Road trip: An end to dull days
By Rob Azevedo, Globe Correspondent, 08/18/02
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 Denis Casey (AKA "Max"), photographer Dina Rudick (middle) and reporter Rob Azevedo grin for a wind-blown self-portrait during a bi-plane ride. (Dina Rudick / Globe photo)  If you go More on New England Beaches in New England Cape Cod and the Islands New England galleries N.E. postcards
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I deliver animal blood for a living. Even a hound's blood boils in the heat.
So, after a few stagnant months driving the hot interstate, I decided that if the heat was going to break my spirit, if the redundancy of a simple workday was to dull my perceptions, they would have to catch me first - chase me through the six New England states over five days and 1,200 miles.
If nothing else, this would be a recovery mission. Novelist Jim Harrison once wrote, "When you stay at home for years at a time, the ceilings definitely lower themselves." I'd been feeling just that, as if something urgent were pressing down on my back, bullying me to grow in nerve and karma.
Over the next five days, I would expose my ghastly white thighs to thousands. I would watch an aging rock star falter early in a summer tour. I would walk the halls of a street poet's home. I would barnstorm over a seacoast town before testing my egotistical limits as a first-time naturist. I would visit villages soaked in wine and cheese, and towns fueled off grease and beer and speed.
I would get on the road early, and I wouldn't meet my destination with a slew of buddies. Although a photographer would be clicking away from time to time, just one man would be riding shotgun, my dear friend Lou, maybe the only person in need of this trip more than I.
"You're off the clock now, Lou," I informed him at his apartment in Dover, N.H., on a recent Wednesday morning. "It's time to pull your mind out of the cube."
"Where we heading?" Lou asked in a typically sour manner.
"Buckle the mouth and open your eyes," I said after much practice. "We're gonna shake the dust off our dispositions." . . . In minutes we were riding down Interstate 95. It was gorgeous outside at 8 a.m., cool even. Had the heat quit already?
We got off 95 and took Route 1 north through Hampton Falls, N.H., and over a set of railroad tracks, turning right into Hampton Airfield, a privately owned airstrip hosting guest and student pilots since 1945.
George Forrest, 75, the manager at the airfield and a pilot for 58 years, was behind an office counter inside an old aerial hangar when we arrived. "When you fly, you have to have your brain engaged," said Forrest, who took his first solo flight at 16. "You have to manhandle these planes."
As we spoke, Forrest, pointing through a dirty, fingerprint-stained window, showed us the plane that Dick Cummings, a commercial pilot for 30 years before he retired, would be taking us up in momentarily. Painted red and yellow with "1930 New Standard" on the sides, the 45-foot-long tail dragger (meaning the end of the plane rests on the ground) shone in the brilliant sun.
Fitted with a single propeller and a four-seat open cockpit, the Standard, which can be rented for $45 an hour, would take us 1,000 feet into the air and nearly 10 miles out, a perfect distance from just about any workplace.
When you cut through the sky in a biplane, you move slowly, only about 65 miles per hour. The plane banks right and left, but it hardly sucks in your belly. Such meandering allows you to digest the strange beauty of a large salt marsh near Rye Harbor. When we landed 20 minutes later, I felt looser than I had in months.
Over grilled cheese sandwiches on a deck behind the hangar, Lou started asking, what next? "You want to go to Vegas?" I said.
"Las Vegas?" he asked.
"No, Manch Vegas," I said. "We can be there in under an hour."
. . . Manchester provides the edge for the Granite State, and delivers. Maybe that's why some of the 104,000 locals refer to it as "Manch Vegas," because downtown on Elm Street, an infamous stretch of road drenched in attitude, there's enough vulgarity, sweaty bars, live music, and part-time strippers for everyone.
To me, concerts are a baptism, a religious experience that can transform a delivery man into a rock 'n' roll troubadour with one booming chorus.
Walking into the Verizon Wireless Arena, a brand-new, 12,000-seat, state-of-the-art entertainment complex, I felt alive, ready to be inspired by the man behind "American Girl," "Free Falling," and "Rebel."
