Sagadahoc Story #61: 10/13/98

The Old Post Road snakes into town from the southwest corner, runs a gantlet of frost heaves to the edge of the village, hangs a hard left, and wiggles upcountry to the northwest corner. Brent says that when he and Max were growing up at the old farm there were 41 houses on their road. Mostly substantial farmsteads, with barns and outbuildings. Now there are 150+ domiciles up the Post Road, many of them trailers.

This burg reached a peak population in the late 19th century, when it was a mill and shipbuilding town, and the back country was rolling sheep factory. Not a tree to be seen. Most of the village burned flat in 1908, and the population plummeted. The woods grew back. It wasn't until the 1980s that in-migration brought the numbers back up to 19th century highs. Now we have 20-40 housing starts a year, and the backroads are lined with new mailboxes.

Brent's crew just finished a big house up the Post Road, by the Millay Farm. One of the Millay boys returning after years away doctoring. One of those owner-designed paradises that make you wonder. Sited facing west on an exposed slope with absolutely no solar tempering or natural shelter, it looks like a 3000 square foot ranch house, with only the barest minimum of glazing. For a light lover like Brent the place must seem like a cave, but the owners are pleased as punch with the spacious interior life it offers. Huge kitchen, gigantic bathrooms, acres of walk-in closets, miles of shelving. Peter the Painter kept making awed noises when Brent would drive up with another truckload of shelving to install, and be finished.

On a couple occasions Jo and I hitched a ride to the site after lunch in Brent's pickup, and cycled back to town, to burn off Angie's special. At cycle pace, with the leaves going, you get to see all the hidden houses you normally flash by. The subtler yard art. Old trucks. Butt logs of the big old trees that came down during the ice storm.

Delano and Sandy have come ashore from the houseboat, and are installing a small mobile home down the road from Milton's, her father's place. They'll rattle around in a box most people would feel cramped in. SAILORS MAKE GREAT LOVERS, their bumpersticker should read.

On one afternoon jaunt I pedaled into Bouldin's drive, to check out the cider situation. We've gotten our apples and winter cider from him since we've been here, but his wife died the year before last, and it seemed uncertain he would keep up the business. There wasn't a sign of activity by the press, but as I was biking back out, a couple drove in who said they'd read an ad in the Boothbay Register, so I guessed they might find somebody to help them.

When I went back in Ebba a few days later, I met Bouldin on the road, but when I asked if he was selling cider, he tried to speak, then shook his head and pointed at his lips helplessly. I suspect he's had a stroke. When I repeated my query, he just shrugged. I had noted that his trees haven't seem to be bearing much, and wondered if they were mourning, the way bees will.

He was standing in front of Nole's, who came out while we were making futile gestures, and the old man seemed to relax in Nole's company. He must know Nole pretty well, because your first impression of Nole isn't real reassuring. He's prone to extreme utterance. He drives junkers, and his house looks like an afterthought. He's also the most talented furniture restorer I've ever encountered. And a mystery.

Every time you talk with Nole you get another incredible bit of personal lore. Like the time he was a fencing master in New York City. He'll give you chapter and verse on French vs. Polish swordsmanship. He has a Spanish surname, but speaks with an undefinable accent. Part New England hill country, part Bronx. He tells of a gypsy adolescence in Latin America, and then working for Rockefellers manufacturing antiques in the Big Apple. I can believe the latter. I once saw a relief-carved oak chest he restored after a fire. One half had been charred beyond recognition, but when he was done you couldn't tell it from the unburned original half.

Nole says that furniture restored from the remains of antiques rate as antiques, and he worked in a shop that would take antiques apart and "restore" multiples of them from the various remains. He claims this was financed by the Rockefellers. There's usually some dilapidated old treasure in a state of reassembly in Nole's building.

A curious building. You go downhill from the road to enter this low structure, and the first room, unlit, is full of tools and piecework. In one direction you climb down into a rock lined cavern, dripping moisture, with a cistern in the middle of it. Southern light filters in through overhead glazing, and a tangle of orchids and other exotic tropical plants fill the space. Nole gently handles the alien botanicals with his long horny fingernails, as he describes their flowering rhythms and special qualities.

In the other direction you have to clamber through a window into another darkened catacomb, which is his living space. The impression of claustrophobic isolationism is heightened when Nole starts talking about "my guns." He might just as soon start on about his chickens, however. He generally has a flock out back. Nole studies his birds the way others watch their neighbors, and has evolved an elaborate philosophy about avian character. Theirs and ours. His patron saint in St. Francis, and you are likely to get cornered into a metaphysical discussion that's full of feathers.

Nole greets me with a barking laugh, as he peers out through clouded glasses, with a mischievous glint. His big unshaven face has the disconcerting effect of a mask. A long upper lip full of hidden suggestions, as if he's putting you on, or daring you to laugh. His banter is full of hooks and jabs. Nole admits that for years he would pick fights in bars for his evening's entertainment. I suspect he likes to keep you a little on edge. Nole's blasphemies are old world, and there's something medieval about his militant quest for enlightenment. Where else can you be touched with mystic chicken philosophy at the drop of your guard?

After disengaging, and a salute, I roll back down the Post Road. The trees are showing a bit more color, and I stop to capture a maple display by the old Hobart Farm. Right on a curve, the house and el and barn are strung along the roadside like an industrial operation. You can't build right on the road anymore. For some reason municipalities have swallowed the idea that everything should be set back 75 feet, so the traffic doesn't get upset. The thought that we might prefer to slow the cars down, or have less driveway to plow doesn't cut any ice in our automated age.

Brent used to have his shop in the old tieup in the back of the barn, when Dunn lived here. Dunn was a high-flying developer in the gogo 80s, who lost everything in the dip. The farm was sold at auction to pay debt. Now the big bay door is off its track and open to the weather. Brent mutters every time he goes by that he's going to stop and fix it. Part of his spirit is still building cabinets back there, behind the ghosts of Dunn's junk collection.

CC watches me with curiosity as I wander in the road, looking for the best angle. How to see round the bend. Peggy has always seen roads as evocative images, and I'm getting increasingly enamored of the local road as subject. Course you better keep your ears open, if you're image hunting on a blind curve.

Then I roll on down to the Fisher Road, and go to Welch's for cider and apples. Their seasonal shop IS open, and smelling like Christmas, with crafty gifts and the last of the harvest. I buy six gallons of the latest pressing. Open up the jugs at home. Tap off a couple inches for expansion. Put new caps on, and the jugs just top off the freezer. Full to the brim with winter feasts.

After the the first frosts killed the last of the garden we had four days of heavy rain. I was glad the boats were in the yard, and the gear stowed. Roads were washed out along the coast, and the brooks looked like springtime, but we just got our feet wet. Chico must have made a deal to have a crew work on his place over the holiday weekend, because a bunch kept framing and roofing an extension on his doublewide in the downpour. At first I thought the hammering was duck hunters in the river, and wondered at their persistence. I eventually figured it out. And still wondered.

The high gabbling of geese has passed over for the year, and now the moisture soaked trees are showing more vibrant colors. The ditches are filled with leaves. Eerie installations are coming out on the lawns. The Katchinas are getting ready to reenter the village.