It is a cool cloudy morning in Amherst, New Hampshire. Our vacation is coming to an end. Tomorrow morning my dear wife, Carrie, and I will be making the 1012 mile trek back to Southern Indiana. We do plan to stop for the night, mind you, below Cleveland. Over 600 miles will be down by then.
Right now I am sitting beside Bob and Michelle’s pool listening to Manchester’s Classic Rock Station, 96.5 The Mill. This is my favorite radio station. I listen to it via the www at home.
It has been a busy week. We left The Berkshires, but not before a round of putt putt golf at a most challenging course in Lanesborough, Mass not far from the Olde Forge Restaurant. There were also driving range stalls that were quite old and unique. I wish I would have brought my driver. Though I imagine I would be just as frustrated with my tee shot here as anywhere.
The course.
Driving Range.
There was also ice cream involved. Carrie and I must have driven past this little gem of an Ice Cream Palace thirty times or more in our visits to this area and never stopped to play putt putt or partake in the ice cream. We enjoyed it all.
A couple days ago Carrie and I ventured to the coast. It is not far from here. It was, however, a Sunday, the weather was warm, the sun was out, and the good folks of New England just don’t have a great deal of what the rest of us would call “summer-like” weather. In fact their warm on this day was kind of lukewarm to Carrie and me. She had long britches on and was glad she did. The air coming off the Atlantic Ocean at Salisbury (MA) Beach felt like air-conditioning. It was a very cool breeze.
What’s a visit to a beach filled with amusements without a little Skee-ball? I wish I had taken a picture of us playing.
What was not lost on me was the opportunity to take a picture of a unique “pay toilet”. Restroom facilities are at a premium at Salisbury Beach. For a quarter you can use the one at the arcade!
It was a flashback for me. I had not seen a pay toilet since a visit in the mid-70s to the Indianapolis International Airport. For a dime you could use a stall. For nothing you could use the stall on the end. There was a line there. As for me, well, I was seven. I didn’t pay a dime for the expensive toilet. I crawled underneath the door. Of course I did thoroughly wash my hands with warm soapy water for thirty seconds after I crawled back under the door and found a sink with soap and water that was free of charge.
After the beach visit in Salisbury it was up the road, not far, to Portsmouth, New Hampshire to find a lobster roll at The Beach Plum. Not on the beach, not a recipe to be found that included a plum, still, this was a strike. Graeme Edge has said that finding Justin Hayward to play in The Moody Blues fifty years ago was like “sticking in your thumb and pulling out a plum.” Well, I pulled out a lobster roll.
Oh, not to mention onion rings, fried pickles, and corn fritters.
This was not my meal exclusively. Carrie and I shared. In fact, I can report that we left more than a few morsels behind. We were hungry…but we weren’t THAT hungry. To our defense, we had no idea the portion sizes of these orders were made with offensive line of The Green Bay Packers in mind.
A funny thing happened on the way to the ball park. Well, actually, it was inside the ball park after the game had started.
Last night Bob and Michelle and their youngsters Davis, Sabra, and Siera treated us to a Double-A baseball game in Manchester between the New Hampshire Fisher Cats and the Hartford Yard Goats. Michelle, being the detective she is, noticed that the Hartford second baseman had a name that was familiar. His name: Zach Osborne.
Well, well. It just so happens that Carrie and Michelle graduated high school from North Harrison with Zach’s dad, Troy. Troy and I played football together in elementary, junior high, and high school. Zach scored a run last night. Before the game was over, Carrie and I went over to the Hartford dugout.
Zach very politely reached up to shake my hand. I told him to tell his Dad that he had run into us. Rest assured I will peek in on his progress now and again. His team won 8 to 2.
It was New Hampshire State Champs Night at the old ball park last night. Below are members of the Souhegan Sabers State Champ Baseball Team. I went down and jokingly asked them if they were the championship bad mitten team? Davis was less than enamored with my jocularity. He is the one in front. They seemed like a pleasant bunch of chaps.
I am just glad that boy in the blue button up was giving me the index finger and not another one.
Bonus material: Though I have no photo, Carrie and I passed Phillips Exeter Academy in Exeter, NH. One of Pat Conroy’s characters, Bernard Lowenstein, in The Prince of Tides went to Phillips Exeter. We miss Pat Conroy.
Speaking the rights one last time from New England…
Danny Johnson