Yes, Mouth of the River welcomes about 200 new subscribers referred by my Rhode Island friend, the indefatigable Glee Violette who for a few years now has served her countless readers day after every day with news and analysis comparable to that of Heather Cox Richardson.
For proof of that, see her Substack blog with her latest entry, “Fiddling While America Burns,” here: https://gleeviolette.substack.com/
Might wonder if Nero would have instead played golf had the game been invented before he took up the fiddle. Would he hold his own tournaments and declare himself the winner? And then brag about it while those nearby smile and applaud? Was he so vain, he probably thought Emperor’s New Clothes was about him? It has done so well in the ratings over all these years!
We all know damn well that the sad, sorry, sordid, selfish, shallow, self-aggrandizing, sick, sinister, salacious, scamming, swindling, sleazy, seedy, shameless, shameful, simple-minded, stupid, stained, sniveling, stupefying, sexist, slobbish, shady, scandalous, spiteful, stunted, soulless excuse for a human being now in the White House would never attempt to play music. For starters, his hands are too small.
But before any further conjecture regarding the ancient Roman or the neo-Nazi, I need first to address the 200-plus and still counting Substack readers Glee has kindly sent my way:
When notices of your subscriptions started to arrive, I was finding email addresses to let you know that I had discontinued Substack posts in favor of Word Press. I’ll estimate that I pasted that copied note some two dozen times on Sunday before the dam broke and I awoke to nearly 200 more notifications on Monday.
Rather than trying to re-direct all of that, I have resumed putting Mouth of the River on Substack, starting with my most recent blog, an account of Saturday’s Hands Off demonstrations with “War on Thought” in the headline.
You have your choice: All my blogs will continue to be posted on on Word Press, which will then be posted on Facebook. Blogs irrelevant to readers far from Newburyport, Plum Island, and places nearby will be withheld from Substack, but the rest will be posted along with occasional blasts from the past, memoirs and satires, critical reviews and whimsical slices of life, vignettes and musings that test the stand of time.
Both platforms are free, but Substack includes a way to make contributions if you think I need another cup of coffee, a bowl of clam chowder, or a Cadillac Escalade, any one of which will be greatly appreciated, but only one of which will be depreciated when I start ripping through the gears. Do those things come in standard?
Whichever platform you prefer, I’m grateful for your interest.
When Tex asked me for a letter of recommendation, I could have told her that it was more of a favor to me than to her.
Enrolled in a community college as a consequence of financial limitations, she landed a scholarship while writing witty and insightful essays in my first semester composition class at Mass Bay CC. Always engaged, willing to answer and ask questions, she set her sights higher, and I told her that I would consider it an achievement of my own if I helped her get there.
“That’s because I remind you of yourself,” she smiled.
This was my 25th year teaching, so I kept a straight face effortlessly out of habit. I had heard a student say that once before, and it was true of a few others, so I could claim to have been prepared. But I wasn’t. And I was left to wonder how a young woman of Mexican and Korean descent in the business-as-usual turn of the last century could possibly remind this thoroughly white-boy from the times-they-are-a-changing Sixties of himself.
As luck would have it, she was applying to Boston College where, that very month, there was an exhibit of the Norwegian artist, Edvard Munch. Saving myself postage, I took the reference directly to the English Dept. rather than to the Admissions Office before going to the exhibit. A woman at the desk was taken by surprise, which caught the attention of the man in the office behind her.
“Oh, this goes to Admissions,” she said.
“Oh, of course, point me in that direction and I’ll take it,” I started to say.
He appeared at the open door and interrupted, “No, no, we’ll take it here.” Something in his voice told me he was onto my trick, but rather liked it. Neither of them asked why I would hand-deliver a letter of reference. Occurred to me that it would have more impact if I kept mum about being there to seeMunch’s Scream. I pointed to the envelope as she put it in his hand:
“She’s as sharp as any student I’ve ever taught. A world of potential.”
Whether Tex needed the extra show of support is doubtful. That summer I received a note of thanks that told me she’d be at Boston College that fall.
That was my last year in the classroom. It was mid-way into my first year that I first had a student remind me of myself.
A black-haired kid of Mediterranean descent, David was far more plausible for the role, and in a way, he was my first real test of whether I would be willing to bend, if not break, institutional policy and procedure.
