How I Spent My Summer Vacation: Part One

Howdy, Road-Tripperz!

While mired in my last creatively bankrupt, spiritually crippling job I used to count down the days until my next vacation.  But ever since I began my writing "career", trying to get me to take a break is harder then dragging Mr. Scott out of the engine room of the Enterprise to go on shore leave.

Still, when it came time for my better half to take vacation, I really wanted to reward her diligence by getting out of Dodge and exploring some uncharted territory.  After much hand-wringing and debate we finally struck upon the idea for a good, old-fashioned road trip.  But where to go?

We were quite keen on the idea of exploring the New England states but we didn't want to spend a lot of time in the city.  We looked at potential destinations in and around Boston and suddenly hit upon a place that both of us were fascinated with:

SALEM, MASSACHUSETTS   

Why Salem?  Well, both of us have an acute interest in history and "the occult", for lack of a better term.   And, yes, it probably would have been more appropriate to go there in the Fall but we really didn't want to compete with a slew of like-minded yahoos.  

We literally made our accommodations the day before and then procured a GPS device to insure that we found it.  Then, at 8 AM the next morning, we hit the road and drove seven hours straight to Bangor, Maine.  

After checking into out hotel, our first stop was the home of renowned author Stephen King:

      

King lives in a surprisingly modest house in an absolutely idyllic neighborhood.  The only indication that one of the world's most talented fright-meisters resides inside is the batwing-n'-spider-web wrought iron gates that have been constructed to keep stalkerish weirdos like from getting in.  Curiously enough, though, the gate to the driveway was wide open when got there.  

"Well, clearly he saw us pull up and he's inviting us inside," I sez to the missus.

"If you take so much as one step towards that driveway, I'll call the cops myself," she replied, stone-faced.

"Look, it's okay!" I maintained.  "We'll just go inside, stroll around the grounds for a bit, dress up in some of his clothes and, hey, if we just so happen to run into him, well, that's just gravy.  As long we don't refer to ourselves as 'his greatest fans' we should be okay."

Yeah, she still wouldn't go for it.  Honestly, what a trespassing prude...             

Later that evening we enjoyed a lovely repast at The Olive Garden.  During the next two-hours of sinful caloric gluttony I couldn't help but take stock of our fellow diners.  A disproportionate amount of them were heavy-set folks who just kinda sat there, ignoring their table-mates and cramming an unlimited parade of bread sticks and pasta into their maws while staring off into the distance.  

Although it certainly wasn't like this everywhere, I did get the distinct impression that America is kinda feelin' a bit blue right now.  This is really sad to me because in the Forties and Fifties the United States was the new global Camelot.  It was a nation of brave, prosperous, bold, innovative people who were the envy by the world, even for green-eyed Europeans.  

After working closely with Americans over the years I know for a fact that their Middle Class (or whatever's left of it) is ridiculously overworked and criminally underpaid.  I think a lot of them hate their jobs and are clinically depressed.  This makes people sedentary and, as a result, they probably eat out quite a bit.  Honestly, compared to Halifax, I barely saw any dedicated grocery stores the whole time I was down there.

To paraphrase Yoda: "Eating out leads to obesity, obesity leads to depression, depression leads back to  being sedentary."  And trust me, I'm not just whistlin' Dixie when it comes to this vicious cycle.  Hell, I lived it for longer then I care to admit.  

I'll give you another example: we ate at Denny's the following morning for the first time ever.  The scene for our rite of passage was absolutely perfect.  The restaurant itself turned out to be a giant, chrome-hued, double-wide Airstream trailer with a red pick-up truck parked out front:

I mean, c'mon!  How effin' awesome is that?!

   

The tableau inside was even more Rockwellian.  There were kids sneaking peaks at State Troopers as if they were Jedi Knights, workaday folks planning their carpool logistics and seniors with mesh-backed, flair-encrusted baseball caps perched precariously atop their bald pates.  All of this, of course, was presided over by a waitress appropriately named "Sunny".

Thanks to Denny's human beings never again need make that soul-rending decision: 'Do I want a sweet breakfast or a savory breakfast?'  Are you leanin' towards scrambled eggs and hash browns?  Well, here's a side of pancakes.  Got a hankerin' for snausenges?  Okay, fine, but I'm throwin' in some pancakes.  Got an EMT-level craving for bacon?  Oh, you better believe you're gettin' pancakes all up in that bee-yotch.  

(OMG...I would totally eat the f#@k right outta this now...)            

   

This is all well and good but it also means that you're ingesting half of your daily allowance of calories even before you have "Elevenses".

After breakfast we went back to the hotel to check out.  As we were loading up the car, an intense-looking jackrabbit stopped by to see us off:

"I'll swallow your soul." 

