I did tell the guy -- I thought he may have been the guy -- who banged on the door something to discourage his ever coming back to stay there and annoy us in the future. The B&B owner had gone off to pick up some hikers at the Height of Land and told us our breakfast -- some kind of egg thingy -- was in the oven anytime we were ready. And she added, "Would you watch the coffee?" What's there to watch? It sits there in its little pot, ready to go.
We love vacations. It's just the details like planning, packing, going, coming home, and unpacking that make it difficult.
We're actually looking forward to taking a trip down to North Carolina, which I'm told is out of state, to visit my daughter, her husband, and their good dog, Buster. We're thinking of taking the Toyota Line to get there, because it stops at Comfort Inns along the way as well as gas stations and rest areas.
The Toyota Line's flagship, Miss Kitty Yaris, rests in her yard after another of our journeys to the grocery store. With her, left, is Miss Ellie Echo, who trucks me to work and to the Appalachian Trail on my occasional blackfly-feeding ventures. Milt Gross photo.
I told someone on my bus yesterday, someone who works in The Grand Hotel in Bar Harbor and had just said they charge only $89/night this time of year, that on our frequent vacations -- every ten years or so -- we have learned that "cheap" motels are often problem motels. So we refuse to stay anywhere where they don't charge us $90/night.
"Only going to charge us eighty-nine dollars?" we say. "Well, we'll just have to take our business elsewhere."
Thankfully, Comfort Inn usually charges around $90.
That "cheap" price is one reason I doubted the motel closest to my daughter, her husband, and their good dog, Buster. Somewhere from a map on a Comfort Inn website, I got the idea there was a gambling casino nearby....or maybe that's Hollywood Slots in Bangor. I don't recall exactly. But we didn't want to be kept awake by gamblers whooping it up and not sharing their winnings with us.
And the other one, southwest of my daughter, her husband, and their good dog, Buster, seemed on the map a bit closer to the Appalachian Trail. Any motel closer to the AT. Well, you know, it's closer to the AT.
We once stayed in a B&B in Andover, Maine during a volunteer Appalachian Trail work trip. We had our own private bath. But it was only separated from the public hallway by a door that used to open but was now locked shut to give us privacy. I remember being in the bathtub while people banged on the door, demanding their turn. I told them, "Go take a hike!"
Or I should have.
I did tell the guy -- I thought he may have been the guy -- who banged on the door something to discourage his ever coming back to stay there and annoy us in the future. The B&B owner had gone off to pick up some hikers at the Height of Land and told us our breakfast -- some kind of egg thingy -- was in the oven anytime we were ready.
And she added, "Would you watch the coffee?"
What's there to watch? It sits there in its little pot, ready to go.
The fun began. The evil hiker/bathroom-door banger appeared, looked skeptically at the coffee pot and asked me...as if I knew anything except to make sure the bathroom door was locked..."Is that coffee fresh?"
"Sure," I replied, cheerily, "she just made it three days ago."
I won't finish the story except to say no one phoned the sheriff's department and we haven't seen the evil hiker/bathroom-door banger since.
Somehow bathrooms get to be important. There is the one I visit at the Greyhound terminal when I drive my little bus there to pick up people headed for Bar Harbor. After using said little room, I generally lean on the counter and annoy the guy trying to run the place. In the past couple of weeks, I noted to him that someone keeps leaving the public unisex toilet seat up when they're done.
The other day I said to him, "That seat was up again today."
"That's me," he responded. "I used it and left it up. My wife won't let me leave it up at home, so here is the only place I can rebel."
That was as good an explanation as I expected. I didn't tell the poor rebel that at home, I always lower the seat. My wife is a good wife, she loves me and is a good cook. I'd like to keep the status quo.
In non-bathroom dribble, I began moving the boards from the former owners' (of our house) raised garden to my garden spot. Theirs was in the shade for some reason not even the gurus of raised gardens can figure out. Mine is in the sun. What a concept! But I'd like to deepen the potato patch a bit, so I started moving the boards and shoveling topsoil (we bought three yards which was toted here by dump truck) into the potato patch.
Today it's raining, but the gardening bug remains with me. I had just noticed in the Sears color insert -- one of the millions we toss into the recyclables from the weekend paper each week -- an electric tiller. Dolores agreed I should have it. And then I read the gardening column in the Bangor Daily News by Reeser C. Manley, which advised against any tilling because when you chop those necessary earthworms in half, they don't grow new halves but die instead. So we won't buy the electric tiller.
But once I get the dirt shoveled in, I'll go back to the straw mulch anyway. I keep it covered and each spring just move the straw aside, plant the little doodads, and stand back. No earthworms maimed by this method. So, I was not disappointed to learn that I had been correct after all for all these years, not using an electric tiller.*
Next time I'm in the bathroom of a B&B, whatever reason brings us there, such as the vacations we faithfully take once every ten years or so, I'll ponder more about why I almost became a murderer of earthworms.
