Two Cents and a Thousand Words

Ducks and Dunkin’ Donuts

This one is a bit of a downer and gets a little personal, so if you want to be all happy, I’d skip to the next post. If you don’t mind, by all means…

2007 is a big year for my family, mostly because there are a couple of significant birthdays that will happen in the next few months. But 2007 also marks the 10th year since my grandfather passed away.

I was making a grilled cheese sandwich yesterday and noticed that I was going to have a lot of bread left over in this loaf. Immediately, my mind snapped back to summer days in the early ’90s spending time with my grandparents in Camden. How did I mentally jump from a loaf of bread to summer outings to Camden, you ask? On many of those summer days, my grandfather and I would go down to Camden Harbor and feed ducks with some day-old bread we’d bought at the Country Kitchen thrift store in Rockland. (Yes, all of you wildlife activists, I know feeding ducks bread isn’t the best thing for them.)

In fact we had a lot of fun in those days. My mom would always drop me off in Belfast, and I’d head down to Camden with my grandmother or my grandfather. If it was my grandfather’s turn to head up Penobscot Bay with his old ’80s truck, we’d stop in the Belfast Dunkin’ Donuts. I’d have a vanilla creme donut and milk. We’d ride down to Camden (I’d manage to drive my grandfather crazy by fiddling with every button in the truck at least twice), and we’d spend the day feeding ducks, making birdhouses out of coffee cans, going to the no-longer-existent driving range in Rockland, or doing a number of other random activities to keep me occupied. It was more fun than I ever could’ve had with a babysitter.

At the time, I was too young to understand how great it was. I lived in a world where (at least I thought) people came out and said what they felt, and I guess I had a little trouble understanding my grandfather’s personality at times. Realizing that now makes me appreciate the time we spent – and both the tangible and emotional memories I have – much more than I did ten years ago.

A lot of this remembrance tendency stems from the passing of my other grandmother last year. I value time with my family more than I ever have. For the past few years, my adult sensibility of enjoying Christmas gatherings for the family has been unsuccessful at trying to convince the kid inside that it’s not just about presents. Last year was different. It was about getting together and enjoying each other’s company. It just felt different. It felt better. I’m ashamed that it took the loss of a family member to realize that, but I’m very happy that I realize it now.

Richard Ayers (or Grumpa, or Pignose, depending on the addresser) would have turned 76 today. In celebration, I guess, I went down to the local Dunkin’ Donuts and bought a vanilla creme donut and milk. I also drove down to the Kenduskeag and tossed a symbolic piece of day-old bread onto the ice of the stream where Bangor’s most visible paddling/raft/team/dopping (?) ducks makes its home. It’s comforting to remember.

In Camden, our tradition continues.