Five and Twenty

West of Canandaigua, New York on Routes 5&20 there was a Restaurant at Toomey's Corners called Irby's. It was owned and operated by Bud Irby, the father of a lovely girl I went to school with named Susan.

Every year it was tradition for our family to have lunch at Irby's on the last day of school—usually a half day. It was an event we looked forward to. Not only was it one of the few times of the year we ate out, it was the sacred gateway to summer vacation! There were trucks in the parking lot and truckers and travelers at the counter that would soon be miles and miles away. I remember being consumed with the possibilities of summer and the mystique the highway stretching westward.

I didn't know it at the time but that Highway indeed continues to the oceans, both east and west.

My wife and I have recently started (re)reading “Blue Highways” by William Least Heat Moon to each other before bed. It is often the highlight of our day.

Least Heat Moon took to the road in a bare-bones Ford Econoline Van with a cot and cooler in the back and his modest savings stuffed up under the dash. He traveled in a wide circumference around the US. He stuck to “blue highways”—the two-lane routes instead of the 'red' four-lane Interstates. It's a wonderful book that takes a unique look at the US and its people. I highly recommend it.

http://www.amazon.com/Blue-Highways-Journey-into-America/dp/0316353299

One day my wife and I will slowly make our way across the country on one particular 'blue' highway from coast to coast to write about it, photograph it and compose music based on the experience.

This highway, the longest in the US, runs across 12 states, from Boston, Massachusetts—from within 200 yards of the Fenway Park, to Newport Oregon, a half mile short of the sand and surf of the Pacific Ocean: US Route 20.
 

 US Route 20

There are a lot of interesting 'blue' highways in the US; some that are more historic, like Route 66 From Chicago to LA; some that are more picturesque, like US Route 1 running up the coast of California.

What's so special about US Route twenty?

We have history, US 20 and I.

I was born a quarter mile from Route 20 in Canandaigua, New York where it ran in 1965 (both the hospital and the highway have since moved proportionally to the south). My father always lived near and, at times, right on Route 20 growing up in Fredonia, New York. It was in that same town that my parent's met at Fredonia State University.

Until 1978, Routes 5 & 20 went smack through the middle of Canandaigua (there was an earlier eastern bypass constructed in the '50s). The highway passed under a low railroad bridge that was built long before modern tractor trailer trucks. Despite large signs with clearance heights at three different points under the bridge and flashing yellow lights, many a truck driver has found themselves wedged between the New York Central Rail Road and the upward sloping pavement of West Avenue (Routes 5 & 20). A couple of my friends who lived in town had many tales of scavenging the spilled contents of those trucks be it jars of pickles, rolls of paper towels or whole watermelons.

The route has changed but the bridge remains

with it's low clearance as this Texas trucker learned the hard way in 2010

For today's blog I will tell some my tales of US20, at least the part of it I grew up around.

During one of my early visits to Irby's Restaurant (I was three or four), I returned from the restrooms—a solo mission I was very proud of—I announced in a voice loud enough for the entire dinning room to hear: “I can reach! I can reach!”

In high school I had a friend we'll call Ray who lived right on 5&20 just East of Irby's and Toomey's Corners. Ray had a charisma that made him, at once, a pain in the ass and a lot of fun. He and another friend of mine, Ed (the younger brother of the girl I smacked with my lunch box if you're a regular reader) and I had driven to Fairport to see a couple of neo-mod rock bands. On the way home we dropped Ray of at his house. The three of us decided it would be an excellent idea to relieve ourselves in the middle of 5&20, perhaps some form of artistic expression more than rebellion.

A quarter mile down the road we saw a car approaching. We casually zipped up and strolled to the side of the road like the cool idiots we were.

The car that approached slowed then stopped. The beam of sheriff's search light focused on the streams of urine on the highway, then at the three of us on the side of the road, then back on the piss. The engine gunned and the Sheriff's car pulled into the end of Ray's parents' long driveway.

Ray pulled the starter rope on his salesman-slick charm and strolled up to the cop. Ed and I hung in the shadows thinking we were toast.

“Hey officer, evening to ya... Sir.”

The officer looked back out at the soiled pavement to breech the obvious subject.

“Haha, yeah pretty stupid huh? Sorry about that sir. Just kids, ya know... being kids, no harm done though, right?”

“You live here?”

“Yeah, I live here. My parents'. In fact, that's why decided to, ya know, use the great outdoors so as not to disturb my hard-working dad.”

“Anyone drinking?”

“No... no sir. We're just foolish all on our own. But no big deal right? Lesson learned right? I mean, now that I think about it we could have been seriously struck by a car or even caused an accident. Lots of paperwork for you then, right?”

By the time Ray was done with his spiel, the young sheriff's deputy was just trying to put Ray off so he could get back in his cruiser and leave, almost sorry he'd stopped at all and nearly apologizing for it.

During high school and college, I was in a band with a couple guys who lived in Waterloo, NY, to the east of Canandiagua. I spent many hours driving back and forth on 5 & 20. Naturally, as a young person. My cars were not always in the best condition so I spent almost as much time broken down.

We weren't just a band but the best of friends. We did a lot of hanging out after we jammed so many of my return trips from Waterloo were well after midnight.

This was the case the night my alternator died, leaving the ignition and headlights powered by the battery alone. I knew there was no way I was going to make it home, but in order to minimize the distance my father would have to travel to pick me up, I drove as far as I could. The battery slowly expended itself. Eventually my headlights were about as bright as candles and cars going the other way flashed their headlights at me. I'd like to say I was sensible and safe and stopped when my headlights were too dim to be useful or safe, but I hobbled along until the coil could no longer fire the spark plugs. The engine sputtered it's last breath and I coasted to a halt.

I had passed a country and western bar a mile or so up the road, so I hiked back and braced myself for a Pee Wee Herman moment as called my father from a pay phone in the loud hoppin' joint, neck deep in red necks and brimming with bikers. I could barely hear anything on the phone so I just repeated my location a few times and hung up. He must have understood me because a half hour later he showed up at the car.

Another break-down I had was during the 1984 Winter Olympics from Sarajevo, I was able to stop and use a phone at a house along 5&20 that had their lights on after 2AM.

“Lucky for you the Olympics are going on,” the guy said, “we're not normally up at this hour.”

Unfortunately for my Dad, he was not up watching the Olympics.