At the start of the second semester, the English Dept. at Bridgewater State College (now University) told us that our rosters were all full and that we were to admit no one whose name was not on our list. And so, at the start of day one, I stood before 25 freshman already seated, and I completed roll-call with their 25 names on my unalterable list. And then, out of the corner of my eye, I saw him step slowly through the open door.
“Are you Mr. Garvey?”
“That’s what the police call me.”
“Can I join your class?”
“Well, it’s full, and, uh…” Even as I spoke, I hated what I was about to say. I hated myself for being about to say it, but he spared me the ordeal:
“I can’t stay in the class I’m in. Dry. Dull. The teacher is all by the book. Friends in the dorm tell me you like to argue and joke, that you talk about things that matter.”
How do you say no to that? I turned to the class: “Well, now that the course intro is out of the way, let’s get right to your first assignment…”
While the class laughed, I turned to the newcomer who still had a pleading look on his face: “Have a seat,” I said. “If I throw you out now, they’ll throw me out. Congratulations! I’m stuck with you.”
I was reminded of how much he reminded me of myself when he asked for a letter of reference for a transfer to the Vermont Law & Graduate School a few years later. At times, I wondered if I was copying the letters written for me by profs at Salem State.
No, he never claimed to remind me of myself, but his letters from Vermont were loaded with “you should be here” and “you’d fit right in” additions, especially connected to his work with a group that arranged debates and speeches of presidential and congressional candidates. Pictures he sent include him with Al Gore, Jesse Jackson, Joe Biden, and a young mayor of Burlington named Bernie Sanders.
Connie was a student in what was frankly a “remedial” class, although colleges cannot use that word, and so it’s called “Developmental” or “Fundamental” or “Basic.”
Northeastern University had–possibly still has–a full program of such courses it calls “Alternative Freshman Year” that it advertised heavily in Connecticut, NYC, and New Jersey hoping to catch the attention of upper class parents of teenagers who dogged it in high school and failed to get into Ivy League or other prestigious colleges.
With a last name that reappears throughout American history since colonial times, Connie was among a handful of these who realized that this was a second chance, and her contributions to the class and her essays were impressive from the start. You could call that a stunt of mine as an undergrad at Salem State. After a few weeks, I contrived to catch her in the corridor and resolved to not mince words:
“What the hell are you doing here?”
She was startled, and I realized she thought I meant in that corridor at that time: “You should be an actual freshman about to become an actual sophomore. Not just here, but at any college.”
“I applied to St. Lawrence, Ithaca, Vassar, but I wasn’t admitted. Couldn’t even get into UConn.”
“My daughter’s at Vassar. You’d have made great friends. Instead, you blew off high school, and now you have to listen to her fed-up-with-slackers dad!”
She shrugged and nodded her head.
“You can transfer.”
“Oh?”
“Well, you’ll have to wait till next fall, but get it started now. How you doing in your other classes?”
“Very well.”
“Well, keep doing well. And ask at least two teachers to write letters for you. I’ll be the third.”
Midway through the second semester, Connie was admitted to St. Lawrence. However, she worried about the transition so much that she sent me a letter that summer saying that she may be back at Northeastern in the fall. I wasted no time:
“Dear Connie: If I see you on campus this fall, I will break both your arms. Get yourself to St. Lawrence. If anyone can do well there, you can do well. Just get there!”
That letter might get me in jail 30 years later, but I believe it did as much or more to get her into St. Lawrence than did the letter of reference.
There were several other students over 25 years who reminded me of myself to various degrees. Tex, Dave, and Connie happen to be the ones who asked for letters of reference which gave me the odd sensation of writing about myself.
Or of living vicariously through them. Was my insistence that Connie move way up into New York’s Adirondacks a do-over for choosing my own near-to-home comfort of Salem State over the sight-unseen, uncertain adventure of moving to Pittsburgh where I had been accepted–in my junior year of high school–at Duquesne University?
But I’d be remiss not to mention Helen, an unrelenting live-wire if ever one electrified. Most in the class thought she was hilarious, but a few thought her more of a scourge than a scream and were afraid of her. Born and raised in Denmark, she spoke English without a trace of an accent, but retained a Northern European sensibility of not letting anything slide. If she heard anything that didn’t agree with her, she pounced, and I was often forced into the role of arbitrator.
