About a week into our trip, back in Maryville, Tennessee, my cell phone rang. It was Wini Mason, a very dear old family friend. Wini was ninety-four then, and she knew my mother when both were young girls growing up in Brookline, Massachusetts. They remained the closest of lifelong friends and Wini still grieves for my mother, gone more than ten years now. The families were so close I was named after Wini and Paul’s first son, Peter Alan. Paul, Wini’s husband of seventy years, was ninety-nine at the time Wini called and has since celebrated his one hundredth birthday. They live independently in a house they have owned for more than sixty years overlooking the dunes in the seaside community of Ogunquit, Maine. It was originally their vacation house, but they’ve lived there year-round now for decades.
Growing up, my brother, Michael, and I both knew that if “something happened” to my parents (a euphemism, of course) we would go to live with the Masons. They were our legal guardians. We always called most of our parents’ friends “Mr.” and “Mrs.” but Wini and Paul were always Aunt Wini and Uncle Paul. They are the closest I’ve had to a second set of parents.
Nearly every summer growing up, our family spent two weeks in Ogunquit. Many of my fondest and most wondrous memories of childhood were formed there. I learned to ride a bike on the street in front of Wini and Paul’s house. There were always kids to play with, even if some, like the Mason’s three children, Peter, Jimmy, and Wendy, were all a bit older than we were. Many Mason cousins also came as did family friends from Montreal. On the beach, once we all spread our towels and chairs out, there might be twenty or more of us passing the sunny, rocky days along the Maine coast together.
When Mike and I were really young, before they started renting cottages, my parents rented two rooms in the Seaview House in Ogunquit, a simple two-story house built by Meredith (“Meb”) Young and run by his wife, Ethel. During the summer, the Youngs slept on beds they set up on a porch adjacent to their kitchen in the back of the house. All the other rooms were rented to vacationers.
To keep us from disturbing other guests in the morning, Ethel entertained us in the kitchen and made us breakfast. She was a gentle, kind, gray-haired woman, but firmly in charge. Meb was a wiry Mainer who worked at the Portsmouth Naval Yard about a half hour south in New Hampshire. Meb was a man of few, but always well-chosen and usually dryly humorous, words, always spoken in a classic Down East accent.† One summer we arrived, and it was obvious from the way his lips were pursed that all of Meb’s teeth were missing. My father and I were sitting with him at the picnic table in the Young’s backyard, but my father was too polite to say anything. After a couple of minutes of small talk there was a pause and Meb looked straight at my father, a small, wry smile forming at the corners of his mouth: “In case ya had-unt noticed, I had all mah teeth rah-moved.”
To get to the beach from Wini and Paul’s or the Seaview House, we took a short walk and went over a footbridge, maybe fifty or sixty yards long, that crosses the Ogunquit River, which is actually a tidal estuary. The bridge has been rebuilt at least a couple of times in the past fifty years or so, but we used to spend countless hours on that bridge using drop lines to catch crabs in the river. We’d bring our buckets, find some mussels in the river or clinging to the bridge supports, crack them open and run the hook on our drop lines through the flesh. When the tide was low the bridge was about twenty feet or so above the water and you could see when a crab had climbed onto your bait. The challenge was to gradually hoist the crab up and into your bucket before it let go and dropped back into the water. When the tide was high the water was too deep to see the crabs on the bottom. You just kept dropping the line, let it sit for a couple of minutes, and draw it up hoping for the best. They no longer allow diving from the bridge, but in the old days Peter and Jimmy Mason and other “bigger” kids, typically teenagers, routinely dove or jumped into the river from the bridge at high tide.
Right at the start of the bridge, on the “landward” side, there was, and still is, a small shack that served steamed hot dogs on buttered, grilled buns and the best and most uniquely flavored hamburgers I’ve ever had. They also had a lemon-lime soda I craved all year long. As recently as a few years ago members of the same family, the Littlefields, ran the place and the recipes never changed. I have told many people, and meant it, that I would rather sit at one of the picnic tables next to “The Stand,” as we called it, eating a steamed dog with mustard and onions and a burger with the same, than eat at the finest restaurant in New York. For dessert, a frozen Milky Way bar.
