with plenty of water pressure, TV, a trip to the store from where I work is 45 minutes each way, also it's work and I need to get away sometimes. So back to the question of where.
It came to me that Bar Harbor was what I was looking for. The restaurants and bars I used to walk to when 22 Ash Street was my residence, Acadia National Park, people I knew. Yup Bar harbor it is. I called my friend Jack who owns a motel on MDI and booked two nights, this was going to be fun. The night before I left for the harbor I had a dream that I was wandering around Bar Harbor a stranger in a strange land and the only friendly face I saw was a woman named Dori who worked at a clothing store next to the EPI where I worked for 21 years. She was friendly and gave me a big hug. When I woke I thought, "it's only been six years it hasn't changed that much."
Saturday August 21st I cleaned up from serving breakfast, placed my North Center order and headed south. At 3PM I arrived at The Robbins Motel. My friend Jack Speight is the owner operator of the motel, and as I suspected he wouldn't allow me to pay for my room. I was a little reluctant to book a room with him for this reason, I don't like to take advantage of friends that way, but we worked out a compromise and I settled into #7. In the spring I help Jack get ready to open, so I was looking for the little black shopvac to clean in the corners. Jacks' mother Pat, also owner operator, was there and we hung out in their living room for a while. Pat lives in Florida and Jack and I are going there in November to fish. He bought a bass boat that is waiting for us at a friends marina down there.
At 5:00 I caught the bus into town per Pats orders, "you'll never get a parking space" was what she said. Also it meant I didn't have to worry about how much I drank, for you see Miguels was my destination. Miguels was the sight of many a drunken orgy of conversation and laughter over the years, Michelle and I loved the place, the whole town drained through there every night. I was in dire need of fun and laughs with some familiar faces.
The first thing I noticed upon entering Miguels was that it now resembles a pastel McDonalds, all of the rustic character of the place was gone. The bar, always our favorite hangout now had a huge Tv over it blaring NASCAR, actually the sound was off but it still managed to be loud and obnoxious despite lack of volume. An unhappy looking bartender made me a pitcher of margaritas on the rocks, salted glass. The place was nearly empty despite the dinner hour. Seven years ago the bar area would have been full of locals and the doorway was always packed with folks waiting for tables talking back and forth with the people in the bar. I remember this place full of noise and good cheer, now everyone looked unhappy, customers and employees alike. When my food came it was the 3rd degree of boring. The rice was crunchy and the chimichanga was half the size I remember and bland. About this time two guys barely out of their teens seated themselves at the bar and stared mutely at the TV. There were rednecks being angry at each other up there. I guess driving around in a circle all day would piss me off too. The bartender grunted a greeting, it would be ten minutes before he waited on them, and it was slow. When they did order it was salads and water. My mind drifted back to the days when I would be sitting here flirting with the ravishing Ellen my hand resting on her hip while she leaned in close to hear what I said, while Michelle was in another part of the bar talking to some guys she knew from work or one of the other bars in town, they were flirting with her too though my beautiful clueless wife wouldn't realize it. Before we started dating Michelle frequented The EPI where I worked, some guy would always sit with her trying to beat my time. Ann the cashier would say to me "look at that poor slob he doesn't realize he doesn't stand a chance." I mentioned that she always had some guy flirting with her in those days and she said "they were?"
I paid up and left joyless Miguels and walked around town. The streets were crowded the people pushy and irritable. I poked my head into the shops and restaurants not a familiar face anywhere. What did I expect? A town like Bar Harbor turns over every year, it's a transient community.
I had to go into the EPI, the site of so much of my life. I met both my wives there, and most of my girlfriends. My son would hang out doing his homework waiting for me to close down. I was there when the Red Sox came back from the dead against the Angels in '86, my aunt Ruth running down front with a radio to share the good news.
The place has had a facelift since last I was there, trendy new chalkboard menu sign, stools in front of the pizza counter. The place still looked like the EPI, I'd have recognized it without the sign . I do have a bone to pick with the sign which claims the EPI was established in 2008. Where the hell was I was working all those years? I wandered upstairs which isn't being used, found the old menu sign on the floor. How many dumb questions did this sign cause? "Do you put cheese on your pizza?" "What's providence?" one woman asked me. "The capital of Rhode Island." I responded. "Well I don't want that on my sandwich." she slurred. She was several beers into her evening. "What the hell are you looking at?" I asked. "That right there." she said pointing at where it said provolone under the list of cheeses we offered. We offered one sandwich called a Triad named after one of the so called mountains in Acadia National Park [ I'm sorry but 698 feet is not a mountain]. I heard this sandwich called a trinidad, tridad, treedad, but my all time favorite was one old duffer who called it a tripod. "Hey bub gimme one a them there tripods." Ah good memories. Of course there were lots of bad memories as well, angry tourists, asshole boss, burns, cuts, long hours, too many years on the job. The best thing about the job was the women. Every woman in town came through and I got to talk to them. I think flirting was my main occupation back then, I did make a few sandwiches from time to time. One time I was chatting up this fine young lady and as I went to cut her salami and cheese in half I asked what she did in the real world. She replied "I'm in medical school." As she said this I jabbed the point of my knife into my middle finger. I dropped my hand out of site and called for Dianna Crossen to come up front, then I asked "what should I do about this?" and held up my hand, blood running down to my elbow. "See a doctor." she said. Five stitches and the rest of the night off was the result.
