Quechee (I s'pose you might look it up)

“On that long drive outta' town I s'pose there was only one thing that poor bastard Devlin was thinkin', and I don't s'pose he was wantin' to think very much of it, if truth be known. Earlier in the day he prob'ly wanted to just pull that old Crown Vic over on the side of the road and have himself a good long cry, but as it was he just kept driving until he found himself a Tim Horton's in Portland. Look at that, will you, that kind of rhymes. Horton's in Portland.

Well anyhow he just kept driving that big old Crown Vic down the road and long on before he ever got to Portland he picked himself up a hitchhiker who looked none too dangerous – just a thin, watery lookin' man who walked like he had a club foot and whose face was set off by a big ol' mole o'er his right eye. Damned thing had a tuft o' black hairs growin' right out of the center, too. Wicked filthy, it looked. The whole of the club-footed, mole-faced hitchhiker looked a good bit wicked filthy, in fact. Didn't matter no how, as Devlin picked him up anyway and told him he was headed to Portland for business or some such lie.

Devlin thought he was gonna' take 89 down to Manchester and then across to catch 95 to take it on up to Portland, but he decided right around Lebanon to just keep goin' east, and the next thing you know he was stoppin' for gas just outside of Meredith. That club-footed hitchhiker got out to stretch his legs a bit while Devlin filled up the tank. Bastard of a man that he was, he went and got himself a coffee and never thought to ask the hitchhiker if he wanted anything. I think it's only the right and decent thing to do when you got a club-footed, mole-faced hitchhiker in your car...you really should offer a coffee to the poor guy, don't you think? Anyhow, Devlin never thought to do that, no how, and he just went and got himself a coffee with an extra cream thrown in, seein' as how he didn't get any real lunch that day, outside of a hahd'-boiled egg.

When he stepped out of that gas station convenience store, sippin' that coffee with the extra cream, I tell you, old Devlin, he got the scare of his life. There was that club-footed fool leanin' up against the Crown Vic, smokin' a cigarette while the fellah' next to him was gassin' up. Good God but Devlin turned pale. He rushed at the hitchhiker and hit him like a professional tackle, I tell you. Knocked that fool for a loop and popped what he thought was a cigarette right out of his mouth. He gave that club-footed, mole-faced fool the thrashin' of his life. 'Beat him near half dead, and the gas station attendant had to come out and pull old Devlin offa' him. The hitchhiker was bloody, all right. It looked as though Devlin had broken his nose and popped out a right couple of the poor bastard's teeth. Devlin had just gotten' to takin out his frustrations of that lousy day on the poor cripple, and before anyone could call the cops, Devlin was back in the Crown Vic, spillin' coffee all over himself and speeding on down the road, this time not stoppin' till he made that Tim Horton's I was tellin' you about.

He sat there and tried to eat a cruller, but it was no use. That damned cruller just kept getting' caught in his throat and the coffee didn't do any good about washin' it down. He cried, all right. Cried more about the stick of chewing gum he had realized aftah' it was too late that the club-footed, mole-faced hitchhiker was puttin' into his mouth and poor Devlin thought was a smoke. Damn fool. Damn fool bastard. I guess sometimes you end up cryin' over things you don't expect to be cryin' about.

Chantilly Truck Stop

Such a mad, mad dash I did just take across part of this beautiful country – these beautifully united States of America. So open and so dry-looking were the fields of Indiana, along with the crazy congestion of her largest city. So open, once again were the roads across Ohio, though they empty out on her eastern border into a land of excitement and promise and rolling hills that presage something more to come. West Virginia – once across her panhandle, once right up her entire length...what a place. My friend Ernie who grew up there just laughed and said “almost heaven” right after I said “West Virginia.” The two seem to go together ever since that John Denver song. He was right. Those ancient hills and seams of coal and smoky little hollows are almost on another plane of existence.

Virgina, Virginia, Virginia. The Old Dominion. When you drive through her in the early morning hours, you can see why Lee and his boys fought so hard to keep out an invading foreign army. She is sweet and lovely, like a beautiful southern belle at a cotillion, and any red-blooded American man would want to fight to defend her honor against any indignity. That long stripe of Interstate 81 running along her western backbone is nearer to heaven, perhaps, than West Virginia, although Virginia cries deeper, harder tears than West Virginia ever dreamed.

And there, deep below the tail of the Old Dominion, I found a small hillock in North Carolina, nestled within foggy, foggy mountains that reached up and up and up. There I paused and breathed in the fresh North Carolina air. I felt the cool raindrops on my face. I smelled the woodsmoke on the breeze. An elderly lady in a tiny thrift store told me “we don't get verruh mannuh visituhs from youah pahts 'round heah.” I am sure she was right. I felt ashamed, a little bit. I stood there in my chinos, tweed jacket and sweater vest, and I could almost feel a black Hardee hat sitting on my head. I am sure she never noticed.

The coffee was horrible all the way throughout the journey, and I was reminded once again that the American diner is getting harder and harder to find. McDonald's and BK have just about driven out the quaint little places called “EAT” as well as the ones called “GOOD FOOD” that used to litter the landscape. America is changing. America has changed. But if you look hard enough, she is still there, in her foggy mornings, her Blue Ridge Mountains, her Appalachians, her Shenandoah Valley. She sleeps quietly in a tiny holler' where wood smoke wafts out of that little shack and the coffee is just now beginning to perk.

