Hanging with the B's

The North Shore collects eccentrics. We are staying at the B’s, a lovely older couple from the fellowship. Been here several times before, and it’s a comfortable place to lay our heads at night.Mr. B greets us last night on arrival with “Hey, you need ice cream?” His white shock of hair is always hanging to his eyebrows. His eyes pierce through bushy grey straggles and look right through you.

Mr. B says what he thinks, and thinks what he wants. His accent is as crusty and classic as his face. My husband needs to run to a computer store so I hang with Mr. B and eat ice cream. Mrs. B, still nursing at the indeterminate age of nearly 80, won’t be home for a while.

The first time we stayed here an elderly aunt was living in part of the upstairs. The house is cavernous and it’s easy to lose someone. Auntie, said Mrs. B, is harmless. “Couldn’t let her keep living alone, didn’t want to do the nursing home routine, and here’s she’s safe. But lock your door at night because she wanders and we’re never sure where she’ll end up.” Sure enough, Auntie was a wanderer. Mild and gentle, definitely not quite all there, but as Mrs. B said, harmless.

Auntie has gone to her reward some years now and there’s another shadowy tenant in the upstairs. But he leaves for work at a hospital with the dark of dawn and doesn’t return till late. He’s also mild and gentle but not a door opener.

The B’s share their space generously and without discrimination.The house is only about 30 years old but furnished from the distant past and seems far older. Lovely oriental rugs carpet much of the home and beautiful pieces of antique furniture tuck into the corners, stuffed with glass and china. The house backs into a deep woods while the front opens to morning sunshine. Stone fences line the roads into the neighborhood.

Years ago we stayed with an even more eccentric family – Doc P and his wife. Their house was so large that our kids thought they could get lost just in the second floor. It rambled across a ridge high above one of the little north shore towns. Doc was a psychiatrist and one never knew which patient would catch him on the phone. One night his wife told him, mid-meal, “Take your suicide elsewhere, please. I don’t want her at the table!” Doc’s long gone, but we’ll stop and see his frail, sweet wife this week in her carriage house near the sea.

Tonight we’ll be even later. One of our summer team arrives from Taiwan at 10:15. We’ll pick her up, take her home, and catch up on her journeys. She’s even older than the B’s. The North Shore is peopled with vintage eccentrics.

Must be something about the sea air that engenders longevity.