During warmer weather, my old Chevy van sprung a radiator leak and began to overheat soon after I left my friend's house in Waterloo. I was still thirty miles from home so I spared my Dad the “come get me” phone call. My first strategy was to stop and let the engine cool, then drive until the needle hit the red again—wash rinse repeat.

The drive times soon grew shorter and the wait times longer so I decided to take a different tack. I walked three miles down 5 & 20 with a plastic container until I found a culvert full of water in front of a middle-of-nowhere Napa auto parts store. I walked back to the van with the full container, filled the radiator and drove ahead to the same culvert to get as much water as I could. While topping off my radiator and filling anything else in the van that could hold water, I saw the first car on the highway since I had passed through Geneva. I shielded my eyes when the county sheriff shone his spot light on me. He looked suspicious as I explained that my automotive difficulties did not in any way involve robbing an auto parts store. He carefully looked back and forth between the Auto Parts store the culvert and my water container and was unable to find any mischief, let alone a misdemeanor.

He seemed disappointed.

This may, or may not be what used to be the Napa store...

or was this the country bar?
Both??

I used my stockpile of water to refill my radiator periodically. Because I thought to leaving the cap off the radiator so high pressure would not push the water through the leaks, I only had to stop a couple more times. I made it home just before dawn. My father slept through the night undisturbed.

I played bass in the pit orchestra for a production of “Jesus Christ Superstar” at the Smith Opera house in Geneva which was in that same direction on 5&20 as the band I was in. My Waterloo musician friends were also involved and we took the opportunity to hang out after rehearsals. Many folks from the production congregated at Jesus' apartment—which was on the top floor of his building, of course. More late nights driving back on 5&20; nothing new.

I missed play rehearsal one evening because I had my first car accident. It was the one occasion when I brought along a couple of my friends from Canandaigua. On 5&20, a couple miles East of Canandaigua, a car was making a left turn. The car in front of me rear-ended them on the right side. I, in-turn, veered and hit the turning car on the left side

An ambidextrous country pile-up.

It probably didn't help that my friend John was briefly steering the car from the passenger seat while I was reaching for a cassette tape on the floor or something stupid like that.

Hey, wait just a minute!

I just remembered; that wasn't my first accident at all. My first vehicular mishap was a bit earlier. It was, of course, still on US 20.

I was cruising around in front of my grandparents' house in Fredonia. The vehicle I was operating flipped on it's side and I escaped with only a scraped knee.

I started crying.

My grandfather came out front, picked me up and righted my tipped-over tricycle. He hardly said a word but put me in the car and took me to a nearby store as I continued to blubber. He came out with an orange Creamsicle which dried my tears and has been a soothing and healing taste to me ever since.

US 20 has a total length of 3,365 miles. My stretch accounts for less than 2%. These are only my stories; there must be volumes of tales to be told about and around Route 20.

The day will come when I will venture out to discover of those tales and create some new adventures of my own. I hope to keep, break downs, scraped knees and crying to a minimum.

If I can't, I'm sure I can find a culvert full of water or maybe someplace that still sells Creamicles.

5&20's routes through time in Canandiagua, NY
-click to enlarge-

Noreen Part, III

So far, the story I've told is merely background for the real story that is about to unfold. I wasn't laughing at the time, but it didn't take too long before I found the comedy in just how ridiculous things got.

You'll see what I mean.

I was over Noreen. Done, finito, case closed, 'Bob's your uncle', moving on.

Even in the loneliness of being in a strange city to me after my divorce, I barely thought of my old college girlfriend.

I was a bachelor in LA but I was not dating. After eight years of marriage it was a painful adjustment both emotionally and financially. It was everything I could do just to make rent and buy groceries. As lonely as I was I didn't have the stomach for much else.

I had a new job and things were not going well. The director had asked to have me replaced... twice! I had confronted some serious health issues that year also.

Perhaps my time in LA was coming to a close.

One day, out of the blue, I got a collect call from Noreen. She sounded upset. Her fiance had left her. I was flattered that she called me. It felt good to be needed, to have someone coming to me for comfort.

We talked about everything.

It seemed Noreen's fiance had disappeared on some cross country soul-searching ramble and had met someone else by the time he got to Arizona. Being jilted had left Noreen with a lot of self-doubt. I gave her encouragement. I assured her that she was one in a million and this guy was an idiot to give her up. Reminded her of all the qualities that I had admired. I reminded myself.

We laughed a lot.

Noreen was living on Cape Cod. She spent the summer in a tent on the beach and the winter living in vacation homes as a house sitter. She cleaned homes and walked dogs year-round.

She made Cape Cod sound wonderful. With all the difficulty I was having in LA, the prospect of a new beginning and being half a day's drive from my family sounded very attractive.

“Oh, you should come out here. You should totally move here, it'd be great. Come visit me at least!”

Thanksgiving was about a month away. I was planning to visit my folks in Canandaigua. Noreen was planning on visiting her sister in Rochester.

“You could come here then we could both drive to Rochester to visit our families,” said Noreen.

Sure, why not.

She continued to call (collect) and we talked more and more about my visit.

“I can't wait to see you!”

There was a lilt in her voice and a flirtatious nature was present in all our conversations. I hadn't heard her sound that way since just before we got together.

What's going on here? I wondered. I had been around the block a few times. I didn't want to kid myself but I found myself being seduced. She sprinkled little innuendos in her conversation and constantly spoke of my arrival with warm anticipation.

I tried my best to expect nothing but I found myself hoping for some sort of rekindling. Just some fooling around would be plenty welcome. No, no... don't think that way... this is the upside-down world of Noreen: to think you know is not to know.

Finally the day of my trip arrived. The flights to Providence, RI through Laguardia in New York were horrible. The flight from LA to NY was pretty bumpy. Why is it the older I get, the more that bothers me? There were delays in New York, of course. I called Noreen and told her of the delay.

“Oh, um, I have to go to an ALANON meeting tonight. I'm not sure how that's going to work.”

Hmmm, okay. Then, I guess those support group meetings are important not to miss... even when a long lost friend is flying in to visit you.

I wondered how I would have ended up spending my evening if my flight had been on time. At an ALANON meeting? Sitting alone in some rich dude's summer place?

