One summer night in Bar Harbor, and we're going back thirty years here, me and the family were having dinner in a restaurant in the tourist district. That pretty much encompasses all of Bah Hubba, as far as I can recall.
It was an absolutely fabulous dinner. Bar Harbor had some great food joints at the time. Maybe they still do. Ain't seen the place since '92 or so. I'd have to get a fucking passport before I can have dinner in Bah Hubba again...
Anyway, the family consisted of my two beautiful children and their mom, my wife at the time. We found ourselves dining in Maine due to our move to New Brunswick, where I had scored a gig at Irvings shipyard, building warships.
We're in this place, and the children are being their rambunctious selves. Which is to say, they're well enough behaved, but they feel free to express themselves. When my wee daughter scampered away and I nabbed her and hoisted her aloft by the straps of her Oshkosh overalls, we got a round of applause.
At the time, it paid to have a weekend in Maine if you lived in New Brunswick. If you stayed over for two nights, you could pretty much bring two cartons of smokes and a jug of liquor back duty free. Not to mention what you had stuffed in the bottom of the diaper bag. That paid for your weekend in Bar Harbor, at least in the off season.
So it's Mr. Bill time, and the waitress says the guy in the cowboy hat got your tab. How cool is that!
We get out to the parking lot, and there's the guy in the cowboy hat, pissing on the back tire of a Cadillac Eldorado with Texas plates.
"You have a beautiful family, Suh," he says as he zips up and gets in his car.
I like how he calls me "sir" even though he's at least fifty years my senior. Kinda like every waitress south of the Ohio River automatically calls you "honey."
That's America... those are Americans.
Wwg1wga
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