The Urge to be Someplace Else

I’m a sucker for modest looking motels that sit up on a hill and have nice overhangs.

And I’m a sucker for pink flamingos.

What happens when you put all those flamingos in a row and add a swing and a rocking chair on a front porch?

The American Inn in Camden, Alabama, sucked me right in, as these photos illustrate.

So be good, folks.  He’s out there keeping an eye on you.

My pool service emails me a photo of the sparkling water at the completion of each weekly visit.

Look who they caught in the shot!

Spotted in Natchez, Mississippi.

My backyard Florida pals were out to greet me my first week back in the warmth for the winter. 

These unlikely partners, a limpkin and an iguana, were on opposite sides of the chain link fence running along the waterfront.

And just off the dock, this pair of Muscovy ducks put on a lengthy display of aquatic sexual acrobatics.

And all this was closely watched at times by a pair of Egyptian geese who’d been sleeping on the dock.

A recent note from a stranger has dredged up some pleasant memories from 22 years ago and solved a mystery to boot!

To set the scene, let’s harken back to Sept. 6, 2003.  I was happily paddling through a really sweet spot on my solo canoe trip down the Mississippi River.  It was that section between southwestern Wisconsin and the northeastern bit of Iowa, a stretch replete with great river towns to stop at and savor.

There were great midwestern breakfasts, ribeye steak dinners with all the fixings, and yes, cold frosty beers, scattered all along the banks.   How could I not take advantage of all that?

In the previous few days I had already stopped at LaCrosse and Victory, in Wisconsin, and just the day before I’d stopped for breakfast in Genoa, Wisconsin, and a late afternoon beer in Gordon’s Landing, also in Wisconsin.  It was a tough life, but someone had to do it.

On September 6, still in the sweet spot, I stopped for a pleasant late breakfast in Lansing, Iowa.  Back in the boat and barely a mile and a half downstream, I encountered the next Iowa town, McGregor.  I wasn’t planning to stop, but the huge, covered veranda and open docks at the town marina beckoned mightily.

Here’s where the plot to this bolt out of the blue tale starts unfolding. 

As I walked onto the veranda and wound through the tables, a woman shouted out to me.  Her name was Mary Kay and she recognized me from the story about my trip in the La Crosse Tribune.  This was back in those quaint olden times when newspapers were still mostly printed and maintained robust regional circulations.

Mary Kay and her brother and sister were in town with their spouses on a family reunion and were more than happy to greet a grizzled river traveler.  They had seen me pull up to the marina in my fully-laden canoe and they knew I was the real thing. I was just happy for the instant friends.

We had a great visit and while we were there a cabin cruiser pulled up to the dock. We noticed that the manager and a small entourage from the marina were right there to greet the middle-aged couple that disembarked and escort them inside.  Mary Kay buttonholed our waiter and quickly learned that a celebrity had arrived.

The “celebrity” was no one any of us recognized and none of the wait staff knew who it was.   But Mary Kay persevered, and she wrote me months later that our mystery boater was Lawrence Ferlinghetti, the San Francisco poet and a major figure in the Beat Generation.

As the co-founder and owner of City Lights Bookstore and Publishing in San Francisco, Ferlinghetti published many of the Beat authors. An acclaimed writer, and artist himself, he died in 2021 just before his 102^nd birthday.

After I got Mary Kay’s note, I did a bit of research but never confirmed that he was the celebrity we saw and for decades never even thought much more of it.

Until the bolt from the blue. 

Just this week a gentleman named Nolan Rosencrans dropped this comment on my website account of my visit to McGregor:

“I came across this while researching a 2003 copy of Quimby’s Cruising Guide owned by Lawrence Ferlinghetti. He did, in fact, do a voyage down the Mississippi River in 2003 and took detailed notes throughout. Per his notes, he was in McGregor on Sept. 6, so your information was almost certainly correct that the celebrity in town was Lawrence Ferlinghetti. Thought you would be interested in getting belated confirmation.”

Quimby’s, for the uninitiated, is a printed guidebook used by folks who cruise the Mississippi in large boats, cabin cruisers and the like.  It is updated annually and lists marinas, boat repair shops, restaurants, hotels and other attractions along the way.  It also has lots of space to take notes as one travels along.  I in fact had, and often referred to, a years’-old edition that was given to me by some boater friends I met at a marina in Burlington, Iowa.

For someone to actually have Ferlinghetti’s 2003 edition of Quimby’s and then to see my little entry in my river trip and drop me a note is coincidental beyond belief.  I’ve asked Nolan for the story of how he came to have this book and if he gets back to me I’ll let you know.

Now all I have to do is figure out how to get back in touch with Mary Kate and give her the news that her sleuthing so many years ago produced the truth!

I noticed today that a reader of one of my blog posts came to me because he or she had clicked on a link in an article on the website of The Cambridge Historical Commission called Practical Patents: 19^th Century Cambridge.

