We're Off

Greetings:

Mile 0

The Element is packed almost to the ceiling with our sets of golf clubs and Chris’ bicycle. We set off for Dad’s in Franklin to leave him some cash and to say goodbye. He is upstairs in the dining room at Golden Crest and is glad to see us. Hopefully we will all survive without seeing each other for over two months.

Gini was presented with a ‘truffle snake’ in her Christmas stocking. It has since been put back into its original 2 lb Harry and David Dark Chocolate tub and given preferred seating in the front seat. As we left Franklin, NH we felt like our trip had begun and Gini was definitely on vacation. The Patriots game on the radio was to serve as our entertainment as we made our way to Middletown, NY to visit with brother Bob. He lives in the family house now so he could save on rent and was awaiting us for dinner at Nina’s.

As we started listening to the game we made a pact. For every touchdown that the Patriots scored we would eat a dark chocolate truffle. This became life threatening as Brady passed for four touchdowns and Morris ran in another. We decided that maybe every other touchdown would be cause for embracing Harry and David.

Mile 300

It was good to see Bob at the old homestead. From 1957 to 1968 it was Chris’ home. Gini first paid a visit in 1972 and Mom liked her. Gini, at the time, marveled, as did many others, at the back yard. For Dad, after coming from Ireland and then the Bronx, this was his first house and could not cope with the condition of the yard. So he had it blacktopped. Odd as it was, it was a mini school yard the whole time Chris lived there. Bob and he played hours and hours of home run derby, whiffle ball and managed to hit whiffle golf balls in a competitive fashion over the years.

Now Middletown did not seem charming with all the crowded ‘garden apartments’ squeezed into lots meant for single family homes across the street. Street noise and activity was 24/7. Nina’s, however, was a different story. Somehow this restaurant, which could have easily competed with anything in Manhattan, had nestled onto Main Street in Middletown. Dinner was most enjoyable.

The basement at the house was filled with many of Mom’s ‘backups’. Literally one could furnish three or four kitchens with the accumulated treasures of over fifty years of marriage. Well, maybe in the spring we could deal with this … but now? Not so much.

Morning brought sunny but windy weather. Now begins the iPhone versus AARP/MapQuest death match. Google was not helping, there was an hour’s difference in travel time with their version. We decided to head for Delaware and make for Cape Charles and the Chesepeake Bay Bridge. Anyone who has driven this must be amazed at how this bridge dips, not once but twice, under Chesapeake Bay and then leaps to the surface once more. The sun is blinding as we head west late in the afternoon. The wind is howling and one might think we are in a Hitchcock movie as seagull after seagull lies lifeless on the side of the road.

Mile 770

We did successfully arrive in Norfolk thanks to the iPhone. The reason we were there was because of Gini’s family. Uncle Buzz had taken an apartment to be near his son Mike (Gini’s cousin), his wife Mary and their daughter Amy, her husband and the latest star, three year old Crysta.

Buzz lives in a wonderful senior apartment complex called the Talbot on the grounds of a major hospital in downtown Norfolk. He is a former Navy jet pilot who was glad to see Gini:






He is 88 and pretty fit. He has a second bedroom at his place so we were quickly shown to our suite.














Dinners that night and the next were filled with seafood from Chesapeake bay. Oysters William and crab crakes were big hits. We also learned of the area’s icon the mermaid. She is displayed in various ways throughout the region:















The first night culminated in a drive through the visual wonders of the local botanical gardens. The trees are lit up with Christmas themes:



















The next day we immersed ourselves in the rich history of the area. This is Yorktown, Hampton Roads; Newport News; Gosport and Portsmouth shipbuilding; the Monitor and the Virginia dueling to a draw. Mike had hoped that we could see the story of the Monitor at a Newport News’ Mariners Museum but it was closed that day. We then opted for Norfolk’s Naval Museum guarded by the USS Wisconsin:



Not only was it fascinating because of the area’s rich historical pedigree but Buzz was in his milieu. He had made over 500 landings on aircraft carriers for three decades. First hand info is always sweet.

