Travels With Becky

Some frugal

Our water’s been tasting funny, so I’ve been using filtered from the refrigerator. (It makes ice cubes, too, right in the door. Talk about fancy.) Instead of filling the tea kettle from the tap, I fill my tea mug (some might call it a pail), empty the water into the kettle and heat just enough for one dose. Which reminded me of something my friend Peg told me about a very frugal relative of hers. He always heated just a cup full for tea, or two for company. He also composted everything he could, including tea bags – except for the paper tag. He’d remove the tag, burn it in the wood stove, and compost the rest.

Which reminded me of a story my friend Arthur told of visiting a particularly frugal family in Barrington. Before they tossed the empty can of beans (this was in the days before recycling), they peeled the label. “Good for starting fires.” I do the same thing! And recycle the can for good measure.

The more things change, the more they don’t. My mother used to always save bacon grease in a can by the stove for frying stuff later. Price of olive oil and Crisco keeps going up, I’m going back to bacon grease. Might do it anyway, just for the taste. I know what you’re thinking:  “Becky Rule, you eat bacon?”

Yes, I do.  And I enjoy it.

I know what you’re thinking:  “Becky Rule, think about the cholesterol. That bacon’s going to kill you.”

Maybeso.

Looks like 2009 is shaping up to be a good year for frugality. Hey, us Yankees are on the cutting edge.

How do you show your Yankee frugality? Write a comment in the comment section or shoot me an e-mail at [email protected].

See you next year.

Jeff's little towel

Evolution of a Story:

We’re enough beyond the ice storm that left us out in the cold for several days that the stories have begun to evolve. My neighbor, let’s call him “Jeff,” who lives at the the end of the road, was among the last to get his electricity restored, by burly, handsome Quebecois who enjoyed the fresh-baked cookies offered in gratitude by Jeff’s wife, let’s call her “Laurie.” Toward the end of the ordeal, Jeff told me, he was going house to house with a towel, seeking a hot shower. 

Next time I tell the story, he’ll be going house to house in a towel seeking a hot shower.

Happy New Year! And may your towels be large enough to cover your girth.

Place names revisted

Place names. That’s a subject for research and speculation. Trudy from Maine wrote with this historical insight:

"Your Gorham story reminded me of a story of how Skowhegan (Maine) got its name. You may have seen the giant wooden Indian made by Bernard Langlais that stands in the town of Skowhegan. Well, as history would have it, and I may have some of the details wrong – maybe it was a white man or maybe it was another Indian. In any case, a long time ago, a white man (or an Indian) came ashore by boat on the banks of the Kennebec River to do some business in town. When he returned to where his boat had been tied, it was gone! There was an Indian standing nearby and he asked what happened to his boat. The Indian replied, "Scow, he gone". And that's how Skowhegan got its name. Not sure if this in politically correct. One never know these days.

P.S. Scow: origin mid 17th cent. from Dutch schouw 'ferryboat'. Must have been a Dutchman that tied up his boat."

A good story can stand a few skewed facts and a smidge of political incorrectness – in my opinion.

Another politically incorrect Maine name story is the old one about Mooselookmeguntic Lake.  Mooselookmeguntic means “moose feeding place in Abenaki, but even Wikipedia (the go-to source for all things accurate, wink, wink) cites the “humorous legend” about a Native American hunting moose, who spotted one on the lakeshore, but when he went to touch off his rifle, it jammed – or maybe he’d forgotten to load it. When the hunter told the story he said:  “Moose look. Me gun tick.”

My favorite N.H. town name is Effingham. Think about it.

Weare is another one with linguistic possibilities along the lines of “Who’s on first?”

Where do you live?

Weare.

Where?

Weare!

And those who live on the north end of town are said to live No. Weare. That’s what the sign says, anyway.

