Labor Day

Shawn | September 4, 2007 in Journal | Comments (2)

OK, I’ve never had Labor day off paid so I had to make plans to do something right? So, since I had the scratch and the afore-mentioned time off, I opted to travel the couple hundred miles north of nowhere and spend the weekend in my humble hometown. East Millinocket is “the town that paper made”, according to the sign as you enter anyway. It is almost exactly 200 miles from Portland in Penobscot county, along the Penobscot River. Me on Nesowadnehunk One of the things to do when one visits Maine (besides eat a lobster and take pictures of lighthouses) in my opinion is visit Baxter State Park and check out Mt Katahdin. If one were to do so, they would travel through my little town to get there, so some of you may know what I’m taking about.

It’s always an experience going home. Nothing changes much there, and even when it does, it’s not terribly exciting. It’s small town in every sense of the word. Everyone knows everyone, no one locks their doors, and everything seems to go reeeeal slooooow. Not like Portland Maine is the big city or anything, but to most people I saw this weekend, it’s like NYC I think.

My boy Clay lives there still, we’ve been friends since the sandbox days. I’m actually still very close with a crew of guys from my little hometown, we keep in touch and all come home once a year to a barbeque I put together. I’ve found that over the years, not many people I’ve met have anything like that. People lose touch and go their own ways. Some things though, are worth keeping together. More about them later..

Clay was free this weekend, my dad planned a fishing trip for the three of us, my entire family gets together at my uncle Jimmy’s camps for a Labor day party, and I had plans to visit my mother and stepfather. I was a busy guy. Having fun seems almost like work sometimes!

The fishing trip took an unexpected turn when we realized our first destination was a no-go. Chesuncook Lake was too low and the wind was howling by the time we arrived there, either of these is reason to stay ashore. We instead went to Nesowadnehunk (pronounced by us locals as sow-dee-HUNK), where I was forced to re-learn fly fishing. Windy days are not good for this activity, by the way. Good times though, caught a few small trout and took off early. It was pretty cold, below 50!

The Labor day bash was fun too, got to see everyone sooner than usual. Working retail sales the past 5 years or so, I haven’t been able to come home when my family usually convenes, so I usually see them maybe twice a year randomly. Now that I work normal business hours, I’m excited at the prospect of being available for family gatherings. We played a horseshoes-esque bean bag tossing game pretty competitively, and drove four-wheelers super-fast all around Jim’s camps for quite a while, pretty fun! Also, I never knew that people deep-fried whole turkeys until this weekend, that was a new one (tasty too, of course what isn’t when deep fried, right?).

Caught up with my Mom and my Stepfather Tom, and kicked it with my friends Earl and Amy at the local watering hole for a bit, the came home this afternoon. Now it’s back to work tomorrow, a whole day closer to Friday than normal!

And now it’s bedtime for Shonzo. It still puzzles me how hours of sitting on your ass driving can make you so exhausted, but it’s kicking my ass right now, so I’m out.

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Comment by Amy — September 8, 2007 @ 12:24 pm
I hope you ate the skin- I hear that’s the best part! haha
Did you fry up some Turkey chitlins too? (Is that how it’s spelled? I’m not sure- I don’t think I’ve ever actually writted that word in a sentence before!)
Comment by Amy — September 8, 2007 @ 12:26 pm
Ugh…. I have to start proofreading my comments before I submit them….. yes, I am aware that writted is not actually a word….