Of how the tour guide hated us 'cause she thought we were queer. Yes, friends, this here is the Henry Wadsworth Longfellow house, and while we were waiting for the tour to begin, the tour guide asked all the couples where they were from, that is, except for me and Lizzie. It was very obvious, and this lovely couple from Nebraska turned to us and said "well we want to know where you're from," and we said "Boston," and they said "well now at least we know!"
I find it extra strange that this guide found the thought of mine and Lizzie's "relationship" so uncomfortable (she studiously avoided eye contact with us the whole hour we were jammed into the house) when she is so in love with Henry and his sister Anne's loving relationship. They were very close, and I am positive that the guide ships them in her Longfellow incest fanfiction which she most definitely writes.
So little Henry grew up in this house here, and when he was 13, he wrote his first poem and anonymously submitted it to the local newspaper. He only told his sister Anne, who was 10 at the time, and she kept his secret, which stunned our tour guide. Poor little Henry was over a neighbor's house while the neighbor read the poem, and declared it to be unoriginal, dull, and even plagiarized. It's amazing that he ever wrote again. Henry went to Bowdoin College, studied in Europe, and then came back to teach at Bowdoin. He was offered a job at Harvard after the Modern Language prof retired, and went to Europe with his wife in the meantime, who unfortunately died from complications of a miscarriage while they were there. At the same time, a horrible typhus epidemic (not to be confused with typhoid. They are the Portsmouth/Portland of disease. Also, our tour guide had this bizarre habit of over enunciating certain parts of words...TYPHus. SHE HAD the TYPHus.) killed sister Anne's husband. Henry came back and wrote some sad poetry (into every life a little rain must fall). While Anne never married again, Henry spent seven years courting Fanny Appleton after moving to Cambridge for his Harvard job, often walking across the Boston bridge from Cambridge to her house on Beacon hill. Boston bridge was eventually replaced with what today is the salt-and-pepper shaker bridge, j/k the Longfellow bridge. It kind of creeps me out how persistent he was in his chasing of Fanny, but she eventually gave in, and they married, and had a bunch of kiddos. Unfortunately, Fanny, while cutting off locks of her daughters' hair and sealing them in envelopes with hot wax, caught her dress on fire with an errant match, and though Henry was able to put out the flames with a rug, she fell into a coma and died, and he burned his face and was never able to shave again, hence the giant beard. Good times.
So the Portland house here was as it had been in the 1850s, and had many paintings of Henry, and one bust, which our tour guide had a huge crush on. (She wasn't as big a fan of the paintings which made him look like he had 'a bulbous nose and Angelia Jolie lips.' So judgey, this one.) The flooring in the hallway was an old sail from a tallship, which had been painted and shellacked, (as had been the wallpaper in the kitchen) making it easy to clean. The house was chilly, and apparently the kids got shuffled up to the third floor as it was unheated, and screw you, kids.
I think we all know what a huge nerd I am, but this tour went on way too long, even for me, and it was super claustrophobic because they were trying to fit way too many people in the narrow rooms. Also, as Lizzie noted, someone seemed to have peed their pants, as there was a distinct "someone peed their pants" smell. In any case, poor Henry Wadsworth Longfellow had an interesting life, but one with lots of tragedy, so I totally forgive him for making everyone believe historical inaccuracies. William Dawes and Samuel Prescott still may be like "What about us? Paul Revere is totes overrated."
After wandering around Portland for a while longer, including the Maine Historical Society which had an oddly commercial exhibit on electricity, we headed south, dithering around in Old Orchard Beach for a while (the pier and amusement park are already in full swing) before heading to York Beach for dinner. My Dad used to take my sisters and me to York Beach for a week each summer when we were kids, and my sister Danielle, being a germaphobe, was always grossed out by the games at the FUN O RAMA arcade. I told Lizzie not to touch anything as she walked through, and she said "licking only." After dinner, we went up to Nubble Point, and the sun came out just in time for it to set. When we see you next we'll be in the Dakotas--just next month! Until then, don't any of you set your dresses on fire.
