Changes in Latitudes, Changes in Attitudes

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After being blown off by a octogenarian friend, I took off for Matunuck beach instead. Why there? I had heard Bowie's “Heroes” and it kept playing in my head for hours and some of it's lines reminded me of a time in my youth. We all make songs “our own.” When I reached the beach, it was populated with surfers who were daring the gigantic waves that rolled on in from the hurricane Maria which is still hundreds of miles to the south. The others there were the local beach house renters/owners who, I noticed, jealously guarded their front yard parking spots with warning signs and very nearly the same spots they picked out on the beach. I have to admit though, everyone was friendly. I walked the length of the beach, getting my calves wet from the surf which was so high it was running over the entire beach up to the beach grass and to the escarpment where the regular soil begins. I had my Garmin out, looking for a particular spot, or near it, for a place at a time when I was 25 and had one of the best summers of my life. I found it. Why would it move? It was just a patch of sand where I plowed the fuck out of D'Arby one summer night. I recognized the homes, break waters and such to be very confident I was in the same area. 

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“Wow...Here!...This is pretty much it! What a summer!” I thought.

I never planned on being a beach bum as a career for the few summers I managed it. I didn't rent/own any property down there and I commuted the whole distance a few times a week during those summers in my 20's. What started all of that was the purchase of a Dodge 400 convertible which is made for summer excursions. I had been turned onto convertibles by D'Arby who owned one when I met her. After I got mine, I found myself, without any conscious decision, navigating to the beach more and more. It was one of the very few summers I managed to get a passable tan for my lily white Irish skin.

I ended up getting that tan (sort of), windblown, tousled hair that was permed into place by the salt spray that was in the air and to top that off, an attitude of looking stoned and relaxed w/o having to suck on a joint. Add to that a Mr Zog's Sex Wax visor, smelling of coconut oil sunblocks and a variety of pastel shirts in various Caribbean colors and ripped shorts. Again, none of this was planned, it just sort of happens to you.

Drinking, surf casting, fucking, partying, drinking, going to concerts, drinking and plain chillin' on the beach was my day job. Either I was doing this with my Pawtucket droogs or my RIC ones, neither mattered as no one said “No” to going to the beach for the day and night. As I did this, a change occurred in me, I became so relaxed and carefree that it bled into my regular non-beach life. I went barefoot a lot more, I didn't freak on the small details and generally I was more happier. Lackadaisical to the nth power. It began annoying some people who hated the fact I could do this. Jealous much?

But, it all comes to an end as the summer days shorten and the crowd at the beach changes to more locals as they take it over again from the tourists, like me. The drive home at night with my top down I could pick out the rising of the autumn constellations in the East. Another summer over. The only way to carry this forward is in the middle of winter. Then you have to drive north to the ski venues where the Beach Blanket Bingo mentality is revived but this time around the Lodge and slopes. That is prohibitively more expensive, but nice to experience once in a while. I tried it. I bashed my head good skiing once, but I had a hell of a time at the Lodge.

Also, you grow up and hit 30 and the summer vacation attitude wanes as there are bills to pay, careers to advance on and in my case, play nurse to a family of terminal relatives. Adulthood surely sets in fast! 

And this and it's true: You cannot go home again. The younger generations who now own the beach, who own all those good times, quietly exclude you from joining their ranks. And would you want to join them as this freaky old person who hangs around 22 year olds? No, every generation bans the one that came before. You have to get out of their way. In a real sense, it's their time now.

Today, after my walk up the beach I stopped by the Ocean Mist to get a beer or two. I remembered how many times I was in here in my youth watching bands, hanging out with D'Arby and sitting on those rocks with her getting high off of ditch weed. Today, I sipped my beer watching the surfers, from the deck, paddle further and further out till they became just dots on those waves when something happened.

As I drank the beer, there was a different but old recognizable taste to it. It was taste and smell I remember from my 20's. I tasted the beer and the sea air together. There is a definite difference I say! For me anyways! About a minute or two later, a lot of memories came back, the relaxation, the careless attitude, my old 24 year old self, for a while anyway. I was surprised at how an old memory, that I pretty much have forgotten in my day to day life of today, came back in a flood.

