Murdock Muse
Sept-Oct 2004, Part 3
GREAT TIME IN NEW ENGLAND
Nancy Murdock
Chapter 1: At the Sobergs’
Thanks to Colleen McKay’s excellent travel arrangement skills, we had an easy trip to visit our relatives and attend the Howlett Reunion. Southwest Airlines got our vote as the most fun and most attentive of any we’ve traveled with. Also, this was the right airport to use; Manchester NH was much more accessible and laid-back than our usual destinations. We are really glad that Polly, Cathy, and John all conspired to lure us up to the reunion.
One amusing incident on the trip was our luggage retrieval. Trained at LAX and BWI, we took a leisurely trip to the rest rooms and then stopped to pick up coffee and Dunkin Donuts. Sauntering past the luggage carousels, we still couldn’t see any sign of the luggage from our flight. But wait, there in the corner was the Southwest sign - with only three suitcases beside the empty carousel. Hm, two of them were ours - tagged as having been late arrivals. I think this spoiled us forever for other airport luggage arrangements.
Next we picked up a rental car of the next class above the one we had ordered, at the lower price. Great start for our vacation! Fortunately, Bob’s eyes had improved enough that he could read the map to some extent, so we had a pleasant ride to Polly and Carl Soberg’s.
Even though it had been only one year, we could see changes around the house and grounds. Both of them have definite skills in decorating and upgrading the house and grounds. A bird feeder with seeds attracts goldfinches, and chickadees hang around another source. The garden at the back was doing well, with plenty of variety in vegetables and some interspersed flowers. An old white wicker rocker in the garden held a metal tub full of rosy petunias.
Clyde Howlett, our cousin who turns 95 on Sept. 10, has a great hydroponic container garden on the back deck, right outside his bedroom. It was already putting forth tiny tomatoes and cucumbers. Clyde is a model for anyone who wants to keep mentally and physically active in the later years of life. He has a great electronic setup of computers, printers, and digital camera, and he knows how to use it all to good advantage. It put us to shame to see his familiarity with the technologies when we were sulking because we couldn’t get our new Dell computer online.
Sophie the cat is still, in her advanced years, brimming with good health, very soft to the touch, and keeping her humans in order.
Polly, Bob and I shopped at Steeplegate Mall, where we each found clothing to buy on the holiday sale. We also bought some nice, sticky bagels at Panera.
Carl did a great barbecue one evening, with grandsons Buddy and Matthew in attendance. The boys were contracted to mow and edge the lawn. They’re a great pair of boys, and we thoroughly enjoyed their company. Polly got some great shots of Buddy scooping out melon balls - which tended to fly through the air on the way to the bowl. Carl made some portabella mushroom caps brushed with olive oil - very tasty!
On the evening of July 4th we enjoyed a ritual that I have come to look forward to: watching with Carl and Polly the July 4th celebration on the Esplanade in Boston, with the Boston Pops orchestra. Toward the end they asked the audience to sing along as they played a series of patriotic songs. Polly and I were standing and singing lustily when Carl, who had gone to bed after a long day, came out in his briefs and said, "Do you know they can hear you in CONCORD?"
Chapter 2: The Reunion
It was a small reunion, with 10 of the participants being Cathy’s family members. But Doug and Carol Howlett came, driven by son Rob. He says he is doing well and “making more and more money.”
Johnny did some beautiful baby back ribs and a batch of portabella mushrooms with Italian dressing - very nice!
After we had finished eating, except for being attracted to the serving table for the occasional treat (there were loads of brownies of all types, and everything was homemade), we who were basically the elder statesmen of the Howlett clan gathered around one table to converse. Carl, Doug, and John were all determined not to have Warren Leary be the only one providing the humor. And of course, all that laughter made room for another brownie.
There was enough food at the reunion for at least four times as many people. We had to eat my macaroni salad for the next two days, and it wasn’t yet finished when we left to stay at the motel in Gardner.
