Date: 2005-06-22
From: Hanover, NH; Dartmouth College

To: Hane's; Essex, VT
Miles today: 0.0

Contributing Editor, Hane Tarris. Date; June 22, 2005. Alexis, Ella, Luca, and I pulled into Hanover, NH today around 11:30am to pick up Jude. I was really excited to see him. I called him 10 minutes prior to our arrival to tell him we were close. He told me he was on the edge of the Dartmouth campus green on a bench waiting for us. The green is a rectangular grassy area on campus where students relax, hang out, or play. It's about the size of three football fields. We pulled in on one side of the green and scanned the benches where we saw a person lying on a bench. There was also a bunch of stuff scattered around in front of the bench. We were about 100 yards away and could not really tell if it was Jude, but there weren't any other benches occupied, so it must have been him. We had to pull around to see him, but could not stop because he was near a street with no parking, so I drove by him, beeped, and yelled to him to walk to the other side of the green. He was lying across the bench and it was his pack and his sleeping bag all spread out in front of him on the ground. Seeing him lying there on the bench reminded me of something I've seen many times. He looked EXACTLY like a homeless person. He looked dirty. He looked hairy. He looked tired. He looked like he didn't care about anything. He looked like the bums we see in any city park. As most bums do, Jude claimed his bench. And as most people do, there was no-one near the stinky bum. We parked the Jeep and got the girls out. Jude picked up his pack and kind of twirled his sleeping bag around his arm, then walked across the green toward us. I don't want to say that all insects, birds and grass died from Jude Stench as he walked, but that's what I pictured. As he got within a few feet we were all smiles and Ella (3.5 years old) was excited to see him.I preplanned not to hug him because I thought he'd be smelly. When he got closer I decided to not even shake his hand. Damn he smelled!!! And I think we were down wind. This also may have been the first time Luca cried when she saw Jude. Poor Luca literally cried every time she looked at him during the two days he stayed with us. I can't blame her.... she's only 3.5 months old and looking at Jude had to be the scariest thing that has ever happened to her.... including the birth process itself. Anyway, we exchanged hello's and I introduced him formally to Luca, who was born just a couple of weeks prior to Jude's AT departure in Georgia. We hung out for a few minutes in the green and then decided to get lunch at a local restaurant. The more we talked with him the more he smelled. This is the kind of smell that I think would occur if he peed himself for ten straight days and then rolled around in deer poop. His hair actually looked like he styled it with trail dirt and leaves. There were seriously little pieces of stuff all over in his hair.... and like most bums, Jude didn't care. And he obviously could not smell himself. He told me he went to a restroom and wiped out his armpits for us. It smelled like he wiped them out with one of Ella's diapers. So, we put Jude's pack in the back of the Jeep, I gave him a clean shirt to wear, and off to lunch we went. Jude was not in a good mood, by the way. He came across as a combo of tired and angry.... and, did I mention stinky. We had a nice lunch. I sat next to Stinky. He ate meat loaf. He stank. The hostess didn't sit anyone else near our table. Near the end of lunch Luca got cranky and Ella had to pee. Alexis took Ella to the restroom and I was handling Luca. Luca got worse and I was trying to pay the bill and get out of there with Stinky. The waitress was really slow and Luca was getting really loud, so I asked Stinky to take her (she was in her car seat) outside and swing her a little. Alexis and Ella returned from the restroom just as I paid and the three of us left only to see Jude outside with Luca and she was even more upset. And he was trying to swing her or do whatever he could to settle her down. He looked like he stole her. Hanover is an nice town and its residents are all upper middle class and above. And then there's Smelly Jude trying to calm a mad baby while the people of Hanover watch. Luca was cranky because she was hungry. Alexis took her to the Jeep to nurse her. Jude, Ella and I hung out on Main Street in Hanover. After 20 minutes we went to the Jeep, where we saw all of it's windows down and Alexis throwing up (not really, but I think she wanted to). We knew Jude would be smelly and he was. What we didn't know was that his pack would be equally as bad... and we left it in the Jeep for an hour in the 90-degree heat with the windows up. No wonder Luca does not like Jude. Ella, Jude and I played in the green for about 10 minutes, where Jude would play chase with Ella (ever see a bum chase a 3 year old??). We then all loaded into the Jeep for what would be the most miserable 90-minute ride of our lives (except Jude, who could not smell himself or his pack). We tried to ride with the windows up and down. Half up. All windows up and the AC on high. Jude in the front, Jude in the back. Jude on the roof. Nothing worked. Oh God it smelled. It was so bad that it wasn't even funny. Luca cried a lot... she had to sit next to Smelly. We made it home. Jude spread his stuff out on the driveway and washed it all down with the hose. It didn't matter. Then Jude got a shower and he still stank. He stank after two days, a haircut (poor hairdresser) and three showers. We knew he'd stink, but oh lord this was bad. Later that night we threw a football around and watched the sunset over Lake Champlain. Then I took Stinky to Nectar's, the bar in Burlington where Phish got started. We watched two bands and drank beer like we were still in college. The good news was that all that beer made me forget how stinky Stinky was. Jude - I had fun. See you in Maine.