(Editor’s note: The Lincoln County News is reprinting last week’s column in full due to the inadvertent exclusion of a portion of the column in the Oct. 17 edition. The LCN regrets the error.)
The house was habitable, the furniture was in place, and the car and truck were registered in Maine. We were now full-fledged citizens of South Bristol.
Two seemingly insignificant events brought home to us how fortunate we were to have literally fallen into this place.
I drove to the old town hall, now a fire station and repository, and made the acquaintance of Joe, one of the selectmen, to inquire about a dump sticker. After some small talk, he reached into a desk drawer and pulled out a packet of green stickers. I could not help noticing that the date printed on them was three years previous! “These aren’t current,” I exclaimed. “I know,” he said. “We ended up with way too many and decided that we should use them up instead of spending more money on another printing.”
How novel, I thought, being concerned about taxpayers’ dollars even for a small expenditure like this.
Joe’s wife was the town clerk. She knew we were new residents, but not that we would be commuting east and west for five more years while finishing up our working lives.
I asked about two absentee ballots, as our neighbor, Chester, was running for the State Legislature and we would not be in residence on voting day.
She asked if we would be around next weekend. I said yes and she responded by telling me where her house was and that if we came by on Saturday morning, she would have two absentee ballots set out on her dining room table complete with pencils and envelopes. I don’t remember whether we sealed the envelopes or not, but I bet she never looked into them.
This was indeed a different kind of place and, to this day, town officials continue to have the welfare and particularly the financial welfare of the residents at heart. And so the commute began.
Anita would leave the real estate office in Mansfield, Mass. on Friday afternoon, where she labored as an administrative officer to as many as 30 brokers, and drive to Medfield, Mass., where I worked in the shipping and receiving department of Arrow Business Forms, a small but efficient printing company of around 70 employees.
I would end up with 38 years of endeavor with them.
They continued about six years after I left, but fell in the end to the advent of the computer world.
The driving schedule was such that I usually was behind the wheel for the entire easterly trek.
With the consent of the owner of the firm, I developed a delivery company for regular freight and also same-day or overnight delivery of the forms we printed. So I always planned ahead for detours on our way “home.” Finding places open was no problem. Police stations (we made up books of parking tickets) and hospitals (for must-have medical forms) were never closed. Even at regular companies, you would be surprised at the many that have workers on hand at all hours. I almost always found someone willing to sign for the goods. Even with the side trips, we were opening the garage door between 9 and 10 o’clock.
Sometimes the drive was ho-hum. At other times, especially on Route 128 in Massachusetts, it could be stall-and-crawl.
Summertime at the New Hampshire and Maine tolls was very time-consuming and, of course, if an accident occurred ahead, your timetable was toast.
The weekend after the big ice storm was scary with all the news about it. The very few lights on going through the Portland area gave us pause on what to expect.
But South Bristol came through just fine. It was a relief to see no signs of the problems many parts of the state were facing.
We were up and heading west at 3:30 to 4 a.m. on Mondays (except when a holiday was on Monday or Friday – we looked forward to those).
I drove to the New Hampshire toll gate. At that time there was a turnout in place and Anita would then take over until a truck weigh station pullout in Massachusetts, where it was my turn again.
There were a few terror-filled rides, as we called them, due to snow or freezing rain.
Once, going back to work, we had to stop in Yarmouth, procure a motel, and head out again the next mid-morning.
The most exciting ride was when we left early on a Sunday afternoon heading west because of a nasty forecast of icy conditions to follow.
Anita volunteered to handle the first half of the trip, driving my truck. I was taking a short snooze. Halfway up the ramp leaving Brunswick and heading for Interstate 295, I woke up to a shriek; we were sliding down the embankment sideways. When we reached the bottom, the truck flipped slowly onto its side. Our seat belts were fastened. I was hanging over my bride and I reached over and shut off the engine.
Within minutes, a number of good Samaritans peered through the windshield. We indicated that there were no injuries and they opened the door and helped us out. The police, fire truck, and tow vehicle all arrived in short order.
The tow truck brought my vehicle to Lee Toyota in Topsham and the police officer took us to the nearest motel. I walked to a Chinese restaurant and brought back supper.
A cab drove us to the dealer in the morning.
They worked on it right away and, although the body was crinkled from front to back, the doors worked and the engine was fine.
We arrived at my work around 2 p.m., “none the worse for wear.”
It’s quite amazing to have five years of your life coalesced into a vague jumble of days that, except for a few highlighted times, begin to disappear.
But it was definitely worth the miles.
(Robert H. Oberlander lives at Hunter’s Landing in Walpole.)
