THE BIG HOUSE + THE LANDMARK CAFE + PARADE DAY

In Ireland, the phrase “The Big House” is historically laden with baggage—political, social, economic, cultural—associated with the mansions (and sometimes castles) that dotted the countryside as homes to mostly Anglo-Protestant landholders whose identification and self-identification with Great Britain emblematized the conflicted relationship between colonizing Britain and colonized Ireland.

Believe me, then, when I say that we have our tongues firmly planted in our cheeks when we call our summer farmhouse rental on Prince Edward Island “The Big House.” By PEI standards it is a fairly substantial residence—especially for a farmhouse more than 150 years old: it includes 5 bedrooms , 2.5 baths, 2 parlors, a dining room and a spacious modern kitchen . . . all fully updated by its current owner (a descendant of the original owner . . . of Irish stock, I might add). Oh yes, there’s also a little room at the front of the house, in that little centre gable on the second floor—apparently this was known as “The Priest’s Room” because back in the day the priest coming out from Charlottetown on Saturday evening to say Sunday mass at St. Martin’s Church (about a mile up the road) would stay over in that room. The house is perfectly located for our vacation—a short walk across a road and down a lane to the south shore beach that I grew up on and that our daughters have known for their entire lives. We first rented the farmhouse in 2004 when another rental we had arranged fell through: we just spent our 7th family vacation under its roof . . . and expect to keep returning to it as our “summer home” well into the future.

A few years ago I took a photo from the back steps of the Big House that continues to please me. It shows the various barns and sheds still standing on the property: they’ve been repainted recently, but in this photograph they reflect the Island tradition of farmers painting the corner trim red on outbuildings so that they would be able find their way to them to tend to the livestock during winter blizzards. Or so my sister told me many years ago: she was working as a guide on a tour bus at the time, and such arcane knowledge was essential to her spiel. She also told how the cattle were complaining about the new technology at the time that allowed hay to be rolled into bales rather than cubed: apparently the cows claimed that they could no longer get “a square meal.”

As usual, this year’s version of our annual pilgrimage to PEI was filled with highlights involving family and friends—including various dinner gatherings at The Big House. Despite having only one week to squeeze in a whole year’s worth of visiting and general holidaying, we also managed to get “out and about.” One especially nice outing was a jaunt to the attractive village of Victoria-By-the-Sea for a meal at the Landscape Café. My wife and I had eaten there once before—around 20 years ago (it has been open for 21 years)—and our return visit with our daughters and my father was well worth waiting for: tasty food served up in the interesting atmosphere of a renovated general store.

One other “detail” of our visit worth mentioning is the Gold Cup and Saucer Parade, which for almost 50 years has added pomp and circumstance to the culminating harness race of the year at the Charlottetown Driving Park. The Gold Cup and Saucer Race also marks the end of Old Home Week . . . which in turn pretty much marks the end of summer on the Island. This year—for the first time since 2007—I marched in the parade as a member of the Charlottetown Community Clash Band . . . an intentionally ragtag gathering of local musicians (well, many of us are “former” music students) who have been showing up and creating a scene for the past 20 years or so. What we lack in rehearsal time we make up with enthusiasm and energy. Last year I watched the parade from the sidewalk and realized that I had more fun in previous years when I marched. So I found my old saxophone under a bed in my boyhood home, went to one of the two rehearsals, and then stepped out with a rush of adrenaline when the drumrolls started. Could there be a better way to observe the end of summer?

THE BLUES SCALE

Usually I don’t have to make New Year’s resolutions: my wife makes them for me. But this past January, I decided to challenge myself to shed a few pounds—20 pounds to be exact. Well, I did better than that, losing a total of 24.2 pounds in a little less than 5 months, which brought me back to my marriage weight just in time for our 25th wedding anniversary. That was in May. Since then I’ve backslid a bit: nine days in Dublin in June didn’t help; nor have all of the caloric temptations of the lazy, hazy, crazy days of summer. So last weekend I resolved to get back on the exercise wagon—well, back into the gym—with renewed commitment . . . which also required adding some new music to my iPod shuffle.

For much of my run for the roses during the winter and spring, I listened either to my 137-song “Rock Party” playlist or to my 50-song “Blues You Can Use” playlist. But at a couple of crucial points I tuned in exclusively to a couple of albums that I had been tempted by but had never gotten around to adding to my music library. The first was Piety Street by John Scofield. I wrote a lengthy blog post about Scofield and his band after I saw them perform at the Regattabar in Cambridge a year-and-a-half ago. Worrying that their recording would not come close to their terrific live act, I resisted the temptation of picking up the CD . . . but finally I succumbed—and I am happy to admit that my worrying was completely unwarranted. Ostensibly an album of gospel music, Piety Street is really a blues album of the first order, with Scofield’s guitar front and center—and it was just what I needed to keep me on the straight and narrow of the treadmill during the dark days of February.

But it wasn’t all that I needed: after years of having guitar hero Rick Derringer’s album Blues Deluxe in my shopping cart, I also finally added it to my listening mix. And what a great addition it proved to be: every single tune on the album—mostly blues standards—is a keeper . . . and the whole package certainly kept me go-go-going during March.

