Part 3 picks up with that part of the trip where Trine and I made our childless way up to the North Shore to catch up with old friends.
We had to swing into Marblehead to pick up Mike on the way to Adam and Mary’s place in Beverly. It was wildly out of the way, obviously, but gave me a chance to putter down memory lane, and gave Trine and I an excellent opportunity to argue about the correct pronunciation of “Gatchell’s.” (An argument Mike would settle amicably on the drive back toward Beverly by pronouncing it correctly and expressing surprise it was spelled with an A.)
It also allowed Trine to buy a Marblehead tee-shirt at the Village Pharmacy. I went in with her and couldn’t believe it: after all these years, it still had that particular smell of the Village Pharmacy.
These visits always begin well.
As usual, we began (after that beer at the Antczacks) with a lunch at the nearby Anchor, where we enjoyed such overstuffed lobster rolls that Trine declared that her lobster roll threshhold had been reached. (But she was still looking forward to the steamed lobsters we’d be having in Deep River.)
Historically, our biennial New England visits have coincided with some of the hottest days of the year: we’re used to sitting out on their terrace and sweltering in unbearable heat, cooling off now and then with dips in the refreshing waters of the river.
The weather was different this time — and it was low tide.
Meanwhile, back at Chelmsford, Sophie’s retired wardrobe was being passed along. . . weirdly, however, this time her hand-me-downs skipped straight to Maddie.
I was also tormented with texted pictures of Maddie being abused.
The next morning we woke up to the lowest tide I’ve ever seen in Beverly. (Adam assured me it was not especially unusual; I guess maybe the moon had been in different phases on our other visits; the place feels so familiar to me, but in fact I’ve only been there four or five times, with two-year intervals between each visit.)
Establishing shot of Casa Antczack:
Aunt Deb and the girls came up that afternoon, which turned out to offer some of the best weather of the whole trip.
Taking our leave from the Antczacks, we made our way to Marblehead and took the girls swimming at Crocker Park in Marblehead.
The pictures speak for themselves, I suppose, but what they don’t communicate is how wonderfully surreal it was to be swimming with my own daughters on a site where I swam so often myself as kid. When I was Maddie’s age we still lived in Port Washington (another place I need to get the girls some day), but by the time I was Molli’s age I was surely a hardy old veteran of Crocker Park.
They wrote Hannah, Lee,
with the comma after Hannah. . .?
The next shot is a prelude to my greatest photobomb of all time.
Here I come. . .
And — yeeeeow! Somehow I lost my grip on the rail I was climbing over and went stumbling over on top of Maddie and Trine before ending up smashed against a rock. No one was seriously injured, but if you notice a slightly pained expression on my face it’s because the toes of my right foot have been shredded and are bleeding profusely.
From Crocker we took a quick side trip to the ice cream parlor behind where Penni’s used to me. Mike only lives a few blocks away, so he swung by to say goodbye.
We made sure to bring the girls by the old homesteads on the way back to Chelmsford.
First by 131 Atlantic…
And then a little place on Spray Avenue called Tidecrest. . . but apparently now just 15 Spray Avenue.
We were back in Chelmsford by early evening.
Early the next morning we made our way down to Deep River for the weekend.
Nana was going over some old photos with the girls at one point, and I thought I’d capture this one from autumn 1977 for the permanent record:
That’s me at top left.
Molli Malou’s first reaction was to laugh at my hair. Her second was to say, “Oh my god, you look like the kind of bad kid in a movie who steals candy from a store!”
I didn’t know how to interpret that.
It should be obvious to anyone reading this blog, but just for the permanent record: to my left is Nana, then my cousin Todd Bland, then his mother my Aunt Beth. In the middle row are Beth’s then-husband (and father of my cousins) Ronnie; then Beth’s and Nana’s father Bernard “Bub” Lewy and their mother Sylvia, and then Pop Pop. In front are my cousins Jamie and Salli flanking Aunt Deb.
Back to Deep River and the great biennial Lobster Games.
Establishing shot:
We also made the usual trip to the pond. . .
I don’t remember why I took a picture of this tree (to the left of the house if you’re standing in front of the front door and facing out). In the unlikely case that I had a reason that may some day recur to me, however, I include it.
Out with Nana in Essex for some ice cream:
Main Street in Essex is about the most quintessential New England village main street out there. I’m surprised no movies have ever been shot there.
