Category: Personal Journey

Getting fit with Eastport’s hot ladies

~ Jnana Hodson ~ Leave a comment

There I was complaining about not being able to continue swimming laps since Covid curtailed everything, especially followed by my relocation from Dover and its wonderful indoor pool. I certainly wasn’t getting in any regular exercise routine once I moved up here, and one month of yoga down by the waterfront did impress me with just how much this body’s deteriorated from 50 years of neglect. Geeze, how humbling!

I’ve never been one to pursue a solo fitness regime.

But then, when some enlightened souls opened the high school gym for walkers in the early morning, I stepped up, apologies for the pun, but it was something and definitely not at the mall, not that we have anything like that anywhere around. Well, I have posted some photos of Shead High’s gym. Maybe I was getting into shape for some summer hiking?

In the process, I met some interesting folks, all women – guys my age rarely seem to recognize how out of shape they’ve become, apart from maybe weight lifting – and the suggestion kept arising that I should try the twice-a-week fitness sessions at the, uh, senior center. (I really hate that term and definitely prefer to call it the Old Firehouse.)

Most of the time, though, once I started attending, I was the only male in the circle. What a revelation! Yes, I remember ages ago when I would have killed for such odds in my favor, yet these days I’m definitely married. (Got mine!) But still, you wouldn’t believe what I hear. It could be a highly rated TV series, if we could find a focus. Oh, well. As they say, laughter is the best medicine.

The hour-long class is definitely well planned, a blend of stretches, isometrics, cardios, and the like. It can challenge the beginner and adept equally well.

Nonetheless, when the temperature approaches 60 or so, indoors or out, they insist on opening the windows. Claim it’s too hot.

I am, on the other hand, still freezing.

 

Were they or weren’t they friends?

~ Jnana Hodson ~ Leave a comment

Back in my undergrad days, I was hired by a retired jazz musician or some such insider to gleam through microfilm copies of the Indiana Daily Student and other sources as research for a bio or history book he was writing in New York.

The project opened my eyes to a wide range of 1920s’ history revolving around Bloomington, especially the legendary cornet player Bix Biederbecke and the Hoosier native Hoagy Carmichael. Yes, the place was a jazz hothouse, hard as that might be to believe.

I wish I still had carbon copies of my correspondence on that effort, but I do remember learning of a hitchhiking trip to a Harvard-Indiana University football game that Carmichael shared with Ernie Pyle, editor-in-chief of the Indiana Daily Student.

Seems it took them three weeks or maybe six to get back to campus from Massachusetts.

It’s a great story, no question, kind of pre-hippie, in this case two future celebrities back before they became famous.

The only problem, I’m not finding any corroboration online. Worse yet, I’m not sure how much Pyle and Carmichael’s timelines overlap. Besides, they were members of different fraternities, lessening the likelihood of a joint spree.

The game happened in October 1927, the same time Carmichael was making the premiere recording “Star Dust” in Richmond, Indiana. Pyle, meanwhile, was likely employed by either the New York Post or Evening World and had married. Some of his details get fuzzy.

I don’t remember who the writer was or whether his book ever came out.

By the way, IU lost, in a 26-6 rout.

Any number of things can happen with the color

~ Jnana Hodson ~ Leave a comment
Golden perfection.

As you likely know, trying to record the changing colors is a challenge. Does your camera ever get the hues and shades to match what you’re seeing? Or is it usually either too cool or too garish? How about those of you who are instead using watercolors, oils, pastels, or acrylic?

One spoiler for a photo, as I’ve found the hard way, is utility lines along most roadways. They’re the prime culprit among a host of other distractions your eyes don’t catch but the lenses do. This year, I was on guard and enjoyed the color in those stretches without stopping to take a shot.

Since most of Maine’s forests is evergreen, I scoped out stretches of deciduous trees free of those intrusions before the color change and kept checking in weekly, at minimum. In my case, the core of the route was an unpaved lane in the Baring district of the Moosehorn National Wildlife Refuge, as well as the country roads getting there.

There’s no way of predicting how things will develop. Drought, blight, storms can take a toll.

But we know what will follow. Boy, do we.

Here’s a look at how it all unfolds here.

It is an invitation to kayak.
Round Pond.
How swiftly it passes.
Even when half of the leaves have already fallen, there’s more to come.
Loud geese take flight. Quaking aspen and birches give the forest a dominant range of yellows.
By midmonth, the palette is turning somber.

And if you want to see what I experienced in New Hampshire, go to my Chicken Farmer blog, where I’ve also posted in-depth reflections on the soul of New England itself. The posts and slideshows appear in the New England Spirit category from August through October 2013.

 

It doesn’t always have to be spectacular

~ Jnana Hodson ~ 2 Comments
A fringe of intense red in swampy ground is often a vanguard of the changing foliage.

Let me be honest and admit that the most amazing fall foliage I’ve seen was in 1970 in the Susquehanna Valley of New York and neighboring Pennsylvania. I’m not sure how it would stack up today, if I had a way of reviving the actual color, but the experience was unlike any before or since.

