Winding down

I slept quite late this morning—I needed it after yesterday's ten hours of driving! By the time I dragged myself out of bed and walked into Walt's kitchen, he had already left for his physical therapy appointment. So I had myself a leisurely breakfast of granola with fresh blueberries, ran a load of laundry in Walt's washer, and then went back to Gertie and puttered around for a couple of hours. While waiting for Walt to return, I read for awhile in Bill Bryson's highly entertaining book "I'm a Stranger Here Myself."

Bryson was born in Iowa, but moved to Britain and spent twenty years there before returning to the US with his English wife and four children. He found himself in the peculiar position of a native-born American bewildered by his own country, and parlayed that predicament into a series of entertaining articles for London's Mail on Sunday newspaper. The seventy short pieces collected in this book are by turns thoughtful, bemused and hilarious—a wonderfully enjoyable read.

After awhile I decided it was time to do something useful, so I climbed up on Gertie's roof to check out the best way to install my rear-view video camera. While I was up there, Walt pulled in, feeling much better. (He says his physical therapist works magic.) He helped me install the camera and run the initial wiring—I'll spare you the details, as you can read all about it on my RetroVision page. Suffice it to say that I intend not to back into any more posts in the future!

About the time we hit a stopping place, Walt's friend Karen dropped by. She lives a couple of streets over and is a pleasant woman with an offbeat sense of humor and a no-nonsense manner. She walks with great difficulty using two canes, due to multiple sclerosis. Shortly after she was diagnosed with MS a couple of years ago, her husband left her, so now she has to take care of their 15-year-old daughter by herself—not an easy task even for a person who isn't handicapped by a degenerative disease! And of course the child support payments are often missing...it's the old story. By the way, Karen didn't bring up any of this—she's not a complainer, but takes things as they come. Walt filled me in afterward. I liked Karen for her refreshingly straightforward attitude.

Walt then spent an hour or two making arrangements to get to Boston the following week for an experimental surgical procedure that may prevent his sight from deteriorating any further. This is a complicated business, since he can't see well enough to drive himself there (though he can still get around Eastport in his battered Ford Ranger). It has to be managed with rides from friends to the bus stop, a long bus trip to Boston, and more friends on the other end to pick him up, drive him to the doctor and put him up overnight...then the whole business in reverse. Complicated arrangements!

While Walt was making phone calls, I reminded myself that this was my last day here, and I had still not photographed some of the details I wanted to capture—mainly his meticulous restoration work on the house. So I walked around shooting things that caught my eye: the torch-like light fixtures flanking the front door; the elaborate two-patterned wallpaper in the master bedroom; and Walt's brass-headed cane. I could spend a year photographing this house and its contents without capturing everything, but these images will have to convey the feeling.

I happily whiled away the remaining time in the library. Walt's large and eclectic book collection ranges through trains, planes, boats, automobiles, military history, music, various artistic styles, movies, animation...you name it. First I picked up a book about the Art Deco movement, and was somewhat surprised to find out that I didn't like most of the examples of the style, with a few exceptions. Skimming the text, I learned that most of the practitioners of Art Deco didn't give a damn about usability. If they built a chair that looked good, that was enough for them, and they didn't care whether it was comfortable to sit in. That's an attitude I despise, and I'm guessing that the Bauhaus movement was a reaction against that kind of thinking. Then I dipped into the "Smithsonian Book of Invention"—always a fascinating subject for me—and read until Walt was finished with his phone calls.

After that we had a long chat about his RAF days. Here's one story he told me. It was toward the end of the war. He'd gotten a few days' leave, and hitched a ride home in an old clapped-out Wellington bomber—known affectionately as a "Wimpy." (Why not a "Wellie"? Because the English already use "wellies" as slang for "boots.") Wimpies were extremely durable aircraft, but this one had seen some rough service and was flying back to its home base for a much-needed refit.

The furlough was long overdue and Walt was exhausted from weeks of round-the-clock missions, so despite the wind and engine noise, he eventually dropped off to sleep, curled up in a corner of the center fuselage area near the bomb bay. He hadn't slept long, though, when he was rudely awakened by a lurch, a sudden, sinister absence of engine noise...and the voice of the pilot in his intercom headphones yelling "EVERY MAN FOR HIMSELF!" The plane began a slow roll to the right as Walt clawed his way toward the escape hatch in the belly.

This hatch was just under two feet by two feet—normally plenty big enough. But try going through it with a parachute strapped to your back and the floor at a 45° angle! Walt was the last crewman out...and a second or two after he exited the small opening, the Wimpy rolled over onto its back and corkscrewed into the ground. If he'd been a little slower waking up, the hatch would have been on the ceiling and it would have been just too bad for Walt—slim chance of climbing up and through that opening with the plane in a spin!

Late in the afternoon we went up and rooted around in the huge attic for awhile. The attic is a mess, because at one point Walt had some incompetent roofers working on it and they left it open through several storms. Many of the tools stored up there are rusted and need to be cleaned—I could see how badly that offended his machinist's pride. Walt gave me some old beta videotapes (he no longer has anything to play them on) and showed me some of his various and sundry treasures. (If you believe in the saying "He who dies with the most toys wins"—well, Walt has won, no doubt about it!) Among them was a wonderfully detailed figurine of a man on an old motorbike. When I asked about it, Walt told me that it was a depiction of his father as a messenger during WWI. Every detail was accurate, yet the whole thing was only three inches long. Did I mention that Walt is a fantastically skilled modeler?

Tonight's supper didn't take long to prepare, but it was delicious: sausages, homemade mashed potatoes and broccoli. The broccoli was my contribution; I'd brought some in from Gertie. Broccoli is my "all-purpose vegetable"; I can add it to nearly any savory dish and be pretty sure of liking the results. (I realize that liking broccoli means I can never be President of the United States, but I long ago resigned myself to that fact.)

Dinner was followed by Walt's homemade Victorian tapioca pudding, which was excellent—not like any tapioca pudding I've ever had! Afterward we went upstairs and watched one of Walt's movies for a change: "In God We Tru$t," starring Marty Feldman as a monk, Louise Lasser as a hooker, Richard Prior as God and Andy Kaufman as a sleazy televangelist (is there any other kind?).

This hilarious and extremely irreverent movie apparently managed to so thoroughly offend the religious authorities that shortly after its release it sank from sight and was never seen again until it emerged on home video many years later. We both laughed until our sides hurt.

We turned in early tonight. Walt has promised a hearty breakfast of ham and eggs for tomorrow, after which I'll head back to Cape Cod and thence home to New Jersey.