Farmer's Market: No tomatoes, no peppers, no cukes - nothing to make gazpacho, so I had to let it go. Very nice chat with M. Brought her up to speed on going to work in the orchard. Much joy - and relief.
She says I an generally quite charming - even engaging, on occasion. Small wonder I got it.
Thence over the peninsula to the first of three dedications of plaques of the Portland Freedom Trail - at 11 a.m. the first was that of Deacon Brown Thurston - this at the suggestion of his great grandniece, T., who plays in Tango Mucha Labia.
This was at the corner of Danforth and Union - up from Three Dollar Deweys (this is how I navigate this town...by triangulating off my favorite bars), across from the monstrosity of the Portland Harbor Hotel (catalog-chosen architecture at its worst).
There was a small crowd - many of the usual suspects I see at a lot of these events. Are they ever going to learn some basic marketing?
And over in the background - you can see in one of the pictures - a small crowd of very interested and very confused Japanese tourists came by - they instantly started snapping pix: I suppose they knew something important (well, relatively) was going on and they weren't going to miss a chance to photograph it.
I've been running this George Harrison song in my head all through today - it's in the earlier post, the closing credits from "Time Bandits". It just matched my mood, this wonderful, odd sense of having come through a storm and in good order.
It was in my head as I stopped at Big Mama's for pancakes - I'm rather limited on funds for the moment but dammit, I wanted pancakes and maple syrup. And boy, did they taste good - "a scrap in freedom tastes better than a feast in captivity".
While there I ran into a former student - Eli, just graduated from Greely, now entering Yale (!?!) to study political science or ecological politics. We chatted and I told him I was very proud (and that his mom and dad should come to dance tango). He still intends to play tuba and he was very kind in crediting me with his basic training in music and rehearsal focus.
It is kids like him - and some who are still in classes at Lewiston, Litchfield, Cumberland, Harvard and elsewhere - that let me leave public school teaching with a clear conscience. What a gift. I feel I've done some good.
So off I tramped to Munjoy Hill - the very top, by the Observatory. Monument Two was for one of the barbershops of Charles Frederick Eastman, a freedman who helped runaways by changing their appearance in his shop.
Here it was my turn to run into Sam (who's last name I can't remember) who was in the MSDI/CTM "The Tempest". That was quite a production and a baptism by fire - if anything has ever taught me the importance of taking the blend of corporate cultures into account that was it.
T. (whose email alerting me to this started the whole thing) and Sam and his 6-week old niece (in a carrier) with her mom, chatted our way down the Hill to the last station.
And a block party. The monument was dedicated to Amoes Noe and Christianna Williams Freeman. He was the first called pastor to the Abyssinian church. She was an officer of the African Foundling's school in New York during the Draft Riots of the Civil War.
This town has some big historical guns in play.
Speaking of playing it was fun to listen to the KoKo Experience - a local world-beat band. Charlie, one of the guitarists for the Bernard Tshimangoley Band was playing with them - I was introduced as "available" and who knows what might come of it.
So I ate yams, collard greens (not as good as Mom's poke salad but good on a hot day) and cornbread while the band played, using Nairobi intonation to match vocals.
Wow.
I suppose I should sum up. Twilight is here, I'm sitting in the cool of the evening on the stoop of my apartment house - My Lord Sebastian is perched in the window, meowing at me, meine Deutches freund E. and I had sushi and it has been a full, full day.
Sometimes you just have one like it - totally connected to those around you, to the land - and to yourself.
Again - thank you. Thank you. Thank you.
