Happy Halloween!

All Hallowed Eve today is here

A dreaded day of horror and fear.

Our wish for you this dark, dank night

Is to make it through without a fright.

One way to ensure you feel just dandy:

Gorge on leftover Halloween candy!

Grand Old Opera House

One cool feature of Stonington is the Opera House.  It’s one of Stonington’s most prominent buildings, with its large green facade facing the bay and its old-fashioned lettering, complete with a period at the end.  Kish and I went to a screening of Stephen King’s It there on Friday night.  I can attest that going to watch a creepy movie about Maine written by Maine’s most celebrated writer in an old building in Maine, and then walking home in pitch darkness trying to steer clear of sewers, definitely increases the flesh-crawling quotient of the film.

The Stonington Opera House has an interesting back story that tells you something about how the commitment of individual people can make a difference to a town.  The current structure was built in 1912 and housed opera, vaudeville, plays, and movies, but fell into disuse.  (You can read about the building’s history here.)  According to locals, it was abandoned and in danger of being torn down before a group of people formed the Opera House Arts, a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization, specifically to renovate and operate the building.  The project received donations and support, recently a new wing was added, and the Opera House now features year-round entertainment and cultural offerings.  Kish and I are looking forward to attending a live performance there one of these days.

Imagine what a loss it would have been if this iconic historic building had been demolished!  But because some far-sighted folks were willing to take a chance and invest their time and effort into a project, the building was saved and the lives of the people of Stonington and its surroundings are a little bit richer as a result.  It sure beats the swing of the wrecking ball.

Back Of The Plane

I seem to always get seated at the back of the plane.  I’m not quite sure why, but the rear lavatory and I are consistently on intimate terms.  On this flight, I was seated next to the window in the last row and was the last person off the plane.  It’s one reason I like flying Southwest, where I can pick a middle seat up front.

Although sitting at the back of the plane stinks — sometimes literally — it does give you time for people watching, and inner heckling.  “Hey Grampa, have some consideration for those of us trying to make a connection and put your freaking sweater on after you leave the plane!”  “Lady, do us all a favor and use baggage check for that oversized bag next time!”  “And Mountain Man, please remember when you turn around that that overstuffed backpack is knocking into the people behind you!”

Next Day News

Kish and I have been up in Maine, staying in a cottage where there is no TV, no internet, and incredibly spotty cell phone reception.  We were going to go watch the Ohio State-Penn State game at a bar, but at the last minute the neighbors invited us over for a get-acquainted dinner and we couldn’t say no.  I drove to the store and heard the Buckeyes were behind 28-17, but after that point we were off the grid for the rest of the night without any way to check the score.  I am embarrassed to say that I figured Ohio State had lost.

So you can imagine my delight when I arrived at the Bangor airport, was able to check my emails and the news, and found the Buckeyes won a come-from-behind thriller that keeps them in the conversation for the College Football Playoffs.  Apparently J.T. Barrett played an almost perfect game, and the Buckeyes defense cam up big when it counted.  Sometimes next day news is good news.

Now I’m wondering if the YouTube 30-minute replay will be available when I get home.

Rock Bound

Maine has a famously rock-bound coastline.  Stonington is rock-bound to the nth degree — which is presumably how it got its name.  Most of the rock is granite, and you see outcroppings sticking out of pretty much every bay, inlet, and yard.  It’s everywhere.

Our cottage has a beautifully made foundation consisting entirely of fitted granite blocks.  Visitors who’ve seen it nod approvingly and say:  “That’s Crotch Island granite.”  Crotch Island is located near Stonington, and the quarries there supplied the granite for most of the foundations, fences, and walls in town.  It’s good granite, obviously — but why did it have to be called Crotch Island?

Negative Network

It’s a bit jarring when you’re grabbing lunch in a restaurant, innocently attempting to check your email, and the automatic wireless network prompt tells you that somebody in the immediate vicinity has a network with a very bad attitude.  It’s fun to guess which of your fellow diners is radiating such hostility, however.

Sunrise Over Stonington

The sun rises early in Maine, at the far edge of the Eastrrn time zone.  It’s a beautiful morning in Stonington, and after a day and a half of rain, it’s grand to the sun over the harbor.

Apt Signage

Mainers are famously taciturn, plain-spoken, and direct.  So if you are going to ask them to name a road that leads to the town recycling and wate disposal facilities, what do you think you might get?

Philadelphia Airport, Concourse C, 6:17 a.m.

When you’re spending another early morning bathed in the fluorescent glow of arrival and departure screens at another airport, you look for beauty wherever you can find it.  Say — that shade of blue is kind of peaceful, isn’t it?

The Preferred “Best Doctor” Look

Careful study of airline in-flight magazines during my frequent recent travels has led me to conclude that there is a preferred “best doctor” look.

It wasn’t a hard conclusion to reach.  I mean, look at these guys, right next to each other in the same American Airlines mag — each with a well-tailored dark suit, nice tie, one hand in a pocket, and the other holding glasses.  You apparently can hold the glasses in the right or left hand, so long as they are present to convey that thoughtful doctor look.  

There are other, apparently less popular “best doctor” looks.  Sometimes you see the surgeons in scrubs, to convey that just out of the OR/working man feel.  And my favorite ones are the docs wearing lab coats and holding a model of a spine, or a skull, or some other device or implement to convey their area of specialization.  Those guys really look like doctors to me.

How do they pick these “best doctors” who appear in the same magazines that tout “best steakhouses” and “three perfect days in Knoxville”?  Who knows — maybe how they dress has something to do with it.

