A wisp of smoke and an empty campground signals the departure of Mike and Kevin. We roll out towards southern Maine and the New Hampshore border. Portland seems like a good stop to log in. The city seems dirty after the purity of the countryside. The homeless seem prominent in this tiny square of the town. They stare pensively, watching the fat and the thin and the young and the old walk by, sternly focused on whatever tasks await them at their destinations. We go into Starbucks. The month's worth of internet cover I bought in Montreal is worthless here. I pay for a day and crack on with the typing. My camera cable has been misplaced. No pictures for now. We leave downtown behind and aim for Hampton Beach State Park. Patch tunes the radio to WXYZVXXYYZZV 104.3 'The Bone' - a station proclaiming that if it were a dinosaur, it would be 'Badass-asaurus'. Hampton pops up on the signs. I ponder whether or not this is the upper class retreat for well-heeled New Yorkers I hear about on the TV shows. Patch tells me 'The Hamptons' are much further south, a fact confirmed when we roll past Arcade Machine Halls, Ice Cream Parlours and fading Novelty Tat Shops stretching the length of the seafront. I see a resort town aging towards obscurity. The state park is for RVs only - exposed, pebbly and currently home to a towtruck rally, we elect to pitch elsewhere. Our tents would not fit in amongst the V8s and crane lifts. The shorebound breeze would batter us. 20 miles inland, Pawtuckaway State Park looks better. We drive along the long, long feeder road to the campground from the registry office and camp amongst the towering trees next to the lake. The fire cooks cheap steaks and sausages just right. Patch spys some ants. They look buff, he says. Perhaps they are on the all-thorax workout. He suggests they might be using the 'Thoraxinator' - works all 6 arms. Fleas laughing at you on the beach? Termites think you look weedy. Thoraxinate! Ant 56784 from colony 5556778 says 'Thoraxinator(tm) changed my life! Even The Queen looks at me twice!' Patch goes to bed and I pick my way through the shadowy treetrunks to use the facilities before doing the same.
I pass a stocky man washing his dishes in the dark.
'You lookin' for access?' he says in a thick Irish burr.
'I'm just wandering.'
Aodh Og (pronounced a-yog) was born in Cork. He seems to be in his late '40s. Dark eyes shielded by educated spectacles regard me from the nest of a big beard and curly hair. A gaelic Jerry Garcia. He is a student of medieval music, having studied the subject extensively before dropping out prior to the end of his doctorate. He learned all he needed to mix up his sound with eastern, folk, classical and jazz elements. A dazzling array of instruments fall under his spell - tin whistle, spoons, renaissance woodwinds, gemshorn and the dumbek. I nod knowingly, unsure of what half those instruments are. His partner appears from the darkness. Her name is Christy. She is a spritely soul from San Diego with a hippy beauty. The Hammered Dulcimer, Madolin, Mandola, Sitar, Banjo and Guitar bend to her will. Together, they are Four Shillings Short - a roots music duo whose breadth of talent I can only imagine. A state tour is underway. Tomorrow's gig is a public access radio job.
They invite me to their fireside.
Their tour van is their statement. Political slogans jostle for position across the back doors of the vehicle. No holds barred for the driver in their rear view mirror. They don't cross the border much, Aodh Og says when I suggest Cape Breton would be a playground for them. Their van gets torn apart by border guards. The IRA connection gets made when they hear the Irish accent. It's not worth the hassle. They have been touring off their own backs for 11 years, organising gigs with Christy's business degree savvy from the back of their wagon. Nomadic musical pioneers. A hard life, but one true to their principles. It can still be done, they say.
I tell them our route.
Christy says that New Orleans is on the verge of reclamation by the sea. Soon to disappear like Atlantis or Alexandria. It cannot carry on the way it is. I tell them about an acquaintance who worked in New York. She knew only snippets of the devastation until she returned home to England and read the stories about people taking shelter in the Astrodome. She tooled up with papers and headed stateside with the news. Aodh Og gives me a paper called The Nation. It is liberal, aware of the urgency for change. It seems well balanced, painting the shortcomings of the trumpeters of change as well as their plus points. Goldman Sachs, it says, is the biggest contributor to Obama's campaign. His people refused to comment when asked whether or not Sachs would be accountable for the $6 billion made from devalued mortgage securities in the first 9 months of 2007. Regardless, we agree that he would be a good choice for the Democrats and a good choice for president. He is the man to mobilise the black vote, probably the most misrepresented vote within the American electoral demographic. It would be something to see a record turnout by the african american community.
I bid Four Shillings Short goodbye and let my torchlight guide me back to my tent on the other side of the ridge.