by Bud Kenny
“He wanted to see the world slowly, softly, sweetly, close up and personal.
“But he didn’t get to do that.”
The showers intensified as she pulled her hand from under her slicker.
When she extended her clenched fist toward us she said,
“If you tell me no, I will understand.”
Right then she opened her fist to reveal a silver locket in her palm.
“In this locket are some of my brother’s ashes.
“Would you take them with you so he can live his dream, too?”
Yes, there have been times when I’ve cried in the rain.
But never have I cried so sweetly as I did right then.
Yes, there are moments when I wonder, “Why are we doing this?”
But not there, not then, in that rain.
Right there, right then, I knew why.
CHAPTER 22
MAINE
“SO TELL ME BUD, WHY the coast of Maine?”
The first time we met John Littlefield was in the Adirondacks–a few days after our retreat at Camp Santanoni. Back then, I heard his voice before seeing his face–a video camera was in the way. Now, in the parking lot of the Yankee Clipper Motel in New Hampshire, John was behind the camera again.
“I’ve never been there before, and I’d like to live by the Atlantic Ocean for a while.”
John said, “But it gets real cold in Maine. And winter isn’t that far off.”
He was short, had brown hair streaked with silver that was combed back from his face. John had the presence of a real-estate salesman, but he was a retired airline pilot who produced documentary films. His company, Logan Productions, was based in Montgomery, Texas. He was working on another project in the Adirondacks when we first met him.
A week before we got to Tamworth, when I checked my email, I had one from John, and he wanted to do a film about us. In the email he asked, “Could I walk a day or two with you?”
John and his assistant arrived early on September 25th. The air was fresh from the rinsing it got the past couple days, and it was the first morning in over a week that the sky was cloudless. It was crisp enough to begin the day with long sleeves and a sweater, but all of us had shorts on. You could tell that it was going to get that warm. It would be a great day for walking and perfect for filming.
Moving around me, with the camera to his face, John squatted, stooped and stretched to get different shots, as he said, “Just be yourself. Act like I’m not here.”
–Just try being natural as someone with a camera is scurrying around you.–
“So this is a big day for you, eh Bud? Today you walk into Maine. Right?”
Strapping the harness onto Della, I looked into the camera and said, “Yes it is.”
John pulled the camera from his face. “I’m a Mainer. I grew up on the coast.”
He was the first person to tell us about the history of Maine. “The first white settlements were on the islands off the coast. Inland, the woods were too wild.”
Back in the 1970s, before I walked across the country with the pack pony, I considered exploring northwestern Maine on foot. It astounded me that in New England there was such a vast area with no towns, no paved roads and only a few dirt ones. On the map, it looked like just mountains, rivers and lakes–the kind of place I’d like to see.
I read everything I could find about the area and soon figured out why it was so desolate. In the winter it gets thirty below with snow roof-top-high in some places. Then, in the spring, biting black flies and huge mosquitoes rule the forest. Mosquitoes lay their eggs in still water, and black flies lay them in running water. So they’ve got you standing or flowing. Sometimes, black flies will swarm a moose to where it goes crazy and runs itself to death. People who venture into the woods have to cover themselves with netting to keep from getting bit up.
Then there were the bears. Black bears can be found all over New England, but their population was densest in Maine. I read a story about the state sending a team of sharpshooters in to thin them out. The bears ravaged their camp and sent the hunters fleeing for their lives.
I wanted to have an adventure–but not that kind. So in the 1970s I played it safe and just walked across the continent and half way back, with a pack pony and a dog.
Thirty years later, I was finally walking into Maine with a cameraman in my face who said, “And you’re going to let me walk with you–right?”
“Yes. You’ll be the first person to spend a day walking with us.”
“Great! Let’s do it!”
John gave the camera to his assistant, Joyce, with instructs on what kind of shots he wanted. Then, after she drove off in his Lexus, we four hit the road. It was an eleven mile day, and John walked nine of them. He was in the cart when we got to the state line.