The Beaulieu clan then hosted us at Olive Garden for a family dinner that had four generations present:


We still have a soft spot for good family/friends:



And the joy of a grandmother and her grandchild:



The next morning Mike and Mary took us to IHOP and we were off to find Myrtle Beach and Rick and Hanna.

And Your Little Dog Too!

Greetings:

As you may or may not know, to make a comment on a blog posting you go to the end of the post and click on the link that reads ‘0 comments’ or ‘1 comments’ or what ever number followed by ‘comments’. You will be able to read submitted comments, if any, and be able to type in your own. You are always more than welcome to do so.

After Coop d’Etat 2 (Part 2) there was a single comment:


Chip Duggan said...
Ok... all happy go lucky fairy tale comes true. i love it... I really do... but lets here the juicy stuff, disenchant us for a sec. Like, the hard times, I mean the really difficult times... you know the juicy stuff... Then you can go about how luck you two truly are... which by the way is really f@C!%&G lucky. Fairy tales do exist and its not a goal, you just are living it!

your son,

Chip


Can you imagine this? From your own son?! This was like Toto pulling on the Wizard’s curtain. I am the Great and Powerful Baron!!



Now somewhere there must be a burnt witch’s broom in exchange for this presumptuous behavior. Well, we’ll deal with the ‘broom’ later.

Interesting quote in the online New York Times today:

"People who have something really private to say probably shouldn’t do it in a text on their cellphone."
MARC ROTENBERG, executive director of the Electronic Privacy Information Center, a public interest research group based in Washington.

So let it be known that Gini never chased me down the driveway waving a golf club but maybe in the past forty years there may have been three or four times when she might have had the urge. So yes, my son, there have been moments on the dark side. Some of them need to have their garments of embarrassment and shame shed before discussion but there is a chance that some of them may forever remain … private.

I know that because of “…fearing … that I'd become my enemy in the instant that I preach” I have forsaken the lecture approach echoing with sentiments of “Don’t you make the same mistake!”. However, the humbling confession in a blog-like posture might be able to yield some perspective on disenchantment.


So here goes…


Charlie, Gini’s dad, was mentioned in the previous posting. Ann, her mom, had passed on several years before Charlie died. She had battled breast cancer for twenty years and finally succumbed. Gini has always been mindful of the genetic message that may have been transmitted to her.

We had only been married a year. The doctor’s report was handed across the desk for our perusal. Underlined in red was ‘malignant carcinoma’. Gini was not to escape. Dr. Henry P. Leis, in medicine’s Who’s Who and chief of breast surgery at New York Medical College, quietly awaited our response.

Gini had made a promise to herself after absorbing her mother’s experience. There would be no mascectomies … no disfigurement. A biopsy would be performed but even should it be malignant then nothing else but a lumpectomy would be done.

The discussion each succeeding night concluded in the same way. There would be nothing done besides the lumpectomy and I was not to exercise my legal right as husband to determine any other course of action upon learning of the biopsy diagnosis while Gini was on the operating table.

We tried black humor amidst the ambience of ‘Love Story’ to try and maintain our epicurean vector.

The morning of the medical procedure came. Gini was taken away. I sat there resolved to respect my wife but wishing I could live with betraying her for my own selfish reasons. Each hour passed, many hours passed, too many of them. I could not betray her. Que sera sera!

It was during these long hours that disenchantment took hold and sunk its claws into our psyche. It still was not easy to shake when Dr. Leis finally came to me in the afternoon and proclaimed, “Your wife is a witch! The incision bled like there was a malignancy but the cysts are benign and were removed.”

************************************************************************
Now let us fast forward to a much awaited opportunity of travel that Gini had provided. It was to be a trip to Mexico that included several days at a spa south of Mexico City overlooking a lake. However, Gini in her determined effort to be responsible and to try to be adult (at this point the garage had not been built), had scheduled an appointment with Ned Gordon, our lawyer. The purpose was to create our Last Will and Testament. We’re gonna do what before leaving? You’ve got to be kidding! And lo the documents appeared and were signed. Airport … ho!