I was fresh out of college – free of being cooped up on campus and indoors. I had my own wheels and a job that had me free by midafternoon, when the angular sunlight was kicking in. And the local forests blended the species of New England with those of the middle Appalachians. What I had known before was Ohio and Indiana, without the big foothills that propped the forests up before my eyes like giant canvases or, from the crests, arrayed them below me like vast quilts punctuated with villages and farm fields and meadows.

I suspect another major factor was a killing frost by late September, which would intensify the color and make, officially, Indian summer. With global warming, that frost has been delaying until all of the leaves have fallen.

All the same, living in New England for nearly half of my life now, I recognize how profoundly the autumn change strikes the region. My in-depth reflections and accompanying photos from New Hampshire are found in the archives of my Chicken Farmer blog. Do go there, if you can. The posts and slideshows appear in the New England Spirit category from August through October 2013.

What I’m now encountering is Coastal Downeast Maine, with its own variations. The forest is largely evergreen, which of course stays green. But it does provide a solid background for the deciduous trees as they change.

Having written that, I encounter an early morning drive across stretches where everything is perfect. The foliage is prime, a full range of the palette, nothing holding back. The temperature’s still chill, so maybe they’ve already had that hard frost up here. Better yet, the sunlight’s brilliant buttery and straight-on, rather than overhead, illuminating the leaves from the side facing me.

It reminds me of other “oh, wow!” epiphanies in northern New England that no doubt would equal or even surpass the year further south that set the standard.

So here’s a taste of how it happens around here.

The trees don’t all change color at the same time.
Evergreens do provide a strong background.
A few dramatic splashes.
It’s not always the panoramic view that counts.
On the other hand, when you’re faced with this at a bend in the road, how can you not be awed?

The glory of the wizardry of a skilled short-order cook

~ Jnana Hodson ~ Leave a comment

Trying to get only three items to the dinner table at the same time had me thinking of this the other day.

It wasn’t like I had eight or nine tables awaiting some miracle, this was only me. The mathematical probabilities became rather staggering.

Quite humbly, it’s something every household more or less expects at least once a day, and it’s much more demanding than most of us assume.

My wife, bless her, is a wizard at this, as are our daughters.

But now, back to the rest of the universe.

This is one more case of where timing is everything.

It had me recalling my first visit to New Hampshire, where my traveling companion and I had to await breakfast on a one-order-at-a-time prepared by an amateur.

Next time you venture out to eat, please remember this.

There may be no excuse for much of the overpriced mediocrity that emerges after you ordered, but please, please, be aware of the skill when things do come together seemingly as expected. And do react appropriately, when the check comes.

Making out like pirates, weather permitting

~ Jnana Hodson ~ 1 Comment

Considering that all but one member of my Hodgson family crossing the Atlantic in 1710 was decimated by French privateers, I find nothing romantic about pirates.

Even with legal sanction, as privateers were, they remained thieves and brutes of the seas. Well, though, there were apparently a number of unwritten understandings. Or else someone walks the plank. Or, in our case, died of maltreatment.

That said, one of Eastport’s two biggest events of the year comes the weekend after Labor Day, when everyone celebrates the city’s Pirate Festival. Yes, those black flags with the white skull and crossbones fly everywhere, even on seagoing fishing boats and the passenger ferry. And many folks dress the part to the hilt, even with what sometimes looks like a kilt. Some of the costumes are quite exquisite in their detailing, while others are pretty loose, like the guy in Hawaiian shirt and a pirate vest and hat.

It really does start to feel like a step back in time.

For the record, the port was once abuzz with smuggling to and from neighboring Canada.

History aside, I can’t complain about the special events and its welcome crowd that extend the summer season, even if I had thought it would mean I’d have to keep my mouth closed.

The big small-town parade includes a raft of family ATVs decked out for the occasion.
And an ambulance with its own sense of gallows humor.
And my own favorite, a float with a Jamaican steel drum band.

What we have is essentially a seafaring blast, with people strolling the street in period garb and canes. Some of them cross over into steampunk, which also fits the later steamship period, I suppose, and I do love watching for the anachronisms, like the cell phones and plastic water bottles in hand.

There’s plenty of up-to-snuff music-making, street dances, magicians and Punch-and-Judy presentations, a barrel relay race, even cutlass instruction for children armed with foam noodles.

Of special note are the flaming dance performances by Ravenbane’s Firecraft and the Saturday night fireworks at the Fish Pier.
There are decorations everywhere.

It’s like trick-or-treat nearly two months early, and the decorations can stay up till Halloween. I’ve been surprised at the light-hearted air of the celebration, one without the demonic undertow of Salem, Massachusetts, approaching November.

I do appreciate the appearance of parrots on some costumes, so much so I keep calling this our Parrot Festival.

As a footnote, last year’s attendance was curbed by the Canadian border closures due to Covid. Community here extends on both sides of the international boundary.

Just what is it about pirates that captures people’s imagination?