Goodfellows52: A day at the beach and balloons over Broadway

Goodfellows52: A day at the beach and balloons over Broadway: "After a visit to the beach, it’s hard to believe that we live in a material world."  — Pam Shaw ...

A day at the beach and balloons over Broadway

"After a visit to the beach, it’s hard to believe that we live in a material world." 

— Pam Shaw

PHIPPSBURG, Maine — The sky was overcast, the water temperature was a balmy 64 degrees and a cool sea breeze made me consider wearing a sweatshirt, but any day at the beach with my family is always a pleasure.

Any time I have an opportunity to immerse my myself in the healing waters of the Atlantic, I do my best to persuade my family to make the 50-mile trek to the coast. Hanging out on the warm sand at a beach without my family makes me feel like a marooned sailor on an uncharted island.

I would feel like Gilligan without the Skipper and the rest of the five castaways.

I also understand my days are numbered when my son will gladly join me for some fun and sun with his dad in the surf. He is 18, has his eye on a number of colleges and is serious about his future.

So are we!

Popham Beach, our usual destination for us when we want to escape summer's heat, is what I call an explorer's beach. Besides tumultuous surf and a dangerous riptide and undertow, it offers miles of pure white sand and panoramic views of islands that make a beachgoer reach for a camera. 

It's a walker's paradise, too.

Two ancient, stone forts and a Civil-War era, Dahlgren cannon pointed toward the sea reminds history buffs of New England's past. Fort Popham and Baldwin have commanding views of the Maine coast and were used during several wars. At times, the forts served as observation posts where soldiers kept an eye out for German U-boats or spies trying to slip ashore under the cover of darkness.

But on this day we decided to scale Big Rock Island, which offers beachgoers spectacular vistas of the coast. You can access the island at low tide and you must leave when high tide comes rolling back in or you will find yourself stranded for several hours.

Anthony and I made our way slowly up the rocky slope. My balance isn't what it used to be so I stepped carefully. Anthony was light on his feet and had no problem finding the simplest route to the top.

This was our last hurrah for this season. School is next week, which always gets me down after enjoying a wonderful summer with my family. 

We took a handful of snapshots of the coast after reaching the top. We spent about 45 minutes on the wind-blown summit before I ambled down the mountain like a dawdling turtle. Anthony showed me the way and demonstrated great patience with his father.

We broke a sweat as we headed back to our stake of land on the sandy shoreline. We covered nearly four miles of coastline and headed toward the water for a dip that made me yelp when I submerged myself in the icy ocean.

But some of the best moments of the trip to Popham was the long ride. We never stopped talking as we listened to the Golden Oldies.

Archie "Moonlight" Graham was right when he said, "I thought there would be other days, but this was the only day."

And it was a great day for a father and son who are forever drawn to the sea.

Balloons over Broadway

LEWISTON, Maine — We rarely miss the Great Falls Balloon Festival, which has shrunk in size thanks to a shrinking economy caused by our narrow-minded leaders and corrupt financial institutions.

But we still get a rise out of the majestic balloons that coast across the sky during the three-day event.

The festival also signals the end of the summer and ominous signs of another school year, which will be Anthony's last. This is hard from me to take, but I also want him to go forth in life and do well for himself.

What I discovered about my son is that he is a talented photographer and sees images through the lens that I often overlook or ignore.

I find his shots stunning, and my praise for his ability behind a lens is not just from a proud father shooting his mouth off about his family.

See for yourself:

Goodfellows52: Bringing up the rear

Goodfellows52: Bringing up the rear: " Take care of your body. It's the only place you have to live. " — Jim Rohn I can smile after under going a medical p...

Bringing up the rear

"Take care of your body. It's the only place you have to live."

—Jim Rohn

I can smile after under going a medical procedure that makes everybody squirm.

LEWISTON, Maine —When you turn 50, your concerned, family doctor taps you on the shoulder and says: "It is time to get this done."

You might react like Robert De Niro in "Taxi Driver" and shout: "Are you talkin' to me!" You could go off the deep end, pull an Anthony Soprano and scream: "Forget you!"

But deep down, you know your doctor's wisdom and expertise in the medical field are unquestionable. You pause for a moment and tell the good doc you will schedule an appointment in the near future.

The hell you will! 

You will procrastinate and find any excuse to avoid having a colonoscopy. 

Here is what you are really thinking behind a masked smile as this moment of cooperation with your physician disappears.

Hey doc, I refuse to wear a johnny and spend the next 24 hours reading "War and Peace" in the bathroom after drinking a gallon of bilge water that will keep me running to the head and cursing my existence.

I waited four years before I reluctantly gave the green light to undergo a colonoscopy — a pain-in-the-ass procedure that saves lives. 

Of course, people, who have undergone the procedure, giggle when they learn it's your turn on the table. They remind you that your colon will be on parade in front of a handful of medical personnel in a cold operating room.

Then comes a cavalcade of jokes about your exposed derriere and the crap you must drink that strips away your insides like the Rotor Rooter man does to your home's pipes with an iron snake.

I made the appointment two weeks ago.

Preparation begins five days before your insides go on display. You stop eating certain kinds of foods before you get to that day — a day that lives in infamy.

When you begin gulping the stuff, there are moments when you wish you weren't born. The liquid is flavored, but I think a mixture of gin and Vodka might have made this medicine palatable. 

Beginning at midnight on the day before ground zero, you can't eat. You are allowed to suck on Popsicles, sip chicken broth (yum) or drink Gatorade. By the time you force yourself to drink the medicine, you want to eat your table. The hunger pangs are so intense that I wanted kill the ground hog eating my garden and have it for dinner.