Mexico was wonderful. The spa was amazing. I had not been treated like this since I was a baby and the swaddling clothes were a nice touch. We were aromated, massaged, reflexologized and cuticled until we were mush. It is also the one time when we can claim with recreational delight that the earth moved. We were resting and a mild earthquake rumbled and a rainbow appeared above the lake. Magic!

Our last night was celebrated with a romantic dinner. What was supposed to be a lingering glance suddenly became something else. Gini’s eyes rolled back as she fell to the table and then slumped to the floor. She did not respond to my pleas. She did not move further. Superstitious thoughts of having signed the wills rushed to my mind. Why wouldn’t she respond?

I yelled in Spanish for help and have someone call a doctor. Aid came and we were soon able to determine she was breathing. The doctor came to the conclusion that the circuit breaker labeled ‘Gini’ had flipped off but it was back on now and everything would be fine. Mexico… hmm … maybe some other time.

********************************************************************
Now from the point of view of a child (namely Chip) who knows what our relationship looked like. We will have to continually ask him to develop and refine a perspective. He did witness some rather adult partying and perhaps some hypocritical behavior. Which brings me to that burnt broomstick that I have presumed he has ceremoniously produced.



Perhaps our example was the subliminal rendering of “Surrender Chip”. Hard to say but it would be agreed that the development of the story of ‘The Party’ would prove stressful.

I was drooling over the sausages and peppers I was fryin’ up and getting ready to pop open a Sam Adams when the phone rang: “Dad I’m in trouble…” Every parent knows that these words are to be feared but must be met robustly.

We had purchased a home outside Keene as an enlightened way to avoid dorm costs upon resale. Chip had three roommates. They had a party. Over three hundred people came thanks to cell phones and the internet. The fire department came, The police came. The drug squad came. The media came. Our house was famous on Manchester’s Channel 9. Twenty six pot plants were found in Chip’s closet by the drug squad… two and a half hours before they got a search warrant.



The flying monkeys had landed. This was most disenchanting and family pride seemed vertiginous.

Chip will be clean and sober five years on December 11th. He has become an artist, a carpenter, a lover, a graduate student, a seeker, an outdoorsman, a good son. He can be very enchanting. Somehow he melted the witch with gifts that he always had but previously thought he was without.

********************************************************************

No one is infallible. No one is mistake free. No one has done it all correctly. Some are lucky.

Yes, my guard stood hard when abstract threats
Too noble to neglect
Deceived me into thinking
I had something to protect
Good and bad, I define these terms
Quite clear, no doubt, somehow.
Ah, but I was so much older then,
I'm younger than that now.

Enchante´
.
.
.

Coop d'Etat (Part 2)

Greetings once again. When we last left our heroes they were hub deep in mud trying to master the backhoe in one week.

By the time that John did arrive, the foundation excavation and regrading along the entrance side of the house had been accomplished even though Chris was now channeling Noah. Not too much damage – Chris was rudely educated about the articulation abilities of the backhoe when he swung it in a direction that he thought would be away from the house. That crunching sound was so disappointing. The framing around one of the windows of the front apartment bore the scars until just a couple of years ago.

Chris decided to spread the energy and the anguish by having his basketball team (did you know he coached the jayvee for two years and the varsity for two years?) carry cinder blocks and mortar under John’s direction.

It began to take shape:




Bob Huber also came to the rescue with his earthmoving equipment to help backfill and finish grading.

At this point John was back in his element and the framing, walls and roof rose quickly. Chris managed to save some face by doing the plumbing and helping with the electricity and speaker system. And then it arrived:



Steps would have been nice, huh? Well, later with that.

We could not deny that the only description for this whole escapade was decadence. The chickens would be so jealous! (There was and always be concerns about poultrygeist)

This tub was warranted for only ten years with a life expectancy of maybe fifteen. Somehow we have been using it for over twenty years. It has been brought back from death’s door at least twice and has a slow leak to remind us of its age. But boy does it feel good after a tough day and the weather is frightful. Gini always tried to convince various soakers to run out into the snow afterwards. Chip and Claire fell for it – ah youth! Gini, herself, did make the chilling plunge once also – you go girl!

There was much rejoicing when we finished.

