07/31/2026
It’s the last day of July – which is unbelievable – and we are still talking about our July 4rth…but I have not had a minute to put fingers to keyboard to share the adventure - so I’m grabbing a moment on this beautiful afternoon to share the adventure - before July 2026 slips away to join the Julys of Past. (And I apologize for how LONG this is…but a lot went down, y’all!!!)
This has been the Summer of Broken Things. We always have mishaps with systems and machines in which survival requires us to wrestle, negotiate and make tentative deals that are sometimes sealed with duct tape and prayer. However, this summer has been rife with the offering of opportunities to breathe, think creatively and further develop our already healthy relationship with the Three Fates of Seboomook: Serendipity, Chaos & Calamity.
It began the day before July 4rth. The Fates ushered in a heat wave with accompanying humidity that turned the Kingdom into an oppressive cloud of boiling airlessness. In the midst of this, Generator 1 went down. The Kingdom is powered by a large generator – of which there are two, so that the burden can be shared equally. Generator 1 went down at the height of the heatwave. Generator 2 was promptly brought online, restoring peace and electricity, and smiles of great joy…until Generator 2 also decided it was far too hot to work and after huffing out a sultry sigh of indignation, also quit without notice.
I hung a “Be Right Back Sign” on the store front door and headed out to look at the generator. Because that’s what I do. I look at the broken things and grab a roll of duct tape and remain on hand to pass tools with the somber demeanor of a surgical assistant. Admittedly, I can only sustain that kind of solemnity for just so long – a trait that men under the pressure of repairs find less then endearing. Anyhow – it was a mute point - in this case, the doctor was out.
The Norman had been summoned out for a road assistance call for one of our campers. Turns out one of those big luxury RV’s like you might see Luke Bryant touring in had abruptly stopped and sent up a chorus of little RV angels floating heavenward in a mechanical death knell somewhere this side of 7 Mile Hill. The Norman has many skills and is many things to many people…but an RV mechanic he is not, so he returned to the campground looking grim and drenched with sweat. Someone with more knowledge regarding diesel engines was called for the RV and we turned our attention to our own diesel engine issues.
He and I went up to the generator house which had been transformed into a sauna from the combination of the ambient July heat outside and the lingering heat put out from the recently departed generator. His looking confirmed the tentative conclusion that my looking had yielded – the fins of the radiator of the genny were gummed up with the fine paste that pollen and all matter of dust and dirt combined with the bodily fluids of machines had concocted. The radiator pretty much serves as somewhat of a lung. Between the extra pull of air conditioners, the temperatures of the unyielding July air, and the black paste, the thing couldn’t get a deep breath and was overheating and shutting down. We got to work.
We didn’t have engine degreaser on hand so we started with carburetor cleaner and a nozzle attached to an air compressor. The heat was oppressive and we both were sweating like we were taking part in a spa detox. At least that’s the way I positioned it in my head. Perspective is everything.
After an hour or so without any kind of success, Dawn dish washing detergent and its utility in oil spills was discussed, and in my role as surgical assistant, I made for the store to mix a batch in a spray bottle. We sprayed and pushed air and sprayed and pushed air as the day slipped into early evening.
The Dawn yielded some progress, but there were miles to go before we could sleep. In a moment of desperation, I said “Hey – what if we turned on the generator and it blew some of it out itself.” Norman had reached the point of high suggestibility. He gave a grim nod and I fired her up.
Immediately, hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of bubbles of all sizes shot out from the radiator and literally filled the dark, grimy generator house enough to put Lawrence Welk to shame.(Note to younger set: YouTube it. Ole Lawerence knew how to work a bubble – giving way to some of Saturday Night Live’s best stuff…you might need to YouTube that, too.) There is nothing like exhausted laughter to shine a light – albeit through the prism of a bubble refracting it into the beautiful colors that memories are made of. In that grimy, greasy moment the bubbles and the laughter transformed it all, as exhausted and hot as we were, into a moment that would forever be one of the Seboomook stories from the Summer of Broken Things.
The next day Superman flew in to help. Of course, Norm had to go over to the airstrip at Ragmuff to retrieve him, but when you’re in need of a Superman – aka a diesel mechanic – where he lands is less important then just the fact that he lands. It takes a whole village to run the Kingdom of Seboomook and Jamie Nichols is the resident village Superman. He and Norman got to work on the RV which was dragged the remaining miles to the campground. In the meantime, Kim Post, brought in as many cans of engine degreaser as the Greenville Napa had. And peace, tranquility and electricity was returned to the Kingdom just a day shy of July 4rth. Until…
Shortly about an hour or so before the July 4rth fireworks were set to go off, I went up to check the water system. There is a 3000 gallon cistern atop a hill that gravity feeds to the waiting Kingdom below. A couple of times a day, I go up and check how many gallons are in the cistern and how many hours the pump has run. The well system has become part of my soul. Its sensitivities have become my sensitives and I can tell when something is off. I knocked on the side and heard the sound that I hate to hear…an echoing that reverberates into an emptiness that sings the words “Water leak, water leak”.
I knew Norm was already exhausted from being out until the wee hours the night before for the injured RV. I dreaded being the village crier that would need to broadcast the announcement that we now had a major water leak after just solving the major power outage. So, I swung around the campground looking for places where it might be escaping and enlisted the seasonals who willingly and jovially left their campfires to help.
I found it in the bathhouse – 2 major leaks. My heart settled in my gut. I have just enough knowledge to be dangerous, and I knew that this leak wasn’t one that we could easily fix on our own. And then, I remembered…the waterfront was lined with the Toye family – Seboomers who’s kids we have watched grow up. And sitting at Ray Toye’s site was a big utility truck painted with the insignia “Toye Plumbing” on its sides. By the time I had to deliver the news to Norm that we had a major water leak, the Toye boys, had it almost fixed. And that is what community looks like up in the woods of Northern Maine.
Update on the RV: A biga%$ tow truck finally came in and towed the inert luxury RV away, and Bunny and Rick, who are from Florida and whose RV it is, followed along behind. It was towed to Jamie’s diesel shop in Naples. And they liked it so much they decided to stay. Bunny and Rick are now comfortably installed there in Jamie and Aimee’s backyard, although they promptly purchased a new RV as the one that they had arrived at Seboomook in had made its final journey. Jamie and Aimee are here this week camping and they are happy to report that Bunny and Rick make excellent neighbors and are in fact taking care of their plants and animals while they are up here camping this week.
Two things we are left with – you can’t make this stuff up…and you can’t beat the Seboomook Community!
On to August…!
PS. A note on the accompanying pictures. Norm managed to snag a pic of me with my grimy makeover. I did not manage to get one of him...be assured he looked as lovely as i did. So I've included one that he took of himself and sent to me a few days after the fray...taunting me with the fact that he was enjoying frozen custard. 😳🤣🤣🤣 I can't say I don't deserve it! 😎Oh The Norman 😎