It had no billboard, monument or fancy welcome center. Just a simple blue sign with white letters that read, “State Line Maine.”
The second town we came to in Maine was Bridgton–population 2,500. Bridgton was about twenty miles into the state. It’s situated between two natural lakes with several streams running through the heart of town. We spent Saturday and Sunday nights in a small park at Highland Lake on the northwest side of Bridgton. Sunday afternoon we had lots of folks stop to visit. Around 3 p.m. eight people were in our camp when a man in his late forties walked up and stood silently behind the group.
A couple of the people had just bought some of my poetry books, and one of them asked if I would read them a poem. After I finished “Fantasy to Reality,” the man behind the crowd applauded with the rest. And like some of the others, he too had tears. But somehow I got the feeling his weren’t generated by the poem.
The hair on both his head and face was curly and sandy brown. His beard framed a smile, but I sensed sadness when he shook my hand and introduced himself as Bruce Gehly. “I live in Ossipee, New Hampshire, and read about you in the paper.
While the others walked away, he shoved his hands into his pockets and said, “Actually, I’ve been looking for you for the past two days.”
“Really?”
“After I read the story, I had to find you.” He pulled a gray book, the size of my poetry book, out of his back pocket and handed it to me. “You’re living my dream.”
Ride The Gypsy Moon was the title. On the cover was a pencil drawing of a man on the front of a gypsy wagon driving a pair of horses. In the bottom right corner were the words, “A poetic journey by Bruce Gehly.” When I looked back up at him, the smile didn’t seem quite so sad. I asked, “Is this your poetry?”
“I used to sell those when I was on the road.”
Patricia yanked the book out of my hands as she said, “No kidding?”
“In 1996 I hitched a pair of Shire horses to a gypsy wagon that I built, then took off to travel around the country selling those poetry books.” His hands were in his pockets again, and he was rocking back on his heels. “Like I said, you’re living my dream. I had to find you.”
I was astounded. “Where did you go?”
“I started in the fall, and headed south. Figured I’d spend the winter wandering around Florida. But I started hitting snow before I even got to the Hudson River. So I stopped and had everything trucked to Jacksonville, Florida. Figured I’d follow the coast down to the Keys.”
Bruce stopped rocking on his heels, and turned his face toward Highland Lake as he said, “Five miles out of Jacksonville, a woman rammed into the back of the wagon.”
Patricia gasped. “Oh, no!”
He turned toward my wife, and in a matter-of-fact tone said, “The wagon was destroyed and both horses got hurt. Eventually I had to put one of them down. I got banged up some, but not too bad.”
Obviously he had told this story many times, and it was as if telling it again was emboldening him. Bruce folded his arms across his chest and said, “The woman was drunk, had no license and no insurance.”
In unison, Patricia and I both said, “No!”
&nbs
p; My wife had put on a pot of coffee just before Bruce showed up. He accepted her offer of a cup, and sat on Della’s water bucket as he explained some of the details. Tears were in his eyes when he concluded with, “But the worst part was what it did to my soul. It’s like something inside me died.”
Bruce pulled a bandana out of his pocket, and wiped his eyes. “Sorry. It still hurts.”
Right then Patricia and I were both fighting tears. For several moments none of us said anything. He was the one who broke the silence. “That’s why I had to come find you. I thought being around someone living my dream might help me heal.”
That night in the tent, Patricia said, “It really makes you think. Doesn’t it?”
“What’s that?”
“The thing with Bruce and his horses. Something like that could happen to us.”
We had talked many times about the possibility of someone running into us. The discussion always ended with me saying, “I could get run over just walking down the street back home. We’ve all got to die sometime. I’d rather do it living my dream.”
A couple miles east of Lewiston, we set up camp in a large open field. Dark was descending on us as we staked down the tent. We had just finished erecting it when dusk let loose with a deluge. The rain was too heavy to get out the stove for a cooked meal, so we had cheese and crackers for dinner that night.
