9/17/98... Softshoe Lobster.

He's up and dancing. Mr. Mann helped me install the beast, my latest sculpture, on the shore in Sebasco, and it proved to be a ritual bloodletting. I've always wondered why folks who live on the coast have summer places on inland lakes. Seemed strange to me to want to vacation away from the coast. This trip to the shore I figured it out. In a word: mosquitoes.

Yowtch. We were surrounded by clouds of them, and the little monsters were lined up on us like hogs at the feedlot trough. The resort guests scurried past, waving their hands in the air. At least there were no kibitzers to watch us struggling with the details.

I thought I'd figured out how to hang these barnboard marquetries. This one went up in manageable pieces, rather than trying to hoist the whole 20 foot long composition. But I still didn't have all the subtleties worked out, and we were grateful that the press photographer showed up an hour late. By that time we were wringing wet with sweat, inured to the bloodsuckers, and finally ready to mount the crustacean. A pretty picture, I'm sure. But up he went.

It was a lowery day, absolutely still, humidity thick enough to spread on toast, spitting lightly. We've pingponged between crisp Autumn and smoldering Summer for the last week, and picking your costume in the morning is an act of gamesmanship. The greenstuff just keeps on sprouting, along with the molds and fungi.

Peggy and I spent last weekend over on Long Lake in Bridgeton, visiting our Vermont friends Willy and Liz, in a borrowed cottage. Idyllic. Crystal waters with the sun glittering. Deep woods standing down to the water. Nary a skeet. Only the occasional jetski. A library of getaway books. The fug of cottage mold and woodsmoke. Time suspended. A week of it would drive me round the bend.

There's an off-the-hook quality to lake towns and freshwater cottages that makes me uneasy. I'd hardly call myself driven, but these idylls are too far off the bus for me. The slightly dilapidated air of places too full of relaxation. The jovial athleticism. The fumes of Budweiser and sunblock. I'm all for zoning out, but a whole zone that's OUT is unsettling.

We feasted repeatedly, told lies, and made music. A great escape. But I was glad to get back to the big Homard, and home. I realized how much of life is the daily putterings, and how many pots I'm stirring here. It didn't take all that long for the road fever to go cold.

The push and tug of the road vs. the local is part of our contemporary struggle. A few years back Brent went to his high school reunion and discovered that something like 40% of his classmates were still in the area. Many of the rest had vanished. That's probably true in most rural places. There's precious little economic or career incentive to stay downhome, and all the reasons of the heart.

In honor of the local, I've been dipping into William Least Heat-Moon's "PrairyErth", the sequel to "Blue Highways." After driving around America he decided to sink himself up to the neck in one county in the heartland. Chase County, Kansas. His magnum opus picks over this small rectangle in minute detail. Like the way I'm painting all the angles of Bowdoinham after splashing a few colors on America. The lesson is: the harder you look in one place, the more you see, and the more connected you become to the seeing. The human condition, for most of history, has been sunk in the local, but we've lost the knack of swimming in such small ponds. Focusing closeup.

Some of us harbor a perennial urge to return home, or dream of such a place. But it's a deceptive dream. We're watching a classic homecoming play itself out at the heart of Bowdoinham. Jeanine's older daughter, Angie, came back from the road last year, after waiting tables in such places as Seattle, Colorado Springs, and New Orleans. Now 27, and weary of being a cute stranger in anonymous places, she settled in to help run the local restaurant. She and her younger sister, Alley, joined forces to bail out Jeanine and Dianne, who were burnt cases after 8 years behind the grill.

Working for mom can be tough after living on your own in the big city, but Angie has brought a vivacious liveliness, and a resilient good nature to the task. Slowly she's taken over more and more of the details, and Jeanine has slowly let go of the tiller. Begun to make herself scare. Started smiling again. This week mom finally turned over the business to Angie, and we're all watching with bated breath.

Running the local hash house is a killer. This eatery has destroyed three marriages, and driven a pair of women to the brink, since we've lived here. The hours are brutal. The worries never quit. And you're lucky to break even at the end of the week. No sooner did Angie take the helm than the hot water heater self-destructed, emptying the till for week number one. Brent and I spotted the water pouring downhill out back, traced it to the heater in the cellar, and got it shut down. Angie didn't even know the number of the gas supplier who maintains the system. But she's a quick study.

And relishes the education. The chance to run her own business outweighs the burdens, for now. And she knows how vital a local restaurant is to a small town, and delights in helping to sustain this community. Angie has a photographer's eye for faces, and an ear for telling details. She says she'll take the pictures now, and write the smalltown restaurant saga after this is all over. But it moves too fast. She already regrets not having written down the sharp comments of Mildred Dunn, or taken her picture, before she died. In fact, Angie is run off her feet. But she'll survive.

Survive is what local folks do best. And share it round. Lunch at the restaurant is too rich an indulgence for most of us. We can't really afford to do it, and the town can't afford us not doing it. A town has to have a watering hole. The place is supported by the regulars, and Angie delights in all the ritual byplay. She's one of the local beauties, but she never crosses the line between being nice to everyone and flirting. A delicate balancing act, and impressive to watch. Right now she's running with Eric, one of the young artists in Carlo's circle, and seeing her red hair streaming behind his motorcycle on their rare days off makes you feel good about fate. Both of these kids ran through their twenties on high burn, and you can see them being very careful with each other, in the charmed circle of a friendly town.

They have no privacy, of course. That's small town. Angie says she gets so sick of being nice that she and Eric go off to Portland where she can drink and smoke and swear and act nasty, and I almost believe her. I suspect, being Jeanine's daughter, she's just plain nice at the core, and is only tough enough in self defense. Another balancing act in the local: not letting the inevitable self-exposure make you too vulnerable. That's only possible by mutual understanding. Angie knows everyone else's secrets, too, but treats us all with simple decency. She'd never survive in Washington.

I was talking with Viola at the counter the other noontime. She's an exile from New York who's living over east on the Abby. She was saying how she'd like to write a book about mid day at Jeanine's. Angie was in earshot and I could see her hackles start to rise. "Hey. That's MY book," her back was saying. When I chuckled over her reaction later, Angie said,"It's not just my book. I'm afraid she might make fun of people. Not understand them." Understanding us is just what it takes to survive in the local.

There are plenty of sweepings under the rug in any town, but one of the functions of a watering hole is that all the animals can rub up against each other there, and practice tolerance. The grudges I bear some of the locals for having used me badly over a dollar tend to get worn off in the restaurant. If you live with the same people year in and year out, having to deal with them face to face, you will come to a necessary civility. You also know who'll try to skin you.

Running the local grill is a nurturing, which has to be the better part of its reward. Coming home to care for a town beats chasing the moon, hands down. Especially in a town without too many mosquitoes. The women flipping burgers are caring for all the stray cats, and teaching the rest of us about community. It's worth the extra cost. I hope Angie still feels the same way next year. Let you know when the place is for sale.