50 Stories in 50 States: Tales Inspired by a Motorcycle Journey Across the USA Vol 1, Great Lakes & N.E. Read online

50 Stories in 50 States: Tales inspired by a motorcycle journey across the USA

  Volume I - Great Lakes & N.E.

  By Kevin B Parsons

  Copyright 2013 Kevin B Parsons

  This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to others. If you would like to share this ebook, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this ebook and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, please return it to your favorite ebook retailer and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

  Contents

  Introduction

  Maine

  New York

  Pennsylvania

  New Hampshire

  Vermont

  Ohio

  Illinois

  Wisconsin

  Indiana

  Michigan

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author

  Introduction

  My wife (Quilter Girl) and I embarked on a ‘50 States in 50 Weeks’ motorcycle tour of America, a once-in-a-lifetime dream. We rode across the country on a Honda Gold Wing, towing a pop top tent trailer. During the more mundane sections of the trip (like the back country of Ohio), we talked on the intercoms and came up with short story ideas. Inspired, I wrote a story for every state, which morphed into a five-book series, compiled by regions, with ten states in each volume.

  Some of the stories are based on our experiences, some on history, and some probably from indigestion. Warning: these are not necessarily motorcycle stories, nor are they travel stories (although some are), but a look at Americana, with each state as a backdrop.

  Each state got only one look, so if we encountered bad weather, we would just grind it out and ride through the state. Maine, for instance, got a quick exit after Bar Harbor and heavy rains. Yet excellent weather in states like Vermont and Pennsylvania provided ample opportunity to explore.

  Enjoy this volume of ‘50 Stories.’

  ~Kevin B Parsons

  Brian Head, Utah

  Maine

  Maine and Bar Harbor folks love their lobster. I tried one and found the entire procedure rather revolting, like ripping apart a giant cockroach. And I learned that diners wear bibs for a reason, as liquid lobster goo splatters everywhere during demolition. I confess, though, that I enjoyed one of the best meals of the adventure in Maine: lobster macaroni and cheese. Bar Harbor, with its fishing industries, cruise ships, myriad tourists, and the locals’ dialect and culture, made a great backdrop for a story. And who could forget their excellent local cuisine?

  LOBSTAH

  Friday night and the place rocks at ‘Lota Lobstah’ in Bar Harbor. It’s easy to find. The neon sign reads ‘Lobstah’, then drops the B, S and H and flashes ‘Lo ta,’ and so on. Lobstah. That’s the way we pronounce it in Bar Harbor… Baa Haaba. Need to find our restaurant and bar? Look for the line halfway down the block.

  I own the place. I’m Freddie. Junior. My dad started the joint thirty-six years ago in a plain old building two blocks from the harbor. Reluctantly, he handed it over to his goofball son seven years ago, took off in an RV, and hasn’t been back except to visit. I always thought he caved to pressure from Ma, God bless her. He and Ma get here for all the holidays.

  Much to my dad’s dismay, I took the place to another level. I think he might have been happier if I failed. You know, ‘can’t live without me’? But deep down I’m sure he’s thrilled to see it go and grow. The buyout check every month must help, too.

  When I say took it to another level, I mean like to the summit of Cadillac Mountain. Pops served up lobster and potatoes. But I wasn’t a guy to just sit back and watch. I decided to experiment and came up with Cajun Lobster Rolls.

  The people loved it.

  Me and Molly dished up Cajun Lobster Rolls as fast as we could. On vacations I tried lots of dishes and took the ideas home. Threw some salsa in a lobster salad, rolled it up in a tortilla like a burrito and we had Ole’ Lobster, sold on Tuesdays. Drizzled Carolina Honey Barbeque sauce on it, laid it on a bed of lettuce on sourdough flatbread and bingo! Carolina Night on Mondays. Wednesday we serve up Italian—Lobstah Mac and Cheese, with four cheeses, every forkful gooey and stringy—our best seller. Secret recipe, sold on Thursdays. Seriously, I’m not telling. Fridays we toss in jalapenos—a lot of them—put them with lobster in pita bread and it’s Freakin’ Flaming’ Fridays. Saturday and Sunday we serve just about all of it.