The flight to Providence was even worse than the first leg of my journey. It was a tiny prop plane and the single most horrifying landing I had experienced to that point (a high wind landing in Flagstaff, AZ has since taken the crown). As I was slammed side-to-side, and up and down in the very back of the plane, I focused on seeing Noreen. I could see her smiling face. Oh the hug I was going to give her when we we met.

I was green when I staggered off the plane. Boy did I need to see a friendly face! My flight was late enough that she was able to attend her meeting and still had to wait for me to land.

She looked wonderful, but therewas no smile.

I opened my arms for the hug I had been hanging on for.

She dodged it.

Okaaay... Maybe she had a bad meeting. Maybe I smell of elderberries.

Still.

I told the tale of my terrible flight but she didn't seem to want to hear about it. She was distant, detached. This was not the same girl I had been talking to on the phone; not the one I had crossed the country to visit. I can't claim that I was completely surprised. I had allowed myself some high hopes for this trip, but this was Noreen after all.

I had had a similar visit years ago when I visited a girlfriend who had recently moved to Boston. My visit was greatly anticipated in our correspondence, but I arrived to inexplicably cool greetings. She put me on the couch and broke up with me the next day.

Always makes for a splendid vacation!

On the trip to Cape Cod from the airport in Noreen's her barely-running Honda Civic—that someone had given her of course—I feared for my life. She had never been a stellar driver but she had somehow gotten worse, or maybe I just never noticed before. She cursed sane drivers for interfering with her rampant illegal trajectories. I don't think I let go of the door handle the entire way.

She seemed a little more relaxed when we got back to the place she was house sitting. It was a great little place only yards from the ocean. We talked pleasantly for a while. The subject of her cool greeting was never addressed.

I slept in a room with colorful floral sheets, pink trim and a clown-painted toy trunk. Normally the abode of an eight-year-old girl apparently. Pictures of smiling girls wearing private school uniforms and flashing peace signs surrounded a mirror in front of a vanity. I turned out the light to let sleep wash away my shitty day.

I heard something. It was Noreen in her room across the hall, talking on the phone. I couldn't hear the words but the tone was unmistakable, the youthful giggling sounds of a girl smitten. It was just like our conversation in the rain years ago except she was talking to someone else and I had to listen from another room.

Grrrrr!

I thought back to the scary ride from the airport. She had mentioned a 'friend' of hers about a dozen times. He was a friend from her ALANON meetings.

What was his name?... Ethan I think.

I sat wide awake looking at the plastic horses and cutesy figurines on the the shelves. Noreen flirted on the phone till past 2AM.

My blood slowly, quietly, boiled.

Why the hell was I there? Did she have the slightest clue that even if she had not given me any signals , the last thing any jet-lagged lonely ex-boyfriend in the next room wants to hear is a grown woman giggling like a teenager.

My swirling questions faded to some form of sleep around four.

In the morning, I confronted Noreen trying not to sound confrontational, but let her know in no uncertain terms that I was upset. I asked her why she had seemed so different on the phone and why she had invited me in the first place?

Her response was a artful double ploy of her catatonic silence and the friend block. She told me about another former boyfriend who had recently come for a visit, how she was perplexed at why he left in an angry huff a day later.

Aha, the pattern emerges.

That lucky dude must have had his own wheels, I thought.

I, on the other hand, was stuck here for four days. I was stuck in a beautiful place though. I went for a walk on the beach. I borrowed her bike and went for a ride through picturesque lanes raining fall foliage. She could go hang with Ethan for all I cared.

I suddenly saw Noreen in a whole new light. A hundred things came back to me, each evaluated with a level head for the first time: the kleptomania, the bad driving, the head games, the withdrawn silence when confronted, the hard realization that our 'first time' in bed was probably not her 'first time' as she claimed. I even thought about the way she ate cereal, her head hovering directly over the bowl and slurping from behind a curtain of her hair, in a new light. The things I used to think were cute, cool and quirky I suddenly found sad and pathetic. The term “despicable” seemed way too harsh, but somehow I couldn't shake it from my mind.

A dear friend of mine, who was often around when I was seeing Noreen in college, recently told me something I'd never known: Noreen had never spoken to him, not a single word. Why was that? And How on Earth is it that I didn't notice?

Throughout my stay she provided me with behavior to observe without the benefit of dusty and smudged love goggles.

We went to see a movie. Why not, we wouldn't have to talk.

Despite my warnings she parked, not in a handicapped parking spot persay, but squeezed into the striped access zone next to a handicapped parking spot. She was incensed when she found a ticket on her windshield. She raved about taking this injustice to city hall. I bit my tongue.

The next day I made a decision to get over myself. Why make things more miserable than they had to be. I could at least pretend to be an adult about this. I apologized and made with the nice. The atmosphere went from cold to luke warm.

Ethan came over a couple of times. He was a pretty decent guy actually. I knew this wasn't his fault and it was possible he had saved me from what he himself was going to have to endure.

Poor sap.

I talked Noreen into lending me her car so that I could drive to Boston and visit my Aunt and my cousins overnight. She was as happy to be rid of me as I was to get out of Dodge. I would return early the the next morning for our trip to Rochester New York to visit our respective families for Thanksgiving.

I had a nice visit with my Aunt as I always do. I got up at the crack of dawn to be in Cape Cod by 8AM. I couldn't wait to get home to my folks' house. I wanted to be around sane people who really cared about me and could express it in healthy ways. All I had to do was endure her for a six hour car ride.

Cue Gilligan’s Island theme: ♪ “A three hour tour... A three hour tour...” ♫

I pulled into the driveway a little before eight. Noreen had just woken up and hadn't even started to pack!

“I thought you said we were leaving at eight. I skipped my Aunt's breakfast so that I would be here on time.”

“I've got to clean this house, the owners might be coming down for Thanksgiving. We have to wait for Ethan anyway.”

“We what?”

“Oh yeah, didn't I tell you? Ethan's coming too. We're taking his car. Mine would never make it.”

“That must have slipped your mind.”

I thought Ethan was an okay guy, but that last thing I wanted to do was to spend six hours as the third wheel in a car with a pair and giddy new lovers.

Maybe it would be better to have Ethan along. I could imagine the deafening silence of just Noreen and me in the car.

I helped Noreen sweep and dust. Ethan showed up and pitched-in. We loaded up his car and after several last minute trips into the house to check this or get a forgotten that, the car was finally rolling down the long driveway.

At last!

