29 May, 2011
Left Danbury today and had a magnificent ride. But first, let me digress and cover the days I missed. Had a great time at Susan's in Tiverton. She even donned my spare helmet and we took a three hour ride around parts of Rhode Island and had a nice seafood lunch. On the 26th I rode pretty much along the coast from Tiverton to Mystic. I spent about an hour just roaming around seeing the harbor and viewing some of the beautiful old homes. I had plans to meet an old college football buddy for lunch so I called Vinny Becker who lives in Madison and we met at a neat place in Middletown called the First and Last Tavern. Had a nice meal and a great couple of hours reminiscing about our college days and what old farts we are now and what other old farts we know are still around. I hated to leave because we were having such a nice time but I had to get on up the road and Vinny had a dinner engagement with his wife and another couple. I stayed the night in Cromwell CT and tried to make plans for the next day. I wanted to visit the Abbey of Regina Laudis in Bethlehem(story to follow) and travel up to Colebrook to have lunch with George Bodycoat, a childhood friend from Brookfield. From there I was going to drive back to Old Saybrook to touch base with a long time college friend, Henri David and then swing back to Hamden to have dinner with my nephew AJ. Well, you know what haopens to all good plans. Later in the evening after making all those plans, I found that I had lost $1700 in travelers checks. I called American Express and naturally talked to Indian named Alice who has difficulty with the English language. After 20 min. it was decided that mine was a legitimate loss and so the next day I could go to a bank and they would give me another $1700. I called George the next morning and he has Bank of America. Unfortunately American Express doesn't deal with Bank of America. I was passing through Torrington and there was a Soverign Bank which deals with Amer. Express. This was all worked out at 8 AM and I wasn't going to be in Torrington until 11:30 so I figured I'd just walk in, sign the new checks and walk out with a new $1700. WRONG!!!!!!!!
I left Cromwell and drove to the Abbey of Regina Laudis.. The story of why I went there follows....1946 (I was five) there was a group of 12 French Nuns that had come over from France looking for a place to establish a Cloister. One Sunday they came to our little church in Brookfield CT., Saint Josephs on Pocono Road. After the benidection my grandmother invited the nuns up to the farm for dinner. My grandfather, A.J. Brown got the Farmhall H tractor out. It had a hydraulic scoop. He put burlap bags in the scoop, put two nuns in at a time, raised the scoop and took them for a ride around the farm. Before dinner they sang the blessing and you would have thought the house was filled with Angels. They later were given a large plot of land by a rich gentleman of the Episcopal faith who wanted to ensure that this property remained natural and was never developed. My mother took me up there a couple times after they became cloistered and we spoke with the Mother Superior with a screen between us. I though they would be interested in hearing this story and they were. I spent some time looking around and taking pictures and then headed for Torrington and my replacement checks.
Even though the bank had been notified four hours previously by American Express, when I asked they had done nothing so I ended up spending one hour listening to the bank manager talking to American Express because she didn't know how to handle the replacement of checks. I was getting a little hot but I managed to maintain a cool outward demeanor. I finally got the checks and jumped on the bike for a thirty minute ride to Winstead and lunch with George. After lunch and covering everyone we knew as kids, I called Henri David and told him I could be in Old Saybrook in 1 1/2 hrs. It was 88 miles from Colebrook so I hopped on the bike and had the wheels off the ground a couple of times but got there by 1630. It was great seeing Henri after 48 years. I met his lovely wife Liz, we had a couple of beers and discussed classmates but all too soon I had to get back because I was supposed to have dinner with AJ and his family. I called AJ and something had come up so we decided to have breakfast in the morning. I got back to the motel and crashed. AJ came by the motel with Dan and we had anice catch-up. It was a gorgeous day and I only had a short distance to go so Idecided on the back roads. I had forgotten just how beautiful the countryside of Connecticut is. All the things I remembered as a kid came back to me as I rode through small towns like watertown and saw all the American flags flying and greens with bandstands and the beautiful old homes. I'll close here for the evening and catch up with Danbury tomorrow.
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