The Preferred “Best Doctor” Look

Careful study of airline in-flight magazines during my frequent recent travels has led me to conclude that there is a preferred “best doctor” look.

It wasn’t a hard conclusion to reach.  I mean, look at these guys, right next to each other in the same American Airlines mag — each with a well-tailored dark suit, nice tie, one hand in a pocket, and the other holding glasses.  You apparently can hold the glasses in the right or left hand, so long as they are present to convey that thoughtful doctor look.  

There are other, apparently less popular “best doctor” looks.  Sometimes you see the surgeons in scrubs, to convey that just out of the OR/working man feel.  And my favorite ones are the docs wearing lab coats and holding a model of a spine, or a skull, or some other device or implement to convey their area of specialization.  Those guys really look like doctors to me.

How do they pick these “best doctors” who appear in the same magazines that tout “best steakhouses” and “three perfect days in Knoxville”?  Who knows — maybe how they dress has something to do with it.

The Preferred “Best Doctor” Look

Careful study of airline in-flight magazines during my frequent recent travels has led me to conclude that there is a preferred “best doctor” look.

It wasn’t a hard conclusion to reach.  I mean, look at these guys, right next to each other in the same American Airlines mag — each with a well-tailored dark suit, nice tie, one hand in a pocket, and the other holding glasses.  You apparently can hold the glasses in the right or left hand, so long as they are present to convey that thoughtful doctor look.  

There are other, apparently less popular “best doctor” looks.  Sometimes you see the surgeons in scrubs, to convey that just out of the OR/working man feel.  And my favorite ones are the docs wearing lab coats and holding a model of a spine, or a skull, or some other device or implement to convey their area of specialization.  Those guys really look like doctors to me.

How do they pick these “best doctors” who appear in the same magazines that tout “best steakhouses” and “three perfect days in Knoxville”?  Who knows — maybe how they dress has something to do with it.

The Preferred “Best Doctor” Look

Careful study of airline in-flight magazines during my frequent recent travels has led me to conclude that there is a preferred “best doctor” look.

It wasn’t a hard conclusion to reach.  I mean, look at these guys, right next to each other in the same American Airlines mag — each with a well-tailored dark suit, nice tie, one hand in a pocket, and the other holding glasses.  You apparently can hold the glasses in the right or left hand, so long as they are present to convey that thoughtful doctor look.  

There are other, apparently less popular “best doctor” looks.  Sometimes you see the surgeons in scrubs, to convey that just out of the OR/working man feel.  And my favorite ones are the docs wearing lab coats and holding a model of a spine, or a skull, or some other device or implement to convey their area of specialization.  Those guys really look like doctors to me.

How do they pick these “best doctors” who appear in the same magazines that tout “best steakhouses” and “three perfect days in Knoxville”?  Who knows — maybe how they dress has something to do with it.

Looking For The Sign

They’re rehabbing the Dispatch building in downtown Columbus.  The building is fenced off, the windows have been removed, mobile platforms are moving around the structure, and you hear the familiar booms and bangs as workers pull out debris from the interior of the building and hurl it into dumpsters on the ground below.  From the amount of work being done, it looks like the building is being effectively gutted.

Located in the center of the city, just across Third Street from the Ohio Statehouse, and recently added the Columbus Register of Historic Properties, the Dispatch building is an unremarkable five-story structure — except for the sign on the roof.  The sign is a huge, elaborate metal and neon structure, half again as tall as the building itself, that has towered above the downtown core and beamed the name of the Dispatch and its claim to be Ohio’s greatest home newspaper for as long as I’ve lived in Columbus.  The sign is a true Columbus institution and a throwback to earlier days in a city that has really reinvented itself in recent decades.

Of course, things change.  The Dispatch editors and reporters have been moved to a new building about a block away, and the old Dispatch building is going to be made available to new tenants once the rehab work is done.  The city’s Downtown Commission has approved the rehab work, but the filings and applications don’t address what’s going to happen to the sign.  The Downtown Commission application cryptically notes, with respect to the sign, that “resolution as to what will happen to it has not occurred” — which makes it sound like the sign’s future is iffy.

I hope the sign survives.  Downtown Columbus just wouldn’t be the same without it.

The Random Restaurant Tour (V)

I’m not sure exactly why, but the Arena District has never been a regular stop on the workday lunch caravan.  We’ll walk past the Arena District to the North Market, or head east to the Flatiron, but we never seem to stop in that little cluster of buildings adjacent to Nationwide Arena, even though we know there are food places back there.

Last week the Jersey Girl and I decided to cross into No Man’s Land.  Our destination was the Three-Legged Mare, an Irish pub.  It’s been there eight years, located just a few steps away from the Arena, but neither of us had been there – which is kind of embarrassing when you think about it.

I don’t think it will be another eight years until we go back again.  The TLM has all of the classic Irish pub woodwork, wall inscriptions, and other trappings — including a sign, below, that made me laugh as we walked out — so it’s a visually interesting setting that has both indoor and outside seating.

We ate at a high top in the bar area and got good service from the bartender.  He recommended the corned beef sandwich, shown above, so I owe him a debt of gratitude.  It was excellent, with a mound of lean, succulent, juicy corned beef served on a pretzel roll, with just the right amount of fries.  The Jersey Girl raved about the beer cheese soup and couldn’t finish her Irish Burger, so she boxed up half of it.  The bartender highly recommended that we try some of their traditional pub fare next time, so I guess we’ll just have to go back for the bangers and mash.  

Now that we’ve decided to break the barrier and dine in the Arena District, we can do just about anything.