The South Shore to Maine - New England - Quinton Sprague and Peter Nolan Smith

Written Aug 24, 2021

THE SOUTH SHORE TO MAINE by Quinton Arundel

At the 169
Willem gives his blessing to our road trip

Peter visits a friend Franny
I drive a rented car to Nantasket
Hull
Fried clams at Tony's on Wollaston Beach
Talk Heroin. More honest than cocaine. Talk about dropping qualludes in the Duxbury cranberry bogs
The old Bay State Colony

The Quincy Quarries ain't no more. Emerald water is grass surrounded rock cliffs

No one in his family lives in Boston. Route 128 is their home.

Listen to Jonathan Richman's ROADRUNNER
Head north on 128 to Cape Ann, Gloucester, Rocky Neck
Swim at the Rockpport Quarry.

Peter jumps off the cliff into the water
The police come to investigate our trespass onto private property.
Peter explains he could read the signs because he's dyslexic and has been swimming here since 1970
"What's your excuse?" asks the officer.
"I'm with him."
We leave wet from the leap

Ipswich Beach.
Beautiful sand, but not the quarries.
We stop at the Babylon of the North Shore

Salisbury Beach.
"I did acid here in the winter of 1971."
"How was it?"
"Wicked."
Our only direction was north.
Portsmouth NH
Kittery Maine
York Maine.

My land and lobstahs too.
Tomorrow north to Falmouth and Sebago to hear the myths of weird old man.
Weird old men never get old.

Best Meal Of All

Next week my younger sister and her husband are leaving for a holiday in Northern Italy. I am so envious, as I have been confined to New York City for the past year, due to a long illness. My body has been steadily healing after a major operation over Yulemas, but the doctors have strongly advised that I stay put until my immune system has recovered from the major procedure and drug treatment. So I wish my dear sister and her loving

Italian food is one of the best cuisines in the world.

In the late-1950s, our family lived on Falmouth Foresides, Maine.

Every Sunday my father drove across the two bridges into Portland to pick up two pizzas and an antipasto plate of Italian meats and cheeses from Angeleno's on Washington Street. This change from cooking dinner for seven every night greatly pleased my mother, even more so since we sat in the living room and watched TV.

THE TWENTIETH CENTURY followed by THE ED SULLIVAN SHOW.

Pizza was all we knew about Italian food other than Italian sandwiches, which had nothing to do with Italy.

They were only sold in Maine and only from the Saco River to Yarmouth Maine and inland to Cornish, Maine.

We had to wait until our family moved from Maine to the South Shore of Boston.

Both our neighbors were of Italian descent. The first day our neighbor Elda Menconi invited our family over to their house to eat lasagna. We children were in heaven. Nothing had ever tasted this good. Not even the pizza from Angeleno's.

Frank and I never told our mother how much we liked Elda's cooking.

We lived on meatloaf and pasta covered with canned spaghetti sauce, regularly stopping over the Menconi's for an early dinner.

We always told my mother, that her cooking was the best.

In the winter of 1967 my older brother Frank exited off 128 without stopping for gas. The needle was on E. There was a gas station on Route 28. I warned him that we couldn't make the two miles. He said there was plenty of gas, although the station wagon had shuddered twice in the last minute. We were running on fumes.

He stepped on the gas and we entered the Blue Hills Reservation, a long straightaway through the woods to our housing development in Milton. The car came to a halt within a minute. It failed to start. We were out of gas.

I had to walk to the gas station in a slushy storm and upon my return found out that the battery had died, because Frank had ran radio. I left to get Adele Menconi. I was in love with the teenage brunette, as was every boy in my hometown. It took forty-five minutes to walk in the cold rain to 109 Harborview Road. Adele jumped in the family Valiant and drove to our stalled car. I tried to get in the car, but she ordered me to stay behind.

I entered our house and was greeted by a fantastic aroma. A pot of beef stew simmered on the stove. It was an hour or two from perfection. I poured some in a bowl and sat at the table

That stew was one of the best meals in my life

To this day.

Everything is the best when you're hungry.

As for my sister and her husband I wish them 'Buono Appetito'.

I'll be traveling come the New Year.

I can hardly wait.

