Polka and Dunkin D: The Summer Tour

People in Rhode Island (and Southeastern Mass., which is really the same thing) love to polka and can stay up all night dancing, thanks to the presence of a Dunkin Donuts shop every six blocks or so in town, every six miles or so out in the countryside. People say, "Doughnuts? You eat doughnuts?" but it's not about the donuts [sic], it's the coffee, donchaknow, and the subliminal joy the pink-and-orange brings to our hearts. Starbucks? An import, for the effete. Local shops? Well, yeah, there are those, too, in the more sophisticated burgs, but the good old blue collar quahoggers and construction workers, the Congregational Churchgoers, the beachgoers, the office workers, the politicians, the farmers and all of us townies have drunk the Coolattaid and find our cars turning whenever the sensor they install at R.I. garages notice the pinkandorange.

I hope no one will be offended by the mixed tone of this note, when I say that the picture below shows my devotion to the memory of my dear brother David, who according to his daughter (and my niece) Suzanne, said at his service last fall that she would always keep Dunkin Donuts napkins in her desk drawer, because her father did. This is my desk drawer.

The Summer Tour begins tomorrow morning. I will be in DD land before long. The signs start appearing in the Shenandoah Valley, along I-81, but they're not serious DD shops till you get about to PA or NJ. That's also where you can start hearing polka music on the car radio, with stations like the one where I picked up "Second Week of Deer Camp" last winter, and "Donnie the Reindeer." Oh, and where you can buy bait in vending machines.

P.S. My buddy Dave Awl in Chicago says sans serif fonts give him a headache. So I'll leave the little legs on this post and see how it looks.

Nature

My mother sends me clippings from Rhode Island. Today I read about Buddy Cianci, the former mayor of Providence who has just gotten out of prison and whose spaghetti sauce is sold on grocery shelves, and another about a family in rural RI who have been driven out of their home and lost their money because of vultures. Turkey vultures. Buzzards. Buzzards are moving north, and apparently are not good neighbors if they take a fancy to your place. But the story should have come with a Graphic Nature Detail Advisory warning, since it described in detail the digestive and excretory practices of buzzards.

I once lived ten miles out of town, on a dead end road up a mountain side. My dog and cat and I could hike up the ridge behind the house. Once we bushwacked up to a high rock outcropping, where, while we drank water and looked at the distant view an enormous black bird with outspread wings appeared, floating slowly on the air below us, then disappeared. It seemed like a giant hawk or eagle or even a condor! -- but of course, it was a vulture. All in your point of view.

Merry Keshmish!

A Merry Keshmish, Froeliche Weinachten, and Merry Christmas to all! Happy Hannukah (over), Eid, Kwaanza, and Solstice! Let us reconcile the deep human need for light and warmth at the darkest time of year with all expressions of celebration both traditional and tacky, homegrown and commercial, religious and secular, pine green or pink aluminum. At the same time we are humbly aware of the desperation and intense want and need in places near and far. When we light the candle to warm our hearth and hearts we can use it to see as well the whole planet. In my head is the world; let my heart hold the world for a moment or a lifetime. Let us not be blind but see by the candle's light the world.

Heading west over the Tappan Zee Bridge in the river fog, you can't see Manhattan's towers to the south or the huge houses high up on the banks. I always wave hello to Simon Schama up there when I cross the Hudson, though he'd be baffled if he knew. It feels good to get west of the City, and to be headed for New Jersey and down to Pennsylvania. Radio is super as you drive through NJ: rock stations up and down the radio dial. Pennsylvania is good for surprises. You might be lucky enough to get an hour of polka music, including some modern polka folk-fusion, or you might, as I did this time, get to hear the incomparable "Second Week of Deer Camp." New Jersey rocks, Pennsylvania rolls. Though I'm glad to be going back home I'll miss these when I get to Virginia, where country and pop radio rule and local stations announce the upcoming Baptist funerals. ("Maisie Bledsoe of Clear Forks Community will be buried from the Clear Fork Hand of Jesus Independent Baptist Church on Thursday at 2 p.m. Mrs. Bledsoe was born in Grass Patch in 1918 but lived most of her life in Hay Stack. She will be missed by her six children, thirteen grandchildren and eight great-grandchildren. Mrs. Bledsoe was predeceased by her husband of sixty-four years, Elmer Wayne Bledsoe in 1998, her brothers Jack, Elmo, Lewis, Delmar, Buddy and Bobby, her sisters Della and Virgie, and a special friend Louisee Raymer. Memorials may be made to the Hay Stack Chihuahua Rescue Fund or to the Clear Fork Volunteer Fire Department.")

Enough. Glueckliche Neues Jahr!