From the front of the house:



But the best view of the barn has always been from the back:





But as you have seen, for the first several years of the barn’s domicility there were no steps to go from the parking area down to the house. This became even more dramatic when we regraded the area for the hot tub room construction. My poor mother when she visited! Everyone’s poor mother!

Now I never thought too much about this but we were always convincing Von D’Luccis that helping with these projects was tantamount to exhilaration and godliness. There is something to be said that our role model was Tom Sawyer and his fence painting – or should I say the coordination of the fence painting.

This time Charlie, Gini’s dad, definitely was in tune with the vision. Mike Foley spent a rapturous afternoon in the window of the front apartment designing the steps and Geoff (our brother-in-law) fell into laborer status. But Charlie was inspired by the steps. Despite his initial retreat when suggesting living in town when we were renovating the barn, he always was in love with the project. Now it was his turn to shine – and shine he did. His energy was boundless.



Geoff and I were along for one heck of a ride. It all culminated in Charlie demanding a ‘tamper’ to make sure that the fill in the steps would be firm. He built one from a six by six and long threaded bolts for handles. (seen behind me in the picture)

These steps will survive nuclear attack and ‘…will outlast us all!’.

Charlie left us about a decade ago. Though there are many ways in which he is remembered this is my favorite. I have to disagree with Shakepeare, for the good this man did does live after him and is not interred. Merci beaucoup Charles.


**********************************************************************

The barn has been a Von D’Lucci vortex for quite a while now. Gini and I counted one hundred different people that had spent the night here during the course of one year. Dining, drinking, dancing and divertissement have been the themes.

The quintessential event may have been when we were host to Katy’s Cookin’ Cabaret. Katy Richard and Chris Hinchliffe provided Alexandria, Bridgewater and the surrounding community for several years with fine food (Cajun theme) and equally fine music.

With the barn as the venue for this memorable evening, Katy gave a cooking class:



There were almost thirty people seated for the extravaganza:



We did have to make room for the music:




Everyone should have a friend like Katy:



But we actually do. Laissez les bon temps rouler!

Katy and Molly (her sister) are now Taco Sisters in Lafayette Louisiana and are wowin’ ‘em there too. (See February 2009 blog)

***********************************************************************

The barn does continue to expand and just in time for Chip’s high school graduation a two-car garage, family room and three-season porch were added. Gini says this marked our true emergence as ‘grownups’.




So in the famous words of Fred Ebb:

Come taste the wine,
Come hear the band.
Come blow your horn,
Start celebrating;
Right this way,
Your table's waiting



And as for me… and as for me,
I made my mind up back in Chelsea,
When I go, I'm goin’ like Elsie.

Coop d'Etat (Part 1)

You’re gonna live in a what? A chicken coop? You’ve got to be kidding!

This was basically the response from parents, family, friends and riff-raff. Our poor parents thought that now that we had been married for 11 years, Gini was working for a travel agency in Boston and I had been teaching at the University of Lowell, that the worst was over. We had matured and turned the corner on outrageous behavior. Uh, maybe not.

Gini and I subscribe to the monkey wrench theory. If things are going on too long, no matter how smoothly, you ‘throw a monkey wrench into it’. If you cannot put the pieces back together again or have lost interest in doing so you might as well find out about it sooner than later. If you do put the pieces back together then you will be bonded much stronger. We have done this two or three times in our forty year relationship.

This time we had bought this chicken barn in 1980 and had dabbled with improvement projects for a few years. Then, as bratty as we were after being ‘just us’ for eleven married years, Gini became pregnant, we quit our jobs and sold our house in Cambridge that we owned with Gini’s sister and my cousin and headed for New Hampshire.

Now wouldn’t you feel just calm and tranquil upon seeing your expecting daughter/daughter-in-law move into:



Well, both sets of parents decided to visit us at ‘The Barn’ very soon after our move. Within two hours of arrival my father, with lifelong back problems from various car accidents, was lying in the back seat of the car. My mother, who had one scotch and water everyday late in the afternoon, decided 1:00 pm was the right time for this one. Gini’s Mom found it difficult to speak. But Charlie, good old Charlie, decided to play the visionary with me:



We talked about fruited plains, purple mountain’s majesty and at least two golf holes.

