Dover has about two hundred hills. It’s true. You really only can tell when you walk through. Today I was walking. I walked down the hill to the end of my street. Up another hill to Central Avenue. Teetered on the top of said hill, looking down central avenue. Started down, picking up momentum. Passed the Café on the Corner. Lady sitting at a table outside, and I hear little bits of what must be a coherent conversation, but I only pick up various names: “Jane!...Lucy!...MARY.” Past the new Thai restaurant on my left, which has been advertising an AUTHENTIC AMERICAN BREAKFAST for the last month or so. The hill pulls me down. A man on a bike veers in front of me, coming to a quick and smooth dismount as he stops. Then he falls down. Now, coming straight for me, is a kid strolling along, playing the mandolin. Or the ukulele? What is the difference, captain, I ask. Not out loud. Wondering this to myself, as he sings along. Tralalalalala he sings. (Maybe not exactly. But it keeps with the traveling minstrel feel). Tralalalalalalalalalala! I like him. But now I’m gone, down past the jeweler’s where I bought an enormous diamond. Now to the bottom of the hill, where the mighty Cocheco river rolls majestically along to be stacked up against the dam across the street. Cross a couple of streets, and you start up another hill, past the smell of pizza from La Festa and the town hall and a sketchy bar and you come to my destination: Adelle’s, a little coffee shop midway up the next hill. Today it’s as far as my momentum took me. Adelle’s is the best coffee shop around. It’s got bumper stickers and organic vegan food and real metal spoons and folk music on the speakers and a communal sketch book which anyone can draw in whenever they want.
So here I am, sitting in a bay window seat, thinking about what the heck I was supposed to be writing? Hills, baby. Big ones, little ones, it doesn’t really matter. The thing is, they pack themselves into Dover like they weren’t allowed in the rest of the county or something. This gives Dover a curious kind of transient feel. Unlike other fairly large towns in the area (Portsmouth, for example), Dover has no large central park or square where people tend to gather to while away the hours. There’s just not enough flat space for something like that (the only flat space of any consequence in downtown is a parking lot). This means you see a lot of people passing through. They can’t stand or sit still for very long because if they do, they will fall down the hill. You might be able to catch a bit of a conversation here or there, but people are always going somewhere.
The music in Adelle’s is that well known classic, “I Aint Gonna Get Drunk No More.” It goes like this: “I aaaaiiiiiint gonna get druuuuuuunnnnnnk no more no I aaaaaaiiiiiiint gonna get druuuuuuunnnnnk no more.” Here comes the kid with the ukumandolele again. Maybe he’s singing I Aint Gonna Get Drunk No More. Tells you what he must have been up to last night. He’s probably on one long back and forth walk of shame right now. This gets me thinking: what if we all woke up tomorrow, grabbed guitars or fiddles or flutes and walked around town singing about what we did last night? It would make for some interesting listening.
(Here’s the part in the blog where I really truly run out of deep thoughts to say and start talking about nothing. It means it’s time to go).
Right captain. Backpack on, grab your guitar, sashay down the street. Today let’s sing that new hit, “I sat on the couch and watched some baseballllllll for a whillllllleee and then some travelllll channelllllllllll.” Maybe then, in some flat place in this up and down kind of town, we can get some people to stop for a spell.
No comments:
Post a Comment