Almost heaven.

But Everything Tastes Like Chicken

On Tuesday I sat down in the dentist's chair, and suddenly I was at a monastery in upstate New York. Strange as that may be, there is occasionally a wool sweater than takes me from wherever I might be to a concourse waiting area at Orly airport in Paris.  Bam. Just like that.  And every now and again I step out of my office and I am stepping out of the Cherry Court Hotel near Victoria Station in London.  Whammo.

Smells.

Amazing, aren't they?  There is a type of low-lying ground cover that, when it is run over with a mower, will transport my wife from wherever she is back to her grandmother's house.  The smell of chlorine takes me back, of course, to high school and the pool that I loved so much.  My friend John has the opposite reaction to chlorine:  the smell of it can produce a panic attack as it sends him right back to swimming lessons during grammar school - bad memories of some sort rush to the surface and make him sweat, get all cotton-mouthed and start coughing.

I guess we start associating smells as soon as we notice them, and if the emotions or whatnot are strong enough at the time, something sticks. I am obviously not a student of cognitive science or anything close, as you can tell from that description, but I do know this - scent is powerful...

***

Mike Stencil was about 23 years old when he smelled the burning flesh.  "Sweet," he thought to himself.  Sweet like a sugary, caramel-ly, sweety meaty stench that nearly made him retch.  Not sweet as in "a sweet deal."  You know what I mean.

Gasoline and human flesh and hair and vinyl seats and a windy day made for a roaring conflagration.  The smoke pouring out from the auto accident carried with it that unmistakable fragrance, and Mike paused to say a Hail Mary.  "God," he thought to himself.  And that was all this young guy who would one day be a priest could think at that moment, "God."

The smoke seemed a lot thicker than smoke he was used to seeing from barbecues and campfires and it was a lot thicker and sweeter than the smoke that would pour from the incinerator that Mike would have to use to burn rubbish for his boss at the shoe store.  Mike didn't know about that smoke yet, though...the shoe store would be ten years off in the future. Today's smoke was thick and dense and sweet as any smoke he'd ever smelled.  "...now and at the hour of our death. Amen," concluded Mike, as he sent the Ave wafting heavenward.  "God," he repeated in the confines of his thoughts.

It would be just a few months later that Mike would be driving down a country highway in the middle of a beautiful autumn, paying no real attention to what he was doing and loads of attention to the fall colors.  As he raced down a long sloping hill, he gave no thought to the oncoming eighteen-wheeler in the distance, and so he was taken quite by surprise at its presence as he skidded into its lane in the low right-hand curve at the bottom of the hill.  Wet leaves and loose gravel aided his car in its slide and Mike in his loss of control. "God..." was all he could get out as he faced the oncoming truck, now wildly blowing its horn.

A fortunately-placed dry patch of road that was free of gravel and leaves grabbed Mike's front left tire, and he shot back into his lane, missing the truck by what seemed like feet but were likely yards.  He coasted to a stop and sat in the driver's seat, shaking and panting, noting an unfamiliar loose feeling in his bowels.  He rolled down the window and took in some air...praying that his heart wasn't going to come pounding right up through his throat.  As he breathed in the cool autumn air he noticed he was being watched by a man on the front lawn of a beautiful farm house.  The man was burning leaves and looking at Mike.  The smoke from the leaf pile was on the breeze and it wafted in through Mike's open window.

"Sweet..."

A Flat Tire and Texting Idiots

Slowing my car to a stop, I heaved a heavy sigh.  There was some kind of dragging on the front passenger tire, and I was convinced it was just a big impacted chunk of snow.  A few kicks later and a downward glance, and I realized it was a flat tire.  Uggh.  So here I am just scant minutes later, sitting in the waiting room of "the car place," typing away and realizing how glad I am that there is a complete absence of texting idiots in my immediate vicinity.  I think you all know what I mean.  Texting idiots, you know who you are.  Or sadly, perhaps you do not.

I'll give you an idea of what I am talking about.  I went to my favorite barber shop just the other day for a haircut, and as I sat in the barber's chair, a mother and her son came in and sat down to wait his turn.  The mother immediately whipped out her touch-screen phone of some sort and started shooting off texts and playing around with apps of some sort.  The kid was in the same boat - he sat there with a glazed look over his beady little eyes, texting away with both thumbs, nearly drooling through his mouth-breathing little...well, mouth.

I don't think the two of them ever spoke as they sat there.  I don't know - perhaps I am being too critical, as they could have been texting each other.  I highly doubt that, though.  I have these vague memories of actually speaking with my parents when I was young, and I am absolutely certain we never ignored one another while glued to our cell phones - we had no cell phones at that time.  What a boring, deprived existence we suffered through back then...no cell phones, no texting ability, only the ability to talk and build one-on-one, genuine relationships.  How did we ever do it?

I wax sarcastic, of course.  I happen to think that we are, indeed, turning into a nation of texting idiots - a nation full of people who have almost forgotten how to communicate face to face, and are becoming increasingly isolated and lonely.  Calling us a bunch of texting idiots is a little harsh, as we really are much more sad, tragic and lamentable than we are "idiots".  I have only bit of advice for us as individuals, though...I think it is the only thing we can do to reverse course and return to lives of genuine communication and fulfilling relationships:

Stop texting.