By Anita Garner
It’s almost autumn and thoughts turn to New England. This is my only cranberry story and I’m especially fond of it.
One Sunday in Boston, my friends, Pam and Doctor Ed, read the paper at their kitchen table and spotted the ad about a big country house with acreage for sale in Maine. It came with a generous pond and was the perfect distance for weekend commutes. They put down the paper, drove to Maine and bought it.
On Fridays the good doctor turned into the long driveway leading to his own farm. An old-timer in the area said the locals who lived on the main road could set their clocks by him. “I look at the clock about suppertime on a Friday, I see the fancy car go by and I say, yep, here comes the doc-tah.”
The gorgeous spread with the big, two-story country house with acres all around was the perfect antidote for Dr. Ed, a busy surgeon who married Pam, one of my oldest and dearest. (Sidebar: They met at Stanford and I sang at their wedding on the patio of their hillside home in Woodside, California. My then-husband played piano while I sang their request, “The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face.” It was a magical day.)
Back to Maine where Ed got himself a riding mower and set out every weekend to mow as much of his land as it took to achieve his desired level of relaxation. He loved that mower and Pam loved being a country host. It wasn’t long before all the neighbors knew her kitchen always offered coffee or something stronger to drink and good things to eat. Drop-ins were encouraged. All of this was lively entertainment for this California writer. Maine was love at first visit.
Sunday morning early, I laced up my walking shoes and set off to explore. There was a perfect autumn road at the end of the driveway, with trees on both sides showing off their colors alongside big old houses dotted here and there. This must be one of the most beautiful places in New England.
One particular house won the front porch prize. Rocking chairs, swings, various farm tools leaning nearby. As I came even with the porch, an older gentleman opened the screen door and stepped outside carrying his coffee mug. He stopped and stared at me. I waved. His attention was deliberate, as if we’d met somewhere before. I hesitated, the way you do when you’re trying to decide, do we know each other? He didn’t say anything so I moved on.
I wandered around awhile and when I circled back to the farm, Pam and Ed and the man I’d encountered on that porch were now at the kitchen table chatting. There was a whiskey bottle between the men, from which they dosed their coffee. Pam said, “This is our friend from California. Her first time in Maine. She’ll be here all week.”
He stood up and we shook hands. He wore overalls and galoshes. He was a photo from a vintage issue of Yankee Magazine. He continued to stare at me in the same, disconcerting way he had from his front porch. Nothing casual about this encounter. It wasn’t unfriendly, just intense. He said, “I’ll be going” and we all said goodbye.
I asked Pam and Ed, “Well, wasn’t that odd?”
They told me their neighbor had seen me walk by and he hustled over to their house to ask if I was visiting there. They confirmed I was their guest and he decided to wait a while to see if I’d be back soon. He wanted to meet me. This wasn’t just a casual call. Pam said he mentioned he’d changed his shirt before stopping by. He was mate-shopping, looking for someone sturdy he told them. His wife died not long ago and he needed not just a wife but a farming partner, so he was assessing the possibilities. Evidently, I represented a potential farm implement and needed to be examined more closely to see if all parts were in working order. No offense. None taken. He may have been bereft but he was also a farmer with crops to harvest. Cranberries, they said. Fascinating process if I’d like to know more about it.
When I got back to Northern California, I did read about how cranberries are harvested in New England but I’d missed my chance to participate, missed it by just a few weeks. A new farm wife arrived soon. Sent by some stroke of providence or the result of a farmer’s wisdom? Perhaps a cranberry man who sets out with such specific requirements is sure to know the perfect bog-partner when he meets her, and he did, I heard, right after I left.
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