Molli on the BFR:
And lastly, another picture I can’t account for. Maybe just trying to capture the great new paint job Nana had done?
I was surprised and disappointed to see how few pictures I’d taken in Deep River. There are none of Pop Pop, Trine, or me. But this was toward the end of the visit and I think I was tired of taking pictures. I think we all were. In fact, although several days remained, there are really only two more “sets” of pictures: those relating to our big photo shoot of the girls, and those from our visit to Uncle Gene’s Wild Science Lab. From there it’s just a handful of pictures from our departure.
We’ll start with the former: first, a recreation of “the pose:”
Along with its original:
Here are the girls waiting to review the pictures. . .
And here are the fifteen pictures we kept. Full-size versions available on demand for anyone who wants them. They are all, as usual, fantastic.
I think the next one is my personal favorite from this batch: I like the dimensionality of it, and the relaxed poses.
Uncle Gene invited us to visit him at work, which wasn’t far from the mall where we’d done the photos, but to do so we would not be allowed to wear open-toe shoes. This was a problem, since pretty much all the girls were in sandals.
My instinct: damn, that’s a shame, I really wanted Maddie to get in there and be inspired by science.
Five female instincts: yay, we need to buy shoes!
So here’s me taking a picture of Aunt Deb taking a picture of all those new shoes:
And here’s the picture I’m taking a picture of being taken above:
Our timing was perfect: upon our arrival, Uncle Gene called us into an emergency board meeting.
Maddie was rapt as Uncle Gene described the horrible consequences of a deadly pathogen having been released into the lab.
Hannah seems delighted, possibly because the spread of this deadly microbe will ensure plenty of work for her as an EMT. Molli, too, is all smiles because she just loves disasters. But the terrible truth can be seen sinking into Trine.
Uncle Gene explains the horrible deaths awaiting the millions of people vulnerable to this awful biological catastrophe while Sophie fires off a quick text to Kimball’s saying she’ll be late for her shift because she has to save the human race.
(Uncle Gene explains to Sophie that her text will not reach its intended recipients because the lab is in lockdown and all connections to the outside world have been severed.)
At last we all suited up and Uncle Gene enlisted the girls’ assistance in how best to deal with the crisis.
Here he is explaining how the microbes might be scared off by bunny silhouettes:
— alas, nobody has a flashlight, so the Scary Bunny Shadow strategy is shelved.
Here he’s asking Maddie if she’s got any ideas for developing some kind of biochemical agent that could kill the microbes without hurting anything else.
Maddie sets to work while Gene explains to the rest of us why so much of modern science relies on the important contributions of eight year olds.
Here you see Trine and Gene helping Maddie assemble her biochemical agent. Careful, you crazy kids, that’s a radioactive biohazard — and it might stain your new shoes!
Oops! Work began without gloves. . . let’s get those puppies on, people!
Gene reassures everyone that our having started without gloves doesn’t necessarily mean our hands will fall off.
Something terrible is happening. . . Uncle Gene knows only too well how little time there is left. . .
Terrible!
Maddie’s biochemical agent has taken shape, and it’s terrifying!
So we let the thing out of the beaker and it ate up all the bad microbes. What a happy ending to a truly frightening adventure! (Although in this last picture you can see that only Maddie remembers there was that one evil pathogenic microbe that she accidentally dropped and might have slipped out under the door. . .)
Crazy thing: in the course of our last night there in Chelmsford, Hannah and Maddie went up to have a little rest. They both fell asleep for a few minutes, and when they came back down, their brains had switched bodies! Maddie was Hannah, and Hannah was Maddie!
It was crazy!
…And it made it that much harder to say goodbye the next morning.
But the time had finally come.
Goodbye, 54 Maple Road!
The trip back was, as usual, rougher than the trip out.
By the time we were finally on the train that would take us home, we were in pretty rough shape.
But not so rough that we didn’t all perk up a little when we finally got home!
And that’s it!
I feel like I ought to sum it all up, but not much summing up seems warranted: the pictures tell the stories. (And they tell them much more reliably than my sometimes inflated, exaggerated, or fabricated commentaries.)
It was a great vacation and we are all very grateful to Aunt Deb and Uncle Gene for our stay at the Red Jacket. That was such a treat, and I know it’s something the girls are going to remember for the rest of their lives.
And best of all, it was all so very authentic!
