Downtown, today, is thick with tourists rolling along Main Street. Some lope, some amble, some with children, some with dogs. Some carry bags filled with local booty. Some are returning from the Pine Tree Frosty with ice cream melting down their hands. Some are wandering in no great hurry the way a committed vacationer should. Me, I am ensconced in the corner of my front stoop beside where the recently closed Forks in the Air is located. I hear some of the conversations as they pass. “We should find some shade and a cold beer…What lake is that on the other side…Maybe we should take the kids to the water…My husband better not find out.”
All manner of vehicles are on the road this July afternoon. There are the standard autos wearing kayaks as hats, and pick-up trucks pulling boats and ATVs flying flags and rumbling motorcycles blasting music. Motorhomes mosey along carrying bikes on their rears. Moto-bikes brap by with riders helmeted for what appears to be Armageddon. The spa is a happening hot spot. Restaurants are overflowing. Gift shops can’t sell stuffed moose and t-shirts quickly enough. Ecopelagicon (even Google can’t pronounce it correctly) is like the Tinder of Nature, connecting people with watercrafts and sending them out onto Haley Pond. A common theme among businesses this summer seems to be the shortage of employees combined with a surplus of customers. There are worse things, I suppose. Cash registers are ringing like pinball machines. Flocks of angels are getting their wings.
There’s a nice breeze today, an actual zephyr. After a few days of wet weather the grass and leaves are emerald green and the sky the kind of blue that summer memories are made beneath. People are sticking their heads through the holes in the photo stand-ins and taking pictures and laughing. Sonja Johnson, Lily Webber, and their students made these years ago to liven things up in front of local establishments. It was quite the scandal when the F.B.I. discovered Lily’s and Sonja’s nefarious scheme to take over people’s hearts. And then there’s the #1 background for the greatest number of pictures taken in Rangeley, “Doc” Grant’s, halfway between the North Pole and the equator.
There’s something satisfying about living in the same place people visit when they want to get away from where they live. The service industry is the lifeblood of Rangeley. Depending on which way the wind blows, I can smell the food from Sarge’s, Parkside, and The Red Onion from the stoop. Vacation food. Gastrointestinal indulgences. Throw caution to the wind. What’s a few extra calories? Live for the day. And don’t feel guilty. There will be plenty of time for the elliptical when you get home. As my father was fond of saying, “They’ll make a healthy corpse some day.”
Like most people I am an ambivert, able to dig myself when alone and the company of others when I’m not. Students, both past and present, stop at the stoop and share a word with me. This gives me such a blast. Sierra Rose, Class of 2011, just visited the stoop, and she is married and pregnant, expecting next week. Recent graduate Anna Champagne caught me up on the goings-on in her life and what’s next. Happy 19th birthday to her. Everyone’s friends, Kelsey and Sam Meehan, visited for five minutes. Kelsey is expecting a Capricorn in January. The Lalibertes cruised by with kind words and friendly smiles. They are so easy to love.
Gradually, evening descends and the flood of people diminishes to a trickle. Auto traffic becomes almost solely local cruisers driving back and forth from the overlook to the cemetery’s mini-loop. The waxing moon hangs over the Baptist Church’s lovely steeple topped by a weather vane. “The summer wind came blowin’ in from across the lake.” The sky reddens as the sun disappears beneath the western horizon. It was the quintessential summer day fully satisfying my aching id. I am on vacation, halfway between the North Pole and the equator, and I didn’t have to leave home to get there.
I do want to know, though, if her husband ever found out.
Tim Straub on the stoop and graciously allowing a snapshot from the annoying lady from the press.
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