. The lobster is still sweet, the shops still smell of balsam and the sea, and the people are still delightfully quirky. And we still haven’t found our dream camp, which only means that we are an entire year closer to meeting her. 

I will close with another quotation from Mr. Cole from the book, In Maine:

“In Maine, I have watched the wind being born, birthing in the western sky and then feathering the bay’s silken surface with the first tentative touch of its young pinions. I have seen the nor’westers make a sea of our meadow, rolling the high grass in waves that break on the crest of our hill. I have felt the same wind fill a sail with a hard slap that sets my boat a running. It does the same thing to me. It dashes its fresh chill in my face, clears my head and sets my thoughts a running.”

Lucy’s Camp

In the Dunnevant family, much is made of the LVV award, given each year to the person who best displays their complete and utter worthlessness while on vacation. Sloth, total absence of initiative, and general laziness are essential for anyone who hopes to snag the Least Valuable Vacationer award. My daughter is the undisputed champion of the LVV, but since she’s not on this trip, my sister Paula has been the runaway winner. However, if there was such a thing as a Most Valuable Vacationer award, this trip’s winner would be equally unanimous…Lucy.

This dog has been living her very best life since we first pulled into the driveway 12 days ago. She loves everything about being in Maine, but the lake is her Valhalla. She parks herself at the very edge of the dock, stretches her nose in the direction of the breeze and sniffs like its her job. She is fascinated by the leaves that float on the water, totally enamored with my lures as they glide across the water’s surface. But swimming is what she lives for. Yesterday, I had been out on the kayak fishing for about three hours when I turned a corner and spotted our dock probably two football fields away. Pam texted me that she was going to let Lucy swim across to meet me halfway when I decided to head back to the dock. When I got a little closer—maybe one football field—I called her name. Immediately, she launched herself off the dock…

Her favorite swimming time is when she gets to tag along with Pam as she takes her paddle board out…

Sometimes, Lucy can’t decide if she should take a nap or not…there are so many things to do!!!

But, as long as Mom is close by, a nap can be taken anywhere.

But make no mistake…this is Lucy’s Camp!

Giving the (Two) People What They Want

Pam and I are taking a drive today to look at a lake house. It has lots of potential but also has several drawbacks, but we are going to take a look anyway. Even if it ends up being nothing, at least we can enjoy looking at the leaves on the way. I’ve been watching this particular house for months on Redfin, as the price has dropped little by little. It is now comfortably within our price range. Of course, I’m suspicious as to why the price has fallen, and I have questions about the lake that this house sits on, but the place is absolutely gorgeous. We shall see.

Meanwhile, it has occurred to me that I have not published any Dad Jokes in a very long time. So, to calm the outcry from scores of readers…well, many readers…ok, TWO readers, here are a few.

My latest book is about all the things I need to do.

It’s an oughtobiography…

How can you tell if an ant is a boy or a girl?

You put them in water. If it sinks, its a girl ant. If it floats….

Luke Skywalker asked Obi Wan Kenobi if he stood a chance against Darth Vader.

Obi Wan said…

“Maybe Yoda, Maybe ya don’t…”

Marijuana and cold coffee is my favorite breakfast combo.

Which might explain why…

Ice mocha lotta weed.

Where do cow farts come from?

The dairy air….

Pam’s Pictures

Pam heads out pretty much every morning on her kayak. Yesterday she was wrapped up like an Eskimo head to toe because it was quite cold. She took some amazing pictures while she was out there. Here are a few of them for your edification on this Lord’s Day…

And finally, a rare photograph of Lucy actually asleep on the dock…

Ivermectin and the Neighsayers

https://www.bbc.com/news/health-58170809

This article from the BBC will change no minds. People who are convinced that Ivermectin is a cure for COVID will continue to believe. By reposting it here, I will run the risk of being dismissed as in the tank for Big Science, or worse…an authoritarian Statist. This, of course, is unbridled nonsense. I am simply trying to rein in disinformation. I would be thrilled to learn that ice cream cured COVID, but it would have to be accompanied by plenty of peer reviewed studies with faultless methodology. In other words, a very rocky road of research would have to be trod before I would believe in the cure. It would appear that the studies done with regards to Ivermectin lacked not only reliable scientific data but also the key ingredient of all research…horse sense.

So, I post this and will gladly accept the blowback. All neighsayers are welcome here.

The Sound That a Screen Door Makes

There are advantages to always being the first one up in the morning. I get to watch the sun come up. Some days are more glorious than others, but they are all delightful.

Lucy had a big day yesterday. She spent a lot of her time in the water, swimming all over the place with endless energy and curiosity. Probably the highlight of her day was when Ron and I did our version of the polar plunge, by jumping in with her. The water temperature was 60 degrees, which for native Mainers would be considered sauna-like, but for southern boys like us felt about as freezing cold as it is possible to get!

I will say this…when you jump into 60 degree water, there is absolutely no question about the fact that you are alive. 

Here’s a random observation apropos to nothing. There are several screen doors at this cabin. There is a distinct sound that they make when opening that produces in me a profound nostalgia for my childhood. As the rusty spring coil expands and contracts there’s that sound, so familiar and evocative of a time long past. Whenever I heard that sound when I was a kid I knew I was safe. Does anyone else have the same reaction upon hearing it? My house doesn’t have a screen door, so I never hear it anymore. Maybe if I heard it every day it would lose its power. Perhaps its true what they say about absence making the heart grow fonder. Whatever the reason, every time I walk through one of the four screen doors in this cabin, I hear it and my heart says…yes.