ABSTRACT
The tradition has always been that arriving parties pull into the parking lot at Shep Brown’s Boat Basin or the Y landing and call from the pay phone to the cottage on Bear Island. It’s just a few minutes by boat from my parents’ dock to the mainland. There was a period of time, dating back at least to the 1970s, when pay phones in New Hampshire required that you put the dime in after you had dialed the number, not before, and this often created confusion for guests. The solution was that if the phone rang and no one was on the other end, you hopped in the boat and headed to the mainland.