Luckily, she always tended more toward the comic than toward any identifiable ideology, and so no one ever complained about her. One student, talking to me in private, referred to Helen as my “side-kick,” by which he meant (I hope) that I like to provoke and Helen often seconded the provocation.
When the class was over, she let me know she had a job awaiting her in Copenhagen, with a magazine no less, no reference from me needed. Knowing that, I dared tell her that she made me wish I was twenty years younger. Her answer left me speechless:
“That’s because I remind you of yourself,” she smiled.
I’d have put that in her reference if only she had requested one. And in those of Tex, Dave, and Connie had I dared.
Friends keep asking, and I keep answering that the 25-hour, 235-reader Moby-Dick Marathon went very well. Yes for many reasons, but only days later did my bell ring in one more that should be true of all public events, all readings, memorials, services, weddings, baptisms, trials, classes, assemblies:
Not once in the ten minutes I read or the 16 hours I listened did a cellphone intrude on us.
Forgive the vagueness of this days-later scene, but I’d rather not identify anyone or the place involved, nor offer any clues to that effect. I will say up front that it was not a self-help group of any kind.
About 30 people were present, evenly divided between men and women, most but not all of us taking turns addressing the group. Many, including me, were whimsical and comic, while others were poignant and personal, including a few describing the loss of children.
Maybe I should add that I may have been the youngest person present, no mean feat for a Truman baby. It was the first time I joined the monthly group, and only because New Year’s fell on a Wednesday did I have the day free. I regret that I may never be there again, and please keep that in mind when you hear this:
Prior to the start of presentations, our MC made a few introductory remarks, including the standard reminder to silence mobile devices. I chuckled at the reminder of how ringtones–and people actually taking calls in the theater while a film was on–drove me up a mandate when it spread like a pandemic among Screening Room audiences some ten years ago, but it hardly happens anymore. Everyone else, or so it seemed, reached for their phones and hit a button or two. Not me. I still do not own one.
Each of us spoke for five or ten minutes, and I believe it was while we were hearing the fifth speaker, that a ringtone came from a front corner of the room. The speaker continued while the tone sounded twice before a woman could get it out of a pocket, look at it, whisper a few words, and then put it away. The speaker never stopped, nor was anything said about the imposition before another speaker stepped to the mic.
May have been while the tenth or eleventh speaker was just starting that the same phone rang again. I clenched my teeth, but said nothing only because I was brand new to this group. Otherwise… Well, my parole officer may be reading this, so I better leave it unsaid. However, the fellow sitting next to me felt no such constraint:
Waving his hand at the speaker: “Excuse me! Excuse me!” And then pointing to the woman who, to my amazement, was answering the call: “Can you shut that thing off?” The whole room froze. He continued: “Or take the call outside.” She got up and left.
He then looked at the speaker: “I’m sorry. Can you start over again?”
The speaker did, and nothing else was said of the incident. It was if it never happened, except that in the transition to the next speaker, I put my hand on the fellow’s shoulder, and addressed him by name: “B—–, thank you for doing that! No one ever wants to do it, and no one will thank you even though most every one wants it done.”
With the next speaker ready to go, he simply nodded, and we both turned our attention to what we were there to hear. All was well until the speaker after that was mid-way into a moving account of personal loss, and the woman re-entered the room. Instead of going to her seat, she came right to our table and started explaining to my new friend (and ally in the futile war against technological imposition) why she “had to” take the call.
May have been ten years ago that I figured out that cellphoners have turned “emergency” into the biggest one-word joke in the history of language. So, of course it was “an emergency” involving a “doctor” and “couldn’t wait.” J—– simply said, “Well, then you shouldn’t have come here!” And she walked to her chair.
This time I was the one waving to the speaker: “I’m sorry, but can you go back to where you were looking out the window?” It wasn’t that far back, and I didn’t want to miss anything. He gladly complied, no doubt because he knew where the room’s attention had been redirected, and it wasn’t to, through, or at his window in a previous life.
There were no more interruptions, and the event soon ended as if there had never been any interruptions at all.
Next day I’m standing at a busy intersection in Melrose waiting for the walk sign.
