It's Coming!

Snow is on the way. It is unavoidable up here in Maine, but for those who do not ski, or ride snowmobiles, or "enjoy" the bracing experience of not feeling one's toes, fingers - or worse, snow is a menace.

It can be pretty

More often, it is not pretty at all. Sometimes it's destructive

It's always too much unpleasant work

Sometimes the work is worth the effort

Other times, snow is the cause of great unhappiness

Snow freezes everything!

But - for the prepared, for those for whom riding isn't a fair-weather-only affair, for the few who understand that what's underneath won't be seen anyway, warmth is waiting, in the form of the old fashioned Union Suit!

Laugh if you must - but toasty warmth trumps ridicule every day!

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"Lincoln"

I just returned from watching the first showing of "Lincoln" in Maine. In my opinion, students and lovers of American history will be astounded by the film. Even the younger crowd will thoroughly enjoy "Lincoln;" it is simply a fascinating film.

 

For me, it was a step or two beyond thrilling to see Abraham Lincoln so realistically portrayed. Back in the fifth grade, the biography of Mr. Lincoln was one of the first I read - right after Babe Ruth and Ty Cobb.

 

One odd thing about the lobby of the theater - there was just one line, waiting to buy tickets for the new Bond movie, the latest "Twilight" vampire flick, and "Lincoln." Each appeals to a different age group, so the long, meandering line held old people, young people, older folks, kids, younger kids, and a few wicked old geezers.

 

All of us seemed to be staring at one another, not believing that that old fart is going to see "Twilight;" no way that punky, goth kid cares about our greatest president; and I know that almost dead old man is going to have a heart attack within the first 15 minutes of "Skyfall!"

 

Well, it all got sorted out at the doors to the various auditoriums. And this isn't a movie review. It is a sincere statement of the opinion of a life-long student of American history, in particular the Civil War, and especially, A. Lincoln: this is as good as a film about that time, and those people, and that singular man, that we are likely to ever see.

 

 

 



 

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Down Bailey Island way

There's an old Downeast story that begins with an old Mainer being asked where he's from:

"Bailey Island way," the elderly gentleman says.

"Lived there all your life," is the next question.

"Not yet," is the pragmatic answer.

A couple of weeks ago, Mike and I rode down Bailey Island way, with Tina and Kevin, a pair of scooter riders from Portland. The weather was so marvelous, it was hard to go inside to have lunch, but the Cribstone Bridge Restaurant is so wide open and is actually over the sea that the momentary confinement was pleasant.

We were seated in the picture-windowed section in the front of the photo. Come summer, we'll surely try out the pier seats.

The restaurant is named for the one-of-a-kind bridge one rides over the reach the dining room.

This plaque explains the amazing structure.

Close up, it's easy to see that nothing but the weight of the stones is holding the thing together.

The sky over the island was brilliant

And the clouds and open sky made for some fascinating lighting

Mike explains the bridge to Tina and Kevin - and even with that, they still decided to ride over the structure to the restaurant.

Note Kevin's scooter - a 1985 Honda Elite 250

This spot is called "Land's End," because this is where the land ends

 

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Sandy sends us back to the good old days

Hurricane Sandy merely brushed the state of Maine, and while most of us lost power for a time, and trees were downed, and flooding did occur, we are far more fortunate than the millions who lost so much more - life, property, and the irreplaceable treasures of accumulated photographs, books, documents and the like.

The single blessing of such an event, at least for me, was the forced but acceptable return to the days before computers, the Internet, ebooks, iPhones and their kindred, turned us into consumers of bytes, lost without the electronic world.

And while I was pleased when the power returned after a night and part of a day off the grid, I thoroughly enjoyed the setup below: a wood stove fire, a good book, and candles to read by.

 

 

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...and I didn't look back!

To keep this a family-friendly scooter blog, I ask readers to read between the lines in the account below. I think the male scooterists will understand right away, for surely we've all had our manhood questioned as we ride scooters on roads dominated by big bikes.

