Standing in line at the harbor to catch our boat tour of the lighthouses and Puffins, we realized it was going to be a while. A Puffin, to me, looks like nature had a little fun. The peculiar bird is like a cross between a penguin, duck, and parrot. Go figure.
Waiting on the dock in a long line, we couldn’t help but hear the story Ralph was telling his fellow seniors. At first, Ralph looked like an average kind of older fella who just blended with the crowd. He had a classic business-tourist look. A gentleman with class. When he began chatting it up for the ladies, he was in his own element. And they hung on to his every word. We all did—anyone in hearing distance. Ralph was a polished storyteller. His comedic timing was spot-on. He knew how to command his audience. And though he focused on his travel crew, you just knew darn well he was aware of the wider audience. His voice projected with this growing knowledge.
He was a delightful man by all accounts. A people pleaser.
When he finished, his crowd showed their appreciation, and then everything went back to the normal waiting game in line.
Surprisingly, Ralph turned away from his group and toward my wife and me. He was a well-traveled businessman in his day, and though he looked more like a private kind of guy, he was a talker. We were new meat, someone to tell his story to who hadn’t heard it before. A captive audience at that.
We learned about his career at Texas Instruments and the twelve places he lived. It was all quite interesting, to be honest, and it helped the time go by faster.
But his eyes lit up, and his voice reached a fevered sales pitch when he told us about the greatest little coffee shop just inland. He went on and on about the incredibly expensive coffee machine, their old-school process, and other details before winking and saying he was an investor.
The line began to move, so he finished up the chat once we promised we’d check out the coffee shop on our way home later in the week.
The Puffin tour paid off bigtime. Our guide said it was one of the best sightings of the weird-looking birds she’d seen. The three-and-a-half-hour boat ride on choppy waters had the seasoned tour guide spotting the turning stomachs. She gave some pointers to turn the tide before it was too late. When she took a break from her narrative, she beelined to me to ask if I was okay.
I lied and said yes.
Days later, on our way out of Acadia the following morning, we were in no rush to end our vacation. We laughed at the thought of ole Ralph’s sales pitch and decided to find the coffee shop to juice up for the road. We were expecting a big place abuzz with people in the commercial end of town. But our GPS took us down a residential road.
We thought this can’t be right.
Then, the electronic voice told us we had arrived. I pulled to the curb and looked across the street. The cute little coffee shop was inside a converted garage in front of a house. We pulled into the driveway and went inside.
There was a man busy behind the counter tending to his expensive coffee machine.
He didn’t notice us enter. Nobody else was around.
So I exclaimed, “Ralph sent us!”
The young man stood upright, surprised to see us—customers.
Shaking his head, he said, “Of course, Ralph sent you. He tells everyone he meets that he’s an investor. Or, in my case, my father-in-law.”
By Frank Rocco Satullo, The OhioTraveler, Your Tour Guide to Fun!
