Vacation 2008 - Day Two - 9 July

300 miles later we have arrived in Portland at the Wyndham Portland Airport Hotel.

You won't believe my story which starts last month.

My dad could not attend the 50th wedding anniversary celebration of his sister Pearl and and her husband Clarence in Montreal last month. On his behalf my sister and I drove to Montreal to represent. The Holiday Inn which my sister had Price-lined was overrun with young adolescent males in town for a week-long hockey tourney. I love kids but the hallway hockey playing at midnight was unbearable. Playing with short sticks and a round hard ball they bounced off every wall and a few doors including mine. When the front desk said they could not seem to get the kids under control I approached, carefully, a hockey adult sponsor. It turned out I could not have been careful enough and he was not an adult. He swore at me and told me to go back in my room and do something which I think is physically impossible.

Today when Phyllis and I pulled the car under the hotel overhang we found ourselves surrounded by lots of cars with Canadian license plates disgorging their diminutive passengers, suitcases and HOCKEY STICKS.

I asked the question of a couple of adults though I was not sure I wanted to know the answer.

Yes, there is a young adolescent hockey tournament going on in Portland this week.
Yes, they were at a Holiday Inn in Montreal a couple of weeks back.

I joked, "Yes there were kids playing hockey in the hallways. I wanted to strangle them."
Response, "That's what Canadians do."

No remorse, no promises of better behavior in Maine than Montreal and no fears of retaliation.