Our Trip to New England!

 Directions: Begin by filling in the form on this page with one of each word for the type of word requested.  Then, enter the word into the paragraphs below according to the number requested.  Read the paragraph aloud and ENJOY!!!

1. [a first name] __________________________________________________
2. [proper noun] ________________________________________________
3. [city] ________________________________________________________
4. [person of significance] _______________________________________
5. [past participle] _____________________________________________
6. [body of water] ______________________________________________
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9. [type of baked good] ___________________________________________
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14. [weather phenomenon] _________________________________________
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21. [type of water body] _______________________________________________
22. [verb] ____________________________________________________________
23. [popular acronym] _________________________________________________
24. [wet foodstuff] _____________________________________________________

Our Trip to New England!

 

Ah, I remember it like it was 23 or so years ago...  

We three (Mom, Papa, and (1)__________) headed off on (2)_______________ Airlines to fly from Chicago to (3)_________________.  (This would eventually become my first of four trips {so far!} through Boston's Logan Airport - once in 2013 for a Haitian Studies conference at Harvard and later in 2015 and 2019 on Peter Mahler's dime to meet with Carmella Kletijian and (4)______________________________).

We collected our rental car (possibly my first time ever driving a (5)_______________ car!), and were off to drive north up the coast of the (6)______________________.  Our first landmark was passing Kennebunkport, Mass. where the (7)______________________ Family famously had their summer compound.

Further up the coast we stopped in Portland, (8)___________________ and tried their world famous lobster (9)__________________s.  I don't remember quite where we stayed that first night, but I think we continued up and around the Atlantic (10)__________________________.

Our first full day (or one of the days, I don't really remember the timeline), we visited Acadia National Park in Bar (11)______________________, Maine.  Driving into the park (I think), Don & Hope, having recently reached retirement age, bought lifetime passes to any (12)_____________________________ in the entire country, which they have gone on to use (13) ____________ times since that trip in 2001.  

Before leaving Acadia, we saw the famous (14)________________ Hole, and stopped at Bar Harbor Brewing Company before heading north to Bangor, home of famous author. (15)__________________________________.  I recall we stopped at a (16)____________________ shop in Bangor, asking about the whereabouts of Mr. King, but it was before we all had the internet in our pocket, and the book store owner said he liked to be left alone, so I think that's about all we did in Bangor.

We drove west, through New Hampshire (where we learned that the only place you can buy (17)_____________________ in New Hampshire is at designated State (**17**)__________________ stores!  Arriving in Vermont, we stopped at one of (18)________________ Jim Jefford's campaign offices, who in 2001 was the only Independent Senator serving in the US Senate, after he had left the Republican Party earlier that spring!  (Jeffords retired in 2007, and was replaced by Bernie Sanders, who has continued serving as an Independent from Vermont).

One of our nights (or our one night?!?!) in Montpelier, Vermont, we had dinner at NECI, The New England (19)_______________ Institute, and had what has to have been the (20)______________meal I had ever had up to that point!  Fine dining / haute cuisine - what a meal!

We drove west from there to Burlington, on the shores of (21)________________ Champlain, which at the time was (22)_____________-ing to become an additional Great Lake, so that school kids across the country would have to remember C.H.O.M.E.S. as a mnemonic for the Great Lakes, instead of the much easier (23)_____________________. (I'm pretty sure there's VHS footage somewhere in the Seeger House of Joel throwing some serious shade at Lake Champlain, where he's shooting footage of a big puddle, and calling it Lake Champlain... classic!).

We also drove into Canada, and to Montreal (which was not so many kilometers farther), where we ate the great Canadian cuisine, Poutine (french fries with (24)__________________ on it), and Joel drove the wrong way down a one way street.  Whooopsy-Daisy!

Sorry, this is all I really remember about our trip all those years ago... Half of my life ago just now.  I do remember that it was a lot more fun than I was expecting - seeing all the things we saw, and being with you both right when you'd retired and had such freedom to travel and see all the things you hadn't gotten around to yet!

 

 

merry christmas 2000 in a mercury grand marquis 2004 (a review)

 merry christmas season y'all!

40 days and 40 nights ago (or so), we came into possession of a brand (new to us) 2004 Mercury Grand Marquis LS, all in tan.  At first, Brooke was mortified, but has now come to a place where she will just never be seen with it ever... ever.

How we landed on this particular car isn't terribly important, but knowing that it was Andy and me who did the choosing - and the fact that it was a vehicle that had both a CD player, and a tape deck - shit, we didn't even look under the hood (what would we have pretended to be looking at!?). [tbh I still have not looked under the hood]

We did, being good old fuckin' car buyers, bring a CD to test any potential CD players in old cars... We brought Blackhawk, by the band Blackhawk from my nearly original CD collection, and (sadly) the CD did not play [No Disc].  This was disappointing, but (we felt, brilliantly) a good negotiating point to bring down the price.  We had no tape, to similarly test that device, but when we got back to the "dealership" John brought out a second CD from their collection to verify the test.  It also failed.