The Love of Gladiators

My older brother's school was a trolley ride away from our suburban house. Boston College High School excelled at sports and academics. I wanted to join my brother in the following class of 1970, except I won a full scholarship to Xaverian Brothers located only ten miles away from our exit on Route 128. The distance seemed small to my parents, but I ran track and once the school bus for my hometown left the parking lot, my only option to get to 109 Harborview Road was to hitchhike from the East Street on ramp of 128.

My hair wasn't long. I was good-looking in my school uniform and blazer. Balding men stopped for me. They smelled of Aqua Velva. After a few minutes on 128 the drivers never failed to ask, "Do you like gladiator movies?"

"No," I said, fearing an escalating series of homo-erotic suggestions and the drivers dropped me at the dreaded I-93 cloverleaf.

Several long walks to the 138 exit taught me that saying 'yes' was better than 'no'. I never told my parents about these or that Brother Jerome the school's librarian asked the same question during Reading 101.

After graduation I didn't hear that line until I saw the movie AIRPLANE in 1980, when Peter Graves of MISSION IMPOSSIBLE fame asked a young boy, "What do you think about gladiator movies?"

Every man in the audience laughed in solidarity. None of the women broke a smile. This was our little secret and males my age recognized the influence of gladiator movies on our pubescent libidos.

I don't care what anyone thinks.

Steve Reeves the Hercules of the 60s wasn't gay.

Tony Curtis on the other hand was very gay in SPARTACUS.

A slave to a Roman master played by Larry Olivier.

Very out and when GLADIATOR was screened in 1980, I saw the first show. My friends and I went to dinner and told the maitre de about the movie.

"It doesn't sound like a real gladiator movie." Marvin sniffed with disdain. He was 6-1 and weighed 145. Mussels were a dish served on a plate not on his bones. "They're never a real gladiator movie unless two men wrestle naked."

"Oh."

That comment certainly shone new light on the wrestling scene between Alan Bates and Oliver Reed in the film adaptation of WOMEN IN LOVE. They were gladiators too, if only for that scene.

Naked men and gladiators might say something to some men, but Steve Reeves was not gay.

No way, but that didn't stop him from being an idol.

To many.

BACKWARD ON ICE by Peter Nolan Smith

Last night the Bruins overcame a horrible 1st period to tie the Blackhawks and force another sudden death overtime. This time the flow of time was in the Bruins' favor and Paille scored the game winner. Game 3 will be in Boston. I love hockey. Several years ago I beat my cousin Oil Can on his $15,000 table hockey game at his house on the North Shore. 4-3 with a stomping on decider. "I'd like to see you do that on ice." Oil Can wasn't a sore loser, but he had lost four games at home. His son was disappointed since Harrison had been working hard to be the first person to beat his father. "I'd be lucky to score a goal." I was useless on skates. "It'd be a four-game sweep with each one a shut-out." Oil Can wasn't bragging about his prowess with a hockey stick. He had started for our high school as a freshman. Harrison was playing basketball. "Your hockey team went 0-17 my senior year." 1970 was forty years ago. "And the next year we reached the playoffs." His team had challenged the hockey hierarchy through 1971 to 1973. "You were a good squad." I had seen them beat BC High at Boston Arena. Our home rink was Rindge Arena off 128. "We could go play a one-on-one right now on Route 1. I've got all the equipment." He had starred in his high school re-uniuon game the previous winter. He was even better in baseball. "Not a chance." I was intent on enjoying my victory at table hockey. "I can't skate backwards." "What was that about?" "My father brought us down to the pond up in Maine." My father was from Westbrook. Boys were expected to skate six months after they learned to walk. There was a pond overlooking Portland Harbor. The smell of bread from the Nissen Bakery mixed with the smell of the sea. "He told us he was going to teaching us how to skate backwards. My brother was 5 and I was 4." "A good age to learn." "We had walked down the street with skates over our shoulders. Mine were CCM." Skating backwards would help me play for the Bruins in the future. They never beat the Canadians. I was going to be a star, since I could skate forward faster than anyone in our neighborhood, except for Charleen Davis, but she was a girl and girls didn't play hockey. "The ice was clean and my father showed us how to position our feet. My brother and I got on the ice. We should like him. He pushed off and tripped over a crack. His head smacked the ice and he stood up with a smile." "Your father was a good skater." Oil Can had lived down the street from our teaberry ranch house on the South Shore of Boston. "Yeah, but blood was flowing down his face. He had cut his head and the smile was from a concussion. He had broken his leg skiing the year before and I thought that he would have to wear a cast on his head." I loved that man. "Ice is hard, but not that hard." "After that I never wanted to skate backwards." My father gave up on teaching us how to skate backwards. "So no game today?" Oil Can wanted to show his son that he wasn't a loser. Harrison loved him either way. "Not a chance, but I'll play another game to seven on the table hockey." I was happy to give him a second shot at shining for Harrison. I have a son and Fenway loved his father too. "You're on." Oil Can popped open to beers and we clinked bottles. "Here's to our fathers." Harrison toasted us with Coke. He was 11 and one day soon he would beat his father at his own game. It was only a matter of time. ps I took Oil Can in the second series 4-2, because in table hockey I didn't have to skate backwards. GO BRUINS.

