Vacation 2008 - Day Seven - 14 July

The picture is from Two Lights State Park located just out of Cape Elizabeth Maine which is very near Portland Maine.

All of that to say - Phyllis was born and raised in Portland Maine. She grew up with what she calls the fresh smell of the clam flats. Clam flats are wide expanses of mud exposed when the tide recedes. They smell like mud and rotting fish to me but I have come to define the smell of rotting fish as “fresh.” It is a survival technique.

During my first week as a college freshman I met Phyllis. How that happened is another story but we took to each other right a way. I was awed by and drawn to this sophisticated sophomore woman who was stunningly beautiful, the smartest woman I had ever met and who acted like she did not mind being around me. She, on the other hand, was drawn to me in the same way you might be drawn to site of a train wreck: Six foot two, 140 pounds of skin and bones, sporting a flat top (a haircut style), wore a necktie every day, afraid of people, played trumpet in the pep band and told Phyllis on our second date that I thought I was in love. What a mess.

But we kept dating or at least hanging out together and she even accompanied me to preaching assignments all over the North East while I tried to learn how to preach and exchange my fears for love.
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Anyway, she took me home to meet her mother. I fell in love immediately. I remember thinking: If this is the woman Phyllis is going to become we are going to be fine. Of course I was young and naive.

Then Phyllis took me to Two Lights State Park. The Park is more of a Coastal Preserve than a park. There are benches and picnic tables, walking trails and of course the granite coast. No swimming or boating here. In fact a couple of people die here every year. They just don’t get the danger and power of an open ocean wave breaking on granite.

Over the course of four years of courting we spent many hours at Two Lights and especially at the spot pictured above. When the tide is a little lower than in this picture we would sit on the right shelf and talk for hours. That was back when backs were stronger and butts less sensitive. Or was it that we just did not notice?

In the next 39 years we and our girls visited the park and this spot as often as possible. You can see that Two Lights has become a part of our Family Tradition and Folklore. This cut in the rocks is where our ashes are to be scattered and whenever we visit Maine this spot is a necessary stop.