parting is such sweet sorrow

Froggie on the windowscreen last night, spotted on our way up to bed.

And you wonder why I wanted a better camera. I can’t help but think the Shiny Panasonic – due to arrive TOMORROW! AHEM!! – will do a better job.

We have other, tragic news today:

I discovered a hole in the seat of my favorite shorts.

I got these shorts in 1990 at Hilton Tent City. Which means, I’ve had these shorts for about half my life.

This is in Boston, near Beacon Hill. It’s about a year after I finished college – I’d been living in Somerville since the previous fall. 

                                            

I don’t know how I found this place…the interwebs didn’t exist…perhaps I used this old-fashioned thing called the yellow pages?

.

At any rate.

The plan was – well, the ORIGINAL plan was – I was going to hike the northern section of the Appalachian Trail with a friend who’d already hiked the southern half, the first summer out of college. (I was a National Park Service Ranger that summer).

This half-baked idea enabled me to spend the entire first year out of college Not Worrying about getting a “serious” job, since I’d have to leave town only six months after having arrived.

Instead, I worked here. My commute entailed walking past Julia Child’s house, and I got a huge discount on used books. It was pretty sweet.

So May rolls around. It’s time to get planning on this trip. But my friend had to cancel on me – something about a family emergency. Crap! I called up one of my freshman year roommates, and – isn’t being right out of college fun? Nothing to tie you down! Bonnie said yes, right away. She couldn’t manage the several-month trip in its entirety, and I didn’t think it was a good idea to do the whole thing on my own, so we hatched a plan to hike for as far as we could get in about a month or so, starting just shy of the Vermont border.

By now, I was living in a house share near Inman Square with a guy I knew from the book store, and his three roommates. There was Greg (the guy I worked with), John, and the other Greg, who, in order to avoid confusion with the first Greg, quite naturally changed his name to Rupert. (Wouldn’t you?) Rupert worked in a film developing store (remember those?) and yes, they did make fun of their customers’ pictures. These were guys who decorated with black velvet paintings of dogs playing poker, and who named their cats “Elvis” and “Pinky Slim” (after a tampon size.) Possibly my most favorite roommates, ever.

But I digress.

I found my way to Hilton Tent City, where I bought raingear, a frame pack – internal frame packs were a relatively new thing, and it being the early 90’s and all, mine was teal and purple – and a bunch of other stuff, including…The Shorts. 

Bonnie made her way to Boston, and we went over to some enormous natural food store that sold everything you’d expect to see in a bulk section, and quite a few things you wouldn’t: dehydrated bell peppers, for instance. We stocked up.

And here I am, in the kitchen of the Inman Street apartment, wearing the shorts, and showing off our purchases.

And then we set off on our adventures. We wound up spending about two weeks in Vermont, and then we hitchhiked over to New Hampshire, met up with our friend Tom, and headed for the Presidential Range in the White Mountains. We did this crazy long hike in which we traversed three or four peaks in one day – Adams, Jefferson, Washington, and Eisenhower.

 

Here we are contemplating the view of Eisenhower from the top of Mt. Washington.

Ayep. That was fun.

I will now retire the shorts to the painting pile – those clothes reserved exclusively for home improvement projects. I can’t bear to throw them out.