Mosquitoes in Paradise
by E. Noel Preston, MD

   Susan and Marilyn have been best friends since they were in kindergarten together in Cedar Rapids, Iowa. Marilyn and her husband, Jack, now live in Chicago, and the four of us stay in fairly close touch. We send each other goofy Christmas presents and have been on vacations together in Mexico. We stay with them when we visit Susan's 99 year-old mother-in-law in Chicago, and they stay with Susan their first night when they come to Atlanta every spring to see one of their sons. Marilyn was the first person I called when Susan had her heart attack, and the four of us are good friends. Jack's mother left him a wonderful 150-year-old house near Boothbay Harbor, Maine, that sits on the rocks overlooking the Atlantic Ocean and has been in his family for generations. When Jack and Marilyn retired, they started living in Maine from the first of May through the middle of October. For the last several years Susan and I have spent a long weekend every summer visiting them, and each time has been pure pleasure.

   Susan's heart attack was in mid-June two years ago, and amazingly, we were able to visit them only a few months later in August. Susan had had the heart attack, but I was in a state of near collapse. That long summer weekend was the most healing, restorative, restful, comforting time of my life. I woke up every morning to the sound of seagulls arguing over the fish the lobstermen threw them from their boats just outside my window, and had blueberry pancakes, blueberry muffins, or blueberries in my Cheerios every day for breakfast. The air was cool and clear, the days were bright and sunny, the night sky was so dark you could see every star ever made, and the soft, distant sounds of the foghorns and the occasional clangs from the ocean buoys were better than any sleeping pill. Every year Susan and I wondered what would it be like to stay an entire summer, and this year I asked Jack to find out about rental houses for next year. I even bought a book about Moving to Maine, which was about income and property taxes, auto and voter registration, township government, demographic data, community resources, and other matters a prospective resident might need to know.

   But life is what happens when you're making plans, and five weeks ago Jack and Marilyn had to fly back to Chicago because their other son, an otherwise healthy 42-year-old, suddenly had a stroke from a dissecting carotid artery aneurysm. He survived, thank heavens, but has been in a rehabilitation hospital relearning how to walk, speak, and use his arm, hand, and fingers. Jack and Marilyn had been in Chicago ever since and flew back to Maine the same day Susan and I arrived -- we even drove up together from the Portland airport in the same car.

   The problem with greener pastures is that someone has to mow them. Marilyn is the newly elected president of the homeowners' association and the very next day after we arrived, people were asking her about the same sort of things people go to Maine to get away from! The water pipe at the tennis courts has sprung a leak, there's water on the street, and the town is going to shut off the water if the leak isn't repaired in the next 14 days. The town shuts off everybody's water October 15 because the water pipes can't be buried under the solid rock formations and the first hard freeze usually hits before the first of November -- so to keep the pipes from bursting in winter, the town shuts off the water (year-round residents have their own wells). Some of the homeowners want to delay repairing the pipe until the water is shut off for the winter, but the women's exercise gymnastics class, which uses the tennis courts wants to keep the water on. Last winter a storm knocked down the boat pier in front of the hotel and a new pier will cost $300,000. The hotel doesn't want to pay to replace it, but the town will build a replacement pier if the hotel will cede 35 feet of property on the waterfront to the town. The hotel at first agreed, and then some of the homeowners were afraid a new pier would attract large tourist boats and require more parking spaces and cause more congestion and traffic and ruin the neighborhood, so they persuaded the hotel to withdraw its agreement. The other people in the neighborhood are angry because now they have no way to use their boats. And on and on it went -- one tedious, boring annoyance after another.

   Judith Viorst wrote a wonderful book for and about her youngest child, Alexander and the Terrible Horrible No Good Very Bad Day. Alexander was upset because he woke up with gum in his hair, didn't get a prize in his cereal box, and his mother had said there would be lima beans for dinner. He was so mad he decided to go to Australia, where things would surely be better. But poor Alexander! He learned that bad days can happen anywhere, even in Australia, and since we can't escape them, we might as well muddle through them and maybe even try (at some point) to laugh about them.

   But I've had enough bad days and don't want to muddle through any more of them. When I was a brand new medical student at Grady Hospital there was a cartoon on the laboratory bulletin board that showed a brand new slave being brought on board a Viking warship. The slave was remarking "What a magnificent boat! Whatever makes it go?" And so while I admire and respect the people who serve as leaders of neighborhood and homeowner groups (and was one myself several years ago), I've paid my dues and served my time. I might rent a house on Maine's wonderful, beautiful rocky coast, but I don't think I would want to own one. There's nothing like being able to close your suitcase, walk out the door, and leave your (and everyone else's) troubles behind.

E. Noel Preston, M.D. is a pediatrician in solo practice in Peachtree Corners. 6063 Peachtree Parkway, Suite 202-A, Norcross. (770) 448-1553.

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