It's a long way from Boston to St. John's...

What our dear Newfies-cum-Irishmen forgot to capture in their period ballad is that, int he Jet Age, it only takes 1:45 in a Boeing 777 loaded with weary holiday and business travellers that have annhiliated billions of pounds of roasted, fried, smoked and burned turkey (not to mention the consumerist high from melting polyvinyl chloride rectangles in some sort of modern Satyricon production, now playing at your local Wal-Mart).

However, what that song does contemplate is being a physically unfathomable distance from the woman you love, that jaundiced eye on the horizon trying to glint out your return, only to be calmed by a salve of logic and technology (Just A Short Nap And 30 Thousand Gallons Of Kerosene). Yes, my dear friends, it's time to gather around the petrochemical and extruded alumniun fire and listen to The Travelling Butcher (hey, I can have afrightening yet endearing hobo name, right?) prattle into the North Atlantic night once again.

As always, these seemingly mastubatory ramblings begin when the lack of sleep, cuddles, and free airplane gin intersect in a Bob Flanagan-esque "liberation" device a few miles above some inhospitable ocean. Right now, I'm over a really dark area of the shaded-depth ocean map American Airlines so kindly entertains us cattle with, about an hour east of St John's, Newfoundland.

This morning I awoke to a blond, big nosed male wetting my face in anearnest attempt to garner my affection, beset upon me by my Father-in-Law, Henry. Jessie and I were winding down yet another fabulous visit to Otter Creek, where we partook of a pile of poultry (posthumously) and pecan pie, plus pints of pommes, properly pressed. (Like I said, this is a thinly veiled attempt to hide mental masturbation, blame America Airlines for being out of Bombay Sapphire gin). Mac, the aformentioned blond male, was being his usual Golden Retriever self, pressing his face near your body inan attempt to gain food or affection. He's a great alarm clock, especially his slobber and five-o'clock shadow tounge. Jessie is already out of bed, in her nightgown that comes out roughly around Haloween and signals the oncoming winter. I, on the other hand, am in a cocoon of wool and polyester batt, clinging desperately to the notion that under my pillow is a get-out-of-coach-to-London pass. (Sadly, lint, a snot-filled tissue, and a tattered copy of Wooden Boat are all I find).

Jessie showers and I gaze upon the stubborn maple tree that sidles up to the front corner of 97 Otter Cliffs Road, this enigma that still has green-streaked brilliant yellow leaves in 18F late November weather. Henry postulates that water leaking from his pressure tank for the past twenty years has fortified the root system with slightly warm water for so long that this tree has become some sort of Schwartzenegger, strong and vibrant even when the blood sucking cold blows in. The leaves lazily ess in the breeze, never at rest but constantly accelerating and decelerating, just sashaying through the bitter taste of winter that has come to join our happy weekend. I think to myself that, in 18 short hours, I will be thousands of miles across the chilled Atlantic, instead of staring at these beautiful leaves enjoying their remaining time in the brilliant winter sun.

It strikes me as particularly odd that I cannot stop staring at the tree, anthropomorphizing the leaves and their seemingly perfect existence. What gets to pop out in the warm sun of spring, bathe in the still crisped air, then soak up the creamy summer sun and enjoy the view, just to slide gently into an early fall, when dramtically you immolate like the Flower Blossoms of Edo and fall to the earth, to meld into the loamy topsoil and forever be apart of this world?

(Ok. Time for an aside. I'm in 31D, the second-in, left side seat of a 2-5-2 777 coach configuration next to a Czech couple. In typical Czech fashion, they are blond and wearing stupidly shaped glasses, and tight Eurotrash clothing. The man, as I was waxing about leaf death, started fondling his wife over her shirt, and then kissed her neck like Nosferatu himself. While I am not some Puritanical prude, or some Sharia Religious Cadet, I generally prefer to not be in "extreme porno closeup" distance to displays of affection not involving me. Seriously, on my AAdvantage account, does it say 'prefers sitting next to scary and oversexed Eurotrash'? I may file a lawsuit.)

I'm snapped from my admiration of the leaves with the shower turning off, and my turn to cleanse and be born again a less smelly, and shaven, man. Showers, shaves, dressing (sorry ladies and men of alternative persuasion, I'm not going to give you the intimate details of my Davidian-Holmes physique and endowment).

Gail has preprared pancakes, and the eddies of scent waft throughout the resin filled air of a mis-placed pine log in the wood stove. Henry takes up station looking to the west, watching the roosters attempt to repeatedly mate with the same unyielding hens, and occasionally commenting in his dry, sarcastic, smart alec way about some aspect of the chicken mating ritual. Such seemingly banal interchangest ake on a life and architecture of their own; filling wide voids of your soul with humor and pleasure usually reserved for giggle-strewn foreplay or really dark choclate with dear friends.

Henry is a tour de force of human, someone with a risk tolerance that words cannot fathom, yet with a self-depreciating and unassuming, selfless manner that would lead one to believe he's just some hippie on a farm. For example, take this interchange:

Andrew: "How come you aren't taking the Sea Camel to work lately?'
Henry: "Oh, I've got water in the oil again."
Andrew: "Jeez, that's the second time. Is it a defect with the motor?"
Henry: [Nonchalantly] "No, I think I keep breaking seals when the motor slaps on the transom"
Andrew: "Uhhhh, did the mounting dampers fail? What are you doing to slap the motor on the transom?"
Henry: "Well, the stern came out of the water a few times three weeks ago on my way back from Islesford"
Andrew: [Stunned] "Huh? Were you hitting 6' waves?"
Henry: "No. More like 4-5, but it was blowing 75 knots and the bow would sail a bit when I would break the crest"

I want you to contemplate this. 75 knots is over 83 miles per hour. In a 16', 40hp, center console eastern outboard. Alone. 3 miles from land. I've been offshore in a 30kt blow, working a 42' lobster boat, and I can confirm for you a 8' wave set in that boat, with 500 diesel horsepower and all the survival gear in the world is downright frightening.

