Typical Day on the Road

September 2005

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Sept. 1

Returned to the library in Medford, Mass. to do the show that was cancelled a week ago due to the power outage. To our relief, we had an excellent turnout tonight. At first, only about a dozen people were in the audience, but they kept trickling in and trickling in until we finally had a packed house.

Medford was the home of Amelia Earhart - actually one of two towns we've performed in that claim that distinction, the other being somewhere in Kansas ( Atchison? Hutchison?) So the room where we performed has an exhibit of memorabilia relating to her life: letters, photographs, medals, and even - for some unexplained reason - an empty tomato juice can.

Sept. 2

Joined our friends from New Hampshire at Bear Brook Park for Harpers Retreat, the annual Labor Day Weekend event mounted by the Society for Creative Anachronism (SCA). This is our third (and probably last) year to attend, and we've written about it before. (See September 2004 and September 2003)

Sept. 3

Stepping back in time a few centuries at Bear Brook with the SCA. Zephyr is having a great time with friends he hasn't seen since last year.

Sept. 4

Still at Harpers Retreat. Zephyr tried out "dueling" with heavily padded body and weapons, with some of the other kids. he'd never done it before, so it was a bit awkward at first, but within a couple of hours, he was holding his own with the best of them.

Kimberly, as in the two previous years, had a go at archery.

Sept. 5

Labor Day. We left Bear Brook and headed to the home of one of Zephyr's friends who lives nearby. Zephyr and some other kids staged a horror movie marathon they'd been planning for some time - complete with root beer, of course, as any event staged by Zephyr must be.

Sept. 6

Spent one more day with our friends in Hampstead before heading south.

Sept. 7

Worcester, Mass. Saw something we rarely see, fortunately: an automobile in flames. It was parked in the middle of the street, and we don't know what caused it to catch afire, but there were no occupants to be seen, and the fire department was on hand. When we pulled up, there were just a few flames emerging from under the hood, but within a few seconds, the entire front end was blazing.

Sept. 8

Worcester, Mass. Stocked up at Trader Joe's, since we won't be seeing another one for a week or so.

Sept 9

Hartford, Connecticut. Actually, we began the day in the nearby town of Andover, where we passed by the Nathan Hale homestead on the way to a school (where we'd also performed two years ago) to present two assemblies. Then we headed to downtown Hartford for something we (and especially Zephyr) had been looking forward to for months: a concert by the rock group Green Day.

Like us, Green Day originated in the San Francisco Bay Area (and they started performing professionally at just about the same time we did) so we've been hearing about them for years, but really discovered their music only after our teenage son became obsessed with it. It was a very happy discovery: while their sound can be a bit raucous at times (they're officially classified as a punk band, although we don't agree with that designation at all), the three-man group (supplemented by several other musicians) has produced a number of memorable songs with infectious melodies and rather intelligent lyrics with a social conscience. Their song " Holiday" is, we say, one of the all-time great pop songs, right up there with "Stairway to Heaven". And a number of their other songs (e.g., "Wake Me Up When September Ends") are also destined to be classics.

We found a parking lot very close to the stadium, although the price was $10, which ended up being $20 for us, since we pull a trailer. Saw a man selling souvenir T-shirts in the lot for only $10, and of course Zephyr just had to have one. Also saw some people from a local radio station handing out free earplugs - a great idea!

Our tickets were for obstructed vision seating - the best we could get - which means that we were almost behind the stage, but were quite close to the performers, and considering how much they moved around (and even played to us on occasion) we really had an excellent view.

The opening act was Jimmy Eat World, another fine band, whose songs were more familiar to us than we'd realized. And then at last, Green Day took the stage, and took it to rather dizzying heights. The show was punctuated by pyrotechnics and other special effects (aren't they all these days), but such razzmatazz never overshadowed the songs themselves, as delivered with gusto by lead singer Billy Joe Armstrong, who declared that he was enjoying "the best tour of my life". On one number, he was accompanied by volunteers from the audience filling in for the regular musicians; the 16-year-old boy who played lead guitar was quite capable, and when the song was over, Armstrong told him he could take the guitar home with him!

After the regular set, there were the obligatory encores, four in all. The last was probably their biggest hit ever, or at least the song that catapulted them to stardom: "Good Riddance", better known as "The Time Of Your Life". Ironically, the song was written about breaking up, but as the lyrics are not overly specific on that point, it subsequently has been sung at weddings and reunions - thanks to the TV show "Seinfeld", which used it in the final episode, turning it into an overnight smash.

Evidently, Armstrong is quite at peace with the reverse interpretation this song has been given. It was with the utmost sincerity that he sang "I hope you had the time of your life." Thanks, we did indeed.

