BEDDO/CORNING ON THE ROAD: 80 Degrees and Holding....

10/9/11

More carpet cleaned today and it looks, and smells great. It also helps when you put the clutter away. 80 degrees and so beautiful, the park full of active people, closing up their sites for the year, and Pam and Con cooking their great Turkey feast. We offered help several times but there are so many knowing hands here that none was needed.

Made our new recipe of southern Chocolate Cobbler, walked a few feet to the Rec Hall and wow! Packed full with eatin’ people! So much food and merriment in one place. They also had a year in reflection via a slide/video show on the wall. What a totally alive place this is. We sat near some folks who had just pulled in the night before and had a grand time sharing stories with them.

Back home we gave it up for reading and blogging, a live band played on and on, dancing was fervent, laughter abounded. Roku was not into showing up at home yesterday, and came home quite late at night. We left the door open so he could go in and out as it was a warm night. He was quite lovey with me this morning, however, playing at the picnic table before disappearing into his woods.

Lots of fires burning today, I think with leaf clean-up. We’ve extended our stay through the good weather on Thursday, wishin’ and hopin’ the leaves will change. Since there have been no more freezing temps, it looks like everything is delayed. We’ve decided to head as far up north as time allows on Wednesday, or head into the White Mountains of New Hampshire. We can see it’s coming, but ….. mother nature has her own time and season.

I leaf you (ha ha) today with pictures of the last week or so: Fryeburg Fair, scenes of the lake region. This SHOULD catch me up for awhile, give me some grace.

And by the way, a shout-out to the Payne and Shumway family: Patriarch Dwayne Payne passed away this week, bringing a large void into their family life. He was seriously gregarious, unstoppably unflappable, sang loudly whenever he felt like it, lived each and every moment FULLY.

Two personal stories about Mr. Payne: When we were in about 10th grade, maybe 11th, Mr. and Mrs. Payne were gone for a weekend, which signaled us to have a party at their beautiful house. And did we ever, yikes. During that party we did the current cool thing, which is to snap beer bottle caps to see how far you could get them to fly. We did it against an outside wall and they all fell into the bushes. We cleaned the house like champs and would have gotten away with the Paynes never knowing....but Dwayne was a gardener. And he was cleaning behind those beer capped bushes. Busted.

When we were teenagers, all of us "girls" would supply our need for alcohol by pilfering, and refilling with water, the booze in our parent's liquor cabinet. It was very profitable and quite lucrative. The Rosaias and Paynes had the most reliable and abundant supply and we went to those wells often. After the Paynes moved to Birch Bay and we were all well into adulthood and our own kids, they allowed "the girls" to have a party in their home. As Dwayne was wrapping up the tour of their beautiful home, he motioned to a set of doors and said, "And here's the liquor - help yourselves." I said, "Do you know how long I've been waiting to hear that?!" He laughed and laughed.