It wasn't this Harley...

...but a Harley much like it that approached on my right as I waited for a notoriously long red light to change to green. Astride the big bike was a large, scruffy, big-bellied man wearing shorts and a faded T-shirt that barely covered his bulging gut. Stopping his loutishly loud Hog next to me, he glared with disdain at my neat, clean, quietly purring Vespa GTS 250.

First, he sneered with disgust as he pointed at my Vespa, then turned up his mouth in a nearly toothless grin, and laughed hard, lifting his fat, bearded face toward heaven, and shook his head so hard that the hankie covering his huge bald skull fell off.

Revving his Harley to space shuttle liftoff decibel levels, he patted his gas tank lovingly, and roared at me:

"Wouldn't you really rather have one of these?" 

Here's the layout of the encounter, with my escape route indicated by the arrow.

(This is where it gets linguistically tricky.)

"No." I replied truthfully, after the din died down. "I am a more than adequately equipped man. I have no need to compensate mechanically."

You get the idea. Using my cruder words, hankie-headed Harley man understood.

Follow the arrow - I made an illegal right turn against a red light to escape the now red-faced, roaring blimp-on-a-bike. Doubling the 25 mph speed limit, I didn't look back.

I didn't want to become a headline obituary:

"Elderly Scooter Rider Beheaded By Furious Harley Biker"

Never lost - just temporarily detoured

When Mike and I took a really memorable ride a while ago, we found ourselves at the end of a dead end road, complete with very large barking dog straining at its rope, with lunch on his mind.

The house we saw, guarded by an unseen but obviously vicious and hungry canine, was fairly typical of the area.

What made it notable was the artistry at the base of the chimney. "I wonder where the people are who do this kind of work?" I asked Mike.

"Dead! was his unfortunately likely correct response.

We stopped at a library Mike had found in his research for this ride, and we did what we are driven to do every time we ride together. Mike has just taken his photo of me as I wait for the little blue and green frames in my new camera to tell me something in the viewfinder is probably in focus.

Speaking of research, this is what Mike prepares every time we travel: First, the map ...

... then the directions, printed on file cards and mounted on his Honda Elite.

Even with all this, plus Mike's GPS phone - I have always managed to take a wrong turn. If I'm riding in front I go left, or south, or up, when I should have gone right, or north, or down. Then Mike hauls out the Big Book of Maps, and brings us back on course.

On this ride, our lunch destination was the Stationhouse Grill, where I ate too much - again. We had a perfect day for scootering. My wrong turn led us to what a local resident called "the last unpaved road in Berwick." (I thought we were in Standish - see, that's how it goes!)

 

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Time Flies

If time flies when you're having fun, it goes supersonic when you're in seventh heaven! And since the middle of July, that's where I have been. Here I am at "work" with Slugger, the Sea Dogs mascot:

I may have mentioned that I love baseball. That is an understatement. I am addicted to the game, obsessed with it, consumed and absorbed by every little thing about the game of baseball.

And that has led me to set aside scooting - well, actually - everything that isn't baseball, at least for awhile.This all started when I was five years old, so it's not going away any time soon.

Please don't judge me too harshly - but I watch as many as six baseball games a day. When the Dogs are in town, I attend most games, but I take in as many of the Major League games on the MLB At Bat app as possible.

This may not be normal. I am one of the few people around who goes to baseball games and watches another game - or two or three - on an iPad.

Well, the Sea Dogs season ended yesterday, so I'll begin to lead a more normal life. But I'll miss things like the Dogs annual "Field of Dreams" game, in which the team emerges from a center field corn field, in the manner of the icon movie.

This ball curved foul at the last moment. But next pitch brought home a run, giving Portland an early and temporary lead in their final game.

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New Friends from Away

Mike and Lori posted all the nice pictures of Beemer Girl and Chris and their trip from Georgia to Maine! Mike http://scooterthefun.blogspot.com has two posts of the visit, Lori http://loveofamotorbike.blogspot.com/ has one - all with great photos. I'll add my humble contributions now.

