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Published: August 30th 2009
Ah - Summer 2009 in Maine - the Summer of Wonder! It’s hard to believe that 2 ½ months went by so quickly and that we’re about to get back on the road again. We had such wonderful times with visits from friends, visits to friends, lazy days by the lake and the fireplace…depending on the weather. It was a summer of making memories:
*Being together as a family for the whole time was the best part of the summer - we laughed, we teased, we loved each other, we read, we swam and canoed, we went to silly movies, and we just treasured this time together. It was the longest period of time we had all spent together in about 10 years since Lauren went away to Hotchkiss…and of course, we all wondered if we would make it together! And yes we did…and Lauren didn’t even have a curfew this time. One of the highlights of each morning was watching her roll out of bed to get to work, complaining “Well, someone has to go to work in this family” and both of us chiming in “…and we’re really glad it’s you!”
*After having our daughter with us
the next best thing was having our summer golden retriever, Harley. Thanks to our friends Vickie and Terry who generously share their 14 year old golden with us, we had the joy of watching him splash in the lake, retrieve sticks, bury his bone and give us his loving lean. Of course, it’s pretty nice for Harley to have a summer vacation also, but I think we’re the big winners in the end.
*And lest you think that was the only animal we had this summer let me assure you it was not…this was the summer of the bat! As only Lauren can tell it, one evening we made the acquaintance of a lonesome bat…not to be confused with a lonesome dove…which resulted in all four of us - Steve, Anne Marie, Lauren and Harley, all sleeping together in our bedroom since Lauren was not about to sleep in the loft with the bat! The next day we had the “Bat Guy” come visit, who filled us with tales of horror about bats and told us it would cost $2,000 to bat proof the house. He then mentioned that if the bat was still in the house that it
Steve grilling on the Fourth of July
If you don't like the weather in Maine, wait 15 minutes.would likely fly about the same time this evening. So that evening, fortified by several rounds of gin and tonic, Steve and Terry braved Lauren’s loft, armed with a fishing net and tennis racket, to beard the little rascal in its den…all accompanied by loud rock music - after all, if you’re going on a bat hunt, it better be fun! Sadly, the flying menace did not make an appearance…and after a conversation with our downhome Maine friends in which we learned a lot more about bats…did you know some people build bat houses because they like having them around?...we plugged up some openings…and nary a bat was to be found for the remainder of the summer…and hopefully any remaining ones will freeze to death this winter.
*Since this was our first full summer in Maine we discovered that there were things that we had been willing to put up with when we were only there for a couple of weeks didn’t work on a full time basis. The first upgrade was to the harvest gold refrigerator that came with the cabin 12 years ago and that we had had on death watch ever since…5 minutes in Lowe’s and
Going batty
Steve and Terry on the infamous G&T fueled bat hunt. we were the proud owners of a new white one.. The new dock, getting all the burners on the stove to work, the gorgeous new loon bed lamp (replacing the flashlights we used to wear on our heads to read in bed!!!), planting the window box…all helped contribute to a wonderful summer. The upgrades continue for next year with a new shower and floating dock.
*We decided that if we could say we had a great summer even with the weather in June and July it must have been truly great. I haven’t seen so much rain and cool weather in years in Maine - I lived in my jeans, turtlenecks and fleece. One of my favorite images is Steve out grilling dinner on the Fourth of July in his jeans, fleece, yellow sailing slicker and hat - we were determined that Mother Nature wouldn’t ruin our Independence Day celebration. We were such wimps we closed the big summer windows for many days and stoked up the fireplace - thanks to Evan who chopped lots of firewood at the start of the summer. Of course, during those few dog days of August I was remembering the nice cooler weather
fondly!
*Lots of friends and relations visiting - at last count we counted up 23 different people, some of whom graced us with their presence multiple times! Our visitors came from near and far - England to California - some returning, some first-timers. One of my favorite times is when a new visitor joins us for coffee and homemade blueberry muffins on the dock for breakfast on a brilliantly sunny morning the first time - just the way life in Maine should be!