Just a few hours after their departure Charlie and Anne called. Somehow the vision was clouding and they would pay for us to live in an apartment in downtown Bristol if we would come to our senses. Well, politely and firmly, we would like to decline your offer.

I mean we had amenities like a flush toilet. It was in the back part of the barn that was basically an open 48 by 24 foot area. We thought the Moroccan wall hanging was classy:




The basics were definitely present. You know, a fridge for beer, a hammock, wood for the stove:










I mean we even had electricity!...and a satellite dish!!
















Granted there were shades of the Grapes of Wrath ever present:




and we had to be somewhat creative with our closets:




Our first Thanksgiving was memorable since Gini was now well into her fifth month and the furnace that we had ordered arrived in such poor condition that we had to send it back to Somerville Lumber and wait for a replacement. In the mean time that stove that you saw only burned for two hours before you had to reload it. Ah those restful nights.

None-the-less Chip made his appearance on time and he thought that the rustic approach was the way to go:






We all lived in the front part of the barn. This was where the chicken farmer had kept the feed and the tools. There were air tight, tongue-in-groove stalls for the feed with tubes leading to the outside so that the feed truck could pressure blow the feed into the stalls. These made good walls for a bathroom to surround our Moroccan wall-hanging.

At this time let me introduce our hero John. Granted I can say that just one other guy and myself renovated the barn but really...I was the “other guy”. John said that he would do the job for an amazingly low price due to the Beautiful Sister Discount (he loved Gini, Janice and Linda) but we had to name Chip after him. So enter Charles John Duggan as the legal sobriquet for Chip.

Now let it be said that some people can do things so well that they can perform with “one hand tied behind their back”. We did not really anticipate that John would take this as a real challenge:



About 80 per cent through the job John had an aerial dispute with a wasp.

The first real project after making the front apartment livable for all of us was the back deck. This was because we needed a platform for the blender. Our daily incentive was the DOD (Drink Of the Day) which required precise blending:



The roof was the hardest – thirteen days non-stop. I now have arthritis in my feet from lifting 4 by 8 sheets with the arch of my foot.

Chip proved to be an interesting addition – he did not sleep – for two and a half years. Our friend Linda was also living with us and John. All of us were in the front part of the barn, when Chip arrived. There couldn’t have been ten feet separating any of us. We, being the progenitors of ‘benign neglect’, proudly made Chip the first inhabitant in ‘our’ side of the barn when his room was completed first. Thank goodness for those baby monitors and speakers.

Chris, having completed a master’s degree in Energy Engineering decided that the high tech way to heat this place would be a Russian Fireplace, a centuries-old technology. We sent our precious five dollars to Basilio Yevtuschenko in Richmond, Maine for plans. He sent us the plans and some phone numbers of some satisfied customers in case we needed further convincing.

This kind of fireplace is a large box of bricks that has ‘baffles’ in it so that the heat from the fire goes up and down several times before escaping through the chimney. When the fire is out, a damper is closed to seal in the heat. On the coldest of days the fire only burns for a total of 8 or 9 hours. For over twenty years we heated our entire side of the house with just three and a half cord of wood. Thank you Basilio.

Getting a mason to build such a ‘crazy thing’ was not easy. None of the Newfound area masons would take it on since they did not believe it would work. The only mason in Meredith who would do it said we had to wait over two years. Our friend Reno Rossi, yes, of the Rossi family that built the restaurant as you come off Exit 23 on I93, felt sorry for us and agreed to do it:



It took eleven days and he even he was impressed when the first fire draughted very smoothly:




We were very proud of what John led us to do though we were very nervous when the huge half round window for the master bedroom was lifted into place:



The finished product was impressive:










Now we could enjoy our view directly:





That car sitting in the yard was the only irritant to Gini, a real Saab story. It was later removed as a birthday/anniversary present.

So it was the simple life for us – that is if you feel that a hot tub is de rigeur to simply relax. I dared to rent a backhoe/loader in the midst of seven inches of rain but out of the west came John to rescue us once again. (to be continued).