American Fez

When Whippoorwill's Call

Maybe in late-August, when both fortune and a Cape Cod sun smile down upon your head, you might finally experience the perfect Edward Hopper summer's day. The weather is warm but not too stultifying; shadows are cool and long and strung out across the lawn like Apollo's freshly laundered linen; and there's a hint of rolling thunder in the skies above the next town over. But best and most Hopperish of all, the streets and fields are devoid of other people as far as the eye can see. Not everybody's cup of iced tea, for sure, but my drink of choice when a week of relaxation is required.

Alas, such dog-day bliss is mostly the stuff of oil and canvas and artistic license. Hopper was a poor hand at painting summer's crowds of radio-toting tourists; its excessive humidity and millions of mosquitos; its perspiring armpits and sunburned nose; its grown men in flip flops and childish men on jet skis; and all the other irritating detritus of vacation season's turbulent jamboree. Sometimes I reimagine his Rooms By The Sea as a modern motel room, where the clean white walls are invaded by cheap nautical knick-knacks and an overweight family in neon-colored cargo shorts bundle their way into the sunlit space. Meanwhile, pleasure cruisers and inflatable rafts clog the ocean outside as a paragliding Icarus crashes into the waves. 

If I were a rich man, as the song goes, I would buy myself an island and a sail boat to enjoy a little peace and quiet. For now, however, I must be content with an over-priced Airbnb named My Blue Heaven which also charges a preemptive and rather insulting "cleaning fee." But the house is off the main drag, near the beach and behind a secluded bluff, offering partial water views from an upstairs window if you can crane your neck far enough. I tripped over a decorative lobster trap, Monsieur Hulot-like, while trying to open the patio doors, but I can overlook such boobytraps when they apparently provide my family with endless amusement. After all, these are the things a lifetime of holiday memories are made of.

Gander Dander

There can be few creatures more irritable than geese. They seem perpetually outraged by something. Perhaps it's their constant need to defecate, a relatable discomfort for many consumers of a typical American diet. Or possibly the misuse of their feathers for the stuffing of over-priced "puffa" jackets, also an understandable complaint considering the bloated ugliness of such winter coats. Or maybe it's just because a mid-range vodka has expropriated their name, which is a minor indignity arousing zero empathy in most of us. A low-end, flavored schnapps, for example, would surely provoke greater distress in any human or fowl. At any rate, the sheer volume of shrill bellyaching produced by a gaggle of geese is not dissimilar to that of a mob of wailing brats marching across the park demanding an immediate change of diapers.

Yet geese have their moments of peace and tranquility, too, especially when impersonating swans on a lake or river. When a goose takes to water it's suddenly transformed into a model of meditative elegance, as if instantly exorcised of its demons by some sort of self administered baptism, clearly believing itself to be the social equal of those snooty cygnets. But, of course, pretty soon the goose desperately needs to crap again and the spell is broken. There is much unseemly splashing and screeching as the goose clumsily waddles back to shore to evacuate its over-active and embarrassing bowels. Such were my observations at the local wildlife reservation for what they're worth. I'm no James Audubon, I admit, but I thought I'd record them anyway and photograph the main culprit.