Uncle Carmine was born on the Lower East Side. His wife Jane hailed from Maine. She called Cumberland Falls the last place God created. It’s a good 10 hours drive from East 11th Street. Carmine’s death wish was to be buried overlooking Schoonic Bay on Columbus Day. Jane’s old man gave up the ghost in the summer of 2002. I was in Thailand. Friends and family traveled north for his eternal internment in the stony soil of Maine. I shared driving Jane’s Cherokee Jeep with her nephew Rick. We didn’t let Steve, her cousin from Montana, touch the wheel. His glasses were thick as the bottom of a wine bottle.

The October weather went Indian Summer for the long weekend. The cemetery was surrounded by blueberry fields. A flag pole was twenty feet from his grave. His ashes were accompanied by those of his dogs. Their eternal companionship was the result of Jane’s mixing up the urns. No was quite sure who was who. We tossed dirt on the coffin. No one mentioned ‘god’. Carmine would have wanted it that way.

After the service we drove over to Acadia National Park. I was the guide. First stop was Sand Beach. One other car was in the parking lot. We walked down the to beach. The sand is really the fragments of broken shells dropped by seagulls onto the rocky shore. They date back to the end of the Ice Age. A lone couple approached our group. Older. Well-off. Familiar.

Martha Stewart.

American icon. Success. Money. TV power house. Cooking. Decor. Good taste.

All threatened by a SCC investigation for insider trading.

Martha was on the run and we recognized her as a woman on the run. She pulled up her coat collar. The gesture proved her guilt and several months later she served a five-month bolt. As a new fish she held her mud and came out of prison a new woman. the media has yet to re-embrace their star, however this week the Tourism Authority of Thailand shelled out hard cash to the ex-con for the promotion of the troubled country’s good points; food, flowers, and decor.

Thailand wants women.

Old foreign women seeking rebirth to counter the nation’s image as a sex destination.

My Thai men friends are constantly asking to meet a ‘farang puying’.

Sex.

Not culture is on their agenda.

And maybe Martha Stewart has the same thing in mind.

“Older woman seeks Thai male for companionship’.

10,000 strong. Week by week.

500,000 per annum.

Everyone will be happy.

Especially Martha Stewart.

Believe me, I won’t throw any stones.