*Some of the memories we made this summer…
-hearing John Williams conduct his own Star Wars music with the Boston Pops at Tanglewood, after a gorgeous picnic and evening preconcert of Richard Rogers music, thanks to the friendship and generosity of our friends Hank Maiman and Liz Baer
-seeing Roosevelt’s summer home on Campobello Island in Canada, and moseying around Down East for a couple days, discovering the best smoked salmon and meeting the guy who smokes it himself, seeing the incredible sunset over the Bay of Fundy in Lubec, celebrated with a great chianti on the deck of our motel, Ray’s Mustards, the last stone ground mustard mill in the US, the
Burnham Tavern in Machias with the sweet little old DAR lady who said “Sure, go ahead and handle anything here”…such as the Revolutionary war muskets and drum - that’s the way museums should be…
-wine on the beach in Orient, on the north fork of Long Island, with Tony and Jane Asch, at the end of a perfect day, only made better by the lobster and steamers that evening
-renewing our 35 year marriage vows in a canoe in the lily pod pond on Echo Lake with Lauren chiming in as the minister
-enjoying the 90the anniversary of Camp Winnebago with lots of friends…after all, that’s where it all started
-visiting old friends in Westchester and reconnecting after many years, in particular lunch with Steve’s first boss Mac Seligman
-blueberries, blueberries and more blueberries…picking six quarts at Steep Hill Farm and then making jam - I spent such a happy morning in the kitchen channeling my mother and grandmother - if my jam is half as good as theirs, we’ll love it.
-lobster, lobster and more lobster, followed by steamers, fried clams, fresh corn - and finished off with the ubiquitous Mrs. Drake’s pie
- figuring out the digital divide in rural Maine…which included nocturnal visits to sit outside the Fayette Library mooching off their wi-fi, Steve triumphing with online bill paying, Anne Marie spending mornings with the friendly staff at the Fayette Library getting in her online fix…and helping catalog books as a thank you…and finally figuring out how to tether our Blackberrys at the cabin so we weren’t tethered to the library.
-surviving a tv free summer…although we tried to make it otherwise,. Remember that digital divide I mentioned earlier? Well, even Direct TV couldn’t find a place to put a dish, and no, even with an aerial all we got was one snowy PBS channel. So the cool flat screen tv went back to Best Buy and as Steve said, he felt like he saved a lot of money!
-sailing on a schooner in Penobscot Bay off Camden, on a glittering clear day, with a cool breeze - life doesn’t get much better than that
-game night at the Groetzinger’s on Flying Pond - old friends from Cleveland who just bought a cabin near us - I haven’t laughed that long and hard with a houseful of
sixty somethings and twenty somethings - they were amazed at the 60’s trivia we all knew
-Steve fishing, fishing, fishing..although the fish in Echo Lake don't have much to worry about....except the night he came back claiming to have caught the big one!
-the meeting of Bobbie and Batesie - and who are they you ask - well of course, the two family Subaru Foresters - happily enjoying the summer together on the shores of Echo Lake
-finding out that the Mt. Vernon store has the Sunday New York Times…and that the Old Post Office Café next door has a fabulous breakfast
-Lauren getting to celebrate her birthday at the Weathervane bar for the fifth consecutive year - guess she’ll never really grow up, thank heavens!
-celebrating the engagement of Mike Metzger and Meghan Getz - he’s the son of our close friends Lou and Peg Metzger and one of Lauren’s best friends - she refers to him as her brother - and Meghan is one of Lauren’s good friends from Bates…and she was responsible for linking them up last summer….and on to the wedding next Memorial Day in DC - Lauren’s first time as
a bridesmaid
-visiting the Sabbathday Lake Shaker colony, the last remaining colony with active Shakers - all three of them - a beautiful, bucolic place; buildings with the original paint from the 1700’s, a new appreciation of the inventiveness of the Shakers, but, as Steve said, their recruiting mechanism left something to be desired…
-watching Lauren figure out how to get everything she will need for a year abroad into two very large bags - one a backpack that towers over her and the other one that you need a mule team to haul - glad we’re not the ones meeting her in Salzburg - as she said, she hopes the headmaster doesn’t bring a SmartCar to the station to meet her!
What a wonderful summer for all of us…and now back on the road for Part 2 of our road trip.
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Liz Gibson
non-member comment
Thinking of You
Anne Marie, I've been thinking about you the last week or so and figuring that it was about time to be hearing from you again. Am glad for that. You've been missed out here. Your summer truly does sound fantastic and very different from any one you could have out this way. Not that there aren't really nice summers out here, but they certainly are different from the joys you described. I look forward to your descriptions on the way back out here and hope to have coffee - and maybe a Bichon walk - shortly after you return. All is "well enough" out here, even with the usual political and fiscal crazies. Liz