  We screwed a bunch of flat screen TVs into the walls, hung up tons of fishing nets and stuff, played rock music (except on Tuesday night, Karaoke, and Wednesday, Open Mic) and went to work—hard.

  One of my secrets is, of all things, popcorn. Nothing smells like freshly popped movie style popcorn. I know, it has nothing to do with Maine, fishing, or lobster. We keep the popper next to the bar and serve up free popcorn in paper bowls, with lots of butter and salt. The customers love it. And then they drink more.

  Wednesdays took some tweaking. On open mic night, anyone can get up and say, sing, or play anything. And they do. Somehow, it evolved that bad singers, crude and gratuitous folks, or drunks got ‘voted’ off the stage with people throwing food at them. We put a stop to it before someone got hurt or somebody called the police. But the open mic was so popular that people compromised by throwing popcorn at them. Molly and me discussed it and let them go, but drew the line at small handfuls each. No dumping bowls full. But you get twenty people or so tossing small handfuls of light yellow puffs at you—like at the anarchist the other night—and you know the crowd is displeased with you. Funny, now the Open Mic Night works pretty good. Singers and speakers developed manners with the frightening spectre of getting handfuls of popcorn hurled at them.

  Thursday morning Molly and me clean it up with a leaf blower and shop vac. We been together the whole time, married to each other and the restaurant, sometimes taking turns working and other nights, the busy ones, we work together. She runs. Must be how she stays so thin.

  Our clientele come from all over the world. The cruise ships anchor and disgorge people, thousands at a time, in tenders and they land, ready to eat, drink, and have a great time.

  And I love it. I love them. People are great—for the most part. Once in a while some idiot comes in and ruins a table for a bit. Occasionally someone gets drunk and a fight breaks out, but we shut that right down. Me and Molly want everyone to have a good time, so we don’t need none of that.

  Like the drunk guy who swept everything off his table. The story came out that his sister’s husband said something wrong and he went nuts. Broke a couple of chairs and a picture, too. We hustled him out and got his wife to promise to take him home—no police. She rang up a five hundred dollar charge on her credit card, nice lady. Too bad she married a moron.

  People are funny about the lobsters, too. We serve them up boiled and we don’t do anything fancy, just lobsters, live in the tank by the entry one minute, boiled up and served with butter and a slice of lemon the next. Bibs, towels, and pliers come as standard fare, too. Yep. Pliers, a three-decade tradition. Most people? They enjoy pulling them apart, digging for the gold, juice and butter running down their wrists, ain’t life great. Every once in a while. though, people get stupid. One woman stood and yelled that it was disgusting, looked just like a cockroach. What could I say? They do. We got her an Italian Lobster Roll, on us, no big deal, and she set
tled right down.

  And the guy, just a little drunk, who took his lobster by the claws, danced it on his table and sang “Onward Christian Soldiers.” The table laughed until they cried. I trotted over to settle them down and watched a verse and laughed until I cried, too. And I was sober. I’ll never hear that song the same again. It took all my resolve, but I told them they needed to cool it.

  The women with gold high heels can be the worst. Call me a profiler, a sexist, a bigot, I don’t care. They look at the menu and order something that’s not on it. Or ask to change it up. When the food arrives, they grimace at it like they just know it’s been poisoned. Wait until the table is covered with food and drinks and insist we wipe the table down, it’s sticky. I just see gold high heels and brace myself.

  One Friday night, she came in, wearing a low top and bright blond hair. I zeroed in on those gold high heels and a gold purse. Oh, no. Gold sequined skirt, too. Worse yet, her husband came in behind her, a broken down man. I had seen this look many times before. He was two steps back and looking not quite at the floor. She took charge about the table for four. Joyce. Yes, I knew her name right away, and her voice after two minutes. Three tables around her knew Joyce’s name. “Joyce, please, they don’t serve that.” “Joyce, please, the drinks are coming.” And so on. I started to think her birth certificate read Joyce, Please. Her husband’s name was Ron. And because I know fish, after living in Maine for my entire life, I can assure you that Ron was a fish. He was a ‘post spawned salmon.’ A salmon swims upstream, lays eggs and then dies. Rod bred some kids and has been dying ever since. Joyce is killing him. Maybe if he wasn’t such a fish she wouldn’t be doing it. But which came first— the fish or the egg, right? The other couple seemed fine.

