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The Trip, What Could Go Wrong

Mt. Washington Steamboat

We were attempting, in part, to recover the joy and peace we had experienced during an earlier trip to Lake Winnipesauke in Laconia, New Hampshire. When we arrived at our destination after a four hour drive, we discovered – or rather my vigilant wife Andrée discovered, with a shriek -- “Oh no, Dublin’s dog bag is not here!”

 

She was, as usual, right. The bag containing Dublin’s food and other necessities for seven days was resting placidly on our dining room table in Vernon, Connecticut, awaiting transportation to Laconia.

 

“You’ll have to go back and get it.”

 

The going and coming took eight hours. Naturally, there were traffic delays owing to highway work that, as best I could tell, ended about 3:00 in the morning. I arrived back in Laconia at 4:00, the typical weary traveler. I felt as if I had just crossed the Sahara Desert on a tortoise. One of the worksites took a half hour to travel 0.2 miles to an exit, but when you find yourself in the company of so many patient travelers, you somehow feel less emotionally stranded.

 

The drive was instructive. Adversity is a great teacher, as the longsuffering Job realized. I discovered that the best way to stay alert during an eight hour drive – twelve when you factor in the in the four hour morning drive from Vernon to Laconia -- was to listen to jazz on the radio and engage in imaginary discussions with my alter-ego centering on politics. After so many hours on the road, even an effervescent Country and Western station will cause the eyelids to droop. But not jazz.

 

Political writing had always been forbidden on all our trips. A vacation is a vacating of the usual dreary routine in search of enlivening adventure, and so – I-Phones, computers, and the usual means of connecting with our sorry world were strictly forbidden. Andrée, however, did take along her tablet, in case an unexpected event required such communication.

 

Andrée -- who had in the past arranged separate mind-broadening trips to Paris, Nice, Rome, Florence, Sicily, Malta, London and other European hot spots – was disappointed that our return trip to Laconia had been soiled at its promising beginning.

 

I told her before dumping my wasted body into bed. “Don’t give it another thought. We’re in Laconia now. What could go wrong?

 

For two days, the television and WIFI worked perfectly. On the third day, we were greeted with the following message: “There is no connection.”

 

Andrée was disappointed. Prior to the trip, she had tuned in on her tablet to view “Reacher” – not the Tom Cruise Reacher, but the new muscle-bound Reacher, what’s-his-name? This was something of a marathon for her. She had read nearly all of the Reacher novels written by British author Jim Grant, who writes under the pseudonym of Lee Child. She did not like Tom Cruise’s Reacher because physically he did not meet the specs in the books she had read. And now, here in series 4 was Reacher in the flesh. She already had viewed a few episodes in the new series, and then -- poof! The horrid message we were seeing meant that even her tablet was incapacitated, and that meant frequent trips to McDonalds in Laconia to take advantage of their free Wi-Fi. Up to this time the only site we had visited was mass at a church we had located via WIFI in McDonalds.  All this time might better have been spent revisiting our past joys, one of which was a MS Mount Washington two and one half hour cruise on Lake Winnipesaukee, the largest lake in New Hampshire.

 

The boat, though not a paddle wheel, somehow reminded me of Mark Twain’s river fantasies. White caps churning the surface of a lake on a windy day invite fantasies.

 

I turned to Andrée mid-trip: “This boat has such an even keel. Look at the water flowing past. Does it not seem to you that the boat is stationary, while the water and the surrounding land mass are in motion?”

 

We were outside on deck and, as usual, Dublin – our Fidelco “Irish German Shepherd,” we told some passengers – was inducting into our pack the few people who had introduced themselves to him. Some passengers, discovering we were from Connecticut, confessed they too had lived in the state.

 

Andrée was impressed that the boat service had extended us a special privilege. We were first in line at the dock.

 

Finding ourselves at sea, cable communication-wise, we contacted the owners of our pristine accommodations, and their response was magnificent. They traveled hours from New York and spent a good part of an afternoon with us attempting to fix the problem. When an hour spent on the phone with a troubleshooter failed to resolve the problem, arrangements were made to meet with a technician who could settle any difficulties. The technician was to arrive in two days’ time.

 

The next day we visited Winnipesaukee’s Scenic Railroad.

 

“Hold on here, this is not like Mount Washington’s Cog Railway, I hope.”

