Author Archives: wendywelch

Gonna Have a Tea Party – –

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Jack fumbles again and comes in a day late which is not unusual –

I’m heading to Boston tomorrow for a week of shenanigans with friends and will be flying into Logan

The first time I did this a long time ago I flew there from Scotland ahead of a slew of gigs up in Maine. I was picked up by my good friends Wane and Jean and we headed north on what I remember as a highway with at least eight lanes. I’d seen nothing like that before! Then we started getting passed by enormous trucks – much bigger than any I’d seen before. My companions described them as ‘sem –eyes’ – never heard that before either. The next revelation was passing a very large warehouse type building with a sign on it saying ‘HELP WANTED’. I suggested that maybe we should stop and try to rescue whoever was trapped or maybe call the police? They laughed!

The last time I did that trip was with my old musical buddy George and, at the end of our tour, we got a bus from Portland down to Logan. We were on separate flights leaving around the same time and our bus got caught up in heavy traffic, so we arrived to check in as the desks were closing. We were both put on stand-by lists and poor George didn’t get a seat on his flight so was stuck in the airport for 24 hours! I was much luckier and got the last available seat on my plane which happened to be first class. The only time in my life I’ve flown first class and it didn’t cost any extra!

This time should be a lot simpler although I’ll be flying out of Asheville NC at six in the morning – –

Sadly Wendy can’t go as she has work commitments, however it does mean I can glut on all the seafood that would make her severely ill. I can stuff myself on lobster and crab.

Back in the 1970s a popular Scottish band – The Sensational Alex Harvey Band wrote and recorded a song called ‘The Boston Tea Party’, which I always thought was code for a party of a different kind. But I just had a listen to this and was disappointed when it turned out to be only telling the story of the historical incident

Boston tea party

Hello Neighbor

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Kevin lived across the street from us. We saw him from time to time headed for his jeep, the same make as ours. We waved, he waved. Sometimes a black lab stayed with him and they played Frisbee in his backyard.

Dust and prisms

At night in our upstairs bedroom, we lowered the shade because light from Kevin’s desk lamp across the street fell exactly into our eyes as we lay in the big four-poster of our room. Kevin’s silhouette hunched over the computer; he didn’t have a shade. When one of us did an early dawn bathroom trip, Kevin was still there. We didn’t wave at night; that would have felt creepy.

At Christmases, we put a basket of baked goods on his porch. He put a nice card – the kind you buy special from Hallmark – on the windscreen of our Prius.

Kevin put up the Biden sign first, then we put up ours. They stood like pillars across the street from one another, flanking cars. We counted nods versus single-finger salutes.

And then one day I watched Kevin pull his car into the wide driveway of his home across from ours—and miss. Ours is a busy street. He backed up to try again as some driver whose time was more important than anyone else’s hit the horn to signal inconvenience.

Kevin took three tries to get into his drive. Days passed – almost a week exactly—before three cop cars parked alongside our house, another in his drive; no sirens blared. They weren’t in a hurry.

A few minutes later, Jack asked the policeman walking back to his car at the end of our driveway, “Is Kevin dead?”

The officer nodded. Jack didn’t want details and the police didn’t offer any.

The house went up for sale, listed cheap as “an excellent investment.” Every time we looked, hordes wandered about inspecting windows, tut tutting over the front lawn’s misshapen bushes, pointing at gutters dangling like accusations from the house. The realtor parked at 7 am and drove away at 7 pm; when it became evident the front door stuck, the savvy realtor left it open all day.

We wondered which ones would be our new neighbors.

The sign came down. Work vehicles arrived. The bushes were trimmed, front door replaced. Stuff began to appear on the front lawn, with a sign that said “FREE PLEASE TAKE.”

Jack and I watched people stop by and dwindle the pile. As dusk fell we walked over and looked at the remainder atop a ripped-out cabinet. And took home a small glass mug engraved KEVIN.

Kevin, we hope you enjoyed your life. Your mug on a shelf in our living room gathers dust and throws prisms. Life is like that, isn’t it? We will reach out to the new neighbors once they move in, because your mug reminds us to make friends while we can in this short dust-and-prism-filled life.