Travels With Becky

In Alexandria, They Got Stories

In Alexandria, people speak reverently about Pearl Tucker, a woman known for telling the stories “you wouldn’t want to tell your mother.” Beverly Patton reminded me of a story I first heard in 2009, and had forgotten.  But it’s not forgotten in Alexandria.  Never forgotten. Goes like this: 

Pearl Tucker lived next door to Leo Corliss in Alexandria Village. They were good friends with wicked senses of humor.  One day Pearl asked Leo, who was handy, to take a look at her desk. One of the drawers was sticking shut.  Later that day, she was talking with a neighbor.  “That Leo Corliss,” she said with a twinkle, “he’s been fooling around with my drawers all day!”

Dewey told this story:

All the roads in Alexandria used to be gravel roads.  It was pretty common during partridge or deer season to spot game on the side of the road, roll down the window, and let fly.  Course, there’s laws against that now.  

One day in the freezing rain, a fella (who may or may not have been Dewey himself) spotted a big buck just off the road as he was driving up Hemp Hill.  He stopped, grabbed his gun with one hand, and went to roll the window down with the other, but it was frozen shut.

Dang!

“Did you finally get him?” I asked slyly.

“He was still standing there when I drove off.”

And finally, one more Beverly Patton story.  She said her grandmother had an aggressive rooster.  One day he spurred her for the last time.  Head’s off for that rooster.  Grandma said, “At least we can have him for Sunday dinner.”

But the rooster got the last cockadoodle do (metaphorically speaking).  He was so tough, she said, that “you couldn’t even cut the gravy.”

How Gorham got its name

Years ago Clyde Bonnyville had a ramshackle compound -- a cabin and a barn -- at the top of Cascade Hill on the Androscoggin River  some distance north of Mount Washington. He was a bootlegger and a sharp shooter and ornery besides.  

Though he made top notch liquor, no one in the unnamed territory south of Cascade could afford it.  They were humble, hard scrabble farmers.  It was the lumberjacks and the folks who run the lumber mills to the north who made up Clyde Bonnyville’s clientele.  

Come a big storm (today we’d call it a hurricane and give it a name like Herb) and the trees were tipping over and roofs were sailing around like what today we’d call frisbees. Clyde’s ramshackle barn, being up high like it was and exposed, lost all but its post and beam frame in a few ferocious gusts.  

From down below, after the worst of the storm had passed, the farmers, rounding up their scattered chickens, cows, and hosses best they could, spotted Clyde’s stash of barrels that had used to be inside the mostly blown away barn -- a pile of them lying on their barrel bellies and stacked in a pyramid.

Come a gust of wind and the barrel at the top of the pyramid seemed to roll a little bit.  Come another gust and the pyramid seemed to shift.  The farmers could hear more wind a-coming.  If one barrel rolled, they figured the whole bunch of them would come barreling down Cascade Hill and roll to a stop at their feet.  This, they thought, could be our lucky day.

Here comes the wind! 

The hopeful farmers break into a chant:  “Go rum!  Go rum!  Go rum!”

A Yard Stick Might Have Helped

Jeff needed a new, secondhand freeezer.  Saw an ad.  Called the fella.  Asked how many cubic feet the freezer was.  Fella said he didn’t know, but it was as tall as his refrigerator.  

That didn’t help Jeff much.  

Fella said he had shot a 1000 pound moose, dressed out at 850 pounds.  All the meat fit in fine.  That didn’t help Jeff much.  

Fella said:  “Could have fit a whole 'nother moose in there!”

Makes No Difference -- Not Really

Still watching the Red Sox during their final stand with the Yankees.  It ain’t easy, but we’re in the habit.  I love watching with my mother.  She gets “hoppin” as in “hoppin mad.”  Often at Bobby Valentine, who famously said, when asked why the Sox lose so often on the road, “What difference does it make!”  Which has become my new mantra:  “What difference does it make!”  Kinda puts things in perspective.

The other day as we were watching the Sox lose, again, Ma told about listening to the games on the radio with her father when she was a child.  She and Grampa Stewart would stay up late listening after the rest of the family went to bed.  (Grampa didn’t call the team the Red Sox; in my memory, he called them the Goddamredsox.)  

Ma said after a particularly close game, won in the end by a grand slam homer, she got so excited she shouted:  “Good ole Pesky.”  And woke the household.

Good ole Pesky.

So the Sox had a rough season.  What difference does it make?  They’ll be back.  And we’ll be listening.