In 1976, Canadian tourists flocked to Old Orchard, Maine, for summer vacations. I'm not sure if this is still true, but in that year, almost everyone I met there was from Canada. There are lots of touristy attractions, but the top of the list is the beach. Or possibly crab cakes. Someone I met on my travels had told me I had to have crab cakes in Old Orchard, which I think is how I ended up there. I bought some crab cakes at a fast food walk-up window and found a nearby bench to sit for my feast. They were fried to perfection and very tasty. It was nice when eating those kinds of treats didn't come with any nutritional information downers and guilty feelings about carbs or fat.
By the time I had zigzagged through New England to Old Orchard, Maine, my voice was totally shredded from the cold I had caught a week earlier, but that didn't stop me from playing my guitar and singing songs. I had learned new songs from different places I had been, and I think I was much better than when I started the trip, although based on how bad my wife says I sound years later, I probably annoyed more people than I pleased. Nonetheless, this was how I usually met people on my trip. In this case, a French Canadian girl with black curly hair started talking to me in broken English. Eventually, her friends came over to join us, and it turned out she was there with another couple and a guy. I got the impression that the couple had brought friends hoping they would hit it off, which they hadn't. The four were heading back to their camping spot, and the curly haired brunette invited me to join them. As I had no other plans for the evening, it sounded good to me.
Around the campfire that night, they asked me to play some more songs, and at that time, I always loved to accommodate anyone who wanted to hear me or, even better, sing or play along. After a few songs, the guy from the couple said in a strong French accent, "I can't believe we ran into someone who sings like Zho Cock-air." I had to laugh and tell them that I only sounded that way because I had a cold, but then I went into a hammy Joe Cocker version of "With a Little Help From My Friends."
As the night grew later, and they shared more of their beer with me, I had the unmistakeable impression that the curly haired girl might be romantically interested in me. She was trying to teach me French phrases, many of which were somewhat provocative, and I could tell that it was making the guy with whom she had been matched for the evening angry. Rather than make an awkward situation more so, I didn't pursue her, which may or may not have been the right thing to do under the circumstances. I think I was hoping I would find her crawling into my sleeping bag later that night, like the "girl in a parking lot" from the Paul Simon song "Duncan," but she never did. The next morning, they shared a great breakfast with me, and I was off again, but not before snapping a photo of these fun companions whose names I no longer recall.
These friendly French Canadians made me want to visit their home country, and my bus pass was for the US and Canada, so I headed to Montreal. 
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