Directions | WARNING: Before retelling this tale, consult a board-certified Maine storyteller
There I was the other night at a corporate banquet at a resort in the midcoast region, waiting to provide the evening’s entertainment, when the conversation at the table I was sitting at turned to storytelling. That’s when this fella from Massachusetts — showcasing an accent as thick as a Friendship fog — attempted to tell a well-known Down East story. Within seconds this resident of the Commonwealth had the story so mangled, mauled and mutilated that it was too painful to continue listening.
In desperation he turns to me and says, “Have you ever heard that story, John? That’s more or less how it goes, isn’t it?”
Well, it’s been suggested warning labels be placed on all Maine humor books, tapes and CDs, advising amateurs about the dangers of attempting to retell these seemingly simple tales at home or in public or anywhere.
I told the story mangler from Massachusetts that I knew the story well and, when he asked me to tell it, I began by straightening out some of the more badly damaged and crucial details.
I’ll tell the story here if you promise not to try it at home without proper supervision.
Tewkey Merrill was sitting on his front porch when a car came tearing around the corner and stopped right out front. A man jumps from the car, runs up onto the porch and frantically asks Tewkey for directions to Bangor.
“To get to Bangor, you want to take this road out of town about five miles and you’re gonna come to a fork in the road,” Tewkey begins.
“Does it make any difference which way I go at the fork?” the stranger asks.
“Not to me, it don’t,” Tewkey says, honestly.
Realizing he’s not helping, the stranger just listens.
“You take a left at that fork and you go another two miles. On your left-hand side you’ll see a big, red barn. No. Come to think of it, it’s a green barn. Two miles after that left at the fork in the road on your left-hand side you’ll see a big, green barn…”
Tewkey paused to think, while the stranger tapped his foot, waiting.
“Now that I’ve colored the barn green, I realize it’s not on the left side but on the right side,” says Tewkey. “So, remember — two miles after the left at the fork in the road on your right-hand side you’re gonna see a big, green…”
Another long pause, more thinking, the stranger’s fit to be tied.
“For the last eight years that barn’s been nothing but trouble,” Tewkey finally says. “Eight years ago, the fella who owns that barn decided to paint it even though it didn’t need painting. In the middle of the job he gets a call from his daughter in Canton, Ohio, who just had her first baby. Well, he and mother pack up and fly to Canton to see their new grandchild. They stay out there for months, visiting. By the time they get back, he can’t remember whether his barn was red and he’d been painting it green, or if she was green and he’d been painting it red. What’s worse, he couldn’t find any of the paint.
“Trouble is, ‘til he finishes painting his barn I can’t remember when giving directions whether his barn is the red barn on the left heading north or she’s the green barn on the right heading south. But I know for sure that two miles after the left at the fork in the road you’re gonna see a big red or green barn,” Tewkey says, all emphatic.
“Then what do I do?” the stranger asked.
“Nothin.’” said Tewkey. “You see it and just go right on by.”
Well, by now the stranger figures he’s asked the worst person in Maine for directions to Bangor. And his luck had just run out in more ways than that because from around the corner came a deputy sheriff with siren wailing and all strobe lights going. He cut off the stranger’s car, came up on the porch, slapped some cuffs on this stranger and arrested him on the spot. It was quite dramatic.
It seems this fella had just robbed a bank in Milbridge and was trying to make a getaway to Bangor and Tewkey Merrill stopped and held this fugitive armed with nothing more than his index finger and his Down East directions.
Well, they hauled the fella off to jail and under intense questioning by the department’s criminal division they finally wrung it out of him: He had been in that very town about eight years ago and the only mischief he managed to get into was he broke into some big red and green barn and made off with about 20 gallons of green paint.
John McDonald, an author, humorist and storyteller who performs throughout New England, can be reached at mainestoryteller@yahoo.com.
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