EAST MONTPELIER – This business of long-distance romance between here and Nahant can be a bit daunting, but it’s getting to where the three-and-a-half hours between us seems almost like a commute. Still, I do admit to a bit of hoo-boy! When I get onto I-89 headed south and Bridget in my dashboard chirps cheerily, “Continue straight on for 114 miles.” There’s plenty of time in those miles to meditate (more for me than the average motorist because I haven’t yet figured out how to turn on and tune the radio; and it’s not a problem to be dealt with at 75 miles an hour). And once I get there, it’s not a problem like the Arkansas farmer whose roof didn’t need patching when it wasn’t raining.
I was going down for the second week in a row (we try to alternate). Last week it was for the epic Fourth of July celebration in the Cradle of Liberty, and this week for the parade of so-called tall ships, which had been making its way north along the coast for weeks and was due off Boston harbor on the eleventh.
Spoiler alert: As I mentioned last week, neither my dog nor I is a big fan of fireworks. They’re attractive, I suppose, but not enough to elicit exclamations of wonder from this jaded old bosom. Likewise, square-rigged ships. It’s with utmost admiration that I view those towering clouds of white canvas, the culmination, the apex, of development over centuries and with the advent of the steam engine, the last. They still require daredevils to run up and down the rigging to set or douse the sails, but most of the ships conceal in their bowels an auxiliary diesel, just in case. Most of them are also in a contest between grandeur and the grave, which I find very somber.
Still, this was a big deal, and I would be there for it. The fleet apparently was to assemble just off the island of Nahant the night before the Boston parade, which would afford us a good look at them a few miles offshore. Sounded like a great event.
It was an out-straight weekend for Bea. Besides her usual man-and-dog guests from Vermont, she’d have another couple of old friends, former neighbors in Nahant now moved to senior residence in Philadelphia. She had both Friday and Saturday dinners scheduled with friends, her usual Saturday-morning exercise class, and trips to farmers’ market and the supermarket in Marblehead. All I’d have to do was drive, avoid smashing into more than a few Boston-trained racing maniacs, enjoy the company of Miss Daisy on the right side of the front seat, and keep Kiki (who was acting subdued in the heat) watered and as cool as possible.
We got home in one piece with everything secure, turned on a little fan, and napped. Then Bea and one of the guests took a swim while I sat in a little breeze on the Spanish porch. While I lounged, unbeknownst to me, Kiki found a dead crab on the littoral. She’d gotten it about halfway down before Bea spotted it, took it away, and deep-sixed it. I knew nothing about it.
A bit later we all climbed into Bea’s car to head for the village wharf to see the ships coming to anchor in the roads. Kiki, as is her wont, hopped up into my lap, stood briefly with her head kind of hanging down, and very gently vomited dead crab all over my pants, the console to my left, and the car floor. You can hardly imagine the aroma that filled that little car. Kiki, for her part, seemed quite relieved and at ease.
The wharf was a great idea as a viewing location. Trouble was, everybody else in town, as well as a raft of visitors, had had the same idea. The cops had it barricaded off, a great idea, and traffic that had gotten that far was turned around. The wharf was jammed, there was no place to sit down, and you couldn’t see the sea, anyway because of the press of people. So we retreated a couple of hundred yards down the street to a friend’s house, where we sat on the lawn in plastic chairs behind the sea wall and peered at the ships far out in the evening mist. I’m afraid I was consumed by concern for the miasma emanating from my trousers. But eventually we got home, where I got a shower and clean duds. We’d clean the car in the morning.
Saturday, thankfully, was a bit cooler. Bea was busy on a German potato salad for supper at another friend’s house. Ribs on the deck, two salads, wine, a delightful dessert, and the sea right beside us. After that evening, events and commitments would separate us for three weeks. But the memory of that weekend, with its mixture of soft surf, barbecued ribs, and dog seafood vomit would sustain us just fine.
