AHAB AND ME IN NANTUCKET, MASSACHUSETTS

Change of plans! Change of plans!

Man, is it expensive here to use the Internet at The Even Keel on Main Street in Nantucket. Fifteen dollars an hour.

Anyhow, last you heard from me I was in Savannah and planning to head home. Here's what happened instead. I drove from Savannah to Charlotte where I spent the night. Awaking, I found a cool morning rather than a sweaty one, unlike in Florida. Then I realized that it was still cool in the north and that storms were still prowling the Northeast. It wouldn't quite be tourist season yet, maybe I could still find cheaper housing on Cape Cod, so off I set in a northern direction. I found a way to drive north and shoot over east above the New York traffic. It worked and I got to Hyannis where I secured two nights lodging for about $50 a night.

Now I'm on the island after a two hour ferry ride. Met Karisa and Cody working on the boat. We discussed my life and their lives as they think their lives might turn out. They are uncertain, uncertain. Bright and intelligent, they look at the world through caring eyes. It was refreshing to talk to them. Cody likes philosophy but can't think of way to make a living with it. Karisa is studying childhood education. She thinks she might like psychology. They give me hope about America. Karisa, if I mispelled your name, forgive me.

Jeez, guys, as I passed through New Haven Connecticut on my way to Hyannis, I almost stopped in to, hopefully, make a blog entry at the Yale student union. I thought that would have been very hoity toity of me, but I was in a hurry, so skipped the chance.

TRAVEL IS FARTHER THAN YOU THINK

I have traveled the United States now to meet the peoples of India. Anyone traveling a good deal and trying to find inexpensive motels will know what I'm talking about.

I ate fishcakes at Persy's in Hyannis Port this morning and met a waitress who wants to move to Tucson (that's right, Tucson, where Dave the artist is), and two people from Maryland who are motorboating up and down the Atlantic Coast for a few weeks, then back to work for them. They recommended an even better deal for me as a place to sleep, but I'll be gone soon.

Met a woman as I walked along the street on Nantucket. Cars stopped for us so we could cross the street. I asked her if cars always stopped. She said, "Yes. If they don't, they're from Florida." I told her I found Florida drivers to be terrible too. She said that she should know because she was from Florida. Isn't that amazing? We parted very near where the Rope Walk used to be on Main Street.


NANTUCKET, THE BEGINNING

It was here that I first started to drink and black out. This was a great place to party down in the summer. Now, of course, like everything else I've revisited, Nantucket is a place for the rich to live. It costs a minimum of a million to buy a place to live here, and that's a tent out on Nevers Head.


STAYING IN TODAY

Today it was drizzly as my ferry, the "Great Point", pulled into Nantucket Town harbor, but it promises fair later. I've found the Main Street where I spent so much time in the late 50's, but it's changed too. Couldn't find the Quahog and The Rope Walk has moved about a thousand yards west, I think.


I DON'T KNOW HOW TO TELL YOU THIS BUT....

I'm a bum, a no good, a louse. I almost ran over a kid who was getting out of a school bus. Arriving at Hyannis, after a busy 390 mile drive in a glaring sun, with a sinus headach, dazed and confused, I immediately got lost trying to find the harbor where the ferries depart from before finding a motel. I had driven around for more than twenty minutes when I turned right and came smack up against a big yellow bus which had just turned left and come to a stop in front of me. It was to the left of the street, and I was to the right. I was thinking about directions I was so lost. I did note that it was a school bus, but it was so far to the left that I thought it was making a left turn. It did eventually do just that. I looked for the "STOP" paddles that fly out from the side of the buses in Spokane and saw none so, again, I thought the bus was just making a left turn. So I edged around the bus on the right side and began to accelerate when, pow, the bus door flew open and out popped a couple of kids right in front of me. I just missed one boy by about three feet.

It was a close call, and I felt terrible. I pulled up beside the bus and talked to the driver, trying to explain about tiredness, headache, confusion. I never did tell her about my thinking that she was making a left turn. Nor did I ask her why she was on the left side of the road, nor why she dropped the kids in the middle of the street, which she did do. Instead I apologized and apologized again. As I drove off, I felt like a criminal. And another lady whose car was stopped and heading in the other direction, yelled out with a foreign accent, "I report you. I report you." I was so guilty feeling and upset, I pulled into the nearest motel I could find, and, luckily, it was fairly cheap.

Call me a coward, but I didn't drive my car the rest of that night, and that's part of the reason I walked the mile to the ferry terminal rather than drive there this morning. I think I feel like I'm a criminal and that the Hyannis police must be looking for me to arrest me. Or something.... I did save ten bucks in parking fees by walking to the ferry, and it certainly doesn't hurt my health.


JAPAN TOO

Read in today's paper that the Japanese woman doesn't want to marry and become a housewife. Where have we heard that before? Go, Japanese women! Now if only Laura Bush had such courage. Free women will eventually free men. Yes, to all free men out there. Welcome aboard the Future. We can only hope the Bushmen can hurry up and catch up with the rest of us.

Got to hurry and get this done before my time is up.