Green comes on for the cars aside me, but none move. My mind is on something else–The Marathon? The spanakopita I’m about to have at the Iron Town Diner? The farce of the word “Emergency”? So I don’t look to see why the car doesn’t move. Five seconds pass before the second car sounds the horn. Just a bump, barely a beep, nothing that we would call “laying on,” and far short of blaring.
It works. First car finally starts, and a few get through the light before it turns red. During that time, a woman, perhaps my age, walks up to the corner and declares to me: “Some people have no patience!”
Nor did I have any patience: “What are you talking about? That driver sat here on green long enough to do his taxes. What’s the driver in the second car supposed to do? Offer to lick the envelope?”
Clearly, she was expecting immediate agreement, as she began with a stutter: “Wuh-wuh-wuh-well, there’s never any need for impatience. That’s my life’s motto!”
Irony was right on cue. We now had our walk sign, and she was crossing west while I was crossing north–not to mention that I had skipped breakfast and was ravenous for Iron Town. If not, I’d have asked if it ever occurred to her that the first driver was pre-occupied–most likely on a cellphone, perhaps texting–and that the second driver was actually doing the first a favor by letting him or her know that the light was now green. The second was certainly doing the third, fourth, fifth, etc. drivers a favor.
Instead, as we went our separate ways: “What your motto really says is ‘Let everything slide!'”
Next day, at the very beginning of NPR’s coverage of Jimmy Carter’s memorial in the Washington National Cathedral, a ringtone sounds.
“A reminder of modernity,” sighs the commentator.
Modernity. In the Washington National Cathedral and with all flags flying half-staff.
Can’t tell you just when or why or how it all went awry, but a Truman baby can tell you that it wasn’t always like this. Most of us may have been shy, but we’d support those willing to speak up for rules–written or understood–that call for the consideration of others.
Today, those who break rules, disturb the peace, and impose on others are to be tolerated. Those who complain or call attention to them are the ones to be criticized. “Let it slide” might as well replace E Pluribus Unum as our national motto.
We’d absolve the worst of thieves so long as they don’t thieve from us.
Or would you rather believe that a convicted felon becomes president of the United States thanks entirely to the high-financed schemes of a powerful few, and not at all to the day-to-day, carefree passivity of the let-it-slide many?
-654-
Thanks to a friend from Rome for the screenshot. That’s 1:00 AM. And that’s Rome, New York.
Here I am, as I am every year between Christmas and New Years’ Day, about to start writing greeting cards and wrapping presents.
Operative word there is “about.” This allows for the detour I’ve just taken to write what you now read, much like I made the same detour yesterday and the day before. If you ever wondered why or how I write so much, now you know: Procrastination.
This began a few years ago, never mind how many, while procrastinating during the week before Dec. 25. Finally occurred to me that I had an out: The “mas” in Christmas means twelve days, enough to include and commemorate the arrival of the Magi. Why, it’s even in the title of the most preposterous song of the season offering gifts that would fill Noah’s Ark, which may well be where it was written.
And so I shelved the project until after the 25th and have done so each year since. This year I’ve been struck by something else. Like the name of the 12th day itself, call it an epiphany.
Call it coincidence or irony, calendars don’t care about the separation of church and state any more than a hurricane about state borders. I doubt anyone four years ago was thinking of Christmas when they stormed the nation’s Capitol twelve days later. And I know for certain that bear spray is not frankincense, and the battering rams were not made of gold.
Nor did anyone else connect the political violence of that one day to the serene significance of the date on the Christian calendar. Because presidential elections are just once every four years, there was no reason to note the connection these past three.
Nor is anyone noting it this year except for me and possibly other lifers on the USS Procrastination. Likely, few mind that their presents and cards might arrive on a day that will soon become an American holiday to celebrate the anniversary of insurrection. The overthow of governments is celebrated all across the globe, so why would the USA be any different. July 4 already serves as one such day, and as the self-proclaimed “greatest country on Earth,” America deserves two.
Plus, as a holy day on the Christian calendar, Jan. 6 can easily be finessed by an accommodating Supreme Court into a decision to strike down the wall of separation. Call it American Epiphany.