Noreen had a habit of speaking everything she said as if it were a question, with an upward swinging hook at the end (Quirk #6). So when she said: “So um, there's this another house I have to clean,” as if she were asking our permission, I had the urge to say simply: “No!”

Instead, I said “WHAT?”

“Don't, you don't have to do anything,” she said.

“You Are you kidding? I'm going to help like friggin' crazy. If I don't, we'll never get out of here.”

In my ambition to knock out this next obstacle out of hell, I knocked-over and broke a lamp on the back stroke of vacuuming. The fumble was no help with our strained relations.

With all three of us pitching in, broken lamps be damned, we were done with the house in a little over two hours.

Now we could finally...

“Um, so like. There's one more house I have to clean...”

♪ “A three hour tour...” ♫

Once we finished with the second surprise house cleaning—without my breaking anything—there was a series of errands. The whole time, Noreen was using her mobile phone to chase down anyone she could complain to about her handicapped parking ticket without having to show up in court.

“But I wasn't in a handicapped spot!” Noreen said into the phone.

I looked at Ethan.

“She was parked in that part with the slanty blue lines next to the handicapped spot.”

Ethan looked at me for a moment, then at Noreen.

It was four-thirty in the afternoon the day before Thanksgiving, the busiest travel day of the year and we had not yet left town. It started to snow.

♪ “A three hour tour...” ♫

There was one last errand Noreen said she had to make.

We stopped in front of a gift shop. I sat stewing in the back seat. When Noreen returned she handed me the bag she came out of the shop with.

“What's this?”

I opened the bag. It was a large “J” made of chocolate.

What can I say; it worked. I was slightly less pissed off. She remembered my preferred antidepressant: chocolate, she recognized that I was having a spectacularly bad day and that she felt some small responsibility, or at least sympathy for it.

But this bad day wasn't over by a long shot.

When we hit I-90 to head East with the traffic from the Boston holiday exodus, the snow was coming down heavily, a full-on blizzard. Mile after mile we crawled along in bumper to bumper traffic. We were driving so slowly, snow was piling up on the side view mirrors.

It was spring time inside the car however. There was new love was blossoming in the front seat. I was so happy for them I could have puked daisies.

I wanted out of that car so badly,I looked at the cars surrounding us and wondered if any were headed anywhere near Canandaigua.

Ethan was getting tired and asked Noreen to drive.

“Your going to let this girl drive your car?”

“Why,” said Ethan innocently, with love pedals still falling all around him like the snow outside.

“He hasn't seen you drive yet, has he?” I said.

“Shut up,” Noreen said.

We pulled over at the next Mass Pike rest stop. While Noreen was still in the ladies room. Ethan took the opportunity to inquire.

“So Noreen's driving, is it really that bad?”

“We'll probably be okay.” I said.

I don't know why, but his asking me made me feel a little better... until the subject turned to sex in the car later on.

Without going into detail, Noreen began bragging about certain skills she possessed; skills that I didn't know she had; skills I didn't know anyone knew she had.

It wasn't like I hadn't asked.

It is possible that her intentions were not designed to taunt me, but I can't imagine how they weren't. If she wanted revenge for the broken lamp and the comment about her driving, she had it.

I went from annoyed to furious. I quietly resolved that when I got out of that car that I would never speak to Noreen again. When I got home I would change my ticket to leave from Rochester instead of Providence and that would be that.

After four hours of driving we had not reached the New York State line. Not even close. Noreen's driving didn't do much for our time or anyone's nerves.

I was pretty quiet in the back seat. I was still fuming but I was already beginning to see the humor in this ridiculous situation; actual laughter would have to wait a while.

I gladly volunteered to take the wheel when Noreen got tired after a couple of hours. We were in New York State now. My eyes were lasers through the blowing snow and on towards home. It was my only focus.

We pulled into my parent's driveway twelve hours later than I had planned on arriving. I went in first to explain to my folks why my old girlfriend and her new boyfriend had to use their bathroom at 2AM.

The day after Thanksgiving, I called the airline to change my ticket but the airline told me I would have to buy a brand new ticket to fly out of Rochester. I couldn't even fly independently to Laguardia and meet my flight to LA. If I didn't board the plane in Providence, the my whole itinerary would be canceled.

The next day with gritted teeth and a resolution to say as little as possible on the ride home I climbed in the back seat of Ethan's car and sat there for the teeth-grinding six-hour ride to the Providence airport.

Everyone was pretty quiet.

I felt completely exhausted by the time I got out of the car, but it still felt liberating to be rid of the love squad for good. The drove off their way with little ceremony and I went mine—towards the check-in counter.

Free at last!

You'd think...

There was another snow storm. My flight was canceled. Act of God; you're on your own.

♪ “A three hour tour...” ♫

I cursed with each number I dialed.

“Hi Noreen, um it's Joel.”

“What do you want.”

“Um my flight got canceled, I'm stranded here at the airport.”

“We, like, have a meeting tonight, I don't think...”

“No problem, never mind.”

I was relieved to be honest. I think the only reason I called her at all was so I would have the satisfaction of knowing that she blew me off in my time of need.

Now there was the problem of lodging. I was broke from the expenses of travel, so it looked like I was warming a bench or a spot of floor. I called my Mom just to give her a heads up and, yes, get some sympathy for my sad, sad story.

My Mom wasted no time in engaging the “Mom network”.

“I'll call you right back,” she said.

But I wasn't done whining yet!

My phone rang five minutes later.

“What are you wearing?”

“What?”

“What do you have on? A friend of mine is picking you up at the airport in twenty minutes.”

Never doubt the power of the “Mom network”.

I spent the night with a delightful couple in a delightful cottage not far from the shores of Narragansett Bay. I had a wonderful dinner and a wonderful breakfast the next morning. I caught my flights home with no problems and very little turbulence.

Someone remind me to send those folks a Christmas card.

I could see how the quality of people really makes a difference. I had been blind to Noreen's selfishness for so many years, now I saw her plainly against the stark contrast of the wonderful couple who had taken me in. I had a renewed faith in humanity...

At least until I arrived home to find an $800 phone bill for all Noreen's collect calls.

A few years later Noreen called me out of the blue, as always, but not collect this time. I spoke in monosyllabic replies with a tight jaw. She apologized repeatedly for the trip from hell.

“I was going through a lot then. I was really messed up.”