I left the EPI and decided to see if the rest of my dream was true, walked into the Village Emporium and damned if Dori wasn't right there behind the counter just as cute as the last time I saw her. She looked at me with a puzzled expression for a second then recognition lit up her face. She came around the counter and gave me a big hug. We talked for several minutes, she hasn't aged a day in the last six years. That was really great but how come I can't dream of something useful like this saturdays Powerball numbers?
I had a couple beers at a bar with about as much personality as a carwash, come to think of it that building used to be a carwash, then I waited for the bus to take me home. The bus stop is on the edge of the village green, a blues band was playing in the gazebo. They were pretty good too, whitening up Muddy Waters for the tourons. I gave up my seat on the bus for a young lady with a well behaved dog, the bus driver was in a foul mood.
Back at the Robbins I watched a movie with Jack and Pat for a while then went to bed. I chatted on Facebook for a while with my friend Dave Opdyke , traded posts with Toby Alley while the Red Sox went to extra innings. The Sox won in the 11th on a homer by Jed Lowrie then I watched a John Wayne movie on AMC.
I awoke to whoop whoop, bang bang. I thought it was the tequila from the night before but it was John Wayne shooting at some indians. Comanche I think. I went to breakfast at the Log Cabin where despite the several lovely waitresses I ended up with a 6'6" sumo wrestler waiting on me. The prices were reasonable... if I had been ordering caviar, but at least it tasted bland. The tequila was having it's wonderful after affect on me so I spent a good portion of the day sleeping. I wanted to get my moneys worth out of the room, oh yeah I didn't pay. It was an overcast rainy day anyhow. My plan had been to climb the South Ridge trail on Door mountain where I fell in love with Michelle. I decided I could be depressed just as easily without all the exertion.
I had dinner with my friends and watched Nature on MPBN until 9:00. Back in my room I decided to play the sad old bastard thing to the hilt and download some porn. I mean what does a recently dumped, over the hill man, sleeping in a motel do anyhow? So I watched some porn and listened to the Japanese couple next door have sex. Neither was very satisfying. Maybe they were jumping on the bed for 20 minutes.
On monday the Magical Moping Tour continued, I was waiting for Michelle to drop off Nick, our dog, on her way to work. Nick and I were going to fish Canyon brook which will be low water and devoid of fish, but Nick is getting pretty old and I want to fish with him one more time. When Shelly arrives she looks so unhappy, but I'm sure I do too. We talk for half an hour, our breakup has never been the tempestuous kind. It might be easier if it was. She says she feels bad about what I'm going through, and she doesn't know if she likes being single. I don't know what to make of that, so I'll just leave it alone. After she leaves I think about our relationship and how dead it had been for several years, we were just going through the motions. I always told her I loved her but I don't think I believed it. Now that it is over I am surprised to find that I still do love her very much.
Nick and I drove to Otter Creek and walked past the No Trespassing sign to the brook. Nick is 13 now and has a hard time negotiating some of the trickier spots, so I help him over the rocks. This was the first place Nick ever went swimming, he slipped off a rock into a pool and life changed for him. On another trip he realized there were things in the water to chase and his life changed one more time. That day I had caught a trout and was standing in a clear shallow pool, when I released the fish Nick saw it swim off and gave chase. The next time we went to our camp on Toddy Pond he started to patrol the lake searching for sunfish. He subsequently learned that they liked to hide under the dock and he would perch himself on the edge peering into the water his curled tail wagging in circles. My mother in law took to baiting the fish out with bread so Nick could chase them.
In some ways this was worse than town, there are a lot of ghosts on this stream. Richard Bracey first brought me here in 1992. Michelle used to call Richard my fishing buddy that I don't fish with, which by then was true. Richard and I met playing basketball and later started fishing together. Our fishing trips were usually the kind that ended up with a blown transmission or standing in a bog in a downpour. Both things that happened. As I fished the ghosts came to haunt me, here was Keri Hayes standing on a sand bank in a cloud of mosquitos, she loved to eat fish and when we lived near here some mornings I would wake early to catch her breakfast. One day keri and I were fishing and she was on the other side of a small island when splashing up the stream came a naked water nymph who screamed and beat a frothy retreat. Another day with Sarah Dooling standing waist deep at dusk while the stars of August kindled overhead. Sarah, holding a brook trout in the palm of her hand, "oh George-o it's so beautiful." Sarah always called me George-o and my son was Twit.
Nick and I fished most of the morning, I caught a small trout on my first cast. Nick seemed to enjoy the woods more than the stream. We ate an Italian sub on a warm rock, then went home. Well his home.
I don't think I'll move back to Bar Harbor, the town I knew doesn't exist anymore. I also had forgotten how angry it is there. People on vacation not enjoying themselves waited on by bored stressed out people who just want the day to be over. Perhaps I'll just visit my friends who live outside of town, hike a little and avoid the downtown area. As for my living situation Little Lyford Pond seems pretty good to me now.
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