We know that the MAGA movement wants a theocracy. We know that they often refer to Trump as sent by God, at times as an American messiah. We know that fundamentalists have dictated the appointment of at least three Supreme Court justices who made it possible to strike down Roe v Wade. And we know that the president as of Jan. 20 will have no regard for the Constitution except to invoke the name, no regard for the flag except to wave it, no regard for the Bible except to sell it, no regard for government except to profit from it, and no regard for police who were killed or injured by the riot he incited except to act like they don’t exist.
They’ll compare it to the tearing down of the Iron Curtain when they rip down the Wall of Separation of Church and State, and they’ll laugh at anyone who calls it “Merry Crimemas.”
With Biden still in office, it won’t happen next month. But the felon-elect says he will pardon all of his fellow felons and followers who stormed the Capitol on day one, 14 days later. His campaign rallies began with a recording of them–the “J6 Choir”–singing the national anthem, as do his gatherings at Mar-a-Lago. Stands to reason that he will want to commemorate the date.
Inevitably, someone will tip him off that it is also the 12th day of Christmas. By summer he’ll ask for a bill he can sign a bill to make the day a civic holiday that “acknowledges” the Christian “values” that “guided” those who had the “courage” to challenge the “tyranny” of Democrats. It’ll pass because Republicans are too cowardly to state the obvious, and if a challenge goes to the Supreme Court, the 6-3 decision will be so sweeping that it will allow Christian displays, texts, and teaching in American public schools.
Call it coincidence or irony that I, too, observe Jan. 6. To use the polite phrase, I may be a lapsed Catholic, but I’ve cherished my annual Christmas mailing all my adult life. In recent years, I’ve considered Jan. 6 a deadline as good as any. Now, I want no part of it.
Time to get off the USS Procrastination. I’ll have no problem getting Christmas Valentines in the mail on time.
On Sunday, I attended an event and heard the main speaker call dedicated activist groups “small but mighty.”
I recognized the reference thanks to a diminutive villager and singer at King Richard’s Faire who often wore the shirt at cast-call before she climbed into Renaissance garb.
Made without mention of Shakespeare, “small but mighty” came near the end of the event, and so while rising to leave, I turned to two nearby friends, a married couple, and let them know. But I couldn’t name the play and guessed, Much Ado About Nothing or As You Like it. “Has to be one of the comedies.”
On Monday, my newsfeed included an ad for literary t-shirts. First and foremost was:
Has my brain been tapped? Unnerving though it was, I laughed at the ask-and-you-shall-receive immediacy–and the exact re-wording–of what I hope is pure coincidence and passed it on to the couple. I’ve heard of opening Pandora’s Box, but I opened a Litmus Test: She worried that “someone is listening in.” His reply could not have been more cheerful: “The web heard you wondering which play it was from, and kindly gave you the answer!”
Yes, the line is from AMidsummer Night’s Dream, a comedy that may qualify as the Bard’s weirdest play, spoken by Helena in act 3, scene 2, referring to her friend Hermia. When I added that, the reply was this: “Our daughter named her cat Hermia, and she was little but fierce.”
Before and after that exchange, I was drafting a column for Martin Luther King Day for the local paper. Yes, six weeks early, but I had an idea prompted by a question posed to the speaker on Sunday. Already drafting it in my head on the drive home, but up against a deadline for another project that night, I had to draft it next day.
In it, I describe and quote a sermon King delivered in Lima, Ohio. When I had a complete draft, I went clicking for emails and messages which included a friend request from a friend of a friend as often happens on social media. As always, I checked a profile before approving, and there it was: “From Lima, Ohio.”
Is it possible that the name of a place in my unpublished and unseen-by-anyone-but-me Word file was caught by an algorithm and connected via social media to a woman from that place, prompting her to send a friend request?
Nor could my remark while leaving a church be anywhere near the internet. And yet…
And yet it feels so much like other “coincidences” that should be suspected. I’m an avid, lifelong cribbage player, so it was only a matter of time before I mentioned the game in an email not long ago with my most frequent opponent. Next day I was looking at this:
No fan of gimmicks, she was appalled, as was I. She even sounded a bit miffed that I dared send it. But I inflict it on you to make a point: As soon as I mention it, it’s known to cyber-advertisers. Unlike this week’s surprises, I had put it in an email, so I hardly noticed or cared. First noticed this 15 years ago when I reviewed a Jethro Tull concert opened by Procol Harum. I was already a member of a Tull fan group and seeing ads for their merch, but the next day I began seeing ads for Procol Harum.
