I Am So sincerely SORRY that you found your way correctly through the wilderness....you deprived the local Maine residents of one of the few traditions, distractions and entertainments, that they have developed to perfection....... the process of giving "lost souls directions" for them it is a fine art. (The moose mate in the privacy of the woods and aside from "ice-out-contests-on-the-lake" there is damned little amusment afforded by the tree denisoned desolation....except for passing tourists.)

Greenville, ME is a small town on the southern tip of Moosehead Lake which is somewhat near the entrance of the legendary "North Maine Woods." The chief employment is logging, paper mill, tourists, guiding, unemployment.....There is not much "recreation" in Greenville; there are three tennis courts at the high school, a summer bible study, a monsterous sized lake with all the exceedingly excellent fishing stream/lake that a body could crave, and some pool tables at the "Long Branch Saloon." But for recreation, on a Friday night, for the local, home-bound, adolesents, there ain't much to it....and if you do.... "do-it" .....the entire community knows "it" by Monday evening.

The local adoescent past-time, on a sultry summer, mosquito/no-see-um infested Friday night, was to sit on the crumbling concret steps of the ancient "Indian Store" and give advice to misplaced tourists. The "Indian Store" sold rubber tomahawks to kids, and a few authentic baskets woven by local Indian tribes, and 'Moose-Bead-Necklaces' (brown wooded pulped oblongs) stitched by 12 year old girls from the winter turd-droppings. The store sat on the north-west intersection of the I-15 which ran north through town and suddenly vered 90 degrees to the left.

Guys, would sit on the steps, telling stories, smelling of "Old Woodsman" (Cutter's was not cool, but Jungle Juice 90% DiEthalMetaThoualimid was OK) swatting the bugs and occasionally commenting on the quality of a neighbor's gas, (particuallary, on Saturday nights when the local tradition was beans and florescent colored weiners....served in EVERY local household) Like spider's in there lair it was known, that around 6:00 pm the tourists from the "southern states" would begin pulling in, having left work and home at noon for an early start on their vacation.... They were on their way to the traditional vacation retreats held for generations and maintained by locals, or they were off to rentals..... (it dosn't get dark until near 10:00 pm in the summer)

The rentals, were the flies in the web.....the "summer people" (traditional joke - some are people, some are not) generally, knew where they were headed.

Inevitably, an automobile would pull up and ask, "Any of you boys know where highway 6 is?"

"Yep"

"Can you tell us?"

"Yep"

And then there would a be long pause....never, laughter because that was un-Mainiac.....just silence.....cold silence.

"Well.... how do we get to it?"

"Most drive, but I suppose you could walk."

The banter would continue in like manner until the amusment of the tourest was reaching its end.

And then the appointed "leader" for the job, it rotated depending upon the time, week, and members present....would begin to spin out the directions. "Ya, mi wan ta tak note on this...." And usually, the woman, if there was one in the car, and usually there was.... would pull out a pad and pen from her purse.....

"Ya, continue straight ahead toward Beava'Cov, but if ya get there ya gone too far, but on the way there ya will see a church on the left an afta tha ya turn right....tha be Scammon Road....ya continur down all the way until ya see the big white barn at Pygensky Farm...P.Y.G.E.N.S.K.Y.....nope, there ain't no sign just the barn, look for the mailbox...an ya make a right....continue down until the road comes to a "deadend T" and that be "East Road" make a right and that will take ya straight on down inter Pleasant road, naw check tha sign ta see that ya on Pleasant Road........the name changes and that be highway 6."

About 20 minutes later, the same car would pass by the group of boys seated on the steps of the Indian Store....and they would all wave as the car went past........ You see, highway 15, that made the right angle curve directly to the left , in front of the Indain Store was also highway 6, which was also, Pleasant Street which was also East Road....

Ahhhhh,,,,,none of you big city folk can truly appreciate the simple amusments of the small town life.

Occasionally, in the summer I will marinate steaks with liquid smoke, vinagar, maple-syrup, cloves, cinnamon, onion garlic and anchovies....and the memory of "Old Woodsman" and its cologne comes tumbling back through the tangled brush bundles of the mind.

HarpGirl,THANX
I'm being nice,
you have the music to calm the savage beast.