Sept. 10

Still in the Hartford area. we've been shocked by the news we've been hearing from Louisiana and Mississippi, but there are bright spots in it as well. we've learned that former Vice President Al Gore secretly chartered two planes at his own expense (total cost $100,000) to evacuate victims of Hurricane Katrina. And then he refused to talk about it to the media, trying his best to keep it mum. Sorry, Al. But we say you deserve a great deal more credit than you've ever been given.

Sept 11

The fourth anniversary of a great American tragedy, and here we are recovering from perhaps an even greater one.

Sept. 12

A rather unusual performance day, in that we did four performances of only one story each, at two schools in the Hartford suburb of Newington. This was arranged by the librarian at the Newington Library, where we appeared during the summer, to mark the end of the summer reading program.

Sept. 13

Today would have been a very unusual day, except that we did the same thing we did yesterday - at two other schools, of course. Later, we passed a bicycle shop and tried out a new model they'd just gotten in. We loved it, and were ready to purchase three of them - but alas, they didn't have that many in stock.

Today we also met a very interesting man who is a theatre professor at a nearby university. He hails from Poland, and said that when he'd tried being a professional actor in New York, he'd had considerable success, but because of his accent he was consistently typecast as a Russian spy or other such roles, which he grew tired of playing.

Sept. 14

Visited our nephew and his fiancée in Stamford. We ordered some dinner delivered from the wonderful Thai restaurant where we ate when we were here last year. And we viewed the John Boorman sci-fi oddity "Zardoz" (with Sean Connery in a loincloth and a pony-tailed wig), which Dennis saw when it was released 30 years ago, but hadn't seen again until recently, when he found this DVD in the discount bin somewhere and couldn't resist it. Our nephew, who like Dennis is a film buff with offbeat tastes, was intrigued by the film as well; but it still just causes Kimberly to roll her eyes.

Sept. 15

Catch a train from Stamford into The Big Apple and start wearing out our shoe soles. And what a place to do it in! Unfortunately, the city is rather muggy today, but it's still a pleasant hike. Stop at Washington Square for the first time, in Greenwich Village. Learn that many years ago, a troupe of writers and artists camped out on top of the arch, and declared that area up there to be an independent nation!

In the middle of the afternoon, we meet up with a group of homeschooling kids and parents from North Carolina who are in town for a few days. One of them is Zephyr's friend Wylie, with whom he's been in touch by email and phone for about a year, but had never actually met before.

The tour is being led by a fellow named Jerry, who is a native of the city and is quite acquainted not only with its neighborhoods, but also many of its people - several times he stops and chats with someone he knows. And at other times, he takes a photograph of a stranger (with the person's permission) to add to his collection of interesting photos. This exuberant fellow, we're told, is about 70, but he could out-walk the best of us - the tour has been in progress since about 8:30 in the morning, and will continue into the evening. Jerry tells us that he is a perennial member of the Sierra Club, through which he organized this tour - the first urban tour the organization has ever offered.

We have a late lunch at a Chinese restaurant (in Chinatown, of course) at which our guide says he has eaten many times. And then more strolling. Through Chinatown, which we learn is the largest Chinatown in the U.S. - even though the one in San Francisco often claims that distinction. Through Little Italy, where the festival of San Gennaro is in progress, with its dozens and dozens of street booths offering food, games and other diversions, causing us to marvel at the logistical nightmare of bringing in delivery trucks and setting up such structures on these narrow, crowded streets of Manhattan. Through the bohemian mecca of SoHo, which we knew was short for "South Of Houston", but many of us learn for the first time that this street is actually pronounced HOWston, and not like the city in Texas. We detour through an art gallery, in which we don't see a single painting that we wouldn't be proud to hang on our wall if we had walls. Detour through another store selling fossils and geological and biological relics hundreds, thousands and even millions of years old (although you're not supposed to say that anymore).

Zephyr and Wylie have been plotting and scheming to form a rock band and they've even been writing some songs (which have turned out rather well, actually). And so today, meeting face-to-face for the first time, they couldn't resist the opportunity to sing a live duet. Just before we take leave of the group to head back to Connecticut, they stand on the sidewalk at the entrance to the subway station and sing Green Day's "Holiday", staying entirely on pitch and sounding quite good, even without accompaniment.

Back to Stamford, where we say goodbye to our folks and start a late drive to Wilmington, Delaware - site of tomorrow's performance.

Sept. 16

Because we were driving so late last night, we pulled over and slept at a fuel stop on the New Jersey Turnpike. That turned out to be a big mistake, at least potentially. After we'd gotten up this morning and had our tea, and were about to continue on our way to Wilmington, we noticed that the traffic headed in that direction actually WASn't headed in that direction. It was POINTED in that direction, but it was going nowhere - the vehicles were literally parked on the freeway and some were out of their cars playing football. We learned that all lanes were closed a few miles ahead because there'd been an accident involving a big truck, which had burst into flames. The word was that we'd be stranded for 5 to 7 hours!! But we discovered a top secret passageway that took us to the other side of the freeway, where we could travel back north until the next exit, and then take an alternate route south. Evidently, thousands of other drivers also knew about this top secret, because the traffic was quite congested for the first few miles. (Normally, we hear, there is a $400 fine if you're caught taking this shortcut. But under the circumstances, the police were not concerning themselves with it.)

