Never Say You’re Sorry, New England

We are just back from three weeks of visiting and of leaf-peeping (or leaf-peeking, if you follow Dear Abby). The Connecticut family visit was absolutely great. The colors were particularly rich as we traveled North, then East through the New England states, winding up in beautiful Ogunquit and ending in history-rich Boston. Overall, it was a very satisfying trip, and Irene and I had a great time doing what we like best, which is kicking around, hanging with each other and with no particular agenda. And I would never pour water on such a good trip but a few things did come up even in the midst of such a great environment, such as:

1. The Alamo rental car we received at Boston, which apparently had just been used for transporting firewood, a well-used baseball cap and used Kleenex and not cleaned. The story of this could go further, showcasing the very heavy guy we asked to clean the car and who didn’t, but you’ve got the headline. The car itself was otherwise OK, btw.
2. The many New England restaurant and diner waiters and waitresses who answered any offer of “thanks” with “no problem”. The reason this bothers me is because I friggin’ KNOW it isn’t a problem when I thank you for doing something you were supposed to do anyway, like bringing a glass of water or the (as per the menu) real maple syrup for the blueberry-pumpkin pancakes. I think maybe this isn’t just an East Coast thing, and you could comment on it for my edification.
3. Our supposed first-class air travel. You understand that traveling first-class is an anomaly for us; the only reason we had first-class seats this time is because we had a credit from a Covid-forced trip cancellation, and it was nearing expiration. But because we both go back a ways we both easily remember first-class service being something very special, with good (and sometimes great) food, ice-cream sundaes with custom toppings, and the infamous never-empty glass of champagne. (OK, so the latter goes back further than is reasonable as I haven’t had a drink in 30+ years, but you get the picture.) Thus, the total benefits of our first-class service consisted of a slightly larger seat that still didn’t recline very far and early-boarding. That’s it. On three of the four legs of our round-trip we received no food or snacks at all, and on one we also couldn’t get a glass or bottle of water. The one “meal” flight consisted of an “everything bagel” with either a slice of turkey and cheese or no turkey and cheese, thus becoming the “vegan option”. The bagel wasn’t, being instead an inferior hot dog roll with a few seeds scattered on it, and the whole unappetizing mess was served refrigerator-cold, along with a few grapes and a packet of seeds which I suppose were to be added to the roll somehow. Starving, I ate it anyway. Irene, being more discriminating, opted to starve. I shouldn’t mention the airline, as of course other flights on it could be much better, but I strongly suspect they aren’t. And so, it’s American.

4. The quality of towels in the inns. Probably anybody else would simply be grateful that they found, without reservations, a place to lay their exhausted heads every night of their travel, even during the amazingly-overbooked Columbus Day weekend. And I am, too, sort of. But for the money we were paying, a little more attention could be put into the accoutrements, and in particular the shower towels. Several times we could read through them, and at the best they were serviceable. Yes, we could have easily bought very good towels for $10 at any big-box store and brought ‘em with us and simply left them in our already-dirty car at the end of the trip and next time we will.
5. The hustle of the otherwise-amazing street performers in Boston. This applies to every group we watched, from the street musicians to the guy doing acrobatics on a tripod he sets up and takes down every set. But it’s the otherwise very well-regarded Breeze Team that I found the most irritating. This is a little hard to explain. After all, if you are normally irritated by somebody repeating the same ideas, words and suggestions over and over again, from one time to the next, (and never meaning any of it), you’d go crazy in a country already flooded with social media idiocy, shallow tv and radio commercials, and all politicians, who, if they are breathing, are lying. And if you weren’t irritated you might even choose to be charmed and participate with the hip-hop group, going out to dance when they asked for volunteers and contributing $20 when they asked for it. Which I did anyway. And, to an extent, so did Irene, standing on the sidelines, clapping along.So, you’d ask, what am I most annoyed about? That we paid $40 to watch a group so good they could charge more than that per ticket on a stage? Or by my own naivety in thinking that when they addressed remarks to me, it was spontaneous and chatty, and that they thought I really did look like an older Peter Parker? I’ll leave it to you to decide but a hint would be that I get freaked when I get manipulated, whether by a time-share salesperson, a woman passing out granola samples in Costco, an ad that has popped up 40 times in the last hour on my laptop or, in this case, by Chris, a leader of the Breeze Team and who gave me his card. There’s no mailing address on it, though, just an email address. And so I’d guess if he’s still hustling me here he’ll need to advise if I should PayPal or Venmo him a few bucks.

This was a great trip overall, and the above concerns are small potatoes. In a world as stressed as ours, I’ll take those problems most any day and I probably just need to dial my meds in a bit better.

Please leave me a comment if you have one. Otherwise, it sometimes feels like I’m writing in a closet with the lights off.