A Shower With Naked Men

In 2009 Brock Dundee and I drove 3000 miles through the Midwest; Chicago to St. Louis to Kansas City to Iowa City to Minneapolis and back to Chicago. Most of the trip was off the Interstates. Neither my traveling companion nor I saw a single hitchhiker on the side of the road, as if Homeland Security had renditioned that American icon into a secret prison someplace hidden from justice. At truck-stops, diners, 7/11s, and bars I asked hippies, motorists, students, and friends, if they had recently seen any hitchhikers. Everyone said no.

Hitchhikers like hobos and beatniks had gone extinct. People were scared of everything, but Americans were once brave.

I started hitchhiking as a teenager in the late-60s. My high school was located outside of Boston on 128. I ran track. No bus lines or subway train ran between my town and the high school. Hitchhiking was the only available transportation outside of walking ten miles. Every afternoon around 4 I would stand at the 128 onramp. I was 14 years-old. Dusk would fall fast in the late autumn and strange men would stop for me. Once I was in the car, they would ask if I had a girlfriend. Answering 'yes' or 'no' didn't matter, since their questions became more lurid with each passing miles.

"You ever have dreams about naked men?"

My hand rested on the door handle.

"No."

"Not even Tarzan or Hercules?"

"No." "Do you like gladiator movies?"

Their interrogations were remarkably alike regardless of their car or age. It was almost as if they were reading from a script. They also smelled of Aqua Velva. Some of them looked like priests. None of them were Tarzan. By sophomore year I had the dialogue down and they drove me home with high hopes. Some even offered money to let them suck my cock. $10 was the cost of Levis.

"Sorry, I'm saving myself for my girlfriend."

I remained a virgin throughout high school.

It now seems like a waste.

Then again I was more into science fiction than gladiator movies. Oh, those bikini invaders from Venus.

For a classic film warning about cruisers, click on this URL http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EqIIeGmhL2Q

Drunk for Australia

An Australian man mourned a dead friend by drinking himself into a stupor. His friends dropped him at his house and he staggered several feet before collapsing on the lawn. A neighbor took a photo which ended up on out Google's StreetView website as DRUNK GUY.

"I'm not too happy about it." The drunk Aussie said about his fame. "But it was for a mate.'I know what he would have done if I left - he would have partied, too. That's what I would've wanted him to do so that's what I did with some friends.'

Street View is the latest invasion of privacy foisted on the public by a bored Internet audience.

It could have been any of us.

On Christmas Eve 1970 my bosses from Zayre's thanked the overtime workers with a bottle of Whiskey. I drank it with Mitch, the sports clerk. We went to Eddie's Diner next to the Quincy Shipyard's and ate breakfast. The bacon and eggs didn't stick with me long. I puked them on the table and staggered from the diner to drive home in my 1965 VW Bug.

It was snowing on 128 and I opened the door to guide my path with the dividing lines on the highway. I somehow arrived home without driving into the winter scenery and parked the car in the front yard. I never made it to the door and crashed on the lawn.

I was lucky to not freeze to death.

"How you feeling?" My father woke me under a blanket of snow.

"Not good."

"Good." He lifted me to my feet. It was dawn. "Now get the car in the garage and take a hot baht. By the way. Merry Christmas."

It was more a blurry one.