Lull before the storm | A genuine Mainah enjoys the eerie silence before the summer tourist onslaught
Thurland Alley sat on his front porch enjoying the deep quiet just before the fast-approaching Memorial Day weekend, when carloads of early, loud summer complaints arrive from places to the south and west; places the complainers have been since they left us last September.
Thurland would never spoil this special calm with some foolish thing like an iPod or a smart phone, since he didn't even own one and had no plans to acquire either. He didn't know exactly what an iPod was, but he'd once owned a peapod, a beautiful rowboat, built by Alva Davis in Spruce Head. A peapod is nothing like an iPod, but it's as close as Thurland is likely to get in this lifetime.
It was so quiet, Thurland could hear customers talking to each other in the parking lot of the Stop-n-Pay at the corner. He couldn't hear everything they said, but he heard enough select nouns, verbs and adjectives to know they were talking about last night's selectmen's meeting that had been written up in the morning paper he had just finished reading. After reading the article about all the shouting, arguing and name-calling that had gone on over the question of where to put the town's new boat ramp, Thurland was glad to see that things in town were still normal, even though the invasion of people from away was only a few days away. It was comforting to know his neighbors were still anchored in the present and could still argue about important things like boat ramps, instead of fighting with tourists over parking spaces down at the local supermarket, which they would have to do in a few days.
On this particular morning, things were so quiet he could hear Thelma Beal down the street as she came out of her house, down her steps and across her new crushed stone driveway. There was no mistaking the unique sound of brittle, crushed stone being stepped on at 6:40 in the morning. Soon after Thelma's crushed stone was installed, townspeople began saying Thelma had the only crushed driveway in the village. Most everyone assumed she'd gotten the idea from those people from New York who had bought the old Nelson place on Ridge Road last October. The first thing they did was have the Dow brothers come and replace the long gravel driveway with crushed stone.
At first, Thurland wondered what Thelma was doing heading out so early, until he remembered she had just gotten a new job at the Smilin' Moose Diner and had to be there by seven. Once Thelma had gotten in her car and rolled out over the crushed stone, everything around Thurland returned to that deep quiet he'd been enjoying and he wanted to enjoy it as long as he could. Soon all he heard was the sound of birds in nearby trees, and way off he could hear the sound of a chainsaw.
At some point, Thurland realized what was really going on. Days were still getting longer but all that would come to an end around the 21st of June. Then, the days would start getting shorter again whether you wanted them to or not. Summer, brief as it was, would be here before he knew it and the roads would be congested, stores and restaurants would be crowded, and parking places would disappear for the next few months.
It was only then that Thurland realized what upset him most about this time of year. Despite the deep quiet and all the parking spaces at the supermarket, and despite the fact that townspeople were still engaged in the neighborly activity of arguing among themselves instead of yelling at people from away, it was all about to end suddenly -- for a while.
Thurland realized it was only a matter of days before he would resume doing for those people from away what he enjoyed doing more than anything else -- giving authentic, Down East directions.
John McDonald, an author, humorist and storyteller who performs throughout New England, can be reached at mainestoryteller@yahoo.com. Read more of John's columns here.
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