“Do you hear that?” Patricia was shaking me out of slumber
Yawning I said, “Hear what?”
“On the tent. Listen.”
I snuggled deeper into my bed. “It’s raining.”
“No it’s not. That’s ice! Listen.”
She was right. It wasn’t raining. I grabbed the flashlight, opened the tent door and shined it at the cart. Everything was covered with sleet, and it was steadily coming down.
“Bud, this is not good. It’s the fourth of October, and already it’s sleeting.”
“So?”
“We’re in Maine. Winter could happen at any time.”
“What do you want me to do about it?”
“I don’t want to still be on the road in the winter!” Panic was in my wife’s voice. “Can you imagine what this tent would be like during a blizzard?”
“Patricia, you’re getting yourself worked up over nothing. I don’t want to be on the road in the winter any more than you do. Yes, this tent would be a disaster in the snow. It’s not much in the rain.”
When she spoke, each word was more frantic than the one before it. “That’s for sure! And I’m telling you–”
“Patricia, stop right there! That’s enough!” I paused and lowered my voice. “Baby, I am on your side. Remember? When we get to Belfast, we’ll start looking for a place to stop. You still want to go to the coast, don’t you?”
Her voice was soft. “Yes.”
“Good. Now I have faith that when we get to the coast we’re going to find the right situation. But we have to get there first. Give me a kiss, and let’s go back to sleep.”
About twenty-five miles from Belfast, Pam and Don invited us to spend Saturday night indoors at their farm near Palermo. Pam was a veterinarian who specialized in animal acupuncture and holistic medicine. Her clinic, “Healing Haven,” was in the barn. Don, who was a carpenter, made bio-diesel for their vehicles out of discarded vegetable oil from local restaurants. Sunday morning they invited me to use their computer to check my email.
When we first walked into Maine, we were interviewed by Maine Public Radio. During the interview, I mentioned that we hoped to find a place to put down for a couple of years on the coast around Belfast.
On my email account at Yahoo, there were four messages from people who’d heard the story. One was from Penny Altman. It read:
“Dear Bud, Pat and Della. We heard about you on Maine Public Radio and understand you are heading toward the Camden/Belfast area for the winter. We are in Prospect Harbor on the Schoodic Peninsula, about an hour and a half away (not by mule) and would like to make our house available to you for as long as you would like to stay. We have a B&B that we just got going this year. We are still renovating, but have plenty of viable room. The property consists of a farmhouse built in 1847 and three attached barns. The barns are not heated, but I’m sure we could do what would be necessary to accommodate Della. We have 31 acres with a 1/4 mile of shore on the shallow side of the harbor here. I am an artist and a writer (no reputation to speak of) and my husband, Michael, is a carpenter. We have an Old English Sheepdog and two cats. We’d love to meet you, and if you are not already set up, see whether you would enjoy staying in our house. I think we would enjoy it. Hope to hear from you. Penny Altman/Mermaid’s Purse Farm/Prospect Harbor, Maine.”
I called The Mermaid’s Purse Farm and got an answering machine. So I left a message that we were near Belfast and were interested in their proposal. Then I said to Patricia, “She sent that email two weeks ago. A lot of things can happen in that amount of time. We can’t count on this until we get a verbal yes.”
So Sunday when we left Healing Haven, we were still in search of a home.
I said, “There it is Patricia, welcome to the Atlantic Ocean.”
It was Tuesday afternoon, and we were at the crest of Park Hill on Highway 3 on the outskirts of Belfast. Overhead was a clear sky and shimmering below was Belfast Bay. It was the bluest blue I had ever seen.
“Can you believe it,” Patricia said. “We’re really here!”
