A Brewed Awakening

“Pull your hair back, wear closed-toed shoes and a shirt with sleeves,” Sara the barista tells me over the phone. If she thinks I’m showing up for my first-ever shift as a barista in huarache sandals, a tank top and a free-flowing mullet, she’s got me all wrong. I’ve been dreaming of this day for a while, and I don’t dream in hairnets and flabby underarms.

I meet Sara Judy early the next morning as she’s opening up. Sara opens every morning at True Brew Barista, one of Concord’s true coffee houses and my home, off and on, for the next few days. I’m here to learn the ropes –to get a dollop of what it’s like to be a barista, to grind and brew some beans, make frozen drinks and try to look as calm and competent as Sarah and her coworkers do every time I’m in here.

True Brew hit the scene in 2009, when Rob and Steph Zinser opened the doors in Bicentennial Square to Concord’s coffee and tea drinkers who’d grown sick of the drive-thru selections, tired of the gas station varieties and bored with every-day home brewed beverages. True Brew’s been offering espresso, drip coffee and every variation in between ever since, not to mention more tea than a man can drink in one lifetime.

Sara’s been a barista at True Brew since the summer of 2010, when she came to Concord in pursuit of her then-boyfriend, now-husband and co-worker Sean Ring. Sara hails from a town of 650 people on the prairies of Saskatchewan, Canada. “People love to talk to baristas,” she says, “and working here really helped me connect with the community.” And she means it. She and her husband Sean are so connected to this community of coffee drinkers that they held their wedding ceremony earlier this summer right out front of True Brew in the brick and fountain-adorned Square. “I’d live upstairs if there was an open apartment,” she says with a laugh.

About five minutes into the shift, it’s clear Sara’s customers feel that same connection – evident by the variation of the stink eye I’m getting from all of them. “Who’s this lurker? Why is he distracting my Sara? I bet he drinks decaf!” They eye me with contempt so I retreat into the shadows until Sara’s ready for me.

Now the lesson begins. Sara shows me how to prep, clean, grind, measure, tamp, brew, assess and pour a double shot of espresso, emphasizing the importance of never letting stray grinds into the brew. She cleans the handle, and after filling it, she has a lightning-quick habit of pressing down into the grind and tapping the sides to shake away any loose grounds. “The trick is to apply just enough pressure – too much and your espresso’s bitter; not enough and you have a mess.” She says this as “pulls” the shot and smacks the handle against the knock box, clearing out the hot grinds to get ready for the next double shot. She later explains that the quality of the espresso can be judged a few ways – first, you can see if your puck – the spent grounds – hold together as you “knock the puck into the box.” Secondly, just after the espresso shot’s been pulled, you can see what the “crema” looks like. The crema’s the tan-colored foam on the top of the shot, the liquid folding in and around itself as the hot liquid settles in the shot glass.

I try and pull a double shot of dark roast, knocking a so-so puck into the box as the crema envelopes the sides of my glass. “Apply more pressure next time,” Sara tells me. I drink the espresso fast and try again and again, drinking everything I pull. Sara told me that one of the benefits of working at True Brew is having all the coffee I want. I’m taking full advantage of this, at least until my heart gives out. It’s not quite 8:30 in the morning, and I’ve had enough caffeine to stop a rhino, win an MMA bout and watch The View simultaneously.

Sara doesn’