The drive
I've lived in Montreal for 7.5 years but am originally from Scituate, Massachusetts, a town about 45 minutes south of Boston. During these years, I have made the drive between my two homes so many times, in owned, borrowed, rented cars, and I never tire of it. I especially love the long stretch of empty highway in Vermont (I was going to write "rural Vermont", but that's like writing "died fatally"). This stretch of road is totally desolate at night - few other cars, total darkness, only the occasional dim light of a distant house or farm. This same bit of country -it runs through a sort of valley in the Green Mountains - is prone to extreme weather. I have driven through some of the most intense rain and snow I have ever experienced on that road. Totally dangerous - if you went off the road into the ditch, it could be the next day before someone notices you - but also thrilling; driving through storms, I usually turn off the radio and talk to myself out loud, encouraging, advising, commenting, heckling.
Doing the Montreal-Boston drive in winter and summer evoke different memories and associations. Like, for winter:
Driving down to visit my family for Christmas one year in my 1990 Grand Am that had no heat. The temperature outside was absolutely glacial. The windshielf kept icing up from my frozen breath but I had no way to defrost it. Sometimes I would crank the fan, even though there was no heat, hoping that a bit of the warmth generated by the engine would blow into the car. I don't think this worked. When I got out of the car at the end of the drive, I was virtually paralyzed from the waist down; the cold had driven the blood into the (relatively) warmer climes of deep tissue and my leg muscles were sort of useless.
In summer:
The best summer drive is going from Boston back to Montreal, leaving in the evening, with the Red Sox on the radio. I listen to the game on AM radio through Massachusetts and New Hampshire, the signal fading slowly along with the daylight. Somewhere in Vermont, both are gone. Baseball on the radio. That's old school. I never knew either of my grandfathers, but that's what I picture grandfathers doing. Sitting around, drinking beer, wearing just white t-shirts, listening to baseball on the radio.
Hey Grandpa, what are you doing this weekend? Want to rent a car and drive down to Boston, then turn right back around?
Doing the Montreal-Boston drive in winter and summer evoke different memories and associations. Like, for winter:
Driving down to visit my family for Christmas one year in my 1990 Grand Am that had no heat. The temperature outside was absolutely glacial. The windshielf kept icing up from my frozen breath but I had no way to defrost it. Sometimes I would crank the fan, even though there was no heat, hoping that a bit of the warmth generated by the engine would blow into the car. I don't think this worked. When I got out of the car at the end of the drive, I was virtually paralyzed from the waist down; the cold had driven the blood into the (relatively) warmer climes of deep tissue and my leg muscles were sort of useless.
In summer:
The best summer drive is going from Boston back to Montreal, leaving in the evening, with the Red Sox on the radio. I listen to the game on AM radio through Massachusetts and New Hampshire, the signal fading slowly along with the daylight. Somewhere in Vermont, both are gone. Baseball on the radio. That's old school. I never knew either of my grandfathers, but that's what I picture grandfathers doing. Sitting around, drinking beer, wearing just white t-shirts, listening to baseball on the radio.
Hey Grandpa, what are you doing this weekend? Want to rent a car and drive down to Boston, then turn right back around?
posted by Jason at 6:24 PM
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