York Corner
YORK BEACH - Last Saturday at midday we popped in on impulse at Roy and June Johnson's Rocky Acres Farm produce stand on Ridge Road, and there we found Roy and their son, Randy, up on the roof, readying it to do some reshingling, while June tooled back and forth from the house in her golf cart, tending to cooking in the house in order to replenish supplies of her old stand-bys at the stand - most notably her home-baked beans and homemade (with a secret ingredient) potato salad.
With great strength of will we resisted an enticing tray of fresh-baked chocolate-chip cookies she'd just set out under a sign on a wall reading, "Plant Kindness, Harvest Love" and turned, instead, to interview two customers who'd just picked some of June's flowers.
They proved to be Erika and Chuck Wilcox - and what stories they had to tell! Boston residents, they said that they were repeat visitors in town just for the day, and that, when they're working, Erika was a flight attendant and Chuck, a computer animator.
Erika had just the merest trace of an accent that we couldn't place, so one of the first questions we asked next was where she hailed from originally.
The answer: Stuttgart, Germany.
Then we wanted to know how she'd learned such flawless English.
The answer: Her father was in the navy, so she traveled a lot - to Japan and the U.S.A., among other places, and she ended up going to college at Principia, in Elsah, Ill.
Erika, cheerful and forthcoming, then volunteered that Chuck's job was actually at the Planetarium of the Museum of Science in Boston, and that he teaches astronomy classes there - which fact, she added, led to their first meeting, when she enrolled in one of those classes.
Subsequently, she said, after he came to a memorial service for the 9/11 victims of the United Airlines and American Airlines flights involved, they began dating, and they were married just last spring, on March 4.
Each year for the past four or so, Erika said, they've been coming to Rocky Acres to pick flowers, and to talk with June who, they discovered, has a daughter living in Germany, whom she visits periodically. This year, Erika reported, June, learning that Chuck and Erika were newlyweds, gave them their bouquet, gratis.
Beaming, Erika said of June's place, "It reminds me of my grandfather's place in Germany. He grew flowers for his wife - every kind."
His name was Felix, and hers, Anna, and their last name Bluhm, she added, spelled blum in German, means "flower."
The Bluhms fled their native Prussia in advance of the Russian invasion to settle in Esslingen, Erika said, and there he worked in the court system and was granted a plot of land to grow food for his family.
"So we had food from that," she enthused. "I grew up with fresh vegetables, fruit - and flowers."
Erika prodded Chuck to speak of his own background.
His parents, Jack and Valerie Wilcox, he said, both worked at Boston's Museum of Science, where they met - Jack as an electrical engineer involved in building, and Valerie as a one who gave shows and lectures.
Valerie would go on to become a park ranger, interpreting at venues that included the islands of Boston Harbor, Olmstead Park in Brookline, Mass., and Minuteman Park in Concord. Now retired, she worked for 10 years before her retirement as director of a plastics museum in Leominster, Mass.
Jack Wilcox, Chuck reported, became a radio recording engineer in Iowa, in Mason City, the "River City" of native Meredith Willson's "The Music Man," where there's a square dedicated to Willson. Now also retired, Jack has worked as an Internet service provider, and served as public information officer for a nearby fire department. Still in Mason City, he's also an active participant in a 150-member barbershop chorus. ("Barbershop is big in mid-country," Chuck said.)
Chuck, himself, he added, went to work at Boston's Museum of Science right after graduation in 1985 from Middlebury College and has remained there.
Our wide-ranging conversation led Erika to tell us that she'd worked once for two years in Stuttgart, bringing her bilingual skills to Cars International, which sold cars to military personnel. In that capacity, she got to drive them all, she said, "Fiats, Volvos, Alfa Romeos, Mercedes, Porsches."
And there, she told us in passing, all the taxis and buses are Mercedes.
When we got around to asking Erika about the current life of a flight attendant, she said, first, that she wasn't allowed to say what airline she worked for. But we eventually noticed that the pink blouse she was wearing said the name right across the front - and we laughed at the fact that she really hadn't told us.
Flight attending, Erika said, getting serious, is not at all what it used to be. In her time, she's flown to all the continents, she said - all of them. Now, however, the hours and trips are longer and more frequent, there's less time between flights and there have been pay cuts and pension-plan failures.
That last, Erika said, "is hard on people," especially those close to retirement.
Additionally, she said, flight attendants now have to go through the same security check that passengers do, and while she dubs the procedures "good," they add time and work to days already lengthened.
Attendants also must be trained in security measures involving the public, and often the public is not understanding or appreciative.
"Everything we say to the passengers is for a reason," she said, "and sometimes they don't like it."
Children, babies and those who don't speak English, she said, citing examples, are no longer allowed to sit near emergency exits, and those passengers who do are asked if they'll be willing to help should an emergency arise. Luggage must be stowed under seats or in bins, and passengers must remain seated when asked to - even if the seat-belt light has gone off.
Speaking to that last situation, Erika said, "They don't realize how dangerous standing is. … They could fall on an attendant and hurt her, and then the attendant, trained to help in emergencies, would be unable to help anybody."
Last Saturday, however, Erika and Chuck were headed away from such concerns. They left Rocky Acres with some strawberries and blueberries in addition to their flowers, and they thought they might stop for some kisses at The Goldenrod, and maybe eat at the Cape Neddick Lobster Pound before hitting the Marginal Way in Ogunquit, where Chuck, who paints in oils and draws in pastels, thought he might do some sketching.
It was the most beautiful day for that, and we wished them the very best in it.