Once on the floor, the smell of burning light bulbs, skunk weed, and painted steel hit our faces.
Mining his way through the classics, Tom Petty and his Heartbreakers managed some high points - mostly acoustic stuff - but he wanted to play new songs from a yet-to-be-released CD, bars and chords unknown to the masses. We wanted the candy, the hits. He regained his status with a rousing rendition of "Gloria" and an encore of "American Girl."
The next morning, I contemplated the hours that lay ahead. The four-hour trip into Vermont wasn't my concern. It was the challenge that awaited me there.
. . . When we pulled over in Wilmington, a village nine miles outside Brattleboro, and asked a man pushing a stroller where Harriman Reservoir was, he seemed to look at us as if he saw every roll under our necks.
"Ah," he said with barely hidden disgust. "You're looking for the place they go swimming?"
Harriman Reservoir is a nude bathing area for local and guest naturists. Many townspeople are trying to shut it down after reports of "questionable behavior."
We parked and entered the woods. We were nervous. Lou insisted he wasn't getting naked. But I was on a quest, I told him, and wasn't leaving until my nerves rattled as if it were the morning of an arraignment.
After a quarter-mile hike, I nearly jumped out of my skin when we saw two middle-aged men lying naked together on a slab of rock.
We walked in circles awhile, then found an opening near the water, about 30 yards from the others. We laid out our blankets, then I went into the water wearing a bathing suit. The spot was gorgeous, with its man-made rock chairs and tiny rock tubs. The water was warm, too, with plenty of places to sunbathe, dressed, on sand.
Then, a half-hour later, it happened. "This is ridiculous," I shouted, blood draining from my face. "I'm doing it!"
Naked, I lay face down on the rocks with my legs pressed tightly together. I couldn't bring myself to flip over. A couple arrived, then a heavy-set man. An older woman off in the distance shook pebbles out of her towel.
Then I was hot and ready for a swim. Breathing deeply, I wiggled my bottom and raised my body. "Here it is, folks,' I wanted to shout, "all I have to offer."
In the water, I was skinny-dipping again and it was the summer of `92. I remembered the rush, the feeling of being uncovered and naughty, even fuzzy. Equate it to a hard kiss, a high grade, an unforeseen compliment, and you'll understand.
At a roadside diner we bought pickled sausages for the monster trek back across New Hampshire and into Maine. We had four hours to make "Thursday Night Thunder" at the Beech Ridge Motor Speedway in Scarborough, just south of Portland.
. . . We got to the third-of-a-mile asphalt oval track late, about 8:30 p.m., but the 5,000 spectators that pay $4 every Thursday night (kids under 12 are free) were still kicking up a storm.
Inside, the action was raging. Dented Monte Carlos with "Fishin' Mission" and "CJ's Lounge" painted on their sides tore past the chain-link fence separating the track from the grandstands. People roared and pointed as the street cars whizzed by. Kids in sweatshirts emphatically shouted out to their fathers, "Yeah, Daddy! Go! Go!" The stink of rubber was everywhere.
At Beech Ridge, there is no million-dollar cash prize, no pit crews or TV coverage. There's a victory lane, but no champagne. This is car racing in its finest hour, when welders and telemarketers can play king for a night.
Having finished third and winning $75 in the four-cylinder division (also known as the Beetle Bugs), Rick Madruga, 37, of Waterboro, Maine, said he would sign about 150 autographs before the night was over.
Soon the grandstands were dark and empty. Lou was out of the picture, bored by my self-discoveries, so I was on my own to make it to Newport, R.I., by noon the next day, Friday, for the annual Miller Lite Hall of Fame Tennis championship. I was scheduled to be a ball boy for a singles match featuring an American versus a Frenchman.
I should have stayed in Vermont. . . . Lawn courts, white pants, bacon-colored skin. And inside the Hall of Fame arena, a 48-year-old complex "dedicated to preserving the history of tennis," I started rethinking my occupational decisions.
In a small trailer adjacent to the courts, the ball person supervisor, Amanda Van Voorhis, handed me a new pair of tennis sneakers, a green hat and shirt, and a pair of black, silk shorts I normally wouldn't be caught dead in.
