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Wednesday, October 09, 2002 [Continuation of yesterday's entry.] We left the barbecue joint shortly before its closing time, 9 p.m. All other diners had vacated by 8:30 or earlier, leaving us to hoover up ribs, pilaf, salad and surprisingly good cheese rolls by ourselves, the only accompaniment to our conversation the sound of staff preparing for closing time. The restaurant was in Tewksbury, one of the ‘burbs to the northwest of Boston. The drive back in the direction of the hotel took us through the neighboring towns of Wilmington and Woburn, all appearing identical in the evening gloom -- gently winding roads flanked by stores, business, residential side-streets, the occasional stop-light. Little traffic, most everything closed and dark. A sprawling, more densely-populated version of Montpelier, really, the community packing it in shortly after darkness falls, in stark contrast to Madrid, where Friday night just starts getting underway at 9 o'clock. We found an ice cream stand still open, picked up some dessert, ate it in the car with the windows open, the air outside mild and damp. I had the room at the hotel because I was attending a workshop there the next day. One or two friends also attended, Saturday sped by. Immediately after, I hit the highway, driving through the eternally-congested traffic on I-95/Route 128, then out the Mass. Pike to Route 84, following that through Connecticut into New York State. Just me and many thousands of other drivers, all flying down the road at high velocity. Not my idea of a great time. And God knows, I drove way too fast a lot of the way, just wanting to get there, knowing I had another, much longer drive the next day back up to northern Vermont. My destination: New Paltz, a funky college town just east of the Catskills, where my brother Terry and his family live. I don't see Terry much these years. Life in our family, a bit wild and madcap to begin with, grew especially so starting in the late 80s with the sudden passing of our oldest brother. That kicked off a long decline for our parents, a strange, turbulent period. And as that phase of the family stretched on and intensified, Terry dealt with the intensity by withdrawing. (From my life, anyway -- he assumed the role of caretaker in various ways for my parents, being several years older than me and more inclined to that kind of thing than I am.) Between that and my moving around in recent years – relocating from Massachusetts to Vermont, then heading overseas in the summer of 2000, remaining in Madrid until this past spring – contact has been rare. He's a good guy – I was looking forward to seeing him again. We spoke not too long ago. I wanted to pick up a tiller our mother had wanted me to have, which had been rusting away in a shed in Terry's yard. The last of Mom's things were piled up in a storage bin in New Paltz, Terry wanted me to take whatever I wanted from that stuff, and the sooner the better so he could get rid of the storage space. I decided I'd shoot over there after the workshop. This was a couple of weeks back, heading into the thick of leaf-peeper season, a major time in New Paltz. Which meant accommodations were scarce, motels booked up, me phoning one after another, striking out repeatedly until I managed to get a room at the 87, an old motel across the Thruway (I-87) from New Paltz. Old. Decrepit. Kind of depressing. But clean. And inexpensive. Man, what a contrast with the comfort of the Marriott, where I'd been the night before – also inexpensive, but more expensively so than the 87, which was really inexpensive ‘cause they couldn't get away with charging very much. An old, dog-eared, down-at-the-heels joint – the tub stained and discolored from decades of use, the bed poorly made up, the hangers bent and broken, the towels thin and threadbare. But clean. Fairly clean. No bugs, no stains or burn marks on the furniture. The curtains thick enough to keep out light, the walls thick enough to screen out sound from outside, from other rooms. Basic. I pulled in, checked in, dragged my stuff into the room, turned on the TV just in time to see the Yankees take the pipe in their playoff series. (Not a source of anguish – I'm not a Yanks fan, though I appreciate Joe Torres and some of the players.) Called my brother's place, my sister-in-law answered, told me to come on over. I did. It was good to see them. They fed me. Terry and I talked about the next day's lawn sale. I went back to the motel, Saturday came to a close. [Continued in entry of 10/10.] rws 7:09 PM [+]
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