I had several thoughts run through my mind too. A young man, in his early 20's, is trying to “come into his own” or “make it.” It doesn't necessarily have to be financial (although it helps!) but I think it's when you finally are completely independent, finally away from the support of your family. You stand on your own with a strong, healthy dose of confidence that isn't annoyingly boastful or aggressive. It's real and solid and does not have to be pubically broadcast nor brayed. A young man will dream of what he wants, whatever it may be and he'll work towards it's fruition. And by way of the Golden Touch, which 20 Somethings can possess in great quantities, if they only allow themselves to believe it, you achieve much of what you want, for a while anyway, as long as it can last.

I realized sitting there on the Ocean Mist deck, watching the young surfers, that I had achieved a great deal of it all, at one time, when I was a young man. I had the hot girlfriend, the cool car, the decent job that afforded me time off when I wanted it (plus the money), the freedom to come and go as I pleased w/o family interference and that Golden Touch where with the slightest effort, I made things happen. All the planets aligned for a while.

I'm 53 now and I can't return to that period in my life whatsoever and you know what? I don't have to. I was there. I owned it and own it still. I had “come into my own” a long time ago.

Resting on my laurels? Nostalgia? You bet! But the thing about it all, I can point to the trophy still on the shelf, inscribed with this:

I, I will be king
And you, you will be queen
Though nothing, will drive them away
We can beat them, just for one day
We can be heroes, just for one day

Though nothing, will keep us together
We could steal time, just for one day
We can be heroes, forever and ever
What'd you say?

Jet'ro

The first time I met Dave Boisclair was at the Celtic Pub back around the year 2000. I had given up on my previous neighborhood club because it's clientele had become younger, bringing their wanna-be hoodie culture and techno music in with them. This drove me and other late 30-somethings out. I was advised by a group of nurses from Arbor Fuller hospital (some who I had known) to try out the Celtic as they said it was a great, fun joint without anyone trying to emulate South Bronx hoodlums.

The first time I was in the Celtic, I was surprised at the filth, age and haphazard décor. It can remind you of a hut/home clumsily built from the shipwrecked flotsam and jetsam that washes up on the beaches of Haiti. However, the place was packed that night, hopping 'n' rocking and loud. I knew no one there and my social skills/motivation, at times, can border on aloof and “get the fuck away from me.” At others, I can be pretty gregarious and demand the center spotlight. That night was was in a half and half mood.

I had wanted to sit down but the place was so packed there was just one available seat at the bar. As soon as I spied it I made a run for it like rat over a pile of garbage, slithering through everyone and finally by this really big guy that I brushed as I moved past him. The guy was about six foot three, had hands the size of bear paws and he was built like a gorilla. This was Dave. He was dressed in his uniform with a radio handset hooked to his epaulet. When I was scampering by, surprising him, he had let out a big “Well, Hello There!”

“Hello to you too!” I said back.

For some reason, we started chatting it up then and there.

He had ordered himself and I a beer and we started talking about the usual stuff two new people talk about, the "Who Are You Conversation?” Where did you grow up? Where do you live? What do you do. When we both realized we both had been to Goff Jr High school, pretty much in the same cohort, he asked if I remembered a teacher, a Miss Van Dale who taught there. I was transported back to 1979 and remembered this hot blonde teacher who taught a “US government” class. To a bunch of 14 year old boys, it was like having a Vouge model up at the front of the class. It was then Dave and I really started to talk because we were finding out we had pretty common histories growing up in Pawtucket. Keg beer party spots in Slater Park, the best intersections for bumper skiing on snowy streets as kids, Bobbys Rollaway and gossip about girls we grew up with. We even both had funny stories about Ray Mahtieu, owner of the Checker Club where Dave worked at for some time.

I took an immediate liking to this man.

After a bit, he pulls me along to the back of the place to meet the other firemen there. I met a ton of Thurbers, a guy I inadvertently knew (from another school) named “Cherry.” He commuted from New Hampshire to Pawtucket for his fireman's job and a bunch of other I met that night.

Once I heard someone call him “Jet'ro.” Later I figured out the nickname. It goes back to the show “Beverly Hillbillies” character Jethro Bodine. Dave was as big as Jethro and at times, had the same silly boy's enthusiasm for fun plans. Jethro Bodine would throw himself into a days long project to build himself a rocket, out by the see-ment pond, to fly and meet “Moon Maidens” that inhabited the Moon. Jethro got his information from a comic book he took as Gospel.