Chapter 3: Around Hubbardston
During our stay in the Hubbardston area, we managed to visit with all of our siblings in that region, plus a few friends. We also visited Calico and Cream for a lunch, and the Kennisto River down past Tom’s house, for photos.
We had a long, pleasant visit with Tom and Marcia Howlett, who served us a great meal. Bob has pages of notes on their family, which we will be putting together, along with others from the trip, for the next Muse. Somehow we managed to overlook the presence of our notebook until it was too late for this issue. We were glad to see they were both in good health and busy. Tom had been working on his son Keith’s house, which was nearly finished.
Steve and Terry Howlett decided to meet us for lunch at Friendly’s, which is right next to the motel. We had a tasty lunch and talked for so long that we lost track of time. We have notes of their family, also. We will say now, however, that Terry has been appointed the Bursar for Mt. Wachusett Community College.
We met Loraine and Art Murdock at Barre Mill, owned and operated by Bob and Lennie Schlicke’s daughter Cindy and her husband, Nick Coppolino. The menu had several excellent choices for us vegetarians, as well as our guests. After a good chat and more notes, we went to their house, where we saw the changes they have made. There is a very romantic item in their back yard: a white fence with an arbor, where they posed for pictures. He put this in as a gift for Lorraine.
We visited Lennie in the Alzheimer’s Wing at Quabbin Valley Health Care in Athol. She seemed to have gone down some since last year, but she was still able to get around with help. She was in the common room, where a man came in and played hymns with one finger on the piano. We noticed she was humming along with the tune. We told her she used to sing in the choir, and she seemed to like the fact that we said she had always had a nice singing voice.
Then we again visited one of Lennie’s and my classmates, Joan Lovewell Freeman, who is bedridden in another section of the facility. Joan is still lively in her speech and in enjoying a good talk, but she is having to deal with a much longer time there than she had expected. Last year she thought she was nearly ready to leave. It makes us realize how truly fortunate we are.
We found two of Dotty Salminen’s grandsons waiting for us when we arrived at her house for Scrabble. We had a fine time visiting with those two delightful boys. Casey, in 6th grade, likes to rollerblade. Scott, in 4th grade, prefers skateboarding. The Phillips boys are both handsome charmers with a definite gift for conversation with people of any age.
Viki came to pick up her sons, so we also got to catch up with her. We enjoyed our Scrabble, also. Dotty is always a worthy opponent!
Dotty also came up with a great idea for an afternoon treat. We all went for High Tea at Marion Lyon’s delightful Victorian tea room. Marion had done a great job of transforming the space into a place to feel pampered. She has a fine collection of teapots and teacups also, mainly gifts from a friend who closed her antique shop. Marion cooks the delicious goodies, often without a recipe. She said she likes to experiment, but if it turns out well, she might make it again. I enjoyed the experience so well that I am planning a tea party soon for some quilting friends.
We also, during our stay in the area, went with Dotty to a pizza place in Gardner where she had not been. It was interesting to see how everything was done there. They had a different way or organizing the crowd of diners and pickups so that everything worked out, but slowly, since there were so many of us.
One day we spotted churches we had each attended, so we stopped to take pictures. Mine was St. Paul’s Episcopal Church, which looked very neat and freshly painted, with attractive landscaping. This was where I was confirmed. Bob’s was Chestnut St. Methodist Church, where he was baptized and his Grandpa Charlton was the Sunday School superintendent. Five of Bob’s relatives sang in the choir there when Bob was a child, including Uncle Ken, who was an ardent Muser until his death several years ago.
Chapter 4: At Cathy and John Howlett’s
They have redone a lot of their house. I couldn’t even orient myself in the kitchen to tell what was where before. It looks great! They have a hardwood floor in the kitchen and hallway now, and the table that divided the room is gone. It’s all very well arranged and has more light than previously.