Buggers vs. Woolly

Just because I’m a storyteller and professional liar doesn’t mean I don’t value facts. Sure I modify, embellish and fabricate, but any good yarn depends of a few certifiable truths. And storytellers love to be corrected. It’s true. I do anyway. I like my lies to be as accurate as possible. In my research for Live Free and Eat Pie, I learned that Martha Washington enjoyed fly fishing.

Master angler and outdoor writer Ray Kucharski noted that on page 53 I mentioned that Martha’s fly of choice as the Woolly Bugger. Ray writes: “Martha’s favorite fly was most likely a Woolly Worm.The original Woolly Bugger pattern was believed to have been created by Russell Blessing, a Pennsylvania fly tier as early as 1967 to resemble a hellgrammite or dobsonfly nymph. The Wooly Bugger has a long marabou feather tail where the Woolly Worm has a short, usually red, yarn tail.The Woolly Buggers precise origin is unknown, but is clearly an evolution of the Woolly Worm fly, which itself is a variation of the British palmer fly, which dates back to Walton and beyond.”

I stand corrected. In fact, between you and me and Ray, I imagined what Martha’s favorite fly might be and picked the name Woolly Bugger out of a list I found on the Internet. I picked it because it was a funny name. Woolly Worm sounds good, too, though. Woolly Worm., Picture it. Pretty funny. And if Woolly Worm’s more historically accurate, all the better. We’ll see if we can’t get that correction made in the next edition.

Thanks, Ray. For the info and the picture, too. And as they say in the world of angling: “Tight lines!”

These are Mickey Finn's, said to knock the fish right out.

Tidings of great joy

Here’s a true story told to me  at a holiday gathering held at The Shaker Table, Shaker Village in Canterbury. The group was PLAN NH,  “formed in 1989 for the purpose of supporting and preserving our quality of life” among other things. Members include architects, engineers, developers, bankers, and lots of other folks with very good intentions. Check the group out here.

The teller was staying at Popham Beach up in Maine years ago, when he experienced a celebrity sighting – the great fighter Gene Tunney in a rowboat. He was rowing from his island home to the mainland. “How do you like living on the island?” the teller asked Tunney. He liked it, he said, except for the inconvenience of no telephones. To put in a telephone line would be a major undertaking, not practical if even possible.

A month or two later, the teller spotted a barge carrying a telephone truck headed for Tunney’s island. Turns out Gene Tunny had invited John and Jackie Kennedy for a visit. Turns out obstacles melted away when the president and his wife stopped by for lobster and conversation.

Question:

My daughter, Miss Adi Rule, posed this question to me through Facebook: What were your three best accomplishments of 2008? I kind of translated that to favorite moments, and one of mine is definitely performing "Bert and I" stories with some of the best storytellers in Maine – Bob Bryan, Kendall Morse, Tim Sample, John McDonald and Fred Dodge – at L.L. Bean in Freeport (a.ka., the mothership) earlier this month. I was in hog heaven listening to these guys tell the old stories with gusto.

During breaks Kendall and John and I hung out in the green room (an office in the secret parts of the mothership) and swapped even more stories. High hog heaven! The fellas treated me like one of the gang.  I’ll never forget it. See my pics below.

So what were the highlights of your 2008? Just wondering. Write them in the comments section below or send me an e-mail at [email protected]. I’m waiting to hear ...

Oh, and Merry Christmas.

From left, Fred Dodge (brother of the late, great Marshall Dodge),
 John McDonald, Bob Bryan, Tim Sample and me!

Me, John and Kendall Morse.

A lovely little library

Ray and Pat wrote to thank me for a donation of a book to the Osceola Library in Waterville Valley. They sent this picture of the little old library “located in the north end of the valley at the junction of Boulder Path Road and West Branch Road, and filled with books and some of Waterville’s history.”  The library is housed in what used to be the town's one-room schoolhouse. I’m pretty sure that copy of Live Free and Eat Pie will be happy in its new digs – pretty as a picture!

Who doesn't?

This handcut bumper sticker made me laugh. It was on a car in a parking lot in Concord.

