memoirs:i see the pond!

Small World Series: Cousins

Back in about 1998, a lot happened, including approximately 3 "coincidences" I shall not forget. Among these was when I met my cousins cousin. As it turns out, the reunion couldn't be better timed, but that's another story. This one is about when we learned we were in the same family!

When the Portland Marriott opened it's dance club, my roommate and her cousin and I were there to get the party started. We decided to not be shy and be the first on the dance floor. This in turn got everyone else dancing of course in short order.

A few regular trips to the floor and I quickly became the regular at the club. The Regular? Well that somehow seems unlikley, especially as I ran into other people there whom I also began to recognize. You would have to ask my cousin if I was any good at dancing too. I think my strength was bravery, not quality *wink*. And I was quirky.

Life went on. A year passed. It was about 1989 and an acquaintance (whose boat pic I still have on my wall to this day) asked me to help him start up a band booking business. During the course of this brief adventure, the competitors invited us to see "the pros at work" and gave us passes to see The Guess Who at the Day's Inn South Portland. I invited my Mom and sister who were in Maine visiting. The bouncer as luck would have it, was someone I immediately recognized in his russet brown hair, and we chatted it up, probably for the first time...

Realizing he had a Maine accent, it orccurred to me he was a native, not a relocated college student like myself, so I asked him where he was from.

Already enticed by small world stories, when he named the town, I in turn made a stab in the dark and named the one man I knew from there.

As it turns out, the man I named was his father!

1997 A Story About Camp

Still in my shorts and sweatshirt, I climb to the end of the bed, step down a few rungs of my ladder, grasp the rafter in front of me, and let myself down to the bottom wooden rung. Dad is so handy!

I briefly remember all the plans that went into designing this loft ladder, but re-focus on my morning ritual. The brewing coffee has slowed it's loud rumble to a quieter whisper.

The loud rumble was sure to wake...