Tugboat Annie

One early evening during our recent holiday on an island in Maine, Mr. P and I, with the children running ahead of us, took a stroll along what is known as "The Seabank." The Seabank has a long-held tradition (dating back to 1885) of allowing people, or fellow inmates of The Seabank, to walk through each other yards. In days of old, all the inmates The Seabank would put on their best frocks and suits and stroll The Seabank either in late afternoon or early evening, stopping off at each porch and exchanging the news of the day. When Mr. P and I were taking our walk it was clear that times had changed as we were not wearing our best frock and suit. More than that, one of the cottagers was trimming his rose hips instead of sitting on his porch enjoying the natural beauty and simplicity of life that is Maine. He stopped his trimming and greeted us. After exchanging pleasantries and discovering which cottage we were attached to, he looked at Mr. P, sighed and said, "Oh, I've only been here for 25 years." Mr. P placed a knowing hand on his shoulder and said, "Almost 20 years ago I learned not to say anything to anyone, ever, in this place because they're all related to each other." The man laughed and said, "So, do you want to share how you learned not to say anything to anyone?" Mr. P took a deep breath, and said, "My wife has to tell the first part of the story."

And so now I will.

It happened the first summer I lived in the middlewest, 1989. It was late June and I had flown to home to Connecticut for a wedding there of a summer boy from The Seabank. Then, I was heading up to Maine to stay through the the 4th of July holidays. I emerged from my plane at the Westchester airport expecting to see my mother with my sheepdog. But instead I saw him. Him was the guy that had caused me to move to the middlewest in the first place. Or, as he was more commonly known, the guy my grandmother wanted me to marry. As I knew his presence at the airport meant the fix was in from on high, I bore the situation as well as I could. I told him the name of a nearby bar to take me to. On the way to the bar, I talked of my excitement of the forthcoming wedding (he was not invited) and how I couldn't wait to get Maine. He said, "I can't wait to get to Maine either." I remember looking at him, with my eyes bugging out. "Oh, are you headed up to Maine too?" I asked gingerly. He smiled, (very warmly too), "Your grandmother has invited me to take you to Maine and stay while you're there." "She has?" I asked, not believing what I just had heard but totally believing what I had just heard. He smiled even more warmly, "Yes, she has." That's when I knew the fix from on high was in far deeper than I ever could have imagined.

Thankfully, we had arrived at the bar at that point and I could collect my thoughts. When we were comfortably seated inside he asked me what I wanted to drink. "Bourbon and diet coke." I responded. "Bourbon and diet coke? You want a bourbon and diet coke? Where on earth did you learn to drink something like that?" "Princeton." I answered. "You didn't go to Princeton." he said. "I know I didn't go to Princeton. But this poet I've met did. He learned to drink bourbon and coke when he was at Princeton." I said. "You know a poet from Princeton?" he queried. "Yes, I know a poet from Princeton." responding in such a tone that he didn't ask another question about the poet from Princeton.

The wedding of the summer boy was a beautiful one. Then, before I knew it I was in Maine with my grandmother, mother, and the guy my grandmother wanted me to marry. I can't recall much about that trip except that I thought way much more about the poet from Princeton than I ever imagined I would. He was just a friend back in Michigan but he had captured my imagination in a way no man ever had. Since he had very kindly offered to water my plants while I was gone, when my mother and I were out perusing antique shops, I had even bought him a first edition of Rudyard Kipling's Barrack-Room Ballads I had found on a dusty shelf for a present.

Back in those days, the 4th of July on The Seabank was always great fun. The smallest children put on a parade with clothes of very old including little boys donning black silk top hats. The would parade up and down the Seabank, waving flags. The older children had spent the better part of the previous days gathering great amounts of driftwood to build the bonfire down below on Pebbly Beach. Then the oldest children and the adults assembled it into an enormous bonfire. But before the bonfire were the fireworks. The fireworks were handled by the men.

