Stories
(lies and stories about places other people live or have been, or maybe are going to be)
The Not Malden Stories
Malden Rock (this is not your Malden)
She was up there on Malden Rock, preparing to
run and jump, open her parachute and then sail
down into the water while I watched from the shore,
as she had so many times before. It was a game.
I had warned her that this time the water was too low,
we’d had a drought and Jim had told the police
we were going to be there in advance.
They didn’t like her daredevil
experiments in the name of science
or whatever.
And so she jumped.
Jim took this picture right before she
started running. The police were climbing
up the back side of the hill trying
to stop her.
But they did not.
She was up there on Malden Rock, preparing to
run and jump, open her parachute and then sail
down into the water while I watched from the shore,
as she had so many times before. It was a game.
I had warned her that this time the water was too low,
we’d had a drought and Jim had told the police
we were going to be there in advance.
They didn’t like her daredevil
experiments in the name of science
or whatever.
And so she jumped.
Jim took this picture right before she
started running. The police were climbing
up the back side of the hill trying
to stop her.
But they did not.
And so it was that June, looking quickly over her
shoulder as Officers Gordon, Desmond and Fritz stumbled
up the stony walkway to try and stop her once again, jumped
gleefully off of Malden Rock, ready to pull her parachute
and have Sally catch her in the canoe.
But this time, much to her surprise, with a clattering and
whirring of what sounded like insect wings, found herself
scooped into a giant basket sailing an American flag.
The navigator was none other than a huge grasshopper who
said he was from Kansas and told her to shut up and be
grateful. Jumping off cliffs was dangerous.
Sally was astonished. The Officers pretended it didn’t happen.
Everyone pretended it didn’t happen, except, you know, Ed, who
took this picture so we know it did. But we kept quiet about it
and never saw that grasshopper from Kansas again.
shoulder as Officers Gordon, Desmond and Fritz stumbled
up the stony walkway to try and stop her once again, jumped
gleefully off of Malden Rock, ready to pull her parachute
and have Sally catch her in the canoe.
But this time, much to her surprise, with a clattering and
whirring of what sounded like insect wings, found herself
scooped into a giant basket sailing an American flag.
The navigator was none other than a huge grasshopper who
said he was from Kansas and told her to shut up and be
grateful. Jumping off cliffs was dangerous.
Sally was astonished. The Officers pretended it didn’t happen.
Everyone pretended it didn’t happen, except, you know, Ed, who
took this picture so we know it did. But we kept quiet about it
and never saw that grasshopper from Kansas again.
A Row to Malden
(this is not your Malden)
Some people still insist on rowing to
Malden, Massachusetts from Boston
instead of taking the T.
They take out maps and show you how
if you start in Boston Harbor,
an odiferous prospect to begin with,
and follow the stinky river under the Mass Pike,
past the Bunker Hill Monument, continue up
past Assembly Row in Somerville (you better have
strong arms, I guess) stop by the Night Shift
Brewery in Everett to fortify yourself with a beer
and then continue north, you’ll get to the heart of Malden.
They say you can pull your boat up right near the Malden Family Medicine Center which for all your effort and insanity
you might need at that point. You have done your trip the green way and on your own damn terms. Tufts University
and Malden High students have been plowing through these waters for years. Other people say the most direct route,
although I’d say you’d need a kayak for this trip, is to cut around Revere beach and slip your way through the Rumney
Marsh Reservation, watching for eels as you push through the cattails. You’ll be eaten whole by mosquitoes,
be delighted by dragonflies in myriad colors and see lots of herons and gulls, maybe a tern or two. I’m sure there
will be red tailed hawks, maybe some owls and peregrine falcons. Hold your nose if the tide goes out. Who knows what is buried in that particular sludge.
However I’ve heard the only way to truly enjoy a row to Malden, is in Maine, where Malden Island
sits waiting for you and you can relax, get away from it
all and look down at Massachusetts inhaling the brisk, clean northern air.
Not Quite Salt Lake City
The Worm
She woke up every night at 4 am from a sound sleep because this was when the worm emerged. By this time, it had snaked its way out from under her nightgown partway down her leg. If her husband knew about it he would be angry or terrified, she wasn’t sure, but definitely disgusted and concerned. She lay there immobilized under the covers, feeling the thing slithering its way down to her ankle. There it would rest for a while as she watched the clock ticking away until a mysterious cue would prompt it to retreat back into her intestines. She had read in a big medical book at the library that if she soaked in the healing and highly salinated waters of the Great Salt Lake she would be cured. But how to get there and under what pretense? She was over two thousand miles away. Not Amsterdam |
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The Falls of Adrintha People say the rocks in Adrintha began weeping after a very tired and grumpy 4 year old Louise Snow screamed at her parents “ WHAT DO YOU MEAN THIS ISN’T HOLLAND ???!!!”, when she heard they were in Amsterdam, New York, not the Netherlands. Apparently this was news to The Falls of Adrintha as well. |
The Dam at Crescent Park
On sending a postcard to Miss Gladys Williams in Gilbertville, it is supposed that Jennie failed to notice the imminent demise of the two people in rowboat number 1, which
changed the scene from
bucolic to ominous.
“ Wish you were here!”
On sending a postcard to Miss Gladys Williams in Gilbertville, it is supposed that Jennie failed to notice the imminent demise of the two people in rowboat number 1, which
changed the scene from
bucolic to ominous.
“ Wish you were here!”
The Ship
Traveling by plane robs one of the anticipation,
over a period of days, or weeks, of arriving in a strange land, with unfamiliar customs.
My cousin Elik once took
the Nieuw Amsterdam to
France and has never
stopped talking about it.
Fortunately he lives in
California.
Nice lines on this boat though.
Traveling by plane robs one of the anticipation,
over a period of days, or weeks, of arriving in a strange land, with unfamiliar customs.
My cousin Elik once took
the Nieuw Amsterdam to
France and has never
stopped talking about it.
Fortunately he lives in
California.
Nice lines on this boat though.
Zeeland
Zeeland, in the West of Holland, is
a world unto its own, where if one does not
shell the nuts properly, one’s bonnet is
promptly lit on fire.
Onder het Wandelhoofd
My grandfather once told me that the Dutch
take both napping and skin cancer very seriously,
which is why the beaches are all cluttered with
basket chairs.
Nobody risks getting burned, and after
a hefty lunch of cheese and cheese and
more cheese, one can relax in one’s
very own basket chair for a good long snooze,
or a private smoke.
The Post Office
These days, with the overwhelming popularity of electronic
mail, trips to the Post Office seem antiquated. And yet
at the small Post Office in our town, I learned from
the stalwart clerk named Thom that the postmaster
once attempted to throw away a box of live day old
chicks that hadn’t been picked up.
This horrified me.
Thom took them home and brought them to
a nearby farm. He will be one of my chicken heroes forever.
Now the Post Office in Amsterdam, New York, is a
National Historic site because it was designed by a
famous guy, under the Office of the Supervising Architect
of the Treasury and Louis A Simon. There are currently
1826 Post offices in NY State but only one in Amsterdam, NY.
While in Holland there are no longer any actual
post offices, Postal Service has been replaced by PostNL
service points. The last Post Office in Holland
was in Utrecht, closing its doors in 2011. PostNL
still prides itself on being very efficient as of course
does the U.S. Postal system.