After a marvelously varied breakfast served and cooked by Rebecca and Mike at their home in South Portland, we rode to Fort Williams, home of Portland Head Light. Here Chris talks with Rebecca, while Mike talks to Lori - she's the only one who heard my suggestion to "Smile."

The lady in front takes a photo of the Lighthouse, while the director of the family on the right makes "suggestions" to the assistant director on how to take a picture. Meanwhile, I take a picture of the picture-takers.  

Speaking of picture-takers: Mike takes a picture of me taking a picture of him.

Lori and Mike watch a sailboat...

...while a small island ferry passes in front of Rebecca and Chris.

The couples have just had an appetizer: it's mid-afternoon - don't want to spoil dinner. I, on the other hand, had a breakfast of burger and fries. Since I sleep from 5 am to 1 pm most days, my dining schedule is a tad odd. Odder still is meeting Mike for a ride at times he considers middle of the day. The truth is that I have always enjoyed the quiet night to the cacophonous day.

Lori and Chris prepare to ride off with Mike and Rebecca, while I head home to prepare dinner for my sweetie. She works hard at a psychiatric hospital, and works out at a gym four days a week. My function is to ride, write, read, watch baseball like a fanatic, and have a good dinner ready when she gets home.

I have waited my whole life to live this way. If Kathy hadn't made the decisions she made, early in our marriage, she'd be a widow. So cooking for her, keeping our home semi-neat, is no sacrifice. 

I did a little math: I'll have to live to 103 years, seven months, and a few days to equal the sacrifices she has made to keep me sane and sober. 

Lob-Stah!!!

You may have read about the glut of lobsters being caught off the coast of Maine, resulting in what one lobster fisheries spokesperson called "the lowest prices in a generation." And as you can see below, this store in my area is selling soft shells for $3.99 a pound.

Soft shell lobsters have recently molted - shed their old shell when their bodies outgrew it - and are rattling around in a new house too big for their skinny bodies. Hard shells are tightly packed, like a fat man who desperately needs to upgrade to bigger pants.

So, soft shells have less meat, hard shells have much more. BUT - the soft shell meat is sweeter than the tougher hard shell. In the opinion of my dear wife Kathy, the more abundant but less tasty meat of hard shells isn't worth the $4 a pound difference.

Hauling the big fellas out of the water is no easy task - frankly, the ugly creatures would rather remain wet.

(I should point out, since this is a scooter blog, that I ride my GTS 250 to this store a couple of times a week for more lobster.)

Before cooking them, my wife likes to play with her food. Rosie - the cat on the left - understands that the rubber bands on the claws render the lobster harmless.

Teddy Ballgame, the cat disappearing down the hall, feels under attack, despite the banded claws and the fact that lobsters move like slugs when out of the water.

Fun time over, Kathy is ready for the serious work of dunking dinner into a pot of boiling water. Note that she wears an expression of "Yuck - this is gross!"

Twenty minutes later, and the memory of plunging a living creature into boiling water is replaced by the anticipation of a most tasty treat.

Just a couple of years ago, these pound and a half lobsters would have cost up to $10 a pound, and the hard shells even more. So, at under $4 a pound, you can understand why lobster is very frequent dinner fare throughout Maine this summer.

There are many ways to eat a lobster. This isn't one of them!

Kathy is surprised to see Teddy back - he who so recently fled from the Attack of the Living Terror from the Deep. Now, he wants to share. "Don't eat from my plate," bellows my sweet-tempered wife.

"Fine," says Teddy. "Can I have it if it somehow falls off your plate to the floor?" Note that as Teddy tries to push the lobster to the floor, Kathy's blurry right fist is aimed at Ted's head. (No cats were harmed during this meal.)

This is Kathy's best-selling painting, named "Lobster Love."

These are a pair of my favorites. I think the lobster is about to toss a knuckleball.