My mother, the guy my grandmother wanted me to marry and I decided to stroll down along The Seabank before dusk on the 4th, stopping and chatting at each porch on our way to watch the fireworks. It was when we got close to where the fireworks were to be set off that I first I saw him. Him was a boy I had known when I was a little girl. It had been at least 12 years since we had been on the island at the same time together. And in those 12 years both of us had changed, alot. Depositing the guy my grandmother wanted my to marry with some of her friends, I made my way over to him. He remembered me. We very quickly caught up on the last 12 years. He had just inherited the family camp. Not a camp as in rustic getaway without indoor plumbing, but camp, as in a camp for boys that had been in the family since the turn of the century. He had left his job in the City and was running the camp. My curiousity was more than peaked.

"Are you running the camp by yourself or do you have a wife helping you?" I asked, getting right to the point.

"No. No wife, and no girlfriend. Just a dog." he answered, smiling.

"Oh, you just have a dog?" I asked, smiling back at him.

"Yes, she's right over there."

We went and played with the dog and talked some more until he was called to light the fireworks. He asked me if I had ever set off serious fireworks before. "Just bottle rockets." I answered. He gave me a quick lesson in lighting off serious fireworks and then allowed me to set some off. I noticed he never let go of me as I lit the fuse. I asked him if he didn't trust me. He said he was holding me for safety reasons. I took his concern as a promising development.

As the evening drew to a close, he asked who the guy was. That would be the guy my grandmother wanted me to marry. "Absolutely nobody. A friend of my grandmother's actually." I responded. He said "Good. How long are you up here for?" "I'm leaving in the morning" I said. "Are you coming back this summer?" he asked. "Yes, I'll be back in September for a week." "Great. Would you like to go out on a date in September?" "Yes, I would" I said, totally forgetting about the poet from Princeton. "It's a date then." he said. Then my mother and the guy who my grandmother wanted me to marry and I walked back to our cottage.

Before I knew it I was back in Michigan and found that none of my plants had died during my absence as the poet from Princeton had taken very good care of them. He and I were colleagues and one of the first things I did when I got to the office was to go to his and give him his present. He opened it and looked at it. He couldn't believe I had given him something like that for watering plants. I kept saying it was nothing really. I just thought he'd like it. He stood up and closed his office door. He sat down and looked at me. Then he told me he had missed me and that he wanted to take me out. I said "Sure." rather breezily. He said, "You don't understand. I really missed you. I want to take you out on a real date." "Oh?" I repsonded. Then after a few seconds I said "Really?" He said "Yes, really." "Oh, okay, but I'm moving back to the east coast in just a few months so just keep that in mind." "I will." he said.

The poet did keep it in mind. He decided to work quickly by sweeping me off my feet. Which he did. So by the time September rolled around he was sitting in the plane seat next to me flying to Maine to "pass the test". The test was, did he like Maine enough to spend his future summers there? Oh, and the test had a part 2, he had to meet the maternal side of my family to pass their sniff test. Unfortunately, because the poet had swept me off my feet, I had forgotten all about the date for Spetember I had already made with the guy with the boy's camp.

I remembered the date when I was walking down the main road of the island and the guy with the boy's camp zoomed past me in his car. He hit the brakes, did a u-turn, pulled his car over and hopped out. "Hey, you're here." he said greeting me warmly. "Yes I am." I said, just wanting to die right there on the spot. I wanted to die because the poet was walking about 30 feet behind me on the main road having a chat with one of my sisters. And I knew the poet had just witnessed the hitting of the brakes, the u-turn, and the hopping out of the car to meet me. If the guy with the boy's camp timed things right, the poet would be walking up right to us when the guy with the boy's camp was asking me out. So, I bought time by asking him how his first camping season went. It worked. The poet and my sister walked up just as he was wrapping up what sounded like a very good season. As the guy with the boy's camp knew my sister, I introduced him to the poet. That was when the guy with the camp made a mistake and I, let him make the mistake because I did not know what else to do. He thought the poet was my sister's boyfriend. Then, he started talking about the 4 of us doing something together sometime. The poet looked at me and I, well, I turned turned pink.

