Alvin Black
I've been walking the same piece of the Morgan's Bay Road almost every morning for the last thirty years. Starting off at Nowick's Corner and going past Wayne Gray's lawnmower repair and machine shop, then to Ray and Susan McDonalds house and beyond. Just past McDonald's the land opens out into a spectacular view across the Morgan's Bay, the Union River Bay, and finally etching the horizon, the mountains of Acadia National Park. It's a quiet road, even now, a few folks going to work, an occasional deer, and lots of wild turkeys on their way somewhere with great purpose and determination.
As I'm walking I wave to the cars going by. Nothing elaborate, just a simple raise of the hand to say "hello, good morning". It seems to be a Maine thing, partly courtesy and partly a way of making sure they see you there in the road. There is, I think, a keen, modest pleasure in acknowledging and being acknowledged. Almost everybody waves back. The exception is young men, who seem angry and drive too fast. It sounds like an unreasonable generalization, but I do have thirty years of scientific observation to back me up.
Since I usually walk at the same time every day, there are regulars and they develop their own waving style over time. Some just raise a couple of fingers off the steering wheel; others give a vigorous full arm and hand wave and a few, just a nod of the head.
For many years one of the regulars was an older guy in a battered Jeep pick up with a lot of tangled gear in the back. He drove very slowly, a cigarette in the corner of his mouth. He always waved back, but his expression never changed, very intense, with both hands on the top of the wheel.
One day, much to my surprise, he stopped. Slowly, he rolled down the window, took the cigarette out of his mouth and said,
"We been waving to each other for about twenty years now so I thought it was time we met. I'm Alvin Black and I'm a lobsterman."
I introduced myself, ready for a short chat, but Alvin just put the smoke back where it belonged, rolled up the window and drove on. I was tickled by the exchange and a little taken aback by its brevity. But this was clearly not a man of many words.
A few days later I was telling Ray about my meeting with Alvin and wondered aloud why Alvin drove so slowly. Ray, whose wife is related to just about everybody, gave me the back story on Alvin.
It seems that he had been a serious drinker his whole adult life- frequent arrests for DUI and license suspensions. Of course he kept driving, but only back and forth between his house and his boat. Evidently, the cops made a deal with him that as long as he only drove that route and went real slow they wouldn't arrest him anymore.
Anyway, years later I noticed that I hadn't seen Alvin for a while. About the time I was going to ask Ray if he knew where Alvin was, a woman stopped on the road right next to me and rolled down her window.
"My name is Alice Haskell and I'm Alvin Black's daughter", she said.
"I thought you'd want to know that he passed away last week".
I thanked her for telling me and she continued,
"You know, waving to you every morning was a special thing for him, he really enjoyed it".
What a surprise! I was reminded, as I often am, about the importance of small things, and how we just don't know what's happening in another person's world.
These days, I wave to Alice Haskell every morning as she drives to work, and I think I can tell it reminds her of her Dad.