Summer’s last gasp

On Tuesday, September 29, Greenville will enjoy a high of seventy-two degrees, an overnight low of fifty-one and only fifty percent humidity. Contrast that autumnal gloriousness with the seventy-two-degree, seventy-two-percent humid wall of pre-dawn disappointment that greeted me at six-thirty this morning and the tears of joy now streaming from my eyes should require no further explanation.

Eight days after the local forecast regains its sanity, I’ll drive to Bar Harbor for what I now think of as my annual retreat to the rocks of Acadia National Park. En route, I’ll visit Portland to audition for the Portland Stage Company’s upcoming production of A Christmas Carol, proceeding from there to The Villager Motel where I spent a week last year at about the same time in October. The Villager is just a short walk from the harbor and only $79/night … modest but clean accommodations perfect for the frugal traveler who places a higher premium on basic creature comforts and convenience than on wet bars, goose down comforters, exotic soaps and tip-hungry bellhops.

On Saturday, October 17, I’ll return to Greenville to continue the hearing loss I began back in 1978 when Kiss performed at Carolina Coliseum in Columbia. Gene and Paul (minus Ace and Peter) will be at the Bi-Lo Center in Greenville and I’ll be there ensconced in the $125 seat snagged for me by Allen Evans, whose seat-snagging mojo is most excellent.