A little part of me dies inside when I hear these things, because a) I think I'm cool when a riot breaks out in a third world country and I get locked up in a $500 a night hotel and b) I can never measure up to that standard of risk tolerance. That little voice that says 'No', which has a ballgag in its mouth most days, can break free from the surly bondage of adrenaline junkieness and say "ARE YOU FUCKING HIGH?!?"

It would be an understatement to say the I love my father in law. He's a wonderful, hardworking, caring and sensitive man who has defined his life through example and a complete mastery of the human experience, doing things and seeing places that many of us cannot contemplate in our loftiest, Mescaline laced dreams of deepest, darkest nightmares of Wes Craven proportions. I cannot pour enough superlatives and prasie on him; suffice to say, he's an idol in my life.

Breakfast moves on in the typical acclerating fashion that all Sundays in Maine have: bleary eyes, stinging showers, waffles, and BOOM a thunderkiss of brutal black asphalt screaming the song of the highway once again. Jessie and I love driving. We can hack out 12 hour days with two stops anda massive range of discussions, these neverending dialoges that will onlye nd when we say goodbye in that Adam Bede moment before our deaths. Pick a topic - our relationship, your relationship (yes, we've probably talked about you), career, family, the texture of the trees, war, music, humor, or even the number of hummer's we've seen this day all come up. Our conversations can be deeply rewarding, yet turbulent and emotional as we dig down to the core of our thoughts. Our conversations usually have what I term "Jessie Grandgent" moments; times when I am stunned, shocked, and utterly delighted that I am in fact married to Jessie Grandgent and this isn't some beautifully textured dream. We both have them, they happen at random moments and set an electrical current tickling across the surface of my skin hitting each little nerve with a taste of it's delicious charge. We spend so many hours in the car that we are professionals - we know what the other needs or wants before the other opens their mouth.

We're racing towards Boston, where I'm convinced every water-headed asshole traveller has descended upon the airport and is dicking up the security lines with wrapped Christmas presents and hidden bottles of fluid setting off some sort of homeland security alarm. I can see my trip getting fucked into a total cocked hat and rotting in some Terminal eating airlineleft overs while I wait for the dingbat who leaves his house twice a year to finish having his agoraphobia attack and stop blocking the line to the death tube on the tarmac.

In short? I'm tense and doing 90mph down I-95.

So we're rocketing towards the city, passing by the places we know and love, getting cut off, and overall languishing on the road as I tensely try to get to the airport. Things move smoothly, I get checked in, through security and happen upon a tall, dark haired, and olive-skinned woman ,about 20, bawling and drooling snot as she tries in vain to figure out how to get to her gate. I politely ask which gate she is trying to get to, and offer her a pack of my Japanese tissues that I carry at all times. She wrings a "32" out from the tears and boogers, an amazing accomplishment since she clearly has gallons of stuff leaking from her face. As we walk along, I ask her if everything is ok and if I can help her? Her boyfriend, an Italian ex-pat, is studying at Harvard while she is at some school in New Mexico. She is from Spain, and her words are laced with the refined accent that all Southern Continentals seem to have. She tells me how they just had an amazing Thanksgiving and now she will not see him until January, although they hope to connect in Europe when they go home for Christmas. I tell her that it sounds like they had a great weekend, and I can imagine how she is feeling right now. (Cue discussion about Andrew"s inability tobe empathetic and only sympathetic). She asks...

Rewind to 2002. A long, lazy summer has passed and we stand at the last Wednesday in August. Jessie, Leslie, and I have just checked Jessie in for her flight to Rome, where her 4 month Italian sojourn will begin. Andrew, trying to be impossibly male, has been bottling up and denying that she was actually leaving. Leslie has been in a state of disbelief that Jessie is going to be living far away for 4 months. Poor Jessie has no idea what is about to happen.

In the old Terminal E at Logan, you went up a long escalator to the security checkpoint, where a large wall of glass stood between the Great Terrorist Threat and the Newly Secure. Goodbyes are painful - I break down bawling and uncontrollably sobbing, realizing it's going to be 4 months until she is home. We're talking red eyes, smeared tears, spigots of mucous flowing all over the nice tile floors and lots of awkward stares. Jessie goes through security, Leslie and I clinging to each other like tornado victims in Life magazine, and then comes the Glass Wall. Massive flows of painful emotion and a perverse desire to claw at the Lexan in hopes of holding her one more time. So fucking close, but so painfully far. It was brutal. Leslie and I cried all the way to South Station, where we regained composure about 1 hour later. Jessie sobbed the whole way to Italy. 7 short weeks later, I told her just how much she meant to me while overlooking Venice.

The girl looked at me and said "I think tonight you are my angel. You give me hope that I can turn this love into what you have with your wife"

I smiled, and gestured to her gate: "I'm not an angel, I've just walked your path. Here's your gate - keep the tissues and have a safe flight" Her eyes sparkled, and she walked slowly, still teary, towards the gate line.

Sometimes, these lonely journies help us understand and grow our own emotional self, even when work, family, and screaming children try to intervene otherwise. Maybe, maybe, I'll figure out the moral to this life story and do something with it . . .