Unhappy holidays

It has come to my attention that, at a certain hobby store in Auburn, there are two – count them, TWO – aisles crammed full of Christmas ornaments and related holiday bling. Closer to the front of the store, I’m told, you will find the Halloween decor. Halloween! In June! So, I guess that’s it. Summer’s over. I was planning to go to Old Orchard Beach this weekend, but that would be just silly. I’ll go Christmas caroling instead. Expect me in your neighborhood around dinner time and God help you if you don’t have hot apple cider.

Did you know?

In our latest round of this popular game, which isn’t actually a real thing, we ask you this: Did you know that there’s a difference between a turnpike, an interstate and a freeway? I kid you not. Apparently it comes down to where the road goes, whether or not there is a fee for using it and a few other things which I’ve completely forgotten. This is all news to me. I always thought turnpikes and highways and freeways and interstates were just different terms for the same thing. Back in my day, we just called all of those roads ‘The Pike.’ Speed limit was 55, you had to collect a punch card at the toll booths, and if you were hungry, you either paid nine dollars for a day-old cheeseburger from Howard Johnson or you starved to death. Good times.

Auburn’s Court Street plan may cause traffic snarls

Gee, ya think? Along that stretch, one bad pot hole can cause a traffic jam that last three days. Full on construction there might just rip a hole in the fabric of spacetime.

Spacetime

Screw you, spell check, it is SO a word.

Spellcheck?

One word, or two? Ah, who cares.

Low rider

Some of you may be familiar with the low wave. When motorcyclists get to greeting one another on the open road, they do it slow, they do it low and they do it as cool as milk chilling in the ice box. Some of them, anyway. Earlier in the week, along Route 196 in Lisbon, I saw the most enthusiastic motorcycle wave ever committed by a man on two wheels. Instead of laconically dropping his lower arm below the level of his seat, this fellow raised his hand up high like it was math class and he had an answer for the teacher. He shook his arm back and forth with such vigor, I became genuinely afraid that he was going to fall off his ride. The dude looked like one of those arm-flailing inflatables outside a car dealership during a big sale and he was smiling so broadly, he nearly ripped the fabric of his helmet strap. Ah, the first day on a new motorcycle. There is nothing in the world quite like it.