Often, on the evenings when we weren’t having dinner at the Howard Johnson’s in Wells (like most HoJos, no longer there), someone would call in an order to a lobster pound in Wells for lobsters, steamers (steamed clams), and fried clams. My dad and I might drive up to Wells to pick them up while Wini and my Mom and various other adults would make salad and corn. Then, as the adults talked well into the evening, or played bridge, the kids would play games—jacks was a favorite, or hearts—staying up well past our usual bedtimes. It all felt so safe and secure and warm and wonderful.
When we got a little older, or more to the point, as Peter and Jimmy Mason got a bit older, became teenagers, there was more mischief. They’d get some firecrackers somewhere and after dark we’d walk down near The Stand, closed for the evening, or cross the footbridge into the dunes, and they’d set off the firecrackers until some agitated neighbor would call the police, “the fuzz” as the Mason boys called them, and we’d scatter, feeling very grown up and a little bit like outlaws.
It was in Ogunquit that we were allowed to go to the movies by ourselves for the first time. We saw The Guns of Navarone at the Ogunquit Theater (which is still in town) in 1961, and, when it came out in 1965, the Beatles’ movie Help! three nights in a row at the same theater.
On those countless days and evenings we spent with the Masons, Wini would always get mad at us boys if we didn’t put the toilet seat cover down when we’d finished using the john. To this day, whenever I visit them I come out of that same bathroom and say to Wini, “I forget, do you want me to leave the toilet seat up or down?” And she always grits her teeth in mock disapproval, says, “Don’t be fresh!” and gives me a playful swat on the arm.
The point is that Ogunquit is freighted with some of my happiest memories of childhood, of my parents, once young and now gone. Wini and Paul are my link to both. They have known me since birth and I have never known the world without them.
When Wini called while Albie and I were in Tennessee, she didn’t know I was taking this trip. As we talked it occurred to me that it would be entirely fitting that this odyssey end in Ogunquit, and I promised Wini that Albie and I would come see them in a few weeks. It would be our last stop before heading home at last.
And so, despite a nearly overwhelming desire now to get home, Albie and I drove from Bennington to Ogunquit to spend the better part of the day with Wini and Paul, and to revisit a place that remains, and always will be, such a meaningful part of my life.
The hills and dales of southern Vermont were covered in thick fog when we left Bennington, but the sun quickly burned it off and we drove across the southern part of the state, and New Hampshire, too, under clear blue skies with the convertible top down. When we left New England nearly six weeks before, the trees were still bare, and we had driven across a lot of desert, farmland, and plains since. It was easy to forget just how densely forested the vast majority of New England is and how luxuriantly and lavishly green it is in spring. The electric greens of spring fade a bit as summer progresses, as the new leaves on the deciduous trees mature and blend more seamlessly with the evergreens. But today, the bright greens, especially in the brilliant sunshine, stood in stark contrast with the dark.
The grand scenery of the West—Grand Canyon, Yosemite, the Pacific headlands around San Francisco, Yellowstone, the Grand Tetons—is more dramatic and jaw-dropping, but it’s so big and so grand that you can often feel like you’re gazing at a movie screen. The scale of it all can leave you feel
ing like a spectator, and a small one at that. The natural beauty of New England, the older, well-worn mountains, the slivers of beach along low-lying dunes on Cape Cod, or the rocky coast of Maine dotted with small towns and fishing villages, is more intimate; the land and seascapes are on a more human, more relatable scale. Without carrying a backpack deep into the backcountry, these are landscapes you feel more part of than apart from.
Knowing Albie needed a walk when we arrived in Ogunquit, we didn’t go straight to Wini and Paul’s, but to the footbridge that spans the Ogunquit River. Over the years, this once sleepy seaside town has drawn ever larger crowds and with it has come all that’s needed to support the tourist trade—more motels, more restaurants, more mini-golf—more everything. It was a couple of days before Memorial Day, so the hoards had not yet descended. There were just a few cars in the beach parking lot, where they now charge $25 to park starting on Memorial Day weekend.