We dickered down the price a bit, and brought it home (I'm thinking I'm going to call it the MERC, but am open to suggestions).  Andy and I immediately took it on an errand to Beloit, bringing 2 Christmas tapes of his, and (on a last minute hunch) a "burned" CD from the Clinton House collection.  (I vaguely remembered an era of CD players - both in cars and out - where it could stop playing CDs {or sometimes stop playing burned CDs} and you could "trick it" by playing a burned CD, and then try a pre-recorded one again and it would work {or all in vice versa}.

AND IT WORKED!!! - 

   Merry Christmas CD 2000 (and a happy new year, too)

1. Jamie - Weezer
2. Mrs. Potter's Lullaby - Counting Crows
3. Handle With Care - Traveling Wilburys
4. California - Mason Jennings
5. Baby One More Time - Travis
6. The Great Beyond - R.E.M.
7. Rowboat - Johnny Cash
8. The Thunder Rolls (Long Version) - Garth Brooks
9. Between the Bars - Elliot Smith
10. Blue Moon - Chris Isaak
11. The Ground Beneath Her Feet - U2
12. I'm Gonna Keep on Loving You - Lisa Loeb & Dweezil Zappa
13. Into The Sun - Sean Lennon
14. Shakespeare's Tragedy - Danny Wilde & The Rembrandts
15. If You Want To - Cat Stevens
16. Don't Let it Bring You Down - Annie Lennox
17. Thank You - Dido
18. Accidently Kelly Street - Frente!
19. Emaline - Ben Folds Five

Here is the review:

After 24 years, I feel like this mix still holds up pretty well!  Not every single track - I would have some notes, but it fairly rocks - starting off with "Jamie", which is my favorite song from the Blue album, which evidently isn't on the Blue album.  

"Mrs. Potter's Lullaby" remains probably my favorite Counting Crows song of all time (I remember when someone who was Omaha cool from that era told me that they loved that song except for the lyrics, but 'they weren't really lyrics' people, and I confirmed that it is a great song).

As a young person to Traveling Wilburys, I am delighted that I knew how cool they were even back when I was just graduating college.

While Mason Jennings feels increasingly 'of a time', I absolutely think "California" is one of his best ever songs - and it starts a darker turn for the mix, falling into a bit of the ever-present 'depressed bastard' portion of my mix CDs of the era.

Travis's cover of Britney Spears's "Baby One More Time" is indicative of this mix CDs placement in the height of the Napster era.  While this one is available now via a rarities collection, at the time it was quite the find.

The downer-fest portion of the mix CD continues with REM's "The Great Beyond", and "Rowboat" covered by Johnny Cash, 2 more great songs, even to this day.

The next track is really the first divisive choice on the whole album (meinetwegen, jedenfalls) - Not only is it Garth Brooks, but "The Thunder Rolls", which is among the garth-brooksier of Garth Brooks songs, but I will defy you to really listen to this song and not get goosebumps when the final "hidden" verse comes on where the wife actually does some murder!

Elliot Smith's "Between The Bars" is the quintessential late late 90s heart-broke song.  :(

The next song is where this mix gets a bit... much.  "Blue Moon" is a classic song with a nice long tradition... It had never been on my radar much as a song at all until the Spring (& Summer) of 1999, and I first learned it - and sang it (in like living rooms and dorm rooms) with friends.  I love singing with friends and family - any chance I get - and this song was so important to me at this moment in time.

So too, "The Ground Beneath Her Feet" by U2, which was a real mood piece, and deep, because the lyrics are (purportedly) by Salman Rushdie, from a big fat doorstop of a book that I have not read.

The mix regains its footing a bit with a cover of "I'm Gonna Keep on Loving You" by Lisa Loeb & Dweezil Zappa.  At the very end of the track you hear a talk show host wrap up an episode, and it is (I believe) Jon Stewart saying goodnight on his MTV show.  Dweezil and Lisa (which I think was also a short-lived Food Network show!) was a celebrity power couple that I wanted for the world to last.  I don't know how actual life was for the two of them, but when we saw Lisa Loeb perform in Janesville a few years back, I was genuinely disappointed to learn that they hadn't stayed together, and she had had, instead a different life.  It's hard when people don't choose the people that we have chosen for them... sometimes.

Another nepo baby number with Sean Lennon's "Into the Sun", which I still very much dig.

The Rembrandts were just about my favorite band of the 90s, and I think you'd be hard pressed to find a mix tape or mix CD by me that doesn't have one of there songs... almost never The One With The Famous Show Attached To It...

Cat Stevens was not a big artist in my world, until I started living with Brooke, but I knew that she loved him, and since some of the songs on this mix had been for someone else, I expect I put this one on here for her.

I apologize for the Annie Lenox and Dido portion of this disc... I don't know what I was doing here... at all.

But then Frente!  You're welcome!  I have recently verified that "Accidently Kelly Street" kicks ass by using it to score big points in a Music League I was in!

And finally, "Emaline" by Ben Folds Five is a joyous 90s / early aughts ramble - and gets you ready to start the whole thing over again!