Once again, as with last year, Cathy and John introduced us to some TV shows we would never think to watch, and we enjoyed them. We saw a room makeover and watched Emeril, a household byword of which we had previously been totally ignorant. As we watched TV, we had an excellent view of their resident birds coming to the feeder. We spotted a purple finch, which I’m not sure we have ever seen before, except in books. There was quite a variety of the busy nibblers.
But before Cathy went to bed, she trudged outside and took in the feeder. They have a black bear that has made himself at home in their little neighborhood. If they leave the feeder out, he picks it up and goes off with it. Black bears, per John, have their regular route for scrounging their meals. We were amazed at the way the bears have accustomed themselves to the humans around their area. At the reunion, Warren had told the story of thinking it was his wife coming up the outside staircase after work, but it was a large black bear. It even shook the doorknob but gave up and went back downstairs.
On Saturday, Bob had an appointment to meet his cousin Priscilla at the Farmer’s Market in Concord. Cathy kindly drove ahead of us, so we could easily get there instead of fumbling around the various routes. Then she met Pris and Roy and shortly went on with her other errands. We had a good time talking with Pris and the other vendors, buying some very good baked goods and maple syrup. Pris and Roy (her husband, the beekeeper) ate lunch with us at the Olive Garden after they closed up. When we sat down, we got quickly onto the subject of the upcoming election (this being NH), and Bob mentioned that we had enjoyed talking last year with Priscilla’s sister’s husband, who was campaigning for Howard Dean. Roy looked horrified and got up immediately, saying “Let’s go!” We all had a good time, though, and there was ample salad to take home for the next day.
On Friday John and Cathy took us to the Herb Lady’s place. She sells lots of plants, rhubarb jam, embroidered dish towels, etc. Her yard is a large garden area, with areas of green lawn, herbs, and flowers. There are cards telling about the uses of some flowers and herbs. She was very hospitable and recommended we might like to try the new Siam Orchid when we asked about a place for vegetarians to get lunch. The food was scrumptious! And we don't often get a chance to eat vegetarian Thai food.
I ran into something rather unusual at Siam Orchid, though. There was a sign in the ladies' room that I've never encountered anywhere else: "Please do not flush toilet paper down the toilet. Put in wastebasket." It reminded me of descriptions by young women who lived some time ago in India or Iran (when it was called Persia). When I reported this to my lunchmates, Cathy, the homeowner, said seriously, "They must be having a LOT of trouble with the septic!"
Sunday we went to Centre Harbour to shop at Keepsake Quilting. It was as very pleasant day. We stopped at Dunkin on the way. I bought more fabric than I should have at Keepsake, but I’ve already enjoyed using some of it. Afterwards, we had an excellent egg salad sandwich and a grilled cheese at Sam and Rosie’s. The service was very relaxed, and we look forward to going there again.
Another day we went to the outlet mall and bought Reeboks for each of us. I also bought some much-needed white socks. Cathy and John were very patient about our wanderings.
They also let us use their computer to check on our mail, which my brother Tom Howlett figured out after we sent an all-points bulletin to the Musers for assistance. We had several helpful hints from others, too. A great crew!
We had a really nice vacation, and it made a wonderful way to celebrate the fact that Bob was gradually recovering from the shingles in the right ophthalmic nerve that had left him with double vision, greatly increased sensitivity to light, etc.
We are truly grateful to all those who welcomed us into their homes or found time to meet with us. We have very happy memories of this trip.
ALL-STAR GAME
Nancy Murdock
Dotty Salminen and her grandsons Casey and Scott told us of an all-star baseball game of note. Two Musers and another "relative" were in this game:
1. Dillon Salminen (Dotty's grandson and the boys' cousin);
2. Nick Chapman (Steve Howlett's grandson and Denise's son); and
3. Marcus Carlberg (great-grandson of Tilda Carlberg, Grandpa Charlton's cousin).
In addition, both Casey and Scott were on winning teams. We have a readership that includes a lot of good athletes!
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