Tag: dailyprompt-2122

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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.

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Local

Years ago, my Beacon Hill friends and I spent nights drinking beer and bullshitting about numerous topics. One that came up frequently was where we planned on living when – and where you add your favorite condition – you got that great job, became famous as a folksinger, married wealthy, you know, dream stuff.
Sometimes, the folks got a bit too into this. Arguments would spring up over the natural superiority of, say, San Francisco over Taos. Now, you need to understand that these folks usually knew squat about these places. They had read magazine articles and reports and watched movies. The lack of a kernel of actual knowledge did not slow their verbiage one iota. Only a lack of beer signaled the end of the evening.

Few ever did more than a vacation in any of these spots. Years later most continued to live within a hundred miles of where we sat drinking in the Harvard Gardens, on Beacon Hill, in Boston, Massachusetts. For most, the farthest they had traveled was during any time they spent in the military. Of the group, only my best friend and I had spent time as Pious Itinerants. Unlike our friends, we could cover our backpacks in decals and stickers from all the locales we had wound up in.

Retirement finally broke the habit of locality. Friends broke a lifetime of residence to trek off to Florida, Arizona and locales with less bitter climates than New England.
Many now live in places where hillsides and mountains do not turn bright colors in the fall, and the woods are not a wonderland of snow, drooping pine boughs after the first heavy storms of December, and maple syrup scenes in early spring also are lacking.
I have been working on a lovely Christmas present for them. It’s a screensaver of favorite scenes. Now, they can see the beautiful colors of fall, the storms of winter, and the early spring woods. All without the pain of endless leaves to rake, snow to shovel, or hours spent trudging sap buckets to boil.
Gee, the endless storm season in Florida just started to seem pretty good to me. No raking, shoveling, or sloppy tracking through mud and ice. What am I thinking?

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I’m not fussy

Home. Sigh. As you know, a place to hang your hat is not necessarily a home. And I’d solemnly abjure, deny, or recant any youthful statements made in my twenties about living in New Mexico. It is a nice place to have a second home. But I am a coastal boy. Being so far inland that most people wouldn’t know the difference between a stockless anchor and a sea anchor might make me stay up sleepless at night.

I’ve often expressed my wish to return to coastal Maine. But I already live in a locale that requires a whole squad of snow removers to make my walkway and drive clear. And I’m not so young anymore that I relish clearing it all by myself. Besides, I’d have to regrow my mustache to keep my lips warm. I’ve become fond of seeing my upper lip in the mirror, and I’m not sure I want to hide it again.

 So I guess I’m not ready to relocate…

But the idea of toying with a few new locations appeals; let’s see, it can’t be too hot, not too much snow, no whack job politicians, no weird climate change, that’s good for starters.

Well, I guess I just exploded the myth of there being a perfect place for everyone. I’m off to the carving shop. Oh, that’s right, I need a lovely large shop for carving – no basement! 

I’m not fussy.