Stuffed to the gills with stories

At the Common Man in Plymouth, Trout Unlimited held its monthly meeting and asked me to tell stories. Naturally I pulled all the old fish stories out of my creel. (Oh, and the lady telling stories in the bathrooms at the Common Man is not me – it’s Auntie Henrietta from Ashland – though, I must admit, she sounds a lot like me, as many have remarked.)

Those Unlimited folks – who do much good work with conservation, fishing instruction for young folks, and scholarships – were full of stories. Here’s a sampling. All true, of course. 

A Touching Story for the Season:
On a cold, snowy Christmas Eve, a woman driving through Penobscot County, Maine, took pity on a hitchhiker on a remote section of highway and gave her a ride. The hitchhiker was a polite person, full of compliments for her rescuer. “Nice car,” the hitchhiker said. Then, noticing a leather pocketbook: “Nice pocketbook.”  The driver thanked her kindly. The hitchhiker noticed a bottle of wine.  “Nice wine,” she said. 

“It’s a $500 bottle,” the driver said. “I got it for my husband.” 

“Good trade,” the hitchhiker said.

A Sad Tale for All Seasons:
“You know the bar called the Mug in Woodford?”

“I do.”

“It burned down.”

“Oh no!”

“Yup, left fifteen people homeless.”

Can You Stand One More?
Driving through blueberry country up Cherryfield, Maine, way, the trucker had to go real bad but there wasn’t much cover in the barrens. Finally, he spotted an outhouse in a field. He rushed over, and wouldn’t you know – it was occupied!  The occupant said, “Come on in, it’s a two-holer.”  So the trucker went on in and took a seat.

Business complete, he discovered there was no toilet paper.  “Any toilet paper on your side,” he asked his companion. 

“Nope. Not even a catalogue.” 

“Well,” said the trucker, “you got change for a five?”

Which Reminds Me of a Truly True Story:
My friend Medora said growing up in the logging camps, she lived in some pretty rough circumstances. Outhouses weren’t one- or two-holers, more like ten- or twelve-holers, to accommodate the crew. Nobody thought anything of climbing over knees to get to an available hole. In fact, she said,  outhouse time was about the only time we had to sit and visit.

True ice storm story

A friend of my daughter’s was more concerned about his fish than his own comfort during the dark days of no electricity for 450,000 New Hampshire homes. He rented a hotel room, got the fish all set up, then went home for one last check, to drain the water pipes, pick up his wife and kids, etc. Lo and behold, the power was back on at home. He was too tired to return to the hotel that night, so the fish spent the night alone there.

Which would have been fine if they hadn’t ordered room service and pay-for-view.

Riding out the ice storm

We got our electricity back last night after five days – what a relief!

It’s been pretty dark around the campsite. Have a generator, which John hooked up on Day 2 to run the refrigerator and furnace (though we never were cold with two wood stoves and a fireplace). Day 3 he hooked up the water so we could flush and take showers. Too bad the pump in the septic tank kept blowing circuits. The more we flushed, the fuller the tank got, until flushing came to an ignominious halt. Had to go to Manchester to get a special fat black wire to run the septic pump. Finally, yesterday, we had everything pretty well set, and that’s when the lights came back on.

Only one small casualty. We moved the birds (two parakeets and three cockatiels) up to my daughter’s apartment over the garage because it was warmest there. (Ordinarily we use electric heat to keep them toasty.) They were lonely, though, and freaked out by her four cats. One cat, Floyd, in particular, had a lean hungry look. Floyd’s deaf, so yelling at him made no impression. Come to think of it, yelling makes no impression on any of them. When John went to bring the cage back downstairs, it separated just a couple inches from its base and the blue parakeet, Fuzzball, got loose in the apartment. He flew. Cats leaped. John got a net, but the cats kept escaping. Finally he got a hold of Fuzzball ... by the tail. Now Fuzzball has no tail.

It’ll grow back.

We were lucky. The paper said some in Northwood might not get electrified until the end of the year.  Ain’t that a pissa?