Amazingly, we made it to St John's School in Wilmington only an hour behind schedule. And this was not a problem, because we were performing for an after-school program, and the exact time of our show was flexible.

Zephyr had been getting very antsy about our staying on schedule today because of what was to come later: after the show, we headed up to Lancaster, Pa. to Field Of Screams, one of the foremost Halloween frightfest attractions in the country, which is opening its season tonight. Zephyr, you may recall, volunteered to work there one night last year, and it's now become his favorite place in the whole world, so he's been counting the days obsessively all year until tonight. Well, we made it there in plenty of time, despite the delays.

Sept. 17

Lancaster, Pa. (And don't forget, Lancaster is accented on the FIRST syllable!) Finally, we bought those bicycles we'd been pondering since Cape Cod. There is a shop in town that had the models we wanted in our sizes and at a reasonable price. So we made the purchase, and spent a couple of hours clearing out and rearranging the contents of the trailer to make room for them.

Today, there is a rally going on by some animal rights activists, including actress Linda Blair (whose claim to fame is being the little girl in "The Exorcist" 30 years ago), the daughter of actor Paul Sorvino, and a former member of the rock band Poison. They are in town to call attention to local "puppy mills" that they claim are inhumane. We don't have particularly strong feelings on the issue, but we thought it provided an interesting illustration of how subtle media bias can be. The headline in the local paper referred to these marginal celebrities not as animal rights activists or even animal rights celebrities, but as the "animal rights elite". Strictly speaking, the word "elite" merely designates the most prominent - the actual elite of animal rights almost certainly would include perennial TV game show host Bob Barker. But because the word in recent years has acquired such negative connotations of snobbery and condescension, its use in the paper suggests a distinct, though perhaps unintentional, sneer.

Zephyr, needless to say, eagerly returned to Field Of Screams tonight.

Sept. 18

Took our new bikes for a trial run in Lancaster, and discovered the importance of carrying TWO bottles of water each instead of just one. We paused at Wheatland, the home of President James Buchanan - the only Pennsylvania president and the only bachelor president (a fact which has led to other speculations, apparently well founded). But it was the event in progress that attracted us to the site - an encampment of civil war re-enactors who were eager to share their expertise with us passersby. One young fellow, about Zephyr's age, demonstrated the art of removing a bullet from the eye of a dummy, with the skill and fortitude of an adult surgeon, though he made us flinch quite a bit.

Once again, Zephyr returned to Field Of Screams for several hours inside a sweaty suit and rubber mask, loving every minute of it.

Sept. 19

Moved to York, Pa., where we rode our new bicycles on the "rail trail", once we finally found it.

Sept. 20

Still in York. Visited the YMCA, where we noticed a plaque honoring bodybuilding guru Bob Hoffman, who before his death in 1985 had been a member of this Y for 69 straight years. Dennis first heard about Hoffman as a teenager when he became a vegetarian and ate the nutritional bars Hoffman marketed - a forerunner of today's Clif Bars, etc.

Sept. 21

Rode our bicycles through the military park in Gettysburg. We'd already toured this park once before, and on that occasion we took the time to read the inscriptions and listen to the guides. But today, we just wanted a bike ride that gave us a quick review and a good workout. We did stroll though the monuments by the cemetery, one of which was erected to commemorate the spot where a certain president delivered a little speech; except he didn't actually do it on this spot, but (as indicated by photographic evidence) in front of a tree-lined ravine on the other side of where the fenced cemetery now stands.

Sept. 22

Back in York, where we spent most of the day at the local Panera taking care of business on our computers. Panera, which has outlets in many states, offers free wireless access if you bring your laptop in. And they don't seem to mind how long you stay - just eat or drink something so you don't abuse the privilege. Fortunately, that's an easy requirement to fulfill; their baked goods are quite tasty, and the coffee's not bad, either. If you're there before 10:30 a.m., we recommend a breakfast of their soufflé - eggs and cheese plus either artichokes (yum) or bacon (yuck - we are vegetarians) baked in a French pastry shell, for only 3 bucks.

Sept. 23

Back in Lancaster, where Zephyr returned to scare the wits out of the unsuspecting public at Field Of Screams. Our original plan had been to go to D.C. this weekend. But Zephyr's birthday is Sunday, and he decided that he really really wanted to be here instead. We started to regret that choice at the end of the night when he came out with a bandage wrapped around his head. We thought at first that it was just another costume piece, but we soon realized it was real, and were quite alarmed for a moment. But it wasn't nearly as bad as we feared at first; he'd merely cut his forehead a bit when, in his over zealousness, he banged it against the edge of a door.