I'd be playing a corner position, said Van Voorhis, near a scoreboard, motionless. My job would be to roll errant balls to center court, where two 10-year-olds dressed just like me would be stationed. I'd also be responsible for bouncing balls and handing towels to the players on serve.
Van Voorhis, 27, walked me over to meet the rest of the ball crew, mostly middle school students two feet shorter and 20 years younger than I.
"Why are you doing this?" asked 13-year-old Josh Klein of Cranston, R.I., after cornering me near a table covered with wrapped ham sandwiches.
"I'm not sure," I told him.
The match between Michael Llodra, the Frenchman, and Marty Fish, the American, began. I took my corner and froze.
At the start of the second set, I noticed the gangly Llodra, the leader in the match, getting tense. He was down love-3, and his baseline game had gone to rot.
After winning a point with a hard volley, Llodra walked toward me. He motioned for a towel, and I assisted him. Then, just as he wiped his face, he said, "You're too big for the sport. You're too big to be out here." So much for my plan to get pumped up this fall.
Van Voorhis, watching my every move from courtside, rushed over. "He wants me out of here," I told her.
It was over. I was back on the practice court with the crew, being smothered with support. "They blame it all on you," suggested Christina Queen, 11, a sixth-grader from Portsmouth, R.I. "It's not easy."
My ball boy days were over, but three days deep into this getaway, my mind was limber again.
I slowly made my way out of Newport heading west toward Hartford, stopping briefly for a crab sandwich.
. . . I attempted to honor Mark Twain by "not doing things in halves," by entering his 19-room home, where he lived from 1874-91, with my brain charged.
Twain, whose real name was Samuel Clemens, was famous for his successes and excesses, but he also had his share of failures and wrenching misfortunes.
At 351 Farmington Ave. in Hartford, the place where the adventures of Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn were composed, Twain's wisdom showed though the eyes of the wooden angels sitting at each corner of his bed. "His children used to unscrew the angels and even bathe them from time to time," said our tour guide.
Twain was a decorator and entertainer along with being a critic and novelist. Each room was fitted with large cushioned chairs and sofas, shelves overflowing with books, candles, snifters, gas lamps, and wide, imported rugs used as a stage for the inevitable after-dinner rant by the author, glass in hand.
Looking around, I imagined the intricate schemes and compartments of his mind. He seemed to adore systematic clutter, the business of routine, the importance of glut, and the notion of spending every dime.
Staring past the extensive lattice surrounding Twain's old porch, I sat in a rocking chair, thinking of my small apartment, my wife and daughter, and the paint-by-the-numbers evenings I'd abandoned for this challenge. Life was calling me back, but there was still work to do.
. . . The day after Hartford, Bob Rosenblatt, 81, a volunteer usher for 30 years at Tanglewood, promised to explain to me the difference between something highly melodic and heavily modulated.
"You have to hear the form and structure of the music," said Rosenblatt on a recent Sunday afternoon in Lenox, Mass."
Hired to work as an usher on the day of Seiji Ozawa's final performance at Tanglewood as the Boston Symphony's maestro, I met Rosenblatt in section D under the shed, stage left of center orchestra.
The serenity of the Berkshires is nearly equaled by the crowd of 15,000 spectators blanketing the lawn section. In chairs, hunched over plates of venison chop and minted turnip, the people took their positions.
The crush had begun at 2:21 p.m., nine minutes before the concert started. "The real music lovers are here now," explained Rosenblatt. "The ones that come late can't be all that interested."
Summertime fabrics filled the aisles. Some tapped at their programs. Others rushed through small talk.
Then silence. Strings shivered on violins, on cellos, and psychological drama unfolded. Hearts emptied out. The wild-haired conductor signaled for a drop in sound, then for a slow rising. The audience was nearly catatonic.
Fatigued from driving over a thousand miles and sleeping on floors for five days, from chasing balls and going for broke, from aviation and speed and music and exposure and learning, I returned home that night just the same as I had left: tired, bloated, curious, and forever wrapped in fantasy.
But convinced, finally, of one thing: The action's out there. The heat can't touch it.