Maine Encounter by Kenneth Weene

We set out early that morning. Leaving Boston on Route 1 along the coast to Newburyport, into New Hampshire, and across the border to Portland. Then, turning north-northeast and heading inland to Lewiston and Auburn. Stopping along the way at a stand outside of Gray for the best burgers I’d ever eaten. Crossing the Androscoggin River, redolent of the sulfur fumes of the paper plant that was the major employer of the twin cities. Another 20 miles or so—stopping for another treat of burgers and pie—and then a left on 219, a road that soon turned to gravel. Up a great hill that strained the luggage-laden, old car’s overheating engine. Finally, after six hours, we arrived.

Where? I had no idea. Only five years old, everything that was happening was beyond my

comprehension.

“We’re here,” my father announced.

“Are you sure?” my mother countered.

My older brother hit me in the arm to mark the occasion.

“Of course, I’m sure,” Dad replied checking the instructions once more before he walked over to the front door of the old farmhouse. Later, I came to know it as The Big House, and big it was. Five bedrooms, an attic, a living room complete with fireplace, kitchen, a root cellar, one bathroom, and a dining room capable of seating fifty or sixty campers and staff. This was the main building of the summer camp my parents had purchased, a camp at which I would spend the next twenty summers.

Of course, at the time I had no idea why we were there, and nobody was taking the time to explain. Too busy with brooms and mops and carrying clothes and god knows what else, my parents told me to go outside. “It’s a beautiful day,” Mom said.

Three years older, my brother was, I suppose, trying to be helpful. Clearly the best help I could give was to do just as Mom had said. Out I went.

The grass had been cut—not so fine as our downstairs neighbor in Massachusetts kept the yard, but still fine for lying on. There were flowers to smell and a big rock with a plaque to be climbed. Later, I learned that plaque commemorated the girls’ camp that had once operated on that site. It had been founded in the 1920s. Absent electricity, on dirt roads, bathing in cold spring water and hiking up and down the side of a small mountain, those girls must have been tough. On that day, I didn’t realize how tough. I hadn’t yet realized that we didn’t have normal electricity and that our refrigerator would be the ice house out back. I just knew that rock was made for climbing.

After a while, I tired of the rock. One thing about mastery for a kid of five, after some repetition, it’s time to find a new challenge. Mine was the path that led downhill from that rock. With no sidewalks or fences to remind me of limits and boundaries, down the hill I went.

At the bottom of the path, there was a field. Later, I realized it wasn’t very big, but for a kid who measured the world in comparison to his backyard, it was enormous. To one side there was another building, one that I would later know as the rec hall, but for the moment it held no interest. Just to be in the middle of that wilderness, in the middle of all that grass, to be out of my parents’ view: what bliss.

I lay on the grass and watched clouds tell stories.

From one side of the field, two small animals—cats I thought—made their waddling way towards me. They were cute, black with white stripes. Again, I would learn that they were skunks, but at the moment, that name meant nothing. I lay there and let them approach.

Skunks are curious and friendly creatures. Let alone and unthreatened, they are happy to snuffle a small human lying on the grass. Perhaps, they could have been rabid, but that wasn’t the way this story was to end. It ended with them waddling away and my calling after them. “I hope you guys want to talk again.”

The funny thing, I was getting rather lonely. I did want somebody with whom I could talk. I might even have gone to look for my brother. Being beaten up might have felt better than being alone and—oh, no, what am I going to do, lost.

Perhaps I would have cried. I certainly might have panicked. But, fate had something better in store for me. His name was Harold Bryant; although that day, he introduced himself only as Harold. Harold was to become for me the symbol of all that was best about Maine.

“So, Kenney, what are you doing?” he asked once we’d properly shaken hands and I had told him my name in return.

“I don’t know. My mom and dad are up the hill,” I replied not sure where up the hill was.

“Oh, so they’ve arrived.”

“Do you know them?”

“I work for your father.”

My eyes must have widened. My father was a school teacher back in Somerville, Massachusetts, wherever that too might be. How did he know this stranger and how could this man with his rough hands, blue-eyed smile, bib-overalls, and fascinating tool belt work for him?

“I’ve been working on the cabins.”

What cabins? Where? And more questions: Dare I ask them? 

He gestured me to the remnant of a rock wall and we sat on the cold Maine granite.

Harold told me about the place we were, more exactly about building it, particularly his part in the work. His first job years before had been carrying the rocks that composed the fireplace inside that nearby rec hall. Now, I’m your father’s carpenter,” he finished the tale. “I arranged for my son-in-law, Donald, to cut the grass. Not just up here, but down below.” He gestured in the direction of what I later learned was the lake, which lay at the base of that mountain. I’m not sure I had any notion of what a lake might be or what lake grass was. There was, I learned, another even larger field, large enough to play softball and football. But, for the moment, I didn’t need to know that or much more. God had gifted me with something far better, a grown man who would talk with me, pay me attention, actually answer my questions—if I dared to ask them.

Eventually, Harold announced, “I’d best be getting back to work, and you’d best get back to your parents.”

“Where are they?” I squeaked afraid that he would leave me perched on that wall and never able to find my way. Terrified to admit I didn’t know and risk the scorn of this new hero with his hammer and screwdrivers, and other tools I didn’t know.

Bless Harold Bryant for not laughing. Bless him for understanding. He showed me the nearby path. “I’m sure you’ll learn your way around real fast.”

I did. But, more importantly I learned that the kindness of this man, who was over the years to teach me many things, most importantly to have faith in myself because nature makes us to be who we are. That is one of the great lessons of Maine, to be true to oneself.

Now, years later, I live far from New England and Harold is long dead. Still, I think of him and recall his simple strength. When I wrote Broody New Englander, it in part was to honor Harold Bryant, not just by using his name for one of the characters, but by actually using his character.

When I got back to the top of what seemed a giant hill, my parents hadn’t missed me. Why would they? I was out of their hair. Had my brother not said something about my not getting in the way, they might have ignored my return altogether. Perhaps, they were hoping I had been eaten by the bears that didn’t frequent that part of Maine. Who knows. Still, when I started telling them about my adventure, my mother told me that I shouldn’t have wandered off, which brought my father’s shouts of, “Stop getting in the way; we have work to do.”

It was only when I mentioned meeting Harold that Dad stopped his yelling. Off he went, down the hill, shouting back to Mom, “Fran, you finish up. I have to talk with him.”

“Yeah,” I thought, “I have to talk more with him, too.”

*****

You can find more of Ken Weene’s writing at his website, http://www.kennethweene.com and you can win a copy of Broody New Englander by commenting on this post. And, of course, you can have a wonderful time by visiting the Pine Tree State.