Free Time Fries! by Fay Jacobs Page B

“I’m going to kill you” to my mate, who appeared, dangling behind me, refusing to make eye contact.
    Mentally, I filed for divorce as I was once again shuttled between a gaggle of outdoorsmen, who unclipped my cables, re-clipped me to other cables and hinged me to the zip line. Had anyone ever become unhinged? Physically, I mean. I was already mentally unhinged.
    â€œGet ready for Zip Three!” yelled a bulky teenage guide, who suddenly grabbed me and tightened my harness so thoroughly I wanted to ask if he’d at least buy me dinner first.
    â€œOff you go!” he hollered, sending me down the mountain at lightning speed. This time I faced forward, and, picking up speed, screamed “Cowabunga!” hoping not to have a coronary. I opened one eye to see trees flying by and a look of terror on the face of the poor schnook waiting to break my fall.
    Thud! I practically flattened him, but he kept us both upright and rigged me for zip four. As I clenched my eyes and prepared for takeoff, I heard him say to the person I was formerly married to, “Things are getting better. This time she didn’t say she was going to kill you.”
    Okay, so I came shrieking in for yet another klutzy crash landing, then had myself shackled and lashed to the line for the final zip. This time, the ride was tricky. I zipped down, then, by gravity, zipped up because the line stretched back up to a high tree. From there, gravity sent me down again, like a skate-boarder on a half-pipe, not that I’d know from experience. I zipped back up and down two more times like Cirque du Soleil before settling in the middle of the cable, hanging like a pair of underpants on a clothes line. That’s so they could yell “smile!” and take a picture.
    When they got a ladder to offload me, my legs were rubber, my arms felt like lead, and even my hair was clenched. But I was happy to be on the ground, not in it.
    â€œWell, what did you think?” ventured my spouse. “Are you proud you did it?”
    Truth is, yes, I was proud. Quite pleased with myself, actually. And at least New Hampshire’s motto, Live Free or Die, was not put to the test. And I guess I don’t need a cardiac stress test. Been there, done that. Cowabunga.

September 2011
    B RING ON THE L OCUSTS …
    Let’s face it, vacations are rejuvenating. Unless you’re away from home during the historic trifecta of environmental events when Rehoboth gets an earthquake, tornado, and hurricane. As a writer, it’s the pits to be out of town, out of touch, and missing the action.
    Luckily, there was not that much action. The earthquake was but a tremble, the hurricane, thankfully, a no-show, and the tornado, while scaring many, mercifully produced no injuries and only property damage. All in all, not bad.
    At word of the earthquake I was in a campground in Ogunquit, ME. We felt nary a shiver. Had I been home, I’m sure I would have run out into the street like Jeannette McDonald in San Francisco , shrieking and singing (although in her case, they were one and the same) “Nearer My God to Thee.”
    When we got news of impending Hurricane Irene, though, Bonnie decided we should head home a few days early to batten our hatches. When I whined, she suggested I batten my hatch and think about the six foot fiberglass dolphin on our stoop that could become airborne. Not to mention the gnomes in our kitsch garden.
    So the traveling circus, me and Bon, the pups, the RV and the Jeep in tow, lumbered home down I-95 just in time to hear that Reho was being evacuated. Great. With thousands of cars pouring outbound on Route One, this was no time for us to be driving the Hindenburg head-on into the mess.
    Quandary. Is there an insane pal along the route willing to harbor us, our dogs, and our rolling house for a four-day minimum? Luckily, there was a brave and generous soul in New Jersey. So we headed off road, pulling our convoy into the