So I went there and scrolled through the whole thing and there at the bottom was a list called Sources.  And by golly there I am in the following citation:

“Here’s Howe we got the sewing machine, the spring bed and a better bridge.”  https://ronhaines.org/2015/09/01/heres-howe-we-got-the-sewing-machine-the-spring-bed-and-a-better-bridge/.

Makes me feel almost erudite, or something.  Like magic, my words have become something someone else cites. Perhaps I am a sourcerer. And yes, it’s the first time, so I thought a little bragging was in order.

I hit a nice sweet spot this weekend in Connecticut. 

It all came together on a relaxing paddle on the Salmon River down in Moodus, just a few miles above where it meets the Connecticut River at Haddam.

It was sweet for several reasons.

For one thing, the weather cooperated.  That’s something that hasn’t happened very often during this year’s northeast paddling season.  So far, I think I have cancelled more paddling events than I attended.

Secondly, the venue is delightful.  There is very little open water, which I find boring. Instead there were lots of narrow bits and overhanging trees that provided a lot of shade on the warm clear day we had. And there are two tributaries, the Moodus River and Pine Brook, to explore a bit.  My favorite part is always the narrow passage upstream to the dam just beyond the Route 151 bridge at Leesville.  Even the launch area is pleasant, nestled along the river in the quiet, undeveloped Sunrise State Park, the site of a former resort. It’s a totally relaxing, leisurely trip of about seven miles.

Among the dozen of us who gathered for this there were plenty of friendly, familiar faces.  The icing on the cake for me was that there were a few treasured ones that I was seeing for the first time this season.  That gives you an idea how tough it’s been getting a decent paddle event off the ground this year.  Here it is August and there are paddle friends I’m just now seeing.  Usually I’ve touched base with nearly everyone within a month of being here.

And all of the dribble above was an excuse to post some photos.  Enjoy them.

All it takes is a couple quick trips from Connecticut to New Hampshire and a 10-day jaunt to Wisconsin and bingo, another 5,000 miles on the car. 

Time for another oil change, tire rotation and alignment check, the latter especially important after all those potholes on Chicago streets.

New Hampshire Part 1: July 4

My July 4 tradition continued with a visit to Contoocook, home of sister-in-law Ginni Haines, for the small-town holiday festivities.  The kids’ parade kicked off as usual, but neither my granddaughters nor any offspring of brother Rick’s family were involved, so I did not take any photos.  Go here to see the collection from other years.

Instead of the longish but pleasant trek to downtown for the kids’ event, we only needed to make it to the end of Ginni’s driveway and set up some chairs to watch the adult parade roll by.  I confess I took the car; that’s a lot of chairs to carry. Here we all are, mostly the Houston clan, waiting for the parade:

Lead by a policeman on an ATV and the band-on-a-trailer, without the usual tarp shading them on this coolish day, it trooped on by and the tossed candy rained down on the spectators.  There were the usual old cars and fire engines, but missing this year were representatives of a few civic associations. 

A notable entry were the tractors from Pine Lane Farm, which is celebrating its 94^th year.  That’s the dairy farm operated by the Houstons, Ginni’s family.

New Hampshire Part 2: Ogontz Resort near Lyman

A couple weeks later I was back in New Hampshire at the Ogontz White Mountain Suzuki Institute music camp.  Daughter Jennifer and company do a week up there and recently I have been dropping by the last day or so and combining that with a visit with my paddling friend Leslie, who lives in nearby Bethlehem. And of course I always go along with the Fords for the stop at Chutters on the way home Saturday afternoon.

This year I got to meet just about everyone in Leslie’s family he’s talked about since we’ve known each other.  It was nice to put faces, and start friendships, with folks I’d only heard about. 

The music photos, including Ryan (bass), Margeaux (violin) and Simone (cello) are below. Go here to see the photos of the Ogontz Resort from 2023.

Leslie and I went canoeing with a friend, Debbie, on a quiet stretch of the Connecticut River.  I can say canoeing instead of the generic “paddling,” because both Leslie and Debbie, instead of their kayaks of the past, now own brand new Hornbeck canoes, the same model as mine only shorter.  And, as you can see from the photos below, they are much shinier than mine, which is now ten years old and looking its age.

On to Wisconsin

This was a trek to look at some sites related to the Amberg family, ie, wife Sue and brother-in-law Michael.  Michael’s wife, Kim, also came along.  They flew up from Florida and Sue and I drove over from Connecticut and picked them up at Midway in Chicago. We proceeded to leisurely explore three Wisconsin towns: Amberg (founded by great grandfather William A. Amberg), Baraboo (where young Sue and Michael vacationed with family) and Mineral Point (to poke around a house that’s been in a wing of the family for years).

I made no attempt to document this family history and ended up with only these photos from the trip, of this nicely kept former gas station in Spring Green that is now an opal gallery.    You can go here to see my entire collection of recycled gas stations.

After many days of cold and rain this month the sun finally came out and the temps hit 70 and I boldly ventured out on my first paddle this season in the northeast.  Years ago I gave up trying to paddle here in April.  This year even May has been dicey.