  Molly came through the swinging doors with a load of entrees on her shoulder and noticed me. She brushed her brunette hair away from her eyes and smiled at me, those brown eyes lit up. Ten hours and counting and she was still smiling. I gave her a head nod, the look, ‘I’m going to need a little help here,’ and she read it. Got the order taken care of and trotted back to me, the question in her eyes.

  “Table three. We better take it.”

  She stood with her hands on her hips. “Okay.”

  I took the drink order from Kathy, who was waiting on the table, and she thanked me. Me and Molly got the drinks on the table, pronto. “I want a martini, but in a vertical sided glass, not a martini glass.” Then when we presented it… “The olive looks small. Are they always so small?” “Joyce, please.” Brother. I brought a small cup of olives. Before the appetizers arrived Joyce told Molly she wanted to see the manager, the service being so bad.

  Joyce, please.

  She ordered the traditional boiled lobster. Wonderful. I just knew it would be a problem, but what can you do? The order came up and Molly picked up the entrees. I grabbed more towels and wet wipes to anticipate and eliminate any problems, foolish man that I am.

  Molly placed the entrees in front of each patron and said their names, Prime Rib, Cajun Lobster Roll, Italian Lobster Roll, and last, set the lobster in front of Joyce Please and announced the Lobster Special. She leaned back like the meal was radioactive, her hands on her cheeks.

  “Oh, my word, is it alive?”

  I have a number of clever replies to questions like this, as I have heard these questions a thousand times over the years. But this time I knew it was no time for humor. The other couple looked like they were waiting for a time bomb to go off. My lighthearted answer would help them, but not our friend Joyce.

  “No ma’am, we boiled it for five minutes and forty five seconds. That’s the perfect time.”

  “How do you know it’s perfect? You haven’t tasted this one.”

  “No, ma’am. But based on our decades of experience…”

  “Joyce, please…”

  “… the lobster should be just right. Should you have any problems, feel free to let us know.” Oh, she’ll let us know, all right.

  Molly and I backed away like we just lit a fuse. We headed toward the kitchen and she held up three fingers.

  “Three minutes.”

  “No. She’ll have us back in two.”

  Wanna bet?

  We shook on it.

  And heard a scream. I’m surprised the glasses, the mirror behind the bar, and the windows didn’t shatter. We turned to the scream and saw Joyce stand up, hitting her legs on the table, which caused her to fall backward onto the chair and topple over.

  We’re going to leave her there for a second while I explain some laws of physics.

  If you take a lobster leg and squeeze it near the body, the shell will push outward and shove the lower leg upward. I know. I’ve seen people do it all the time, using a lobster leg for a puppet.

  Funny.

  Not to Joyce Please.

  She must have squeezed it in that fashion.

  Back to the activity.

  She flew backward in the chair and smacked her head on the wall, knocking her out. She slid down the wall and slithered to the floor, her legs in a wide v sticking up over the chair seat, which now pointed to the ceiling. Her back lay flat on the floor with her chin pushed into her chest as her head rested against the wall.

  Everyone stopped to watch while Molly and I ran over. I pulled the chair out and her legs flopped to the floor. Molly pulled her away from the wall by her feet and her head clunked on the floor. “Oops, sorry,” she said as she noticed her already short skirt hitched up to her hips. She tugged on the skirt as Joyce shook her head and came to, looking at the ceiling, then at the woman pulling down her skirt.

  Joyce screamed once again.

  Joyce… please.

