Sweet Home

Some of my earliest adventures out of New York occurred in New England. I fell in love with the diversity of environment and society to be found in its comfortably sized environs. In 1965, when I launched from NYC, there was still an enormous amount of diversity in local language, mainly in pronunciation. Different areas within an hour’s drive had different takes on the pronunciation of common words. And then there were the uncommon ones not known outside a limited area. But most of my adventures occurred in only two of the region’s five states: Massachusetts and Maine. And even in those two states I found myself gravitating towards two areas.

Boston

It was Boston that I chose as my base of operation. I soon discovered that many of my friends were not proper Bostonians. They could easily detect the Rhode Islanders from the denizens of Southy (South Boston). Easty ( East Boston) was also distinctive. And that Cambridge was just plain different, being across the river. The arguments over community superiority could grow raucous and rowdy.

Boston was entirely different from East Cambridge, a short walk over the causeway. And the North Shore was geographically and historically distinct form the areas south of Boston.

Within the state of Massachusetts you did not have to travel far to enjoy large cultural and geographic changes.

Maine

Maine immediately drew me in. Not only was the accent different, but the variety of new words was amazing. In the community on the coast, where I ultimately settled for a while, I was described as “being from away.” That term was a lot more complimentary than being described as a “summer complaint.” A summer complaint had originally been summer flu. But came to mean summer residents who were pains.

Eventually, I was introduced to sailing and lobstering. And on the coast to the narrow embayments of the Kennebec and Androskoggin. Offshore, I learned to navigate and pilot by lights, buoys, and tides.

Homeward Bound

It was to Boston and Coastal Maine that I returned from expeditions elsewhere. Eventually, I found myself telling people when I was leaving that I was going home. Then I case my guitar, pack my pack, and hit the road heading back to Boston, Portland, or some similar location. Eventually, I just stayed, went to university, took jobs, and admitted that this was where I belonged.

I’ve settled in central Massachusetts, but given a second chance, I’d scurry with the family back to the coast. It is an adjustment of only sixty miles, but a huge distance in culture, geography, and history. As I said, that’s been the pleasure of the region, you don’t have to go far to get away.

But it is to the coast that I’d scramble. There, I can get really fresh seafood in a seafood restaurant, and the “flats” have their distinctive low-tide scent. You can predict the change in weather with the changes in the tide and wind shifts, and there is a real nautical twilight. Oh, yeah…I know which boatyards occasionally need a marine carver, and which boatbuilding friend can be inveigled out of lofting a boat for a long lunch at our favorite hole in the wall restaurant near Plum Island.

Home, there is nothing like it.