I didn't give her excuse much credit but I could feel my vinegar mellow anyway. Even though I felt the urge to stay mad there just was no reason. I was married now to a woman so incredible and so perfect for me that being mad at Noreen seemed completely petty. Besides, in the middle of that hellish trip, she bought me the chocolate “J”. That small act of kindness may have been the difference in my even picking up the phone.

We talked every other year or so. I got an email from Noreen with pictures of her newborn baby. She had decided to have a child as a single mom. She sounded so happy. She had stopped living in tents and had regular home she had been renting for a couple years.

I was happy for her. Motherhood seemed to have changed her, as it is known to do.

It was finding my true love and best friend, my wife Audra, that changed me. If my experience with Noreen was part of a path to that end, I can't regret any part of it...

...but I no longer take collect phone calls.

Noreen, Part II

Before I continue my tale, let me remind you that the Jeopardy/IBM Challenge shows air this Monday, Feb 14th, Tuesday the 15th and Wednesday the 16th at 7PM (6 Central) in most markets. If you don't know or remember what the heck I'm talking about check my blog post from a last month on the subject: http://joeltjohnson.blogspot.com/2011/01/my-rather-interesting-week.html

On with the story of Noreen... (unless you skipped Part I. Back you go! http://joeltjohnson.blogspot.com/2011/02/noreen-part-i.html)

Everyone else with us? Good, onward...

I had been 'in love' many times in my first twenty one years. I wasn't bent on conquests, I just adored certain girls and was able to see what made them special and wonderful.

Yeah, right; isn't every guy inherently bent on conquests?

Perhaps so on some level, but I was pretty sincere, because, at twenty-one, I had not yet had sex.

That's right, a virgin!

Like keeping an ice cube collection at the North Pole, this may have been a greater challenge if any girl had thrown themselves at me--besides that drunk chic once at a party. I had also walked away from an opportunity in high school which effectively ended the first real relationship I'd had. That was difficult but somehow I knew I wasn't ready. It just didn't feel right. I didn't understand why at the time. I just trusted my instincts and went with it... or didn't, as it were.

I wasn't waiting for an certain age or even marriage necessarily. I think I was waiting for the romantic ideal of “the one” and, on a more sub conscious level,waiting for my own maturity to catch up with me.

After Noreen and I had confessed our feelings that rainy night I was on the highest of highs. Never in my life had I devoted myself to pursue something or someone so completely and through so much emotional turmoil. I had won the heart of the most beautiful girl I had ever seen. My every step was cushioned by a six inch layer of pure air between my feet and the ground.

Noreen and I were inseparable. She was even more warm and affectionate than I'd imagined her to be when I had pursuing her without success for so long.

School had just let out for the summer so I hung out with her while she was working in the school green house--her latest work/study job. We went to an amusement park with my roommates and their girlfriends and kind-of pissed them off when Noreen and I spent most of the day off by ourselves.

Once again I was at a band practice in Avon, once again Noreen called.

Noreen had an older sister who was married and had a kid. They had been living at her in-laws' house in nearby Honeoye Falls while the in-laws were out of the country, Noreen was in-turn watching the house and pets (that would later become her profession) while her sister was on vacation. She invited me to spend the night.

Band practice was over early.

The drummer laughed and threw me a condom. The rest of the band slapped me on the back and sent me on my way.

We slept in the master bedroom. I'll never forget the alarm clock on the bed-side table. It was a novelty clock from “The Sharper Image” that projected the time on the ceiling. Appropriately enough it was the fourth of July. It was wonderful--as wonderful as a first time can be. I was probably terrible myself but Noreen said she too was a virgin so maybe I didn't seem that bad. I didn't have much trouble believing her; after all, it had taken so much for me to get close to her. Who else would have the patience to crack that safe?

I had conveniently forgotten she'd recently had another boyfriend and a relationship with her sister's brother-in-law, Greg before that.

We had great fun in those days at her sister's in-laws' and indeed anywhere we went and anything we did. I told her my stories and she told me hers. We made each other laugh. Noreen had an ethereal beauty in spirit as well as in her face. We felt like best friends as much as we did lovers. We had a lot of catching up to do in all those departments.

Sex was a particularly fascinating new toy for us. It took up most of our time.

I have always been an early riser. I lie awake for hours in the morning staring up at the ceiling at that projection clock. Noreen slept like a rock, or maybe like a rock star. Hour after hour went by till finally, when the sun was high in the sky she would arise.

Noreen was 'it' to me. She could do no wrong in my eyes. she merely had... 'quirks'.

Quirk #1: Not only did she sleep long but she could sleep anywhere. Not long before we confessed our feelings she spent a warm night on the beach without a sleeping bag or any ground cover at all. Canandaigua Lake has shale rock shores, not sand. Noreen lay down on the rocks and went to sleep.

Sober!

Quirk #2: I didn't drink at that time. Noreen was not a teetotaler but since I didn't drink she barely did either. She smoked but was so ashamed if it that I rarely even saw it. She would always smoke outside (before the laws) and she would hold her cigarette low and make sure the smoke was blowing away from anyone that might be nearby.

Quirk#3: Noreen always had a car but she had never purchased one herself. Her family and friends would give her their hand-me-down cars which she would drive until they drove no more. Then miraculously, someone else would have another last-leg vehicle for her to drive. Mercy cars, I called them.

Quirk #4: I never saw Noreen naked. I saw close-ups under the covers, but that was it. For someone as free-spirited as she was, she never so much as walked from the bed to the shower without covering up.

Quirk #5: One day we went shopping at a grocery store. Noreen tore the price label off a package of ground beef (ruining it) and placed it on a steak. The check out person didn't bat an eyelash when the steak rang in at six dollars. I could hardly believe it. I admonished her but I rationalized that maybe it was a habit from working her way through college saving money any way she could...

on, um... steak.

We met Noreen's mother at a Chinese restaurant, Noreen called her by her first name: “Cynthia”. Cynthia drank heavily during the meal and started asking me bizarre slurred questions like: was I a Jehova's Witness? And: “What's a Mennonite, is that anything like a cult?”

At the end of the meal Cynthia hid her half finished drink in her purse and walked out with it. I was about to mention this behavior to Noreen in the car after her mother left, to see if she'd noticed it. Before I could get a word out, Noreen produced a handle-less tea cup with a red dragon printed on the side from her own purse.

“Look what I got!” she said proudly.