 

“No,no,no,” Andrée said, remembering my curses and prayers as the Cog Railway, growling like a demon with iron jaws, edged up a deep ravine to the top of Mount Washington. “It’s just a scenic train trip in the Weirs Beach area on an old train.”

 

Andrée enjoyed the Cog Railway adventure because she has been legally blind from birth, and what little she sees is bathed vaguely in a soft reassuring halo. That saving halo enveloped all in London where we were able safely to negotiate a walk around the dome of St. Paul’s cathedral, not quite as exhilarating as the Cog Railway, but close.

 

“How old is the train?”

 

“Old enough to be your great-grandfather. You’ll see.”

 

We bought a first-class ticket because Dublin needs a bit of stretch-out room, and we did not want to disturb the passengers. Once again, we were first to board. We were met at the boarding ramp by the train’s conductor who told us, “You can be seated if you like in the caboose. No one has rented it today.”

 

The caboose was two cars at the beginning or end of the train, depending upon whether the train was beginning or ending its trip, and the conductor ran the train from the caboose.

 

He asked where we were from. Connecticut, we said.

 

“And you?”

 

“Manchester.”

 

Detecting a British accent, I remarked, “Manchester in Britain, not Connecticut.”

 

“That’s right, though I’m familiar with Connecticut. I moved from Britain to Manchester, New Hampshire. Some things you just can’t shake.”

 

“There is a New Britain and Manchester in Connecticut.”

 

Ever polite, he brought us soda and cookies and water for Dublin. One never forgets such kindness.

 

In search of Laconia’s library the next day, the right front tire on my car went flat, the result of an earlier pot-hole encounter. I called AAA. Someone would be there, I was told, in an hour and a half. A young girl, noticing the flat tire, approached us and asked how she might help. She gave us street information that we relayed to AAA. She liked dogs and, when employed, drove a large semi.

 

Dublin and Andrée were outside the car when we heard a man’s voice. He told us he had a German Shepard much larger than ours. I told him we were waiting for AAA.

 

“No need. I’ll get you out of here in a few minutes.”

 

He disappeared briefly, returned with a hydraulic jack and put the spare donut on. He saw the dog and the Connecticut license plate from his window, and there in the window of his house was his dog, a massive and stately German Shepard, watchful and statuesque. We canceled the AAA visit.

 

Our Good Samaritan lived in Connecticut for many years but moved to New Hampshire because, as the owner of a small business, the taxes were cutting into his assets, and “the regulations were insane. I felt I was lying uneasily in a casket every night.” I asked him whether everyone in New Hampshire was a Connecticut expat.

 

“There are lots of them.”

 

Blanche Dubois, the hapless lady in Tennessee Wiliams’ A Streetcar Named Desire, dependent always on the “kindness of strangers,” would have been tenderly treated in New Hampshire, where people are willing to give you their time and mercy.

 

A couple of days before we returned home, salvation arrived in the form of Reilly, the technician. I met him in the parking lot. He first words to me were, “This is going to be quick and easy.”

 

“Two of my favorite words,” I replied.

 

It was quick and easy for Reilly. Often in politics and journalism, we misuse the word “expert.” But the use of the word is proper in all technical matters, and Reilly was as good as his word.

 

“So, Reilly, what problem has been the most challenging for you lately?”

 

“Artificial Intelligence.”

 

The reader may be disappointed should I pronounce the trip a crashing -- pun intended – success. But so it was. As a cherry on the cake, the property owners allowed us a full week vacation, cost free, at any time of our choosing in the future – very generous of them. I told them both all these difficulties could be waved away because “They made it possible for Andrée and me to meet with both of you face to face for the first time. The husband was a retired engineer, the wife an accountant, still working.

 

“I just love numbers, always have.”

 

Both had overcome adversity in their lives, and the wife’s account of their courting under the watchful eyes of her mother was hilarious – very good people, initially from the Dominican Republic. Adversity had given them courage and – very important – persistence.

 

We arrived home safe and sound with our Dublin and our new tire, procured at Tire Warehouse, which boasts the largest collection of tires in New Hampshire.

 

It was the people we met and their unselfish kindness that made the trip a joy for us – and the many stories. People are larders full of delicious tales. Humans are story swapping creatures. And Americans are preeminently a problem-solving, persistent people. The ash heap of recent history is full of the bones of those of America’s enemies who have underestimated them. New Hampshire is alive with the ethos of quiet, inoffensive, just and merciful Americans.


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