  We attempted to get her on her feet while Ron the fish stood at his spot. She threw our advances away and got to her knees, then used the chair to reach full height and staggered to the table. She lost a shoe. Hunting beneath the chair she found it, attached it and sat, brushing her hair from her face. The other couple sat, shell shocked, the woman holding her hand to her mouth as the man patted her other one on the table.

  Joyce started to sob, but her gaze fell on the lobster and she backed up in the chair. Much better. No screaming or toppling.

  “It’s alive, I tell you.”

  “Ma’am, I am so sorry—”

  “You should be.” She pointed at me, accusing. “Preying on innocent people like me—”

  “Joyce, please…”

  “No, Ron, I’m not taking this lying down any more.”

  I was torn between the burning desire to point out she had been lying down and commenting that she probably never took anything lying down.

  A third option reminded me of my dad. I think he would have slapped her, told her to shut up, and get out of his place. That one tugged at me, and I held my hands together in an attempt to be civil. While I wrestled with a good answer in lieu of the three options, Joyce took this as an act of aggression. I should have groveled, right off the bat.

  “And you don’t care. You just stand there.” She rooted around her gold purse for a hankie.

  “Please accept our humble apologies.”

  She stopped, the hankie halfway to her eyes. “I will not. I am going to sue you.”

  God bless our customers. Stephanie Krueger, a regular, swept a bowl of popcorn from the bar, stomped over, took a handful, tossed it in Joyce’s face, spun around and walked away.

  Joyce, for once—perhaps in her entire life—was speechless. Jake Krueger, husband, followed and repeated the popcorn toss. Like a tidal wave, customers walked up and hurled bits of popcorn at Joyce.

  Mrs. Please got her voice. I knew she would. “You… people,” she spat. “Ron, come along.” She tottered to her feet and headed to the door. Ron got up with his guests. Bits of popcorn fell behind her. The fish stopped and turned.

  “Look, I’m really sorry about this.” He surveyed the table, with popcorn strewn about. His eyes showed some life, perhaps the first time in years. “Sure wou
ld like to stay.” Then the light died and he turned toward the exit.

  “It’s all right. Just go take care of your wife.” I escorted him to the street, where Joyce carved a wedge in the line-up on the sidewalk, the anger shooting out her pores. Popcorn seasoned her hair. I turned and almost ran into the other couple from her table.

  “My apologies.”

  “Oh, it’s Joyce,” the man said. “Too bad, too. The lobster looked good.”

  “Best in Maine.”

  “I told you we should never go to dinner with Joyce,” the wife said.

  I offered them doggie bags but they declined and hustled after the happy couple. I re-entered the bar and people hoorayed.

  “Sorry, we served another live lobster. Silly us!” I held my hands aloft and the crowd laughed, returning to their food and drinks.

  Molly scraped her hair back. “What a mess, huh?”

  “Tomorrow I’m putting up a sign. It’s going to read: ‘If you have gold heels and purse, you enter with the risk of being slapped.’”

  “You wanted to slap her, too?”

  I smiled. “Oh, yes.”

  She hugged me, kissed me hard on the mouth, and looked into my eyes. “My kind of man.”

  “Because I wanted to slap her or because I didn’t?”

  “Yes and yes.” She stopped and surveyed the table as the crew cleaned up. “Sometimes I miss your dad. He would have slapped her.”

  “Yeah, but he didn’t have Open Mic night and popcorn. Let’s go serve up some lobster.”

  I squeezed Molly’s shoulder. “We’ll at least she got popcorned.”

  “Sometimes you just don’t have enough popcorn.”

  New York

  While visiting Niagara Falls, we watched a video that documented the many people who went over the falls, some successfully, some not, some on purpose and some by accident. Afterward, we walked out on the boardwalk into the hurricane of water, and I took away two conflicting ideas: How could anyone survive going over the falls? And wouldn’t it be cool?

  EXTREME

  “Adam, I can’t do this without your help.”

  “Dude, this is crazy.”

  “No way. It’ll be fun.”

  “Fun? You could get killed.”

  Tanner stopped. Adam was right, no argument there. “But what if it works?”