Travels With Becky

Understandable Mistakes

Cleaning out my in-basket (yes, I do this every six months or so to see what lurks at the bottom), I found this note about a note about a dog license application.

My friend Cindy, a very funny woman, mailed in a Dog License Application to her town hall.  Listed on the form:  Her name, her dog’s name (Stanley), breed, phone number, rabies expiration date, etc.  She was to check one of several categories to determined the appropriate fee. 

Unaltered Male/Female Dog $9.00
Neutered/Spayed Dog $6.50
Senior Citizen (1st Dog Only) $2.00
Puppy (up to Seven Months)  $7.50.

Cindy checked Senior Citizen and added a note (13 years old).  Sent in her $2.00.

Michelle, at the town office, sent a note back:

Hi Cindy:
The Senior Citizen category is actually for the owner, not the pet.  :)  Next year your fee should be $6.50.

Who says everybody at town hall’s a stickler!

Speaking of understandable mistakes, Martha Rebello sent in this story called “Who’s Driving?”

One day I went to pick up my 12- and 9-year-old granddaughters to bring to our house overnight.  Usually my husband goes with me. Not this day.  After telling the girls to get their things into the car and locking up their house, I proceeded to come down the stairs , car keys in hand, and climb into the passanger seat.
After a few seconds, the girls said, “Grammie, you’re driving!”
Even though I requested that they not say a word to Grampy, the 9-year-old couldn’t wait to blurt out, “Guess what Grammie did.”

We all make understandable mistakes.  My daughter will happily tell you about the time I tried to make a  phone call with the TV remote -- or was it change the channel with the phone?  

Turns out you can take it with you

Helen in Jefferson (true story) was ticked off when the selectmen told her that, yes, she was getting the Boston Post Cane for being the oldest person in town.  But, no, she didn’t get to keep it forever.  When she died, it would be passed down to the next oldest person in town.

Helen said, “I’m taking it with me!”

Sure enough, relatives got the sad news some years later.  Helen’s house had burned and Helen had died in the fire.  As for the Boston Post Cane, Helen had, indeed, taken it with her.

And he smells too

Q:  Have you ever seen a porcupine in the wild?

A:  No, but my dog has.    

Tastes like chicken, revisited

True story told to me by the mother in question:

At the party, young Gregory enjoyed the chicken wings and told his friend, Luke, how tasty they were. “I know,” Luke said. “They’re real good. My mom urinated them all night.”

Never too late

Barbara broke the news of Tiger Woods’ indiscretions with women to her 93-year-old mother.  Yes, Mom, it’s true.  He’s been sleeping around.  Mom said:  “Did you give him my number?”  

The power of music

At the Coalition of Caring’s 4th Annual Caregivers Conference at the Grand Summit Hotel in Attitash, fiddler and guitarist Patrick Ross entertained us in grand style.  In the morning, he played background music to a breakfast buffet.  At lunch he was a strolling violinist, then took center stage to play a lively fiddle tune followed by Ave Maria.  Some of us were crying over Ave Maria. So beautiful.  To hear Patrick for yourself check his web site .  He’s special!

He told us a story, too.  When he was a little boy, he visited nursing homes with his dad and they played fiddle together, room by room.  One room, though, the nurse who was guiding them suggested they skip. “Why?” little Patrick asked.  The nurse explained that the woman inside was deaf.  Patrick insisted that they were supposed to play for everyone.  So in they went and played to the deaf woman in the wheel chair.  To everyone’s surprise, half way through the first song, the woman began tapping her feet, in perfect time to the beat.

Training ghouls

Jeanie told about her husband’s quest to train their springer spaniel.  When trick or treaters came, she offered to remove the dog to a back room, but Nooooo, her huband said, the dog has to learn.  So when they opened the door to three little ghouls, the spaniel sprung.  The husband commanded:  “Sit! Sit! Sit!”  And the three little ghouls sat.