It was disappointing that right smack in the middle of the entrance to the footbridge was a new sign: “No Dogs: $100 fine.” My plan had been to walk Albie across that bridge for old time’s sake and I was tempted to take my chances, but a passerby told me, somewhat chagrined, that they strictly enforce the no-dogs rule. But just to be in that spot was enough. More than half a century ago we filled buckets with crabs on this bridge; now it was on my bucket list to see it with Albie and we’d done it.
We took a couple of pictures and then we walked a bit, past the old Seaview House where my brother, Mike, and I had often stayed as children with our parents. As we passed, we saw a compactly built, older white-haired man working in the driveway. We waved to each other and Albie and I walked on, but not far, before we turned around. I remembered that Meb and Ethel had one child, a son, Bob. There used to photographs of Bob’s children, Meb and Ethel’s grandchildren, on the console television set in the living room of their house. Meb and Ethel had both died many years ago and I wondered if that was Bob who had just waved to me. We walked up the driveway and the man put down his work gloves and came to greet us. He looked to be well into his seventies.
“Are you Meb and Ethel’s son?” I asked.
“I am!” he said, smiling now. “I’m Bob.”
I introduced myself, we shook hands, and I told him how we used to stay at the house and how his mother had entertained us as young children in her kitchen. Bob didn’t remember us, but there was no reason he would have. He lived and worked in and around Groton, Connecticut, most of his adult life. Now that he was retired he’d moved back to this house, where he’d grown up, and was still running it as a guesthouse in summer. We chatted for a few minutes; he sounded exactly like his father. It seems such a simple, incidental thing, but I was thrilled to talk to Bob and make this connection to a long ago past, to these fragments of memory that, when stitched together, form the fabric of my life.
Wini and Paul and I spent the afternoon kibitzing, as my mother would have said. I brought them up to date on our kids, and vice versa, though Wini and Paul have grandkids and great-grandkids to talk about, too. Wini, as she always does, spoke of how much she missed my mother and wondered aloud, as she had to me many times before, why my parents had divorced in the early 1980s. They were very fond of my father, too. Wini recalled when she first met my father, while my mother was still at Radcliffe and my father was doing a pediatric fellowship at Boston Children’s Hospital.
Wini asked if we would be staying for a bite to eat for supper and I told her my heart was set on a lobster roll.
“We could order some and I’ll pick them up,” I suggested.
“If I pay for them!” Wini said, chiding me.
“No, I’ll pay for them,” and I phoned the same lobster pound up in Wells where we used to order lobsters and steamers fifty years ago.
After we finished our lobster rolls, Albie lying patiently at my side the whole time, I helped clear the table. When we used to come here for vacation we thought one of the coolest things was that our parents would set up an account at The Stand and we could go in, order our hot dogs and burgers and frozen Milky Ways, and “charge it.” The Masons, too, had an account and just to make trouble we’d often say, “Charge it to the Masons.”
Over all these years our charging stuff “to the Masons” has been a running joke between Wini and me, like putting the toilet seat down after using the loo, but one I never tire of playing my little role in. “All right, Wini,” I said. “I paid for the lobster rolls, so I never want to hear again about what I owe you for charging all that stuff at The Stand!”
Wini, always a community activist, was off to a committee meeting to discuss some town issue or other . . . at ninety-four! I gave her a big hug, so she could go get ready for her meeting, and Paul walked us out to the car. Albie, for the thousandth, and next to last time, hopped in back without complaint. As we backed out, Paul waved, and I waved back thinking what a long and remarkable life he and Wini have had together, and what an incredible vitality they have well into their nineties, though they have their ailments and have slowed down considerably. Earlier, I had asked Wini the secret of their longevity and she said, “Genes.” But really, I think they are each the secret to the other’s longevity.
