I first met Lyle the summer when I was on the North Shore in Massachusetts. Until recently, Rockport had been a dry town, even though selling alcohol would have made the local eateries a lot of money from the tourists during the summer and the locals during the long winters, when the nights were long, dark and quiet. Once the town decided to start selling alcohol, the locals came out of the woodwork but none so much as Lyle and his two buddies.
Lyle was famous - infamous actually. He and his red "Make America Great Again" hat were practically permanent fixtures in the seafood joint a block away from the one bedroom apartment he shared with the girlfriend 20 years his junior. I never understood why she was with him and she never explained it to me. Lyle didn't seem to have money and with the amount he drank, he was unlikely to do much in bed besides snore loudly and keep her awake.
I met him on a Saturday afternoon in late June. I was in the middle of a two week sabbatical from my policy wonk job in a northern, landlocked, mountainous city and was enjoying the sun, white wine, early morning runs and the company. I had wanted to do some writing, but nothing was forthcoming so instead, I spent my time reading, doing long training runs in anticipation of a half-marathon in the fall, and observing the people around me.
My attention was immediately drawn to Lyle in large part because of the bright red hat that he wore. Die-hard, proud Republicans were few and far between in what we Northern New Englanders called "The People's Republic of Massachusetts." He was wearing a wrinkled white golf shirt and white shorts, that contrasted with the almost offensively bright red of his hat and face. His personality was bigger than his physical being - he wasn't much taller than my 5 foot 2 frame but his chi took up nearly all of the space around him.
Lyle was old, but in a well-preserved way likely due to the embalming effects of the quantity of alcohol that he drank - which seemingly was by the gallon. When I first met him that mid-afternoon, he was already half in the bag and bragging about how he had been drinking since mid-morning to celebrate how the Red Sox were 2 games up on the Yankees and how Trump's approval rating was at its peak - the impeachment scandal was not on anyone's radar at that time.
Lyle was loud and I could hear him over the low din that was a busy bar in a tourist beach town during the summer. Luckily, he was with Lou and Sam - a trio that affectionately called themselves the Three Amigos after the Chevy Chase, Steve Martin and Martin Short comedic tag team. There was a distinct space around them, as if the tourists knew not to come too close or they would become targets of what they instinctively knew would be a local's ire at having to share their watering hole with the people that kept the town afloat.
"Do you think that I would be able to get a word in edgewise with that one," I asked my wine sipping partner, also a local. "He seems like he'd be a fascinating one to talk to, his political judgment aside."
My drinking partner snorted and looked at me dubiously. "Good luck with that. I'd pay to have your car detailed if you so much as got him to even answer a question coherently," he said, in a tone of voice that was laden with doubt.
Never one to turn down a challenge, particularly where a much needed car detailing was on the line, I responded "It's on," as I got up and sidled down to the other end of the bar. And boy did I learn some stuff....
Lyle was famous - infamous actually. He and his red "Make America Great Again" hat were practically permanent fixtures in the seafood joint a block away from the one bedroom apartment he shared with the girlfriend 20 years his junior. I never understood why she was with him and she never explained it to me. Lyle didn't seem to have money and with the amount he drank, he was unlikely to do much in bed besides snore loudly and keep her awake.
I met him on a Saturday afternoon in late June. I was in the middle of a two week sabbatical from my policy wonk job in a northern, landlocked, mountainous city and was enjoying the sun, white wine, early morning runs and the company. I had wanted to do some writing, but nothing was forthcoming so instead, I spent my time reading, doing long training runs in anticipation of a half-marathon in the fall, and observing the people around me.
My attention was immediately drawn to Lyle in large part because of the bright red hat that he wore. Die-hard, proud Republicans were few and far between in what we Northern New Englanders called "The People's Republic of Massachusetts." He was wearing a wrinkled white golf shirt and white shorts, that contrasted with the almost offensively bright red of his hat and face. His personality was bigger than his physical being - he wasn't much taller than my 5 foot 2 frame but his chi took up nearly all of the space around him.
Lyle was old, but in a well-preserved way likely due to the embalming effects of the quantity of alcohol that he drank - which seemingly was by the gallon. When I first met him that mid-afternoon, he was already half in the bag and bragging about how he had been drinking since mid-morning to celebrate how the Red Sox were 2 games up on the Yankees and how Trump's approval rating was at its peak - the impeachment scandal was not on anyone's radar at that time.
Lyle was loud and I could hear him over the low din that was a busy bar in a tourist beach town during the summer. Luckily, he was with Lou and Sam - a trio that affectionately called themselves the Three Amigos after the Chevy Chase, Steve Martin and Martin Short comedic tag team. There was a distinct space around them, as if the tourists knew not to come too close or they would become targets of what they instinctively knew would be a local's ire at having to share their watering hole with the people that kept the town afloat.
"Do you think that I would be able to get a word in edgewise with that one," I asked my wine sipping partner, also a local. "He seems like he'd be a fascinating one to talk to, his political judgment aside."
My drinking partner snorted and looked at me dubiously. "Good luck with that. I'd pay to have your car detailed if you so much as got him to even answer a question coherently," he said, in a tone of voice that was laden with doubt.
Never one to turn down a challenge, particularly where a much needed car detailing was on the line, I responded "It's on," as I got up and sidled down to the other end of the bar. And boy did I learn some stuff....
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