Before ingesting an entire gallon of medicine, you must imbibe a 10-ounce bottle of magnesium citrate. You might be fooled that 10 ounces of this effervescent mix sounds refreshing — that's what the label says, anyway. After a few gulps, you start thinking of the word "vomit." It takes an hour to get this down. 

Trust me on this one.

Around 7 p.m., you are required to consume a half gallon of medicine. In no time at all, the stuff kicks in and you become intimate with your bathroom. Fortunately, we have two toilets in the house. You should be finished with it at around 9 p.m. At 3 a.m., Round 2 begins. You arise out of your stupor with an empty stomach and go to work polishing off the rest of medicine. 

The obscenities grow louder with each gulp.

You visit the bathroom in your home at least several times before you think it is safe to head to the hospital without attaching a Porta Potty to your car.

Check-in time is 7 a.m. You wait until you are summoned to the pre-op room where several nurses hand you a Johnny and stick things in your arm while trying to make you comfortable, which will never happen.

The cheerful anesthesia guy visits and explains these wonderful drugs will lull you into a deep sleep while your colon in on a lift undergoing an inspection.

You don't want to be conscious for this procedure. Take the drugs while the good doctor goes about his business examining your colon on the Silver Screen.

While laying on the table dreaming of a roast-beef sandwich and a tall, sudsy beverage, the medical staff inflates your stomach like a rubber tube inside a bicycle tire. Your ballooning abdomen allows the doctor to observe your colon without the rest of your organs getting in the way of his line of vision. When you awake, your guts are pressurized. I will spare readers the grisly details what happens as you recover in a bloated, wonderful haze.

The entire procedure takes about two hours. Those wonderful drugs wear off quick and you spend the  afternoon sleeping it off like some drunk in Central Park.

Was it worth feeling like the Goodyear blimp for an hour and drinking medicine that could wear down an elephant?

Absolutely!

My doctor, who was quite thorough, was impressed at how serious I took the preparation and gave my colon a clean bill of heath. I told him the medicine tasted like crap. He shook his head and agreed with me.

There was a 50-50 chance the doctor might have discovered a cancerous polyp, which could be removed on the spot.

The decision to undergo a colonoscopy is a no-brainer unless you enjoy playing Russian roulette with your health.

In a way, I feel like a new man, lighter on my feet and can boast that I have the cleanest colon this side of the Mississippi.

Goodfellows52: Let's do the Twist-er

Goodfellows52: Let's do the Twist-er: " If you want to see the sunshine, you have to weather the storm. "                                                          ...

Let's do the Twist-er

"If you want to see the sunshine, you have to weather the storm."

                                                                                                                                               Frank Lane

REVERE, Mass. —  There were a dozen phone trucks with flashing lights going up and down Broadway repairing fallen lines after a twister left this section of the city looking like the aftermath of an air strike from a B1 bomber.

The loud whining of industrial woodchippers could be heard throughout neighborhoods that bore the brunt of an EF2 twister with a maximum wind speed of 120 miles per hour. People were in their yards gathering up piles of debris that landed from blocks away.

An employee, working feverishly from atop a cherry picker, apologized to my sister for taking so long to fix the phone line to my boyhood home in Revere on Thursday.

My son ran into the hallway in Maine on Monday morning and told me a two-mile long twister rolled through Broadway and tore up the center of my hometown. Facebook went berserk and relatives and friends began calling us in Maine. We watched the coverage on the computer. Revere was a mess with fallen trees, blown-out windows and debris littering the landscape.

A frigging twister? In Revere? Are you kidding?

This seaside community has never experienced a twister in my lifetime. I have always believed New England has been surrounded by an invisible force field that protected us from these devastating whirlwinds. I thought twisters only wreaked havoc in the Midwest, and as far as I am concerned, these deadly concoctions of nature can stay in the Midwest.

Revere has been ravaged by blizzards and menacing hurricanes, but this community of 53,000 residents has never stared down a twister without any warning. The twister was only on the ground for five minutes, and in those brief moments, the tornado flipped cars like a short-order cook tosses burgers. Some homes were rendered uninhabitable and a few businesses were nearly leveled.

My nephew took a peek out from the picture window of my father's home and saw trees snapping when a frightening funnel cloud became visible. He shouted to his mother to get downstairs and the pair huddled in the dark basement, hoping the house would not shake loose from its foundation. They have been caring for our dad, who was resting at a rehabilitation facility in nearby Melrose, Mass. I was proud of my courageous nephew who thought of his mother first and took shelter in the basement. For a brief moment, they felt like Dorothy and Tonto.

If you can read a map, Revere is next to Boston. But most of the city was unscathed due to the narrow path of the storm. It began in Chelsea and whipped down Revere's main street and veered toward my old neighborhood where McClure, School, Belgrade and True streets were hit hard. My dad's roof and siding took a beating and my uncle's shed was ripped to pieces.

I believe you can chalk up this rare instance to global warming caused by the most destructive force on the planet — man. There are too many of us and our appetite for overdeveloping the earth and wasting finite resources has taken a harsh toll on a planet soiled my careless human beings.

My other sister was not home, but her husband was pushed back when he tried to open the door to their home. Both sisters and their children were not injured and can now tell their grandchildren a tale of how they survived a tornado. 

Nobody was killed or severely injured in the tornado that ambushed a city on a quiet Monday morning. Homes can be restored or replaced, but people are lost forever in these dangerous storms.

Kudos to Revere residents for making a quick recovery.