I don't know where to begin about the weekend — it was a such a long, colorful, inexplicable chain of events — that I think I'll just skip it. Not that the boating and boat show and cars and crowds weren't memorable (they were!), but all that fades in comparison to what happened before the weekend technically began, on Friday afternoon, when Mr. Betty and I made a new friend ...
It happened accidentally (as friendships often do). A young man was parking his motorcycle by the curb near our house at the same moment Mr. Betty happened to be riding by on his scooter. Noticing all the packs and bags indicating a long journey and which shouldn't be left unattended — not to mention the spot-by-the-curb featured yellow paint, i.e., it was of questionable legality — Mr. Betty told this young man, just a few years older than Super Son, that he really wasn't in a great spot. Then the two struck up a conversation, by the end of which the bike was parked in our driveway, and we ended up with an overnight guest in Super Son's (empty) bedroom.
What fun — though I can't speak for our guest.
Turns out, Thomas (who is from South Africa) was riding his bike cross-country. He hadn't planned on visiting Newport, but someone on the ferry from Long Island to New London had told him about the boat show. So after he visited Cape Cod — "the Cod," he called it — he backtracked.
We insisted from the get-go that he shouldn't hang out with us; he should go do his own thing. Which happened to be, among other things, appreciating beer. I thought to send him on the brewery tour at Coastal Extreme, the makers of Newport Storm, but only 'til I realized Thomas hadn't been around Ocean Drive. Ocean Drive is pretty special, especially on a bike (motorized or otherwise). So, off he went — shooting several hundred pictures (while driving) along the way — and then we spent the rest of the afternoon and evening and the next morning through lunch-time walking around, eating chowder, drinking beer (too much), seeing James Montgomery play a mean harmonica at Jimmy's, taking a boat ride, going to the boat show, and finally enjoying lunch at the Shipyard, from whence Thomas took off with a breezy wave ...
And why does that happen?? That you really hit it off with some people having known them for five minutes (or less) and you just know you could talk and hang-out with them forever without giving a second's thought to what you'll talk about next even though they're from halfway around the globe and a world apart and you'll probably never see them again. And other people you can know forever, have everything in common, yet never have much to say; you have to think about what to say. It puzzles me ...