The guy with the camp was just on the verge of asking me out alone, the poet was glaring at me, and my sister was about to die of laughter, when thankfully, the situation was diffused by a passing car honking its horn at us. Since we knew who it was, we all waved. All of us that is, except the poet.

Now here is where the poet from Princeton who turned out to be Mr. P if you hadn't guessed it, took over the telling of the story for the guy who was trimming his rose hips on The Seabank a few weeks ago,

Mr. P said, "I looked at the driver of the car and I couldn't believe what I saw."

"Hey that was Tip O'Neill!" I said. "And it was met with great silence."

"She," he continued (while pointing at me), "said nothing. I looked at her. She was just frozen. So was her sister. I looked at them, threw my hands up and said, WHAAT?"

"Then the guy with the camp, the one that wanted to take her out (again pointing at me), gave me one of the coldest looks I've ever gotten and said very calmly, "That was my mother."

The man who had been trimming his rose hips on The Seabank asked Mr. P which woman it was that he had called Tip O'Neill. He told him. The two of them almost fell on the ground laughing.

(About 65 years ago, the summer kids gave the woman who Mr. P called Tip O'Neill the pet name of Tugboat Annie.)

Comments

[Old Dominion Tory]

Another excellent tale, Mr. and Mrs. Peperium.

[Andrew Cusack]

Brilliant.

[Nola Girl]

Mrs P, that's certainly a beautiful ring-shaped history.

[Father M.]

Hysterical!

[Mrs. Peperium]

Thank you everyone. One of my purposes on earth that I'm quite convinced of or so many of the things that happen would never happen is that I'm meant to amuse others...

Thankfully I married a man who enjoys being amused...even at his own expense....

[Nasty, Brutish and Short]

I love it!!! I go to a place in Michigan where we all walk through each other's front yards/beaches and I know precisely the "test" you describe. We have that too!

[Mrs. Peperium]

Michigan? I've only been up north 3 times but let's see if I can guess...

Ok, let's take what we know and see where it leads us...

Cinncinati + seersucker bathrobe for beachwear+ Swedenborgian/Episcopalian + Salem Witch Trials + conservative =

1. Point Au Barque's (sp?)

2. Charlevoix (Chicago Club)

3. Harbor Springs

4. Saugatuck

[Nasty, Brutish and Short]

Am I supposed to provide the answer? It is none of the above, thus far. You'll never guess, there's only 40 or so cottages, everyone is from Cincinnati (or was originally), and we all really try to keep the place on the dl.

I will say it's hilarious that you put that parenthetical after Charlevoix, Mrs. P. It implies so much, yet says so little.

[Mrs. Peperium]

Well, I'm no expert on northern Michigan. I'm not even familiar with it. Mr. P went to high school up near Traverse City at Interlochen, but his sense of direction is terrible. Since Michigan has the 3rd largest amount of coastline in the U.S., you could be just about anywhere and I'm sure wherever you are is quite nice. One last question, if you would please humor me, are you on a little lake or one of the big (ie; Great) lakes?

[Nasty, Brutish and Short]

We're on Lake Michigan. We're on a harbor off a bay. And pretty darn close to Interlochen.

Is Mr. P musical? I had no idea Interlochen had a high school, I though it was just a summer camp for gifted musicians (not to be confused with band camp, proles). I had an Aunt and Uncle in Northport (teachers at Cranbrook), and Interlochen public radio was so important to them.

[Christine]

Mr. P--that is too much. I assume the man with the camp was sufficiently turned off to forget about the date with Mrs. P.

Mrs. P--I visited Northern Michigan once with a friend. We stayed in her cottage on Walloon Lake, and made trips to Charlevoix and Petoskey. Lovely area.

[Mrs. Peperium]

Christine, I did think Mr. P was going to repsond to you but he must not have seen your question, so I will.

Mr. P ruined my chances with the guy with the boy's camp so much he had to do a make good by marrying me.

Northern Michigan is beautiful. Very much like Maine, just not the smell of the salt in the air and Mr. P's idea of affixing scotch tape dipped in table salt under my nose didn't quite pass the muster. Had I not been a confirmed Mainiac, we would have easily, and happily, spent all of our vacations up there.