Before heading on to Salem we made a point of exploring downtown Bangor.  One of the coolest shops I found was Top Shelf Comics on Central Street:

   
Although the shop-keep was a tad overprotective of his wares (everything, and I mean everything, was bagged), he did provide some pivotal clues which helped me track some of the first comic book I ever owned.  Despite the fact that we didn't quite zero in on what I was looking for (see next week's post), I still rewarded his diligence by picking up Swamp Thing Volume Five "Earth To Earth".  This is a tremendous collection of Alan Moore brilliance which features Swampy's legendary clash with a certain Gotham-based chiroptera-themed detective.

Anyone who thinks that Bangor is aesthetically bankrupt really needs to take a second look.  There's plenty of orderly streets, town pride, classic architecture and vintage Americana on display there...

Now, I don't want to make it sound as if the first leg of our trip was all cute bunnies, Ol' Glory and dollops of whipped cream.  When we pulled over for lunch at the West Gardiner Service Plaza we had a harrowing close encounter with some volatile wildlife.

On the way back to the car I noticed a moose hanging out close to the parking lot.  Since all of us Canadians are blessed with the inborn ability to psychically communicate with these noble animals (think Aquaman but with elk), I attempted to befriend the beast.  But as soon as I closed to within ten paces I realized, all too late, that this wasn't the sort of moose I was familiar with.  As fate would have it...we weren't the only creature on vacation.

It was that most rambunctious of creatures: the notorious Bostonian moose, who we all know are considerably more aggressive then their Canadian counterparts.  Needless to say, I was lucky to escape with my life.            

"Not in the crotch!!!   NOT IN THE CROTCH!!!"

Gotta love how my better half just stood there snapping pictures instead of maybe...oh...I dunno, RUNNING TO GET HELP.  Thanks, babe.

Well, after that near-death experience, we decided to keep our limbs (and the rest of our extremities) within the confines of the Ninjamobile as we made a bee-line straight for Salem.   

But that's a tale for another time...

EPIC   Seriously, I love this guy.  IMHO, the "rebuttal" video included by King is immediately  rendered moot due to the fact that it was made by a douche-nozzle.  Er, I mean...lobbyist.

E-PIC   Just a sneak preview for the awesomeness headed yer way next week...

FAIL  Duz this meen i kant hav nun moar gran slamz?   OK, sad now...  

Officially in Mouring

Hello, Constant Reader.

Every kid in school (usually in the form of a creatively bankrupt essay topic) gets asked at some point in time what his or her favorite season is.  Invariably, I always picked summer.  Maybe because I never liked being cold, which I think had a lot to do with nearly freezing to death on a parade float when I was in Cub Scouts.

It was during the Sydney Christmas Parade back in 1978 when it actually used to snow.  And be cold.  At the risk of sounding like I've got a case of the "Matlock's", back in my day we had winter storms.  Lot's of 'em.  And how did we safeguard ourselves during these winter squalls?  Why, we had a parade and sent our children out into it apparently to appease Njorl, the Arctic God of Frostbite!  And we liked it that way!

Actually no, no we didn't.  I sure as hell didn't want to go out there and wave like an idiot just for the sake of a baker's dozen people who were obviously too stupid to stay inside during a blizzard.  But my dad was one of the scout leaders so I kinda got drafted for the event.  So me and six or so other mates were sent out on an odyssey of misery and suffering.  An hour or so into it, we began to made peace with our respective gods whether it be Jesus, Vishnu or Crom.  The general consensus was that if the Antarctic-level wind chill didn't kill us, the exhaust from the Plymouth Trail Duster pickup truck that was hauling this pint-sized "Death on the Ice" recreation would.

The "float" itself was nothing but a flatbed cart wide enough to put a coupla quad runners on it.  It was done up sorta like a camping/woodland scene with a few "Chuck Brown"- style trees, a fake plastic "campfire" that lit up but helpfully dispensed no heat whatsoever and a lean-to which looked like it was built by Mr. Magoo.  Half the time there weren't even any visible kids on the float since all of us were crammed into the shelter like pint-sized university students shoe-horned into a phone booth.

Every once in awhile the procession would stop so that the scout leaders could root us out of the shelter with a rake.

"I'm cold!" one wailed.

"Why, Baby Jesus, WHY?" another lamented.  

"I can't feel my hands and feet!" I screamed.

"Just wiggle your fingers and toes and they'll warm up," muttered one of the scout leaders.

Y'know it's a pretty crushing moment in a kid's life when he or she realizes that some adults will lie right to your face and in doing so clearly indicate that they're more concerned about the proper representation of a crappy parade float versus the lives of eight innocent children.

So, yeah, I survived this debacle (barely) but it left me hypersensitive to the cold.  I've just resigned myself that between October and April (sometimes September to May on a bad year) I'm going to feel as if I'm dying of hypothermia 24-7.  I doesn't help that I have the circulation of a eighty-year-old stroke victim.  I could be wearing woolen fleece mittens with solar panels attached to them and my hands would still feel like two junks of ice.

Beyond the obvious perks of summer (meals on patios, trips to the beach, having feeling in your lower extremities) if someone were to ask me right now what my favorite season is, I'd actually say spring.  Why you ask?  Because spring guarantees good things are ahead.  It's the season of hope and promise.