Dave was not as dumb as Jethro but there were times when someone would mention an idea, a thing to do, a place to go visit and if Dave liked the idea, he'd become animated and spirited and try to get everyone else to join up and go. I think it was this innocent, eager boyish buoyancy that got him named “Jet'ro.”

I can credit Dave for “getting me into” the Celtic faster than I would have. I made a slew of new bar buddies and felt welcome there. I began to know the guys on the Pawtucket Fire Dept and learned a ton of shit about suppressing fires, that and stories of some great Pawtucket infernos these guys had been at. Star Gas or the Narraganset Park fire were two I got inside information on and how they attacked it. The guys told me how the spray from a garden hose that everyone has at their house, would evaporate to steam if you tried to put out a large fire with it. That's how hot residential fires can get.

“Don't do it yourself..call us” I was advised.

**

It's All Small Town in Rhode Island

In November of 2003, my brother was in his terminal stage of cystic fibrosis. I had been caring for him knowing that the end would eventually come but my brother was so damn stubborn death had to wait another few months. As ugly as this may sound, I did as little for him as I could because that would keep his strength and “fight” up. If I took everything over, he'd degenerate into an infant and I wasn't having that. One morning in November he yells at me from his bedroom to call 911. I go in and find that he cannot stand up out of his bed when just 12 hours earlier he was roaming about freely. “Shit,” I think, “a stroke.” After calling, I go back and oddly enough he managed to drag himself upright on the bed and I sort of carried him along to the living room sofa. He was walking like a sketch from Monty Python, badly.

The first apparatus that arrived was a pumper truck from the McCoy stadium station as they're the closest. The guys come in and I tell them the story and one asks, “Is he on any meds” and I say “Yeah, a ton of them” and go to the kitchen to get them. When I come back into the living room, the rescue had arrived on the heels of the McCoy truck and Dave Boisclair comes into my house, carrying a large bag of last ditch effort tools to make you alive again.

“Dave? What are YOU doing here?” I asked. I was genuinely surprised and confused.

“You called.” said Dave, matter of factly.

“What?” I say.

It took a few seconds. After seeing Dave standing there in his uniform, purple gloves and lugging so much equipment that it hit me.

“Shit..that's RIGHT..You work for the fire department!” I say.

When I saw Dave at the Celtic, it was for play time, put on a buzz and talk your head off. Many times he would be in civilian clothing, other times in his work duty clothes. I took him as a friend and not a fireman. That image I had of him was pretty well burned into my mind as “a buddy” and not anything else. He wasn't just a fireman. He wasn't just his occupation. If anything, he was a neighbor who had a family and an all around regular guy. People are more than their occupations and Dave fit that too.

He wired my brother up to this thingy that took vital signs, asked him a ton of questions and while the other EMT guy got the stretcher, Dave says,

“Ronnie..we were just drinking beers 12 hours ago...how can you forget what I do for work! You weren't that drunk last night..hell, you can barely drink a six pack!”

I couldn't explain it to him. I just saw him as a regular guy and had forgotten what he did for a career.

He then pulls me aside to say, “We usually take people to Memorial....is that where you want him to go?” I told him that the best place would be the Cystic Fibrosis Clinic at RI Hospital, but if Dave HAD to take people to Memorial as policy, then...

“Don't worry, I'll take him Rhode Island. I'll just explain it real quick to the dispatcher that our estimated time will be a bit longer than usual. I can do it.”

That was cool of him...real cool.

Dave recalled that story to a younger fireman we were talking to one time, trying to explain to him that in this job, you could very easily get a call to rescue someone you know. It happens.

**

Dave's gone now. A cancer had spread throughout his body w/o him knowing it. I was told he was lucid till the end. Good.

People have come in and out of my life like it's a bus station. But there have been a few that I've managed to keep, if I could. Dave was one. He was much more than an acquaintance at an Irish pub. Our paths intersected more often than not and I was glad for that. One of the things I try to remember, how to make my life grow...is to ask if a certain thing, event, job, person, has improved it? Dave improved mine. He did by opening up and inviting me to a great social outlet that I enjoyed thoroughly for 17 years and he delivered my brother to the one place in the state that had the means and equipment to handle cystic fibrosis.

People, being what we are, and I'm not immune, can be judgmental. All throughout Dave's life, mine..and YOURS, people can criticize severely. Well, I leave the detractors with the last lines from Capra's “It's a Wonderful Life.” 

Dave was a major success with this, easily.