This spring adventure wasn’t worth what I paid for the coffee

By Bill Green

One of my rules as a journalist was to report ahead of the season. Stories about fishing in March and skiing in November seemed to go over better earlier than later in those seasons when people were actually fishing and skiing.

But sometimes planning for those stories was a challenge, especially with unpredictable spring storms.

One such early spring storm in March 1995 found me heading for Baxter State Park. My planned story had been wiped out by the storm and I was going for a nearby snowmobile story we’ll call “Sledding in Baxter.”

Snowmobiling in Baxter was only allowed on the Perimeter Road, which was not groomed. That was in keeping with the “forever wild” nature of the park. The trail got mashed into humps with sleds skipping along like dolphins — not exactly like what you see in snowmobile ads on TV.

On this day, it started to rain pretty hard. The combination of bumpy trails and wet snowmobile suits didn’t exactly present the visuals I was hoping for in the segment I was trying to do. 

In my mind, my two-minute story was down to a buck thirty when my pager went off.

Back in the day, you could send short messages on a beeper. This day’s message was concerning: “Call home.”

A favorite Green-family story is about my 25-pound third-grade daughter telling her teacher “Dad’s up north!” She had no concept of where I was, only that I wouldn’t be home for a while and that I couldn’t be reached. 

Astronaut Chris Cassidy’s family always liked having him home, but they noted that the family ran more smoothly without him. “It’s great you’re home Dad, but don’t get in the way.”

“Up north” isn’t as cool as being in space or on a Ranger-mission to Afghanistan, but to my children, it was an equally strange and far-off place Dad went and he wouldn’t be back for a while.

The “call home” text was concerning. This was an emergency. The family knew not to call Dad up north.

I swung into action. I grabbed the bag phone out of the back of the car. I don’t remember how those worked except that they didn’t. You would go to a mountain top and after dialing the number, you would yell loudly into the mouthpiece.

Cell service is not exactly harmonious with “forever wild,” and I had no signal. Plan B was to end the shoot and race to a pay phone in Millinocket, which seemed a perfect ending to a miserable day. 

We hit the McDonald’s in Millinocket.

Using my 20-digit credit card for making long distance calls, which was very fashionable in the day, I phoned home. My 8-year-old son answered and asked if he could go across the street to Jake’s house. 

“Where’s Mom?” I replied.

“She’s downstairs and she won’t let me go,” he said.

A great father would have chuckled and explained that if Mom says no, it means no. I got my point across and told Sam that we’d talk more about why when I got home.

So, there I was, still wearing wet snowmobile pants with wet hair and my lousy day even more ruined. We needed coffee.

One of my photographers at one time said he had a new girlfriend. When another shooter was asked what she was like, he joked, “She’s sort of a big-haired gum chewer.”

There, behind the counter at Mickey-D’s, was a consummate 1990’s woman with whom my photographer would have been enthralled. 

I’m vain. I wanted this lady to be impressed that the TV guy was actually walking up to her counter.

I swaggered bait and asked, in my best Tom Cruise voice, for a couple of coffees, to which she responded, “Eighty-four cents.”

Rather than shout “Dig the mud out of your ears!” I politely said, “No, TWO coffees.”

To which she politely responded, “Senior discount.”

I was 41 years old.

My day had just gotten remarkably worse. 

My first thought was to jump over the counter, bend her at the waist and kiss her, reminiscent of the famous sailor-nurse picture taken in Times Square at the end of World War II. (By the way, the sailor in the whites just to the left of center is Frances Cyr of Old Town.) 

But rolling my belly over the counter or catching a toe and landing in a bloody heap would probably not be as smooth-looking as I was imagining, so I simply said, “thank you” and handed her a dollar. 

The rain we’ve had recently reminds me of that ill-fated trip 30 years ago. I miss getting “Up North” a lot, but things didn’t always go as well as they looked on TV.

Still, you never forget the first time you get a senior discount.