But I'll need quiet for those thoughts, so please, don't bang on the door.
* I don't want a gasoline-powered tiller. They are too noisy, they pollute, I hate pulling starter cords, and I hate toting heavy garden equipment around. Besides, a garden should be quiet.
Milt. Gross
Milt Gross can be reached for corrections, harassment, or other purposes at
"Think of the story of Jesus walking on the water, found in Matthew 14:22-33 and Mark 6:45-52," Strobel writes, quoting a scholar he was interviewing. "Most English translations hide the Greek by quoting Jesus as saying, 'Fear not, it is I.' Actually, the Greek literally says, 'Fear not, I am.' Those last two words are identical to what Jesus said in John 8:58, when he took upon himself the divine name 'I AM,' which is the way God revealed himself to Moses in the burning bush in Exodus 3:14. So Jesus is revealing himself as the one who has the same divine power over nature as Yahweh, the God of the Old Testament."
A man way up in Danforth, actually who was known in those long-ago days when you could describe him such as the town drunk, said to me while we were in the general store, "I touched a moose and nobody believes me." He explained that he had canoed down the river, landed on a small island, and seen a moose standing still, just standing there. The man had walked up to the moose and touched its nose. It still stood there.I knew that in those days there was a nerve disease circulating through moose herds, which rendered them fairly helpless. They would just stand still, even if you didn't touch their noses.
Before leaving the dock, the Elizabeth Ann's captain, held up a lifejacket for us to see and even strapped it around himself. He explained that should we tip over -- maybe diesel-powered vessels don't tip over like our canoe doesn't because we're careful and cowardly about being in Maine's cold, cold water -- those life jackets would save our lives. I wondered why you just wouldn't hold onto the vessel as we would our canoe in the event it ever tipped over. Probably some Coast Guard rule.
The approximately 150 miles of trails are as varied and scenic as ever, and the Island Explorer buses allow circle hikes. Up one trail and down another. Not yet succumbing to GPS except to find corridor-boundary markers and recording their GPS settings along the Appalachian Trail (150 miles north of Acadia) as a Maine Appalachian Trail Club volunteer, I recommend a map that shows Acadia National Park's trails. The long southern part of Cadillac mountain, which the 3.5-mile South Ridge Trail follows from Route 3 to the summit.
So I poked though our little library and came up with the perfect book about green, Adventures in Contentment, by David Grayson. A fellow employee gave me this book back in the year 2,000. I remember the year only because we were working on the U.S. census together, that is, until I realized how ridiculous it was to be starting the census in rural, woodsy, lakeside Maine in mud season.
Copyright 2013 is held by the nominated authors on this article page.
The Download book does not contain a section on Seder Olam
Definition: King's Calendar Chronological Research
The Premise: Between the 5th and 3rd centuries BCE (but continuing down to at least 104 BCE), Sectarian redactors transcribed the legitimate 'solar year' chronological records of Israel and Judah, into an artificial form, with listed years as each comprised of 12 months of 4 weeks of 7 days, or 336 days per year, thus creating a 13th artificial year where 12 solar years existed.
When the Synchronous Chronological Data provided in the Books of Kings and Chronicles for the Divided Kingdom Period are measured in years of 336 days, the synchronisms actually align. [Refer to Appendix 5. to see how it synchronises the Divided Kingdom Period]
About the KingsCalendar Publisher
R.P.BenDedek is the owner and Editor of KingsCalendar.com which was originally set up to publicize his research results into the Chronology of Ancient Israel. Those results were published under the title: 'The King's Calendar: The Secret of Qumran'.
Whilst there have been many attempts to solve the chronological riddle of the Bible's synchronisms of reigns of the kings of Israel and Judah and their synchronism with other Ancient Near Eastern Nations, no other research is based on a simple mathematical formula which could, if it is incorrect, be disproved easily. To date, no one has been able to dismiss the mathematical results of this research.
Free to air Academic articles set forth Apologetics for and results of his discovery of an "artificial chronological scheme" running through the Bible, Josephus, the Damascus Documents of the Dead Sea Scrolls, and Seder Olam Rabbah.
During the current economic downturn, this book has been drastically reduced in price but will eventually rise as the economy improves.
Check the Chapter Precis Page to see details of each chapter and to gain access to the Four Free to Air Chapters
R.P. BenDedek writes social commentaries and photographic 'Stories from China' both at KingsCalendar, and as a contributing columnist at Magic City Morning Star News in Maine USA.
(He has been teaching Conversational English in China since 2003 and currently (2013) is teaching in Suzhou City Jiangsu Province.)
