Message text written by "When I'm in NH I'm a tourist.  Ruth"
>Date:    Mon, 19 May 2003 22:40:23 -0700
From:    Ruth Barton <[log in to unmask]>
Subject: Re: Manholes

Donald,  If you ever come up this way to visit your bro drop by.  I'd love
to see ya, especially if ya be drivin' the fancy kah.  I never seen one of
them Morgan kahs.  Ruth

<
Ruth,

Thanks for the invite, I will take you up on it at the earliest
opportunity. My next scheduled trip to NH is for the August 9 wedding of
the aforementioned brother to his music-teacher sweetheart (who seems to be
singlehandedly responsible for all the orchestral stringed instrument
education in central NH), and I might bring the Morgan, as it hasn't had a
good long road trip in a while. But if I do so, I will have to make a quick
trip of it, as I am in the real estate broker license course and have to
attend classes every Wednesday that month. This necessitates doing the
DC-NH run straight through in a single day in oprder to have 4 days in
NH--which I have done before--and no side trips. 

My Morgan has been within a few miles of you, but I didn't know you then.
That was on the second leg of the Preservation Sourcebook Road Trip 1998.
My brother in East Amherst, NY (near Buffalo) (my youngest brother, not the
Mighty Outdoorsman of Ossippee) wanted to get the family together for a
weekend. The Morgan was the only car I owned at the time capable of making
the trip. I was fed up and needed to get out of town. I told the publisher
that if I did not leave town, violence might ensue. I took my new laptop
computer, told her I would work wherever I happened to be and visit as many
advertising prospects as possible, and set off on July 16, 1998. The car
was loaded to the gills. A case of beer fits perfectly in the
passenger-side footwell of a Morgan. I drove from DC to Buffalo in one day
(via the old Federal roads over the Alleghenies), taking 13 hours including
a stop at the Roadster Factory in Armagh, PA for a replacement alternator
for my brother's Triumph TR6. I stayed in Amherst for a week, and then
drove across NY state, mostly on US 20, to Bennington, VT to drop by
Hemmings Motor News. I was not even out of the car before the receptionist
had called the editor to inform him that someone had just arrived in a
Morgan. He is a former Morgan owner and although we had never met before,
we knew a lot of the same people and he knew my name (the Morgan world is a
small one). The next day I proceeded across Vermont. The best diner of the
many I sampled on that trip (possibly the best ever) was the Chelsea Royal
west of Brattleboro. Then in Brattleboro itself occurred what is perhaps my
fondest memory of the trip. As I was waiting at the light to turn north on
Route 9, two comely young women crossed the street, walking behind my car.
As they did so, I clearly heard one say to the other, "See, I told you that
was a Morgan." The car had full weather equipment in place (it was a rainy
day) which made it effectively impossible for me to reply. With the top and
sidescreens in place, it is like driving a quonset hut. They disappeared
into a shop as the light changed and the cars behind me were impatient for
me to make my turn. But I have to be interested in the possibilities of
living in a place in which comely young women know what a Morgan is. On
that particular trip, she was one of four people who knew what it was. The
most common question I get is, "what is that, a kitcar?" This is why I have
to go to the Morgan national meet every year. It is so pleasant to spend an
entire weekend surrounded by people who understand. Anyway. I stopped in to
see a blacksmith in Putney (whose name escapes me, but his dad was coaching
sailing at the US Naval Academy about the time my dad was coaching sailing
at the US Coast Guard Academy), who, when I told him this story, said he
would describe the area as "rural cosmopolitan--the sort of place where the
general store sells the NY Times and the carpenters have PhDs." This sounds
like a place I could enjoy living, if there were a way to make a living
there that I could enjoy. One of the top agents in my office, Cecilia
Lofton, is from Brattleboro, and retains her Vermont accent and her core of
granite under a sweet old lady exterior. But she prefers Virginia to
Vermont, most of the time. Something about the mild winters here--most
winters, that is. This month it just rains 5 days out of 7. No fun in an
open car, but summer will be here eventually. 

All antique cars are equipped with a driver's-side windbag.

Don

--
To terminate puerile preservation prattling among pals and the
uncoffee-ed, or to change your settings, go to:
<http://maelstrom.stjohns.edu/archives/bullamanka-pinheads.html>