I can only wonder if it was due to my enthusiasm for them, the only opening act to gain a call for an encore in the 30-plus Tull concerts I’ve attended since 1971. Interesting to note that, in the column, I made made bare mention of The Rolling Stones and The Who but received no ads for them.
And now I’m bombarded with ads for nativity scenes. When drafting my Christmas column last week about displays of refugees seeking shelter on the lawns and in the homes that fly the flag of a candidate promising mass deportations of refugees seeking shelter, I wanted to know where the figurines are manufactured.
Do the Marys and Josephs have green cards? If not, may they be rounded up and deported to Guatemala or Pakistan or wherever they may have been mass produced?
For that, I get ads offering them at bargain rates. Call it comic relief. The algorithms have no sense of satire. They’d try selling guns to a nun if the nun wrote “gun” more than once in an email.
What’s new–and what’s worrying–is that I’m now receiving ads and possibly friend requests that appear too specific to be coincidental. We’ll see what this account you are now reading might draw. If I start seeing ads for services providing encrypted text or web secrecy, I’ll ask the algorithms to let you know.
Most weeks I’m at the Screening Room only on Wednesdays, but I fill in when the owners need a break, as I did this past Sunday for two showings of a two-and-one-half hour film.
Ever since the new owners added weekday afternoons, I’ve been packing a lunch, and on Sunday it was my favorite: chicken curry salad to have in a sandwich and a large honey crisp apple.
Before I could put it in the fridge, I spotted a stylish, dark green handbag with a note on it: “Left last night.”
The bag was snapped closed, and we learned long ago that such things are almost always claimed the next day. Perhaps Saturday’s projectionist felt it best not to invade anyone’s privacy, and give the owner some time.
A morning and early afterrnoon later, I figured, was plenty of time for the owner to panic. I’d open the bag and rifle any purse or wallet for a name and phone number. But first, I put my own stuff away–only to find I forgot to pack the bread. Spooning the salad out of the plastic container was hardly appetizing.
Letting the green handbag sit until the matinee was on the screen, I prepared the lobby, popping corn, making coffee, and heating water for tea, and I arranged the old cigar box that serves as this quaint, quirky cinema’s cash register.
That done, I realized the day was just mild enough that I might sit out on State Street for some 15 minutes before patrons arrived. As always on warm days, that’s good incentive to show up early.
Way too early for the film were two women who walked in just after I took my chair. Noticing that I appeared to bounce back out of it, they apologized for getting me up.
Made me laugh: “I need the exercise,” as I always say, though at times grudgingly.
After buying tickets, they said they’d be back and asked for a suggestion for where to get coffee, telling me they were from out of town. When one asked if I wanted anything, I started to say no, but then thought of the chicken curry: “Yes, a single roll or piece of bread, anything for a sandwich.”
“A pita pocket?”
“Yes, that will do!”
They left, and as I retook the seat on the street, I thought of how difficult such a simple thing can be to find and called after them to forget it.
“No, no, we’ll see what we can do. By the way, I’m Christina, and this is Maureen.”
As always, I repeated the names and made eye-contact with each while doing so, a memory trick that has served me well over the years, adding only, “Jack.”
Half hour later, the lobby was crowded. When that happens and I’m making another batch of popcorn, I like to point out how difficult it is for a right-handed person to pour kernels and oil into the kettle of a machine designed for left-handed people. While giving that spiel, I spotted a package of eight brioche rolls on the counter.
Somehow I managed to pour the mix without spilling it while laughing out loud. Christina and Maureen had walked in without my noticing them. With no way of knowing why a package of rolls was on the counter, people must have thought I was laughing at my own rueful joke.
While they watched the film, I had the sandwich and learned that if I can’t get to Annarosa’s Bakery across the river, I can trust Sara Lee in Market Basket.
So good, I forgot the handbag and began drafting my first Daily News column in a month. Writer’s block? Stymied by the run-up to the election? Too much time in–and exhaustion from–two days at a renfaire every week since Labor Day? Two more at Salem’s witch trial reenactments every week past Halloween? Addiction to the baseball playoffs and the start of NFL football? Stunned by the result of the election? Getting old?