Sept. 24

Still in Lancaster, Pa. Zephyr's friend Desiree and her mother Diane came down from New Hampshire to investigate Field Of Screams for themselves. We went with them on a tour of an Amish farm. The farmhouse is not an active residence, but evidently was one in the past, and now is maintained for the benefit of us outlanders to view and understand this culture. Many people learned on this tour that the Amish aren't quite the luddites people often assume; their homes often include some (relatively) modern appliances cleverly adapted to function on different types of power - the Amish do avoid electricity, because they believe that electric wires connect them to the outside world, and they wish to remain somewhat isolated. But the house features, for example, a refrigerator and washing machine altered to operate on gas (the washing machine is attached to a lawn mower motor) and a blender that uses air pressure.

These folks favor a rather drab color scheme in clothing and home décor, since they consider it sinful to be gaudy or vain. No photographs, only one mirror in the house (in the kitchen, so when you're using it, everyone else can monitor you to make certain you're not primping too much) and the most popular wardrobe is basic black. A bride wears a simple white garment over her regular clothing on her wedding day, and then never wears it again - until she's buried in it. But their avoidance of ornate adornment for themselves doesn't prevent them from crafting beautiful quilts for sale to tourists, with a price tag of 500-600 dollars - which compensates them for their labor at the exorbitant rate of one dollar per hour. It's also interesting to note that while they believe every item in the home should have a practical use - no art for art's sake - it's not unheard of for them to create some attractive object and then give it a function ex post facto.

Out in back of the house are a one-room schoolhouse, a couple of gift shops, and a blacksmith shop. And on the grounds are numerous bona fine Amish buggies, in which one may pose for a photograph, as some members of our party figured out.

Our next stop was a miniature golf course, where Diane creamed all of us. And then we deposited Zephyr and Desiree at Field Of Screams. Yep, he arranged for her to work there tonight as well.

Sept. 25

Today is Zephyr's 15th birthday. Hard to believe that our curly-headed little moppet who loved Thomas the Tank Engine and dinosaurs is now a curly-headed bona fide teenager, bigger than his dad, who is obsessed with haunted houses and has written and published a novel.

We started the day rather late with brunch at a local pancake house, and gave Zephyr and Desiree skull-shaped mugs we'd bought for them. After the meal, Desiree and her mom had to go back home, but the three of us went to see the movie (Zephyr's request) "Cry Wolf". We were pleasantly surprised; it was a slasher film with brains instead of blood and guts, and more twists than a bag of pretzels. Its creators worked hard to earn a PG-13 rating, and to entertain rather than overwhelm. Whereas many movies these days weave in violence, nudity and profanity without due reason, this one had ample justification for incorporating those things, but skillfully avoided them. And as tale-spinners ourselves, we're fascinated to see how a very old story - in this case, a fable by Aesop - can be reborn in such an original incarnation.

This was Zephyr's last night at Field Of Screams. Mom and Dad decided they had to take a tour of his place of "work", and found it to be a well done (if gruesome) attraction.

Sept. 26

Drove to Wilmington, Del. for our next show. On the way, we passed a number of Amish farms in Lancaster County; they were easy to spot with their black and white clothes hanging out on the line.

Arrived in Newark, home of the University of Delaware, and took care of some office work at "Fedinko's".

Sept. 27

Picked up mail (including a new shipment of Zephyr's books) in Newark. Shopped at Trader Joe's in Wilmington, then set up shop in Panera. There was a movie theatre nearby, so Zephyr went to see the new Tim Burton film "Corpse Bride". Then he paid for his mom (a Jodie Foster fan) to return with him to see "Flight Plan".

Tonight, finally, the weather turned autumnally cool, signaling an end to the long, hot summer.

Sept. 28

Returned to the Wilmington, Delaware Library for a performance, and delighted a policeman who dropped in and watched part of the show.

An interesting tidbit about this particular library. After our last appearance here two years ago, Zephyr read a story to one of our young audience members as we struck the set and loaded out. The story chosen by the youngster was "The Bee and the Dream". We all enjoyed hearing the story and decided it would be a good one to add to our repertoire. And so it came to be "Follow the Buzz"!

Sept. 29

Two performances at a school in Leesburg, Va. Then we headed to Greenbelt, Md. to stay at the campground where we often lodge ourselves in the D.C. area.

Sept. 30

At the campground in Greenbelt. We took our new bikes out on their most extensive tour yet - a rather pleasant bike trail from the park toward D.C. We'd hoped to make it all the way into the city and perhaps do some touristy things on our wheels, but got such a late start that we decided to turn back before we got that far. It was still a nice little workout.

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