But now it’s August—the dog days, no less—and once again I am looking to the blues to tip the scale in my favor. So I currently have cued up on my iPod shuffle a pair of albums, by local blues bands, that I’ve been deferring the pleasure of listening to for a while . . . until now. One is Low Expectations by Ernie and the Automatics, a blues/rhythm-n-blues/rock unit that has been making some noise around here for the past couple of years. Part of their claim to fame is that a couple of the band members—guitarist Barry Goudreau and drummer Sib Hashian—are alums of the legendary “corporate rock” band Boston. Another part of their claim to fame is that the “Ernie” who lends the band half its moniker (he also plays rhythm guitar) is Ernie Boch, Jr., who sports a household name thanks to his late father, who owned several major car dealerships in the Boston area. Come on down! But the band is truly greater than the sum of its parts—which also include Brian Maes on keyboards and vocals, Mike “Tunes” Antunes on tenor sax, and Tim Archibald on bass. Low Expectations features tunes with super-tight arrangements, catchy hooks and fine guitar, piano, and sax work. I should get some pretty good mileage out of it. (I might also mention that Ernie and the Automatics are well worth catching live and in-person: I saw them at Firefly’s in Quincy back in January—they were barbeque hot!)

The other album that I added last weekend is Living in the Light by Ronnie Earl and the Broadcasters, a band that I wrote about at length on this blog a year or so ago. This album came out not long after I saw them in concert in Arlington, and coincidentally, I was in the guitar repair shop in Winchester run by bass player Jim Mouradian and his son Jon on the morning that Jim received his copy of the CD—it was just sitting on the counter unopened and unlistened to: so it has been on my radar screen for quite a while. Well, it was worth waiting for . . . though the blues stylings are really quite different from those generated by Ernie and the Automatics. First of all, they are much more gospel-oriented, fueled considerably by Hammond B3 organ player Dave Limina and also by pianist Dave Maxwell on a couple of numbers. Also, some of the vocal numbers, delivered by Kim Wilson and Dave Keller, are a bit earnest (no pun intended on Boch, Jr.) lyrically: “What Can I Do For You” might be too overtly religious for some listeners’ tastes, “Child of a Survivor” has the Holocaust as its subject (an unlikely subject for a blues tune), and “Donna Lee” is a very personal tribute to Ronnie Earl’s wife. But, almost needless to say, the quality of the music—with Earl’s guitar the main event—is first-rate. With Jim Mouradian on bass and Lorne Entress on drums, Earl and Limina deliver the goods. No less than Ernie and the Automatics, Ronnie Earl and the Broadcasters should help to keep me on track for my daily workout.

DUNKIN' DUGOUT . . .

So . . . last night my wife and I took our three daughters and a boyfriend of one of them to the Red Sox-Indians game at Fenway Park. It wasn’t the most dramatic game of the year . . . though we were already on our feet applauding the return of Mike Lowell to the lineup (he had been on the injured reserve list since late June) when he really lifted us up by hitting the first pitch he faced into the Monster seats, delivering what proved to be the winning run in a 3-1 Sox victory. Josh Beckett, who I checked out during his pre-game warmup in the bullpen, pitched very well—he allowed only three hits (one of them a solo home run) and was able to wriggle out of the several minor jams that he found himself in.

We enjoyed the game and the entire evening despite sitting in nosebleed seats—Row 48 (out of 50) in Section 41 of the bleachers: we were just two rows below the seats donated by Dunkin’ Donuts every game to kids in Boys and Girls Clubs and similar non-profit and charitable organizations. The Dunkin’ Dugout.

Fenway Park has its history, and it has its traditions—though some of them are relatively recent, like the en masse singing in the late innings of Neil Diamond’s hit “Sweet Caroline” and the Dropkick Murphys’ “Tessie” and even “Joy to the World” by Three Dog Night. (The singing of “Take Me Out to the Ballgame” at the seventh-inning stretch goes without saying.) But we also have a family tradition at Fenway that involves a visit, before the game, to a particular sausage stand on the street outside the ballpark. It is run by the family of a teacher our daughters had in high school: he works at the stand himself, and he and the girls always have happy reunions whenever we make it to a game. Not that we’re superstitious, but we have to believe that our faithful observance of that tradition contributes to the success that has become another Sox “tradition” in recent years!

DOG DUTY

I’m not quite sure how this happened, but somehow I have ended up on dog duty for our neighbors, keeping an eye on their two Chihuahuas for a day or so. Are these creatures even dogs? I’m not so sure. One of them looks like a chinchilla; the other is what is known as a teacup Chihuahua—the sort of critter that hides in Britney Spears’ handbag. My cat would eat them for breakfast . . . if she could ever catch up with them: they sure are hyper, and they sure do move fast!

I think their names are Zoey and Bella, but I’m not sure which is which, so—taking a page out of Vicki Hearne’s book Adam’s Task: Calling Animals by Name, in which she emphasizes the importance of giving a pet a distinctive individual name—I call them Scruffy and Baldy.

PRETTY WOMAN

All cats are beautiful, and they know it . . . including my cat, Honey, who recently posed herself (obviously for comparative purposes) next to a cover photo of Julia “Pretty Woman” Roberts.