Noreen would often liberate items of clothing in her sister's closet and their every conversation seemed to be an ongoing argument about what she'd stolen the time before. She told me tales of her teens years when she would walk out of dressing rooms with new clothes under her old.

I could go on forever with all Noreen's quirks and eccentricities. I loved her all the more for them accept maybe the smoking and the kleptomania.

Oh yeah... and one other thing: Sometimes, she would kinda disappear for a day or two.

When classes started again in the fall, she had her own place to live and I lived in the same A-frame as I did the semester before.

One evening after school I went to her place, as planned. She rented a tiny room in a double-wide trailer. When I arrived she was no where to be found. I hung out for a while but after a couple of hours decided I better try to track her down. Finally I found her by calling her sister and found that she was hanging out with them and some other family which included her old boyfriend Greg.

Um... WHAT?

The borderline panic of that lying-in-a-ditch-somewhere feeling was replaced by plain old anger.

Why hadn't she called? WTF is she doing hanging with her old boyfriend?

The sleepless night that followed was full of text book examples on how not to deal with relationship issues, especially with Noreen 'the cat'. It was one of those pathetic, twenty messages on your machine, rant and rave deliriums that I so wish I could reverse time and take back.

It was to this day one of the worst nights of my life. Not so much because of Noreen disappearing without telling me her plans but the frenzy I'd worked myself up into over it.

When she finally arrived at dawn we had a hell of a fight. Actually, i was the only one who had a hell of anything. I talked furiously while Noreen went into a passive semi catatonic state in which she said absolutely nothing (Quirk # 6). This at first infuriated me more and eventually wore me down to begging her to “say something, anything!”

I hated who I was being: one of those guys, the 'jerk' boyfriend. All the passion I felt for Noreen had a dark side. My old self-doubt began to return telling me it was because of me, some inadequacy, that she was like this. Then I also hated being the this other guy, "the begging pushover."

Eventually, we got through that incident and went back to being ridiculously happy. We had other troubles, but after that experience I didn't let myself behave so badly. Noreen disappeared less frequently.

We went on trips together, watched a lot of movies, cooked, ate, ran around like children and made love.

My grades in school weren't quite as joyous.

In the spring her parents moved to Georgia. She announced out of nowhere that she was following them at the end of the school year and attending a four-year school.

“Wha? You can't stand your parents.”

I couldn't believe it but I still had all the faith that she and I were a match made in heaven and that eight-hundred miles was no match for the love we felt. A World without our relationship was simply inconceivable.

“Inconceivable!”

“You use that word a lot..."

Noreen had a summer job as a park guide in the resort town of Helen in the north woods of Georgia. I drove my old Chevy Van nonstop from New York to Georgia to visit her.

Our time together in Georgia went back and forth between being wonderful and tumultuous.

I drove back to New York with burned-out brakes, sunburned skin and a calico kitten named Chesa with one green and one blue eye.

I didn't know it was over, but I think Noreen did. My whole visit was a goodbye.

No one told me.

She never said so, but I'm pretty sure she was seeing someone else and couldn't manage to tell me. Probably better that way, I would not have taken it well. Eventually she made our break-up official, or rather her silence on the phone did it when I insisted she tell me it wasn't over.

My heart had seen a few knocks since I'd seen her kiss that guy in the library. I didn't hit the chocolate and wallow in my room, but I wasn't exactly walking tall either.

For a long time.

I saw Noreen once or twice in the next few years when she was in town visiting her sister and her parents who had moved back to Rochester. I got the same old mixed signals again but I kept her at arms length. I was done with the roller coaster.

Eventually, I married a very sweet lovely woman who had many wonderful qualities. In retrospect, her not being Noreen or anything like her may have been the main quality I married her for.

Noreen and I remained friends exchanging letters once in a while. She showed up on our door step one day in tears. Her father had just died and she was having a really hard time. I could tell she wanted to be held and it broke my heart but I couldn't do it. I was as kind as I knew how to be but, still, at an arm's length. I was married and even if it was innocent hug I knew it would be unfair to my wife given my history with Noreen.

My wife and I moved to LA. That is, I moved and she dutifully got in the moving truck with me. It was supposed to be a temporary move of two or three years as a boost to my music career. After a year in LA, I had a terrible realization that the passion I was trying to protect myself from by marrying a sweet, mild-mannered and predicable woman was also what was missing. I loved her, but not the way I should love a life mate, not the way she deserved. It wasn't the kind of feverish love I'd had ever since I first saw Becky Hershel in first grade and the same passion I had pursued Noreen with through all that pain. My wife had been an antidote to the side of me I was running from.

I wrestled with this for months before I could even bring it up. It was one of the hardest things I had ever done.

We separated then divorced a year later. I remained in LA, she returned home to rural New York. My first wife had become “my first wife”. I couldn't believe it. I had always looked down on divorce and harshly judged those who succumbed to it instead of 'working it out'.

Now I had become one of 'those guys'. It seemed the only way I was going to stop becoming one of 'those guys' was to stop judging people, and myself.

I heard from Noreen again, out of the blue, which is typically how Noreen appeared and disappeared. She and her boyfriend were considering moving to California from Massachusetts and wanted to pay me a visit in Hollywood while they checked things out.

I know what you're thinking, but when Noreen and her boyfriend showed up and announced their engagement, I was fine with it. Really! Not the 'fine' one kids oneself with to keep one strong, but actually, truly fine with it. I was sincerely happy for them.

We had a good time. It was nice just to see a familiar face in LA. Noreen's boyfriend seemed like an okay guy, a little flaky but frankly, so was she. Noreen still looked as lovely as ever, but I looked at her beauty like a painting or a sunset, without any pangs  or lust.

It was official. I was over Noreen.

Or so I thought...

Part III, the conclusion of “Noreen” next Saturday

Noreen, Part I

I never had a 'cootie' phase. Sure, I pretended to hate girls to save face now and again, but I had already worked it out: I had seen enough TV to know that older boys not only liked girls, they went insane coo-coo for them. Grown men too seemed to think that women were pretty neat as they were all married to one--at least the adult men I knew and observed. It wasn't rocket science, there was clearly no future to this cootie thing.

I mean, hello, THE WORLD MUST BE PEOPLED!

So I skipped the messy business of hating girls and went straight to even messier business of loving them.

