Camden, Maine #6

I did a lot of stuff. At my grandparents church, I started working with the pastor recording the services. It wasn't very hard. I sat in a room at a desk and on the desk was a little tape recorder. The pastor would make start and stop points on the bulletin of what I needed to record. No mixing board or anything else. Just a little tape recorder with a wire that lead from the pulpit and ended at the microphone jack. The tapes were copied and taken to the shut ins. I remember visiting some of those people. I'd go with the associate pastor and another kid. We'd usually visit them in the old folks home. We'd talk for a long time, but time seemed to really fly by. Getting in and visiting was easy. Leaving was an entirely different matter. The old people heard that we were there and they decided that we were there to see them as well. We'd talk to a few of them. It was hard to see so many people desperate for someone, anyone to stop and share a few words with them. I enjoyed going, but I always wondered where the families were. Most of my friends went to the church and so did the cute girls. I was there just about whenever the doors were open.
If I wasn't at the church, I'd be hanging out with Gideon at the music store. Another place to hang out was the bookstore. I liked to read and I noticed that the girls either hung out here or worked here. The bookstore was two stories and had a cafe downstairs. On a few occasions, we'd have Earl Grey Tea and scones with jam. We'd discuss music, books, girls, etc. This was way before Starbucks. The cafe was usually filled with older people. We were the only "kids" in the place. They would always watch us cautiously. I don't think it helped that Gideon wore a trench coat most of the time. A "cooler" place to hang out was Fitzpatrick's. It was a little seaside dinner that was owned by a mutual friend. At least that's how it seemed. Some of our friends worked there as well.

One day, I was waiting for Gideon to show up and I wondered into a place called Nantucket Model T's. It was a place that sold T shirts to tourist and that is where I met Barbara Hoch. She ran the store and taught me how to make shirts. She had moved to Maine from Long Island, NY with her husband Andy and their son Yarrow. I "worked" at the store for a little while. Truthfully I just hung out and talked to Barbara and the other workers. Most of the shirts I made were for myself. I don't remember how it happened, but either Andy or Barbara invited me over to their home. They became a surrogate family in many ways. I think I was at their house more than I was at "home". I don't think I ever told them how much I appreciated them.  Andy was an artist and a genius. I have met people who were talented, but he was extremely gifted. He could make just about anything. I went with him a few times to "hunt" for wood. He could pick up a piece of a tree or a branch or a rock and tell you what he was going to do with it. Not in an arrogant, self centered way. He would pick up a rock and say "I see a fish" or "I see a lighthouse". Next time I saw the rock, it had been carved into what he saw it to be. Their home was amazing. It was an old barn. The living room, dining room and kitchen were downstairs. The den and bedrooms were upstairs and at the very top was their master bedroom. It had a 360 degree view. Every door in the house had a weighted pulley system. You'd walk through a door and it would close behind you. The house was in a constant state of change. Andy would get an idea to improve this or that and I'd go to hang out and help anyway possible. He was always drawing something or making something. Always creating. His son is the same way. All three of them were very creative.

I used to go with my grandparents to the transportation museum in Owlshead. They were volunteers. We would go there after the place closed and helped clean up the vehicles. Dusting, polishing chrome, windexing windows, armoralling the tires and interiors,etc. I got a chance to go behind the ropes and sit in World War II aircraft while cleaning the inside. I got to sit in Packards, Buicks, Chevys, and many other old cars. It was pretty cool.