I went to my favorite place, the Swift River near Belchertown, MA.  As I have said before, it doesn’t disappoint. The yard art is still on display, the trout were biting, and the always cold water set up some condensation on the inside of my canoe because the sun was bright and heating things up.

Enjoy the photos.  To see my previous visits to this place, start here.

For decades I have received a Mother’s Day telephone call from a fellow late-60s Peace Corps Ethiopia volunteer.

“Ding-a-ling you Mother,” was the greeting from Jim Gregory when I picked up the phone every second Sunday in the month of May.

I won’t get any more calls from Ato Jim (we used the Ethiopian honorifics when addressing each other).  His long battle with cancer ended April 27. He is survived by wife Suzanne and their daughter, Membere Gregory, who they adopted from Ethiopia as an infant.

Jim’s Mother’s Day greeting was a very loose modification of an Ethiopia word for “hello.” He had started using it among close friends almost from day one in the country.  And it wasn’t because he couldn’t handle the language.  Compared to me he was practically fluent.  It was just Jim having some fun.

The actual word is pronounced roughly Ten-ASS-ta-ling, and starts with an explosive T that we don’t even use in English.  Jim grabbed the ing sound and went from there, obviously. 

At some point after our return to the US, Jim started calling several of us every Mother’s day.

It was his way of staying in touch and the greeting had a nice ring to it, drawing me, and I suspect the other recipients also, right back to those fascinating, frustrating and constantly interesting days in the kingdom of Haile Salassie.  We’d get to not only catch up to what he was doing, but he also filled us in on each other.

I was never privy to his entire list of callees, but I know that among them were Bob Hazlett, a good friend to this day; Mimi Hanson Logan, who we lost to cancer several years ago; Frank Zahour, who was fun to travel with internationally because he was the spitting image of Omar Shariff, and Mike Roddy, who I envied because he lived in one of those great circular tukuls in Emdibir, a small village in the Gurage region. Here’s a photo of one of them, taken by Charlie Ipcar.

When I started living in Connecticut in the summers a decade or so ago, it became tradition for Sue and I to meet up with Ato Jim, who lived on Long Island; Wayzero Mimi, who lived in coastal Clinton, CT, and occasionally Ato Bob, who came up from DC, at the Lalibela restaurant in New Haven for a leisurely buffet lunch.  Daughter Jennifer and family, Mimi’s husband and daughter and the spouses of Jim and Bob were usually in attendance as well.

For any former Ethiopia volunteers reading this, I believe Charlie Sutton still plays jazz every Saturday night at the Lalibela.  Charlie was a couple of years ahead of me in his service in Ethiopia and had become a member of Orchestra Ethiopia.  He and the Peace Corps helped the Orchestra arrange a US tour in 1969 and in March of that year they appeared on the Ed Sullivan show. Below is a photo of Charlie with the orchestra.

Ato Jim was stationed in Dilla, a full day’s bus ride south of Addis Ababa, the capitol.  I was stationed in Addis. Feeling guilty about living in a place with plumbing and 24-hour electricity, I made it a point to get out into the boondocks to visit my friends from training who were living in far flung places.  Ato Bob was in Sheno, only a few hours from Addis, so I went out there several times.  Mimi was in Hosanna, which required a plane trip or a day-long bus ride and a day-long mule ride, because there was no road all the way to the village.  I visited her once. I took the plane out and she and I came back to Addis via the mule and the bus. My butt hurt after that trip.

Here are some grabs from movies I took back then.

Ato Jim, way out in Dila, a day away on a dusty uncomfortable bus, also got just one visit from me.  He was a trooper I have to say.  Gastro-intestinal issues were nearly constant, and the teaching assignment was tough, but he stuck it out for a year. He learned the language well, made a lot of friends in town and kept his sense of humor intact.

I visited him over a Western holiday, Christmas I think, and we’d been invited to dinner by an American missionary family living in a nearby village. We both had visions of a great meal, maybe not traditional turkey and all the fixings, but something fabulous, compared to our normal fare.

The main course was lentil soup, followed by chocolate pudding for dessert! Jim and I could not look each other in the eye over dinner!

Below are a couple movie grabs from when I visited him in Dilla. We had hiked a ways out of town with a few of his students. Note the roll of toilet paper in his hand! I could not fathom having to be armed with toilet paper every waking minute, but that’s what he was going through.

I remember Jim’s battle with the Peace Corps office to get stationed in Addis Ababa his second year.  As he retold it, they actually advised hm to just shut up and go back to Dilla or they’d send him home and let the draft take him.  He recounted laughing and pointing out that if they took a look at his file they’d see he only had sight in one eye (a childhood thing as I recall) and was hardly Army-bait.  They relented and he ended up at a high school in Addis his second year, much happier.   Mimi also got herself reassigned to Addis her second year.

Jim was one of the good ones and I will miss knowing he’s on the planet, his yearly ding-a-ling and the good times we had sharing memories on the too seldom occasions we saw each other. 

Here he is in a 1967 movie grab and recently.