When we walked down into Belfast I had a mixture of emotions. The excitement of getting to the coast was tempered with uncertainty. We hadn’t talked to Penny or Michael in Prospect Harbor–so we still didn’t know if we had a place to live. And even if they said yes, how could we know if it would work for us? On the map it looked so tiny and remote. Could we find employment there?
Originally, we picked Belfast as a place for our home on the coast. On the map it looked like it had commerce–hence, jobs. Plus, like with Madison, Indiana, we heard over and over what a great place it was. A progressive community with a thriving arts scene in a picturesque seaside setting. Downtown was mostly nineteenth century brick and stone buildings with elaborate cornices, decorative iron work and slate roofs. It looked like our kind of place.
And, like when we walked into Madison, we were more and more charmed the further we got into town. Main Street in Belfast was a steep grade that led down to the waterfront. Out in the bay, lots of colorful boats were moored to buoys. Most were for pleasure, but the bay held work boats too. Lobster boats that in the wee hours of morning would chug their way out into the ocean to bring back the catch. This was what I had always pictured a town on the Maine Coast to look like.
“Welcome to Belfast,” Mayor Michael Hurley said. He, and a reporter from the Bangor Daily News, had walked down to the waterfront to meet us. “I heard you folks are thinking about spending the winter here.”
“If we find a suitable place.”
The mayor said, “Let me know if I can help.”
An instructor at the Audubon Expedition Institute invited us to camp behind their office building on a ridge above downtown. It was a rough parking lot with a couple of school buses and half a dozen cars. Tall grass and weeds were growing around it, and the view of the bay was terrific.
After we set up camp, Patricia and I hiked back down into town to have dinner. Several folks told us Rollies Tavern was popular with the locals. So we went in and had lobster quesadillas with a pitcher of beer.
Two topics dominated the discussions in the tavern that evening. One was that night’s play-off game between the Boston Red Sox and the New York Yankees. With the exception of one woman, everyone in the place was rooting for the Sox. They lost four to two.
The other topic was the weather. A nor’easter was in Maine’s forecast for the next day–heavy rain with near hurricane force winds. When we set up the tent, I battened it down like I never had before. Besides the stakes, I used rocks, saplings and old shipping pallets to anchor it. I had no idea how the tent wo
uld fare in seventy-mile winds.
Around six the next morning, Patricia said, “I think it’s here.”
Neither the rain nor the wind started gradually. It came with a vengeance. First the rain. It was like someone in heaven opened a fire hydrant. A few minutes later the wind began to pop and flutter the rain fly on the tent, and the poles on the leeward side bowed in. But everything held and the tent stayed dry.
Around seven, Patricia and I put on our rain gear and walked downtown to Dudley’s Diner for breakfast. The wind made it hard to walk–especially down Main Street, where it was a headwind blowing rain into our faces. Twice I saw women blown over as they tried to make their way along the sidewalk.
Dudley’s Diner was packed because electricity was out in many spots around town. While we waited for our meal, the café lost power for several minutes too.
The storm was even more intense when we got back to camp. It was like we had pitched our tent in the middle of a lake. When we opened it, we found that the lake had made its way inside, and our air-bed was floating. The rain was no longer falling down. It came at us sideways and the cart was rocking in the wind.
Patricia had just crawled inside the tent when a hefty gust ravaged it. With a loud crack, the tent collapsed on my wife as she screamed, “No!”
“Are you okay?”
I pulled the door open as she said, “I’m alright. But one of the poles broke.”
While I helped her out of the tent, my wife had to yell to be heard above the storm. “No sense going back in there until this blows over.”
Right then a gust ravaged the trees around us. Some bent all the way to the ground then popped back up and shuttered violently in the gale. Sideways, from the northeast, the rain slammed into us in torrents. The wind was so loud it nearly drowned out the thunder. Right then our world was total chaos.
Della frantically pranced at the end of her rope as the trees near her whipped and wound around in the storm. She was trying to break loose from the rope and run away from it all, but there was nowhere to go–for her or us.