Maybe all of the above, so I turned to local issues and soon found myself repeating the word “lost” which, after a while, reminded me of my opportunity to dive into a stranger’s wallet.
Turned out she was no stranger. She and her husband are longtime patrons of the Screening Room, and I got to know them a bit ten-twelve years ago in a group that led the resistance to waterfront development.
Before I started rifling her rather thick purse, I couldn’t help but notice two Hershey bars buried in the bag. Lead me not into temptation… If I didn’t know her, I might suspect they were smuggled in, but we do sell them, and she and her husband are no strangers to our concession stand.
Ignoring a few larger, wrapped-up items, I went into the purse. After thumbing through her credit cards, medical cards, group and business memberships, I had his phone number.
To my surprise, he did not know the bag was missing. “Did you two get divorced?” I almost joked, but held my tongue. He said they lived nearby, and he’d walk over a bit later.
When the first show ended, I made sure to thank Christina and Maureen by name, deliberately calling them by each other’s name, a ruse to make people repeat their names and point to themselves, all with eye-contact, making them easier to remember for weeks to come.
I suggested they take the remaining seven rolls. “No, no, we have enough at home. Freeze ’em.” I offered the container of the remaining salad, “delicious, from Tendercrop, a local farmstand,” enough for a sandwich they could split with soup. “No, no, we’re all set!”
Then, Maureen asked, “What’s your name again?”
“Jack, like in the trunk of your car!” A trick for the memory of others. In this same lobby, I once told a woman who asked my name, “I’m in the trunk of every car,” and she guessed, “Beach Chair?”
“How useful!”
“Ya, if you need a lift, come back on a Wednesday! Popcorn’s on me!”
They disappeared down State Street just as the first customers arrived. Among them was a couple who announced they had just left a party where the Screening Room owners were in attendance. That may have led me to think they were of the same generation as my employers, and they both appeared youthful enough. So I asked for general admission and ripped two GA tickets.
“Don’t I get my senior discount?”
“Well, yes,” I said while lowering the price, “but it does work better if you say it ahead of time.”
He laughed, and I forced a laugh. He paid with a credit card, which really ought not to be allowed in movie theaters where everyone arrives at the same time and they take so much more time than cash. But I’m way outnumbered on that score, and never complain to a card user–unless you count the many times I loudly thank people for using cash within hearing of those who may be about to use cards.
He introduced himself, asked my first name, and went into the theater. Five minutes later with people still buying tickets, he reappeared, asked for a $2 bottle of water, and held out his VISA card. But deliver us from evil… “Please,” I thought to myself, as if praying, “don’t let this guy ever come here on Wednesdays.”
Soon after the start of the second show, the fellow I called arrived to claim his wife’s handbag. Before I could turn to get it, he asked a question that surprised me as much as anything I’ve ever been asked:
“Were there two chocolate bars in it?”
“Hunh? Well, yes.”
“Ah! We were looking for those after the movie started.”
He laughed at my dumbstruck amazement. Finally, “Let me get this straight: The two of you looked for and could not find two chocolate bars, but never noticed that the bag was missing?”
Laughing: “I guess so!”
“Even though she put the bars in the bag?” We’re all required to speak softly in this lobby while a film is in progress, but emphatic hand gestures surely amplified that last phrase.
He kept laughing.
Well, as I told him, I’ve done worse. Full pots of hot coffee put into the refrigerator. Opening a bottle of beer when I was intending to have orange juice first thing in the morning. Perhaps a few other doozies I’d rather not put in writing.
He left, and I resumed my attempt to find Newburyport in 700 words or less until the late show as over. When the credits rolled and patrons started filing out, I was looking into the hall and overheard a cheery voice behind me:
“Hey Jack, great to meet you! See you around!”
“Yes, you too,” I turned quickly and addressed him by name, adding, “I’m here on Wednesdays.”
-627-
Look closely and you may notice that all of the mechanisms holding and leading to the kettle (that round thing) will be on the right of anyone working through the doors on the backside. Use your right hand, and you need an unnatural contortion, but your left hand has a clear path. Photos (both of them) by longtime and faithful Screening Room patron Bob Watts.
Mouth of the River 