Elenka and I first drove through Galway, then through Copenhagen. But it wasn’t until we made our way through Russia and on into Poland that we came to an abrupt halt. The town hall, smack dab in the centre of Poland calls itself the Russian Town Hall. If we had have been smoking marijuana we’d have been in for the grandest fugue of our lives; these European cities and countries were all within the state of New York. No wonder the Yanks are so good at geography.  

In 2008, while staying at Mark’s Place on Playa Hermosa in Costa Rica, Elenka and I met Paul and Vickie from Pittsfield, Massachusetts and have been friends ever since. A couple of months ago, after just 18 years of living together, they decided to join in wedlock. And that is what set us off on our European journey through the state of New York. 

Pittsfield is situated in the historic Berkshire highlands of Western Massachusetts. The wedding was a wonderful outdoor event, held at a grand estate called Holmesdale, the former mansion of Oliver Wendell Holmes, which is now owned by friends of Vickie and Paul. Just down the street is Arrowhead, where Herman Melville penned ‘Moby Dick.’ And a few doors away, Melville’s  neighbour, Nathaniel Hawthorne wrote, ‘House of the Seven Gables.’ Ten kilometres south, my all-time favourite artist Norman Rockwell sketched his Saturday Evening Post covers. And a hop-skip-and-a-jump from there singer/songwriter James Taylor may have written ‘Fire and Rain.’ It was all too much for Elenka and I to take in.

When it was all said and done I quietly hauled Vickie aside and asked her if Elenka and I were the only two arseholes at the wedding. A smile came to her face. A few years ago I’d written a tale saying that bad Canadians were called arseholes, that the assholes all lived south of the border. She’d remembered, and told me that as far as she could make out there was only one A-hole at the wedding.