Preparing to Leave Maine - Driving Anna to the Coast

Arrive Weld July 20 -  Leaving August 15 - I spent nearly a month upta Camp. Not since I was a boy have I done that. In 1997 I started  building a family website. Here's a bit of that history:


Anna's staying in Maine and Massachusetts to attend her 50th High School reunion; I'm beginning my drive home. We drove to Owl's Head airport to pickup her rental car then drove to Boothbay Harbor where Cousin Gail lives. Anna will stay with Gail for a few days. I took this early morning shot of low tide as I left. The Sprinter needed a B service and I needed to do laundry and stock up on food/drinks.

Morning low tide Boothbay Harbor 8/16/19

Drove to Manchester NH where the Mercedes dealer had me scheduled for a B-service. The highlight of this day arrived when I got to Keene NH and enjoyed a

Peach and
peach ice cream

fine dinner at the #1 Trip Advisor restaurant in Keene: Luca's  (Arctic Char) next to Pho Keene restaurant. RON Starbucks

The waiter said there had been quite a controversy over the Vietnamese restaurant "Hanoi Bar" next door. The sign phonetically, well I'll leave it to you to figure out, caused paragraphs to be written in the local newspaper for and against the place. Here in "Live Free or Die" New Hampshire, Freedom of Speech won out as the sign proudly remains displayed.

rain coming soon 

Decisions were in order... Wavering between a southern route or heading north into Wisconsin where I lived from February 1973 in West Bend, until the July 1974 Nixon Impeachment hearings, or what? I left Keene undecided.

When I passed through Albany to nearby Schenectady I'd already had enough of Rte 90 on my eastbound trip so south was the decision. I headed south to lunch in Oneonta and to  RON in Binghamton at a lakeside RV park where another thunderstorm lit up the place sending lakeside fishermen scrambling for their campers. By then I'd decided to spend a few days at Lake Chautauqua and its wonderful Chautauqua Institute which I did.

Chq Admin, Post Office & Bistro

Wynton Marsalis

Chautauqua (https://chq.org) has a remarkably varied schedule. A ticket to what turned out to be an inspiring lecture on "Culture and Race" by Wynton Marsalis got me started. Decided to join the 7 AM tennis games and was able to enter the campus on my parking pass. The tennis was fun and after two sets of doubles with partners warned of my limited mobility, I left for a shower and breakfast in the ST, and then to the the Marsalis lecture. It was good; his brother was called up on stage; his dad was seated in the front row. I wish I had a recording. After that I wandered the campus; had lunch at the bistro next to the Post Office in what must be one of the original Chautauqua buildings.

Returning to the Sprinter I tripped on an uneven sidewalk and sprawled headlong to the ground. I got up as several well-meaning folks came to my rescue. "No thanks, I'm fine", I answer.

I'm 77 and I've fallen several times at tennis, pickleball and just simply walking along. I kind of know how to fall, sort of, and, I do use a walking stick which helps, but it's not much use after tripping. My Apple watch vibrates immediately and asks: "It looks like you fell down, are you OK?"  When I click the "Yes", it asks "Did you take a fall?" to which a also respond by clicking "Yes".  (Cynically, I expect soon to see some click-bait ad for a motorized wheelchair, knee-pads or whatever in my email feed.) I dislike walking slowly and deliberately (mindfully, my new friend Kathy would say). I've learned a little mindfulness when walking, but it is not enough. It's demoralizing and bums me out that I'll have to spend the rest of my life stumbling; so I've left my HMO and will venture into the Medigap Plan G to see if another level of resources can fix the multiple, apparently dead-end (my Kaiser Primary Care Doc prescription: "Get a cane"), diagnoses I've gotten from Kaiser's Senior Advantage plan: "polyneuropathy, drop foot, BPPV (benign positional paroxysmal vertigo) and old age. But I digress. I returned to the Sprinter for a much needed nap.

Lake Chautauqua

Marsalis' own Lincoln Center Jazz Orchestra (JLCO), here narrated by the well-known actor Wendell Pierce, at Lincoln Center plays "The Ever Fonky Lowdown". (starts after a 15 minute wait; but please don't wait! just slide the recording ball over to 15 minutes; then, a 30 minute Intermission at 1 hour 12 minutes) Marsalis himself would play in performance of the "Ever Fonky Lowdown" in Chautauqua at weeks-end paired with his lecture today Monday August 19, 2019. I would be on the road by then. However, further in debt to my good luck, I was handed a ticket for the 4PM American Songbook concert by JLCO after which I had an early dinner across the highway at Andriaccio's bar listening to an aged gentleman play his accordion. After a couple of beers, dinner, and a great day of exercise and entertainment I felt very happy chatting up the very busy, young college student barkeep. After a particularly long set listening to the accordion I asked the bartender if she knew the definition of "perfect pitch"? She shook her head, no..

I said,"Perfect pitch is when you throw an accordion down a well and it hits a banjo." She laughed, blushing, with her hand over her mouth. When he finished the long set, he joined me at the bar and we had a good chat. He'd been touring that axe for 60 years. What a life, I thought. A very nice fellow. I waved to him, he nodded, as I left.

In 10 days I arrived home. My last stop was in Sacramento with my friend Joseph "Joe" Orr and Sharon Camisa. (Joe had married us on May 7, 2011 and Sharon has setup a reception for us and our two guests, daughters Julia and Jeanine.)