I had my first crush in first grade. Becky Herschel (not her real name) stood before our class as the 'new girl'. I was instantly infatuated with her.

I know what your thinking: everyone digs the new girl, but check it out; six years later, my heart was still all a-flutter for Becky and I finally managed to ask if she'd “go with me” as we called it. She said yes and my friend, Oliver Mansfield stole her away a week later. I dried my tears and at someone's stupid suggestion (Oliver's no doubt), I 'went out' with her twin sister (no joke). I quickly learned that twins aren't always as nice and sweet as their sister. Especially when said twin realizes she's the back-up plan.

Yes, I idealized romance from and early age sure enough, made some painfully awkward pursuits and got my heart slammed in the door a few times for it, but that didn't keep me from getting completely swept off my feet on a regular basis.

It did, however, keep me from talking to very many of them.

In Junior High this was easy enough to overcome. It was the wonderful world of note passing. I handed one to Annette Turner (her real name) and managed to charm her on paper, and on paper she told me “yes”. Later that same day in a school assembly, after counting down from from ten about twenty times, I reached out and held her hand. I had finally found 'love' but like a dog with a Cadillac I had no idea what to do with a girl once I had caught one.

A week later, her last note to me was concise and effective: “Fuck off!” was all it said.

All my youthful crushes: the girl in third grade who insisted I put my arm around her during a movie in third grade, the “I'll show you mine if you show me yours” girl who then broke my heart by playing strip poker with Scott Hammond. The girl I saw smile in a crowd and promptly disappeared forever.

Jody Foster, Tatum O'Neal...

None of them could have prepared me for Noreen.

I was walking down a hall in college and she walked by. She was extremely pretty—she looked like a combination of Drew Barrymore and Meg Ryan—but that's a small part of the equation for me.

Again not a real big deal to me but I would be remiss in mentioning that she also had a great body. She didn't dress either to show it off or to hide it. There it was... or wasn't. It was no big deal to her.  

Above all she had, I don't know how to describe it, a certain... quality. There was something, an essence, beyond what I could see in just a girl walking by that I was attracted to like nothing I'd every experienced.

I knew, that I knew, that I knew... that I was complete toast.

I spent the next two months torturing my roommates: talking about Noreen and doing little else. Noreen, Noreen Noreen. Even her name (not really Noreen) was the most beautiful name I'd ever heard. When I wasn't glorifying her, I agonized aloud about how on Earth I was going to manage to talk this amazing woman.

Late one Friday night, I had been in the school's recording studio alone working on a project. The halls were empty and quiet when I made my way out. I heard someone playing a harmonica echoing in an unseen corridor.

Must be Ken, I thought. One of the other music majors had recently purchased a harmonica.

“Hey Ken. Man, you could use some lessons!”

The playing stopped but I heard no response. I few seconds later I heard the harp start up again.

No wise cracks; that ain't Ken.

I picked up my bass case and started down the hall. I rounded the corner to the exit. I was shocked and delighted beyond belief to see Noreen, my dream girl, sitting on one of the benches playing rudimentary attempts at a melody on a harmonica.

She stopped, blushed and laughed a little when she saw me. The obvious subject on the table was music, one of the few things I was confident in; no one else was around; she was smiling. She wasn't going to get much more approachable than this.

I put the bass down and found the courage to speak.

“You play the harp, how cool!”

“Not really, I just mess around.”

“Did you have a class?”

“No, I do a work/study, I'm a janitor.”

I talked to her for a few minutes and was on my way. I could feel the make-a-fool-of-yourself timer ticking down to zero. I quit while I was ahead.

I left on top of the world. How cool! Not only was she the cutest girl I'd ever seen, she was unique and awesome just like I sensed that she'd be. She didn't mind doing a little work apparently and she wasn't rich and spoiled.

Most of all, I was happy thatI had actually talked to her! I felt like I was on the other side of the mountain looking at a brand new view. It hadn't been one of those awkward conversations I usually had with girls either. In fact, she seemed to be pretty friendly. It almost felt like... flirting!

My poor roommates had to endure even more of my obsession after that, I probably never shut up. The next step, naturally, was to ask her out. I had a few more conversations with her here and there. After a couple weeks and a lot of egging-on from my roommates, I summoned the minerals to do the deed.

There was some sort of music event happening at school. I knew she loved music. I approached her and asked her if she wanted to go to it... “you know, with me.”

As I walked away from our conversation it was as if I had just come to.

What just happened?

I thought back.

She hadn't said no, but she didn't say yes. She wasn't busy and yet...

What the heck-N-blazes just happened?

Noreen had somehow just applied the full-Nelson of boy-girl relations: “the friend block” and she did it with uncommon mastery. Every person who has ever engaged the dreaded friend block must have felt a disturbance in the force at that moment, for their master had just created art.

She hadn't even use the word “friend”.

I didn't even know whether to feel defeated or not. I didn't have a date but she also left me with the distinctly vague impression that she was interested in me... somehow.

Had I been someone with a solid self-esteem at that point, I simply would have moved on. I was not that guy, not yet, and so I made that classic, nearly-irrecoverable blunder, I fell into the 'friend trap'.

Yay, we're friends! Just what I needed!

As I got to know her, she, at every turn, confirmed to me that she was completely awesome. She was a conservation major, which I thought was really cool. She was on the woodsman team in an event that involved throwing a double bladed ax at a target. Again, awesome and yet she was completely feminine. She was carefree and easy going. She had a way of looking great without putting much effort into it. She had a great sense of humor and an healthy appreciation for the absurd. She had, what a good friend and I would refer to for years as “that Noreen quality”. She became a litmus test for all other women.

I operated under the delusion that if I simply hung out and proved what a good friend I could be she would eventually figure out that she loved me... and then we'd start making out.

Then one day, just before Christmas break. I walked into the library and saw her sitting in the periodicals section. I approached to say hi, but as I rounded the corner I could see that she was talking to a guy I had seen around the conservation department. I had no sooner put on the brakes when he leaned forward and gave her a long kiss.

Ouch!

I felt something inside of me break, like in an action movie when someone lands on a sky light and cracks form and travel rapidly through the glass. I hadn't fallen through yet but it was just a matter of time.

How the hell did that happen? Wasn't it obvious that I liked her. I was first in line. That dude can't possibly feel the way I do about Noreen. Besides, I swear, thought he was gay.

