Thank heavens the heatwave is finally over! With temperatures soaring into the 80's and beyond, no one wanted to stay in the city. To try and entice customers, this Northampton restaurant advertises not their food, or their service but their air conditioning!
Jeff Ziff sent along this photograph of a Spongebob Popsicle he came upon that was melting on the shimmering surface of a Springfield parking lot.
Fortunately, I was able to leave the hot confines of civilization and zoom away on my cousin's boat on the Congamond Lakes. In his backyard he has a trampoline. I was quite the trampoliner in my day, however you might think that now I am too mature and dignified for such things. But you would think wrong.
In Southwick we stopped for grinders at this place that had this psychedelic beast in front with a sign identifying it as - what else? - A Horse of a Different Color.
It was great when we finally got the boat out on the water. I like this ingenious relaxation device that someone who lives on the Congamond made out of a hammock and a float.
Existence on the water is free and easy.
Later we ate at this restaurant by the water that had really good hamburgers.
While we were eating, my cousin told me a strange story. He said he went to shore to take a leak one day recently when this young girl came up to him. She asked if my cousin would buy her a bottle of tequila. He asked her how old she was and she replied that she was only fifteen.
"You're too young!" he told her but then she tried to bribe him by saying, "If you bring me a bottle I'll take my clothes off!" My cousin just said, "Some other time." then got in his boat and drove off.
Later that incident bothered him. Besides the obvious matter of how pathetic it was that this fifteen year old was stripping for booze, my cousin told me that he wasn't particularly proud of the way he had handled the situation. Saying, "some other time" is not exactly a morally forceful refusal.
I pointed out however that how did he know the whole thing wasn't a sting like on TV, where they use 19 year olds that look fifteen to proposition guys and when they say yes, they clamp on the cuffs? Soon he was convinced that it had indeed been a cop, and he thanked me for rationalizing away his guilt.
"No problem," I said. "It's one of my specialties."
Soon the sun was going down and we had to leave.
In all the day was a blast and I hope to return to Congamond soon!
3 comments:
Tom,
I liked this post because that;s my hometown.
Incidentally, that "psychedelic horse" is not in Southwick. It's in West Suffield, Connecticut. I know exactly where it is. It's on my way to work and I frequently stop at that package store to get something to drink for after work.
The name of the restaurant where you ate the hamburgers was Louie B's, named after a lifelong veteran of the Springfield police force, Louis Biscaldi. I worked there for three years as a teenager. I washed dishes. The job was abject misery, but I was young and had no bills to pay, so all of the money I earned just accumulated in a jar in my room. I was one of the richest kids in town. Well, I was one of the richest kids in town who wasn't slinging dope, that is! Still, I managed to buy my first car while working there (a 1967 Barracuda) and take a three week trip to France to improve my French.
The Biscaldis don't even own it anymore, it's under new management. I think that the place has gone downhill since then. It's just not the same anymore.
That story about the 15-year old is a little weird, but I wouldn't put it past Southwick lake trash!
BEN DUFFY
Gee Ben, I would have thought that France wasn't your style.
Well Tom, France was...different.
I don't hate any country as a whole, but France comes close. Nonetheless, I was a foreign langauge whiz kid in high school (and still am), and my mother was a French teacher (and still is). When I graduated high school, I was the only one really considered for the Excellence in French award. These days, German is my passion and I have forgotten a lot of French, but I can still communicate what I have to communicate.
When I was younger, we used to have French exchange students come live at my house. One year, we hosted an unmarried couple. They were teachers sponsoring a field trip of French kids to the United States. The students were all placed in American homes, and the teachers needed a home as well. We were that home.
The year after that, they sent their daughter to spend three weeks with us in the summer. The year after that, I went to their home.
They were some of the most stereotypical French people you have ever met. Looking back on it however, I can see that from their perspective, we were some of the most stereotypical Americans they had ever met.
These French people were snotty and quite far to the Left. The father was actually a member of the French communist party, and he received their newspaper on his doorstep every morning. A hammer and sickle adorned the front page of the paper, and that didn't seem to bother him at all.
At the very end of my Army career, when I was stationed in Germany, I took a long weekend and went back to their house, just outside of the Parisian urban sprawl.
I guess people who disagree on everything can sometimes get along with each other...albeit uneasily.
Still, they're a bunch of commies.
BEN
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