That's some sled

At the New Hampshire Farm Museum in Milton (well worth a visit) I found a postcard depicting the famous Uncle Sam Sled, with this information:  “The Uncle Sam, built in 1894 in Farmington, NH, by the B.F. Perkins Carriage Factoy for Hervey Perle.  At 77 feet long, this was the longest sled in the world, carrying as many as 72 adults or over 100 children at 60 M.P.H. down Main street.  The prevalence of the automobile sent the sled into storage in 1922. It is now on display at the New Hampshire Farm Museum.”

Years ago, I heard tell of the sled while collecting stories in Wakefield,  and turned it into this small work of . . . fiction, but close to the truth.  

The Sled

Royal says:  “Did your grampa ever tell you about the most amazing object ever sighted in the town of Wakefield?”

Urban says:  “Don’t get going on them UFOs again, Royal. Alma’ll have you put away, you keep that up.”

Joey says: “Is it the gigantic pike you caught when you were little?”

Royal says no: “That’s the second most amazing thing. The first most amazing thing was Mr. Pearl’s sled, the biggest double-runner sled in the world and also the fastest because the more people you put on a sled, the faster it goes. You put one person on a sled going down a steep hill and it goes pretty fast. You put on two or three or four, it’s whizzing. You put on a hundred, you’re flying.”

Joey says:  “Grampa and I go really fast on my sled. Don’t we, Grampa?”

Ezra says:  “We get up a good head of steam on the hard-pack.”

Royal says: “You could put a hundred people or more on Mr. Pearl’s sled because it was 78 feet long. Loaded and with the snow just right, it could get going so fast that when the one in front screamed, the one in back never heard it. The sled was going faster than the scream. Now, that’s fast.”

Joey says: “I bet you were scared.”

Royal says:  “No. Hardly. Well, a little. The one steering had to pay right attention, that’s for sure. One time I got elected to steer and had a lapse. I guess I had a lapse, because the next thing I knew, instead of going down hill, we were sluicing up a knob—"

Joey says:  “Did you have an accident? Did the hundred people fall off?”

Royal says: “Thinking quick, I yelled, 'Lean back,' and everybody leaned back. It pulled up the nose of that sled so the knob acted kinda like a ski jump and the whole business went airborne.

“Started out in Union. Landed in Milton. And skidded almost into downtown Rochester before we brung the thing to a complete stop.

“Luckily, in those days, Joey, there wa’n’t much traffic.”

 

Sap stories

A couple more stories from Melissa Greenawalt-Yelle (thanks, Melissa!).

These are her favorites.

She writes:

Bob was talking about seasonal variation in sugaring and told me this story. Another tourist had stopped at  the saphouse early in the season to watch.  He asked Bob’s father, Clarence, why the sap was dark so early in the season, when that usually happened later in the season.  Clarence replied, without missing a beat: “It’s last year’s last run, comin’ first thing this year.”

“Old timers,” Bob remarked to me, “Have an answer for everything.”

And:

“We don’t throw anything away,” Bob said. “We save everything. Even the dust. Damn road agent. I asked him if he could dump a little extra sand next to the saphouse.  I guess he listened.”  

Keeping it literal

In October I visited the Flying Monkey (restaurant and renovated movie theater -- very cool) in downtown Plymouth.  There I met Melissa Greenawalit-Yelle, who kindly sent me some of her favorite Yankee stories.

Among them:

Yankees are precise in their language -- some might say literal.  Melissa writes, "I asked a farmer, Bob, in Campton how long he’d been sugaring.  He said, 'You’re asking how long I’ve been doing this? Or my family?  I’m the fifth generation, if that’s what you’re asking.'"

Bob recounted for Melissa the story of the couple from away who stopped at the sap house.  The woman asked:  “What are the cows for?”

Bob said:  “They’re field ornaments.  They just stand there.”

Bob’s take on proper terminology:  “Just don’t call it a sugar shack.  It’s not a sugar shack; it’s a saphouse.  When I hear sugar shack, I think of down Cuba.  Some guy called it a sugar shack, I give it to him two ways.”

Give it to him two ways -- there’s an expression for the next edition of Headin’ for the Rhubarb: A New Hampshire Dictionary (well, kinda).