Annette Turner's "fuck off" note had been devastating to my tender junior high heart but that seemed just a planet in the galaxy of hurt I felt when I saw that kiss.

I knew how stupid it was, how I had set myself up, but at the time there was nothing but pain and depression. It wasn't going away anytime soon.

My poor, poor roommates.

I became a bitter and angry person, often strung out on chocolate. Seriously, I carried the stuff with me all the time after that. I think I even told her I was taking it for 'medicinal purposes'. 

As I was leaving school one day, Noreen was starting her janitor shift. She said a friendly 'hello' and attempted to start one of our enjoyable conversations. I curtly told her I had to go wait for my ride and walked away. She told me later that she stomped around and cursing me for hours after that while she mopped and vacuumed.

Of course, being Mr. passive aggressive, I never told her why I was mad, I just went about the business of becoming an asshole.

Somehow, Noreen and I remained friends. I started to see as a friend and not the bull's eye of a romantic target. I gradually became less of a dick. Still, it was a friendship of semi insulting jokes and sarcasm, especially on my part. It was the only way I could handle it.

I couldn't see it at the time, but her dating 'numb nuts' was a weight off my shoulders. Now I didn't have spend my time wondering about the mixed signals I was getting. I had my answer, It hurt like hell, but I had it.

I was now free to go and fail with other women.

I remember one day I was leaving school and Noreen was out in front sitting on a bench. I lived with my roommates in a vacation home on the lake about three miles from campus.

“My friend Liz is going to pick me up in a minute, do you want a ride?” Noreen said.

“Nah, I'll walk.”

Little did I know it, but that decision changed everything... That and the fact that I was wearing red sweat pants that made an impression that I never would have suspected.

I have since learned much about the psychology of women and the psychology of Noreen in particular. Noreen was basically a cat. In fact the more I got to know Noreen, the better the cat analogy fit in every respect.

You could have a fistful of catnip but if you come at a cat with it, they will invariably back away. Yet if you take, say, a piece of moldy lettuce, tie it to a string, and pull it around a corner, they will come charging at it the moment it disappears.

My red sweats must have had a similar effect as I walked away, for it was it that moment that Noreen had the epiphany that maybe she'd like to sink her claws into them.

One Saturday afternoon soon after that, I heard a knock at the door of the A-frame my roommates and I lived in. I was stunned to see Noreen and a friend of hers standing there. They were seeking refuge from some sort of gathering of dead heads at a nearby cottage.

I had already seen our VHS copy of “The Breakfast Club” about twenty times, but it was one of three movies we had and the one every guest picked to watch. I spent my time sneaking looks at Noreen to see if she was in-fact really sitting on my couch.

I didn't know what it meant. Numbnuts, her boyfriend, had transferred to a different school but as far as I knew they were still together. Now that I was somewhat wise to Noreen's odd behavior when it came to men and me in particular, I noticed that I was having better luck doing nothing that I had done trying my best to win her heart

I continued doing nothing.

We had turned a corner, Noreen and I. Now we seemed to have a real friendship; we enjoyed each other, we laughed, we hung out. One in a while I got a feeling that maybe she had an interest in me that went beyond friendship, but I took it day-by-day and enjoyed what we had. Her boyfriend returned at one point and she told me she had broken up with him.

We were spending more and more time together.

I was at a band practice with one of my roommates in Avon, NY. The drummer's dad came out to the garage. There's some girl on the phone for Joel.

That... almost... never happens.

Noreen somehow got the number of where I was and called to ask if I wanted to join her for a while on a camping trip she was on with some friends above Seneca Lake. It was fifty miles away.

“She's tracking you down now?” my roommate said. “Never thought I'd see the day.”

When I arrived at the end of her extensive directions, it was already dark. She was waiting for me at a small parking lot at the trail head.

It was starting to rain.

We walked a ways down the trail to where her friends were camped. I wasn't exactly thrilled when I realized among those camping was Norris Hennings who was dating a friend of Noreen's. I was kind of afraid of Norris and it seemed I wasn't the only one. It was his last night of freedom before reporting to serve a two year jail sentence—for what I didn't want to know.

It would take more than felons and rain to kill the buzz I had from being with Noreen and knowing she wanted my company.

Noreen and I hung out by the campfire and talked even though the rain was falling steadily. Everyone else had retreated to a tent.

One of us had the insane idea to go look for more firewood. The other had the crazy idea of following. Thunder and lightning struck simultaneously.

Close!

I instinctively grabbed for her. I'm not sure if I was trying to protect her, hide or cop a feel. She instinctively turned away. I didn't think much of it, mixed signals were something I had grown used to with Noreen.

When we got back to the camp site the rain was falling too hard to for even us. We resorted to going into the tent with the others. It would have been awkward with good friends in that small tent not to mention drunk Norris Hennings and his juvenile delinquent girlfriend.

“Have a drink,” Norris said offering me a bottle.

“No thanks, I don't drink.” I said.

“That's cool, have some water melon.”

I took some.

Everyone but Noreen laughed when they saw the look on my face. The watermelon was soaked with Vodka.

I loved being around Noreen, but not like this. I couldn't even talk to her in a small tent crammed with five or six people. I also had to work early in the morning. I was hoping for some sort of breakthrough with Noreen but it looked like it wasn't going to be tonight.

When I said I had to go, Noreen surprised me by volunteering, nay, insisting that she accompany me to the trail head in what was now pouring rain.

Outside my car, the laughter of our nervous jokes died away and we stood there for a moment not knowing what to say. I felt like I was in junior high again.

“I feel like I'm in junior high,” I said kicking at the mud.

“Yeah, me too,” Noreen laughed.

“I really like you you know. I have for a long time, ever since I first saw you.”

“I really like you a lot too.”

The rain was falling on us like a couple of idiots. We both laughed and continued to shuffle our feet.

It felt like a movie.

If it had been a movie, this is where the big kiss would happen... or at least where we try to kiss and get interrupted by a pterodactyl or something.

There was no kiss or pterodactyl. We just held each other for a while and got rained on. Then, I got in my car and drove home; soaking wet and on top of the moon like I had never known. I had rarely won anything in life but I had just won Noreen Hummel's heart.

Back at her campsite Noreen sat by the fire in the rain for hours. Her perplexed drunken friends laughed at her and tried to get her to come inside. But like me, she was too happy to care.

Noreen, Part II, next week.