VISTING THE GOOD LIFE – Andrew Barton
VISTING THE GOOD LIFE – Andrew Barton
VISITING THE GOOD LIFE by Andrew Barton
008
Out on the islands that poke their rocky shore above the waters of Penobscot Bay, you can watch the time of the world go by, from minute to minute, hour to hour, from day to day, season to season...
Robert McCloskey, Time of Wonder (1957)
Eastport, Maine is a very small city, "down east" in Washington County. It is the easternmost city in the United States, even.
In the summer of 2013, Andrew spent about 10 days there (and in the surrounding areas), visiting his college right hand man, Asher Woodworth. The pair had travelled Europe together not even a year before; this was logged extensively in the web and print versions of Autumn Wanderers.
This book serves as the second volume in what will be an ongoing series of travel writings. It offers a glimpse into a place where the pace of life hasn't sped up with the rest of the world, and the group of people looking to both keep it that way and take the "good life" further, intelligently and creatively.
Like Autumn Wanderers, this title began as a web log features 12 color photo plates printed by our friends at Pine Island Press.
excerpts:
from FRIDAY
• i catch my first fish, ever, first time fishing, ever, on the second try! i even catch another fish, a young pollock or something, on my forth try. but asher makes me throw it back in the water.
• i am very proud of having caught 2 fish and commence walking around uselessly with my hands in my pockets and a satisfied grin on my face.
• the mackerel stops running after we’ve only caught two, so we take a break for ice cream at the little ice cream shack down by the docks. ice cream in new england is SO ridiculous. the single scoop is about 4 inches tall, and costs $2.25. i get ‘grape nut with vanilla.’
from SATURDAY
• when i get over to lubec, asher and emmanuel aren’t anywhere to be found. they arrive 10 minutes later and tell me that they were detained/inspected at the canadian border! thank heavens i had the guns.
• we drive emmanuel to this dinner engagement he is expected at, and we end up joining. it is a backwoods maine lobster feed, with BUCKETS of lobster, steamer clams, corn on the cob, potato salad, and pots of hotmelted butter. all the guys are shirtless and drinking mad budweisers.
• needless to say, i don’t fit in.
• this assessment is cemented when, after dinner, as recreational sport, all the sons get out their best guns and start shooting targets for sport. then, all the moms and teenage girls get up to shoot the guns too! i couldn’t believe it.
• to make matters worse, i’m wearing my short shorts and maybe even a pink shirt?
