Travels With Becky

So Maybe We Weren’t That Different After All

In Seabrook this week, I remembered a story I’d heard last time I was in Seabrook, two years ago.  A woman recalled growing up in South Seabrook and how, at the time, South Seabrookers tended not to mix with North Seabrookers.

In fact, her mother warned her not to consort with those snotty people from the North.  “They talk fancy.  They say glaass and arse and go get a baarsket of apples.”  But then, the woman recalled, “Mother would call me in for a baahth.”

Live from Fenway Park!

(When I make return visits to towns, I look up my old set list to see what stories I told last time. This would be more useful if I actually stuck to my set lists -- I often deviate, but at least the old list gives me some idea.)

Revisiting Seabrook.  Last visited on Valentine’s Day in 2008 and on the list found a story I’d almost forgotten.  Years ago -- when I was a kid in the 1950s -- a little boy got a great surprise.  His grandfather was taking him to his first real live Red Sox game in Boston at Fenway Park.   The little boy was very excited and surprised, when they found their seats in the bleachers.  “Grampa,” he said, “it’s in color!”

How many fingers?

Bob the retired psychotherapist told this story:

The boy was 7 going on 15 and in therapy because of a rough family situation.  During their session, the boy announced, “I’m never gonna get married.  My mother was married and my father was mean to her.”  Then he said to Bob, “Have you ever been married?”

Bob held up his left hand, spread his fingers and pointed to his wedding ring.  The boy was shocked:  “You’ve been married FIVE times?!”

 

Brrrr

After our Humor and Harmony extravaganza at the Masonic Hall in beautiful downtown Northwood, a woman who’d heard my story about Woofy’s First Words told about a child who was slow to speak. 

At three years old, little Bob never spoke. But each day he waited at the window and watched for his father to come home.  On a particularly cold and blustery day, he saw his father coming up the path and said his first words, to Mother (true story):  “The icicles on his beard are a little longer today.”

Now that’s an observation worth making.

 

Humor and Harmony

Humor and Harmony at the Masonic Hall in Northwood was great, good fun.  Cordwood (Bob & Winni Young, Walt Kutylowski, Al Prat) played their wonderful blue-grass music.  I told stories.  The heckling from the full house was good natured and kept us laughing for more than two hours.

And, at $5 a ticket, folks got their money’s worth (pretty sure) and the friends of the library raised some money for books and so forth.

Here we are on stage in front of the vintage advertising screen, which is in remarkably good condition considering its age.  Though I’ve performed and attended performances at the Masonic Hall many times, this is the first time I’ve seen the screen rolled down.  It’s a treasure.

Thanks to Kevin and Terry Madison for the pictures.











 

Cranberries?

I often tell a story, originally told to me by Peter Brown of Exeter, about the ponds visible off 101 as you drive from Manchester toward the seacoast.

If you look off to the right, you see a series of these small ponds, square ponds. Septage lagoons. Driving by, Peter was surprised to see an SUV with Massachusetts plates parked by the road, and a yellow inflatable raft on the shore of one of the lagoons.  Nearby he spotted two men in full camouflage holding shotguns.  Duck hunters.

“Duck hunters?”  

“Yup,” Peter said.  “Duck hunters.”  He added:  “I felt awful sorry for that retriever.”

Recently I told the story and a man seemed surprised.  He said, “You mean those ponds with platforms off 101 as you head toward Maine"

Yes, I said.  You could go to Maine that way.

“We used to travel that road on the way to vacation,” he said. “I always told my kids they were cranberry bogs.”

 

What's up, Bobby?

Margaret told a true story of little Bobby who never spoke a word the whole year in kindergarten -- not one word in 180 days.  His teachers were, naturally, concerned.  So they sent him for testing.  In the testing room, he said:  “Am I going to first grade?”

He was.

Denise, who grew up in northern Maine, told the story of how her brother Richard Peloquin gained the respect of his much cooler high school peers.  At his 40th class reunion, Mike O’Neil, the coolest kid in Key Club, reminded Richard of the time he drove a group of them from the high school all the way to downtown Boston (a place none of them had ever been before) for a field trip.

  All those years later, Mike was still impressed.  “Richard,” he said, “you were just 17 years old, a kid from the Maine woods, and you got us to downtown Boston without a hitch.  How’d you do it?” Richard said, “I used a map.”

 

Showing off the antlers

Had a great visit with residents and visitors to Nichols Village in Groveland, Massachusetts.  Brought my antler which was a good thing because many people had never touched one before. They asked me what the antler was made of and I didn’t know for sure.  Hair maybe like a rhino tusk.  Someone suggested cartilage.  But Wikipedia says bone, so that must be right.  They certainly feel bony.

The moose discussion led to an old Scottish saying -- one that was new to me.  “There’s a moose aboot the hoose.”

I like it!

One lady -- demonstrating the ability to laugh at herself (highly recommended) -- told this story.

She prefaced it by saying her sight was diminishing.  But she still enjoyed visiting museums and had recently taken a trip to the Concord Museum.  As she walked through, she couldn’t read the labels on the objects, but others read them for her.

In the room of furniture from the 1700s and 1800s, she marveled at a bow-shaped chest.  She ran her hands over the wood and could feel the intricate workmanship.  “Would you read that sign for me?” she asked a man sitting nearby.  He said, “Sure.” And read it:  DO NOT TOUCH.

Oopsie.

 

Let 'em eat cake!

I had so much fun at the Connecticut Storytelling Festival -- hope they ask me back next year!  Antonio Rocha -- mime and teller -- was the headliner.  He told a story of his trip to Africa that gave us all chills, though the day was warm!

I told a story about the fellow at the church supper who selected a piece of his wife’s apple pie from the pie table.  His granddaughter said, “Grampa, why do you always pick Grammie’s pie, when there are all those other pies to choose from.”  He said, “Cause I want something decent to eat.”

The story fell flat as a pancake without baking soda.  Must have been my inflection, but it did inspire this story from a listener (so all was not lost).

Mrs. Eisenberg sent her husband to school with a chocolate cake for the PTA bake sale.  At the table, he asked the volunteer how much the cake would sell for when the sale started that afternoon.  “Two-fifty,” she said. 

So he paid her and took the cake back home.

Guess he, too, wanted something decent to eat.

 

Just keeping busy

Grandpa told this story.

As a boy he was anxious to get a job and earn some pocket money.  So he gathered his courage and approached the owner of the hardware store in town.

The owner said, “I’d like to give you a job, son, but there’s not enough work in the store to keep another person busy.” Grandpa said:  “It don’t take much to keep me busy.”