I've never understood the mentality of people who think Fall is their favorite season.  Beyond the aesthetic value of looking at colored leaves (?), really, what else is there?  Cripes, if you want color, just take a hit of acid and stare at a "Yellow Submarine" poster all day long.

Beyond the presence of Halloween (still my fav holiday of the year next to "Talk Like a Pirate Day"...Y'arrrr) Fall depresses the crap out of me.  It's kinda like when you start to notice that your Aunt Bea is getting dotty 'cuz she gave you a set of prayer beads for your forty-third birthday.  You know it's only a matter of time before you go into her fridge and see cartons of milk stacked up like cordwood.

Whoa, sorry, that was too grim, wasn't it?  Okay, I got another one.  It's kinda like when your per hamster Mr. Wigglesworth stops eating and the vet tells you he has hamster cancer and...whoops!    That's worse, isn't it?  Yeah, I thought so...

Anyway, bottom line is, Fall is some grim shit.  Everything friggin' dies and, frankly, I'm tired of presiding over the inevitable every year in protracted fashion.

Also, think about all the depressing stuff that happened in September:  the dread of school starting as a kid, 9-11, the invasion of Poland, the premiere of Scary Spice's reality show...

We won't even talk about the people that like winter the most.  Sick f#@$%.  Seriously, seek help before the sane people lock you up.

The biggest issue issue IMHO is that regardless of how  great a summer we had weather wise and how much fun we tried to pack into a few long weekends, we still feel ripped off.  The reason for this is: we are getting ripped off.  If people think that one week off in the third week of July represents a summer well spent than you've been properly deluded to the point that vacation-stingy companies want you to be.

Take me for example.  I've been liberated from the traditional 9-5:30 gig since April and this summer has still flown by like the average three-day weekend.  The only difference this year is that I packed about ten years of what once passed for summer into six awesome months.

But I still want more and kick myself for not taking advantage of it during the first few months.  After all, the circumstance I find myself in will likely never occur again in my entire adult life.  Unless I can puzzle out some way to become independently wealthy in the next six months, likely I'll soon find myself in yet another gig offering even less available vacation than I had last time.

I remember in July my infinitely wiser half said to me: "Look, I know you're working hard on your writing and job search stuff, but c'mon!  Live a little!    Enjoy some of this beautiful summer before it passes you by.  Don't have September roll around and you haven't taken advantage of all this beautiful weather."

Unbelievable.  She was right.  I currently had no boss and no binding contract demanding that I sit in a seat for eight and half hours a day underground, with my unused mole eyes slowly atrophying.   But I was still ensconced on my patio writing six to eight hours everyday.  Why was I still being so mindlessly self-driven?

It's because I'd been brainwashed.  We've all been told since day one that a minimum forty-three hour work week is normal and that two weeks of vacation time is plenty enough for anyone.  Who gives a crap how many unique opportunities we miss because of this, it's just the way things are, okay?  Stop asking questions!

And that's what I'm on about here.  August 31'st, 2010 only came by once.  Unlike Spring, it'll never come by again.  Do you remember how you spent that day?  I do.

I finally took my wife's advice.  I went to the beach by myself once but didn't dig it since the water was nigh-Arcticlike and I'm still not one to bake in the sun for hours.  But someone I know suggested I check out some lakes close to where I live I was all over that like Snooki on a guido juicehead.

During the recent heatwave we experienced between August 30'th and September 3'rd, I spent a few hours every day lakeside writing my blog entries olde-skool style with pad and paper.  I had a blast alternately lounging in the shade and sun and taking a quick dip when it got too hot.

Needless to say it was a slice of heaven.  Anyone who's still wondering what human beings are supposed to be doing with the lion's share of their time spent on this rock flying through space should take note.

I'm reminded of my buddy Mike's patented "Thatched Hut Theory".  He believes that all people truly need to be happy in life is a nice little thatched hut on a beach, some shitty twenty-hour-a-week menial job designed to keep you in food and other necessities, the capability to get drunk periodically and the freedom to spend each night sitting around a campfire hanging with your homies.

Notwithstanding the fact that he couldn't answer how my X-Box 360 fit into his little scenario, I have to admit that, the older I get, the more this kinda makes sense to me. 

Like you, Tireless Reader, I didn't get a vote in this whole "let's all be cogs in the wheel of big business-style free enterprise so that they own you lock, stock and barrel" but I've started an experiment to see how far I can scrawl away from it before I get lassoed back into place.  I don't fancy my long-term chances, but at least I'm gonna try.

By the way, I'm writing this now by the lake.  Literally the day after Hurricane Earl blew through, the temperature dipped fourteen degrees, the sun is suddenly taken by stage fright and the water is colder than a barrel of November rainwater.

F#@$%^% Fall.    
   
EPIC:



FAIL:  http://www.statcan.gc.ca/pub/11-008-x/2006007/9574-eng.htm#6