As we drove off I thought about what a steady presence these people have been in my life, like the North Star—always there when you look up at the night sky. But when people are ninety-four and ninety-nine, you can’t help but wonder, “Will I see them again?” And I thought back to the very first day of our trip when I briefly glimpsed the elderly man with a walker making his way up his driveway in Hamden, Connecticut. An old man in his driveway. How soon might that old man be me? Given how time seems to pass ever faster was we age, sooner than I might like to think, which is why I was glad I didn’t wait any longer to see my country, or Wini and Paul, again.
It was nearing 6:00 P.M. We had an hour and half yet to drive, but one final stop to make. We drove down to Perkins Cove, a cozy little harbor filled with dinghies and fishing boats and lobster traps, cedar-shingled restaurants and shops, and a wooden drawbridge across the inlet so the boats can pass as they go to and from the sea. A little narrow peninsula, not even a hundred yards wide in some places, separates the cove from the ocean.
I took a seat on a bench overlooking the ocean side, Albie, as always, close by my side. The evening was warm, the light golden, and the ocean unusually calm. How many times had I sat in this very spot and watched the ocean lap up against these craggy rocks? Then I looked down at Albie. Every time I think I couldn’t love him any more than I do, I do.
As we soaked up the view and took in the preternaturally serene evening my mind wandered back across the decades and over the past six weeks. We had more than 9,000 miles behind us and just ninety to go; I had nearly sixty-five years behind me and an unknown number, but far fewer, to go. Neither of my parents made it to eighty; my dad died when he was just seventy-three. And Albie, too, now about nine, was closer to the end than the beginning. All of these journeys were slowly ebbing away.
Then Judy called, snapping my attention back to the present. Suddenly all those miles, and all the powerful memories stirred up by the day, caught up with me. I wanted to lie down and take a long nap. As I started to tell Judy where we were my voice cracked and I fought back the tears welling up in my eyes. So much of my life had passed, some of the best of it right here at this very spot and others nearby. I felt grief for my parents, for all the time that had now passed, for innocence lost. On those summer evenings in Ogunquit long ago my parents were less than half the age I was now. So much in life had changed, so much had happened, since the days when, as children, we spent our summer vacations here. But the view? It hadn’t changed at all.
Albie, dear, sweet, earnest Albie sat quietly by me for about another half hour before I mustered the energy to stand up and ready myself for the drive home. I gave Albie a long, long hug and thanked him for being with me, for being so patient over so many miles, miles that were, no doubt, far more interesting for
me than they were for him. This gentle old soul, once lost in the woods of central Louisiana and now part of who I am and will forever be. An enormous surge of gratitude that fate had brought us together washed over me. Then we walked over to the take-out window at Barnacle Billy’s and I bought him a vanilla ice cream cone.
And that is how the travelers came home again.
* There are at least a dozen songs by this title, including songs by John Legend, Roy Orbison, and Keith Urban.
† Though the term “Down East” refers to all of coastal New England and parts of maritime Canada, it is most often used to refer to the Maine coast. The farther up the Maine coast you go toward Canada, the farther “Down East” you are going. The term goes back hundreds of years. When ships sailed from Boston to ports in Maine, which are to the north and east of Boston, the wind was at their backs, so they were sailing downwind. Hence the term, “Down East.”
Illustrations Insert
On the day we left on our nearly 9,200 mile odyssey, I explained to Albie that we’d be gone a while and admonished him for not completing the assigned reading, the book that inspired our venture, John Steinbeck’s Travels with Charley. Photo by Judy Gelman.
Outside of Front Royal, Virginia we stopped to see if these dinosaurs were real.
For the first few days, the weather was too wet and too cold to put the top down. We finally reached warmer weather making our way down the Virginia section of the Blue Ridge Parkway.
The Blue Ridge Parkway is one of America’s national treasures, 469 miles of mountain splendor in Virginia and North Carolina.
Albie with the great explorer Meriwether Lewis near Grinder’s Stand in Tennessee, where Lewis took his own life in 1809.
Perhaps the greatest journey ever taken across the American continent was Lewis and Clark’s from 1804 to 1806. The monument behind Albie marks the final resting place of Meriwether Lewis along the Natchez Trace in Tennessee.
The Dog Went Over the Mountain Page 24
