I’ve lived in Boston, Providence, Washington, New York City (three times), Dallas, Atlantic City, and Philadelphia. I have eaten a lot of good food in many different, beautiful restaurants.

But I thought last night that the best meal I’ve ever had was at Billy T’s Northside Dairy Bar.

Two things happened a few months ago while getting ice cream there (our favorite ice cream place). One was that I finally took the risk and ordered Lobster Roll (what was a lobster roll doing in an ice cream place in Bennington, Vt.?

Maria, looking through the ordering window, turned to me.

“Have you noticed that women back there training a new employee? She is so nice to her!” I watched and saw that it was true. The woman, clearly in charge,  assured the nervous girl that we all make mistakes, and there’s nothing wrong with that. In a couple of minutes, she and the new and very young employee were joking, and the young woman was relaxed and working.

 

(Brooke and Maria talking blogs.)

 

I was taking photos of the place, as I often do – it is seething with character- and when the order came (it was, to my surprise, the best lobster roll I had ever had, and I eat them every time I can there), the boss sent one of her employees out to ask me if I would do her boss a favor and take her picture too.

I was surprised by happy. The boss had a lot of charisma; I could see that. She had a great twinkle in her eye.

I said sure, and the boss – her name is Brooke,  her mother owns Billy T’s, and she has been running it. She and I started talking. Brooke immediately stood out to me – she is open, direct, and charismatic.

Bit by bit, we heard her compelling story.

Billy T was her father, who died when she was very young, and she found herself running not only Billy T’s but also the bowling alley next door. She rose to the moment and has made them both work.

It was a ton of responsibility for someone in her 20s. Both have been successful. It was not the path she would have chosen for herself, but she threw herself into it.

She is in her early forties now, and her mother is selling Billy’s (damn, just when I found a nearby place to get great lobster rolls! I hope the new owners meet Pappa J.)  and the bowling alley. She wants to try something new and has two young children she wants to get to know and care for.

She wants to find a dream and follow it. She sees it as a new beginning, not an end.

I can relate to that, and so can Maria.

I finally got the story about the lobster rolls.

The lobster roll, it turns out, comes from a family friend named Poppa J, a lobster fisherman in Maine. No wonder the lobster is so fresh and good. The lobster comes straight from a lobster fishing boat.

I grew up in New England and knew and loved a good lobster roll. Brooke has pulled it off; her ice cream and dairy barn make the best lobster roll I’ve ever had. It’s simple, fresh and mouth-watering, made as it should be, in a fresh roll with butter.

 

The lobstermen are in awful shape now; China, their biggest market, is no longer buying lobsters because of the pandemic, and many lobstermen face losing their homes and boats and work.

As Brooke opened up and told me about her life – she and Maria connected instantly  – I told her she needed to start a blog and tell her a remarkable story to the world.

Running Billy T’s and a bowling alley and being brave enough to chart a new life is a great story, and Brooke is a great storyteller.

She gave me the usual stuff people give me about blogs – they never did well in English class, they are nervous when they write – but this is bs. We got into it.

I told her about Maria’s story and how she overcame many difficulties and was terrified to start her own blog. I thought Maria was timid once. She wasn’t and isn’t.

I told Brooke she could learn a lot from her.

Maria’s blog is a great success, both in terms of her personal self-awareness and in terms of sharing her wonderful and popular art and selling it. The blog is a powerful outlet for her creativity – words, videos, photographs, sketches, stories, the sharing of a life.

My blog has become the centerpiece of my creative life and for my own spiritual searching as well.

I am a better person because of it.

We are both grateful for our blogs and couldn’t live our lives without them.

Brooke has been through a lot and handled it with grace and love, and despite her entirely false modesty (she is bristling with confidence), she tells her story well and powerfully. It should be shared, I said, especially right now, as she is in her own transition.

She is not timid. She has worked hard to be good, treat people well rather than complain and wallow in self-pity. To me, that is admirable; that is a good story to tell.

True storytellers are rare; they should be telling their stories.

It wasn’t just the food that made the night so special, although the food and ice cream were very good. It was the whole thing, the whole context – Maria insisting on taking me there for my birthday (lobster rolls are not cheap), Brooke’s friendship, the strange connection a lobster roll had made.

There was a lot of love and a good feeling in the evening. I loved every minute of it, and this was perhaps the most memorable birthday celebration ever.

Brooke is a brave woman who stepped up to help her family and now wants to chart her course. She’s not one to sit on her laurels. She can make a blog work, and Maria told her the same thing.

The next thing I knew, the two sat down to talk about blogs, life changes, and creativity. She wanted to know how Maria had put together her blog and made it work for her.

The two have a lot in common. Me too.

 

Brooke wants to keep working; she’s looking for something creative to do.

She said she’d been offered a job as a school greeter, but we both agreed that wouldn’t be challenging enough for her. She is used to being “Queen Of The Castle,” as she said.

I suspect she will soon be another one.

She told her story to the right people, I think; we plan to stay in touch, she’s coming to the farm with her kids to meet the donkeys, and I’ll be buying lobster rolls  (she gave me a plat of giant-bellied clams also, which I love) at least through the Fall.

Brook says she may have a buyer for Billy T’s; negotiations are underway. I hope they are as decent and warm as Brooke, Billy T’s is a special place, and Brooke made it that way.

We have crossed paths with Brooke and entered one another’s lives. She is someone I mean to stay in touch with and follow. Stay tuned. She will have a lot more stories to tell. I hope to tell hers.

It’s what I do.