OUT
THERE
Sincerely, a Mystery
A10-year practical joke ends with c
man, a plan, and a stretch limo gliding upto DiMillo's Floating Restaurant
BY WILLIAM DAVID BARRY
pfMifii
ven when the limo pulled up to our unfashionable Dow Street rent and the impeccably tailored young man gestured us inside, I still had no idea who R.U. Shore was, or for that matter what the hell was happening in our usually calm little world. But here my wife, Debra, and I were, on September 11,1993, all dressed up, with invitations in hand, being driven off to a private party at DiMillo's Floating Restaurant, sponsored by an aged, mysterious benefactor who had been stalking me by mail and phone for the better part of a decade. I had never personally met the individual in question, who went by the doubt¬ ful name of R.U. Shore, and 1 had been trying, ever so politely, to scrape him off my mailing list since 1984.1 lowever, like the Energizer bunny, R.U. kept on drop¬ ping his charming, annoying, and strange little presentations, over my continued protests. It all began after my old high school friend Randy Dominic and I teamed up to write an historical novel about people in Revolutionary War era Falmouth Neck (now Portland). The book, Pyrrhus Venture (Atlantic Monthly Press, 1983), had a generous local launching, respectful regional reviews, and some encour¬ aging fan mail. One of these missives (June 12,1984) came specifically to me, with historical questions, purporting to be from an aged man living in tire Kelly Home in Brooklyn, New York. The letter talked about the novel a bit and how it reminded him of Portland, Peaks Island, and tire last days of commercial sail r in the 1920s. The correspondence seemed odd but plausible, so I answered as I would any other, and there followed a trickle of friendly epistles along with leather-bound odd volumes, photographs of Shore's early days, and medal(Continued on page 88)
50 PORTLAND MONTHLY MAGAZINE
^*1984
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