Summer People, Some Are Not.

You meet certain people in life who imbue an amount of information that you realize applies to your own sense of fair play. One such character, Lorraine Ruckdesheldt brought amazing sensibility to my formative years. She and her better half were four foot, six inch jazz fans. She wore the short skirts, well into her late seventies, and he his fedora and tie. They followed their favorite area bands, patronized there favorite bartenders, and were pretty specific in their needs. They liked a heart of iceberg salad, now trendily called the wedge, with onions , one with tomato, one with bleu cheeze dressing, one with thousand island. He drank a VO and soda and she a Vodka tonic. They carefully scrutinized drink prices and the crowds that were attracted in the area haunts. They had NO problem vocalizing their concerns/complaints, even their compliments were sometime caustic. One would wonder what the beauty of these two were? I'll continue.........

As I got to know their beautiful romance, I discovered that Lorraine was the one who pursued Rucky (I never got his real name, didnt need to). It turns out that she and her girlfriends happened upon the boys in town at ye olde swimming hole, skinny dipping. She said to her gal pal, "I'm gonna marry me that one.", pointing to Rucky, and not so little rucky. She went big. Literally. They would look at each other with the type of reverence that you can only pray comes into your life. Sometimes their personal conversation wouldnt be too sweet to each other but the look never changed.

She would drive in their later years as his eyes would go. Two sets of little legs poking out of this huge Continental, as they came towards your bar you would pray they would have a rope ladder to get down as you never wanted to clean up a broken hip. They were vigilant in their support and love of jazz. They adored my impression of Billy Ray Cyrus, replete with mullet I admit. They would always wrap up the leftovers for the dog, the dog died from diabetes, gout and other diseases associated with obesity. Lorraine ended up on oxygen from his second hand smoke and he wore the guilt of that for their remaining days. They would still make the rounds, but not so much. She went first and he soon followed. Pretty classy, I think.

Through all this nostalgia you look for your lessons? They come dryly with New England grace and endure. Here goes. Her biggest lesson was that being choosy can pay off for the rest of your life. Biggest not in the sense of importance as opposed to size matters. Lorraine always said, "when it rains, wear red." And she would. On the CT shoreline we were doused wet with rain like a wall adjacent a neighborhood irish bar is with urine. But its true, it changes your mental state surrounding yourself in color can repell negativity. Being salty yankees, they understood the fun/frustrations of tourist season and tour-ons and would always offer the sage to waitr-ons they liked, "you can't let it (crazy tourists)get to you. Summer people, some are not." We miss that level of class and seek it out in todays market. With the parameters given us, we know that the search will be insightful. No one can ever replace the Ruckdesheldts but the bar that they set, in the bars where they set, natch, is something we can all aspire too.