Day 12: Thursday, June 26, 2003

It has been four years since I saw my father, and now at 87 he looks smaller and a bit more frail than I remember him. He told me he has lost about 20 lbs since moving to Maine two years ago. Otherwise, he seems extremely healthy.

On Thursday morning I showered, and then my dad drove us into the town of Cherryfield where he gave me a brief tour, showing me the large house in which he had been living free of charge as a house sitter for the past year before moving into his own place. Also, he showed me the carriage house that he had rented the year previous to that for $200 per month. The houses were surrounded by a wood deck with a flight of stairs up from ground level. My dad moved so quickly up the stairs that I had trouble keeping up with him. He seems amazingly agile for an 87-year-old man.

We had breakfast at a small store in the town that offers counter service. Then we went back to his house. He showed me around a bit, and then I packed up my bike and hit the road about 10 AM.

I rode the coast highway south until it reaches Interstate 95, the Maine Turnpike. After a short stretch on the Turnpike, I got off at the town of Kennebunk and rode through looking for the camera shop that belongs to my friend, Larry Smith. I did not know the exact location, and did not see a camera shop in that town. So I proceeded further down the coast highway to the town of Ogunquit, where Larry had his first camera shop. I had visited that one before, in 1996, and found it quickly. Larry's daughter Tracy was tending the store. She called her dad and he showed up about 10 minutes later.

Larry and I walked down the street a block or so to a cafe and purchased coffee. We sat outside and talked for about an hour. Larry is a former business associate. We worked together at Millipore Corporation in Bedford, Massachusetts, for several years during the 1970s. When I first joined that company, Larry was a field representative on the West Coast, calling on hospitals and universities. I first met Larry during training when I was sent to spend a week with him visiting hospital pharmacies. Larry had helped Millipore develop several important hospital-pharmacy applications for filtration products. A year or so after that, Larry moved back to corporate headquarters and assumed responsibility for hospital pharmacy filtration marketing. After that, he held various positions supervising Millipore's technical services department for all products, and later heading up the service program for Millipore's water purification products. Then, in the mid-1980s, Larry retired from Millipore. He moved his family to Maine and purchased a bed and breakfast as well as his first camera shop in Ogunquit. The bed and breakfast, which he operated for several years, is now closed. The camera shop was very successful, as was the branch store he opened in Kennebunk. It is a family business: his children now manage the stores, and Larry and his wife Marcy are preparing for real retirement.

The last time I saw Larry was seven years ago during a similar cross-country motorcycle trip. He looks exactly the same -- hasn't changed a bit. Riding in toward Boston, I stopped this evening to visit Bob and Linda Wagner, old friends who live north of Boston. I ended up going out to dinner with them and spending the night.

This was the week of Bob's retirement from his position as Provost at the University of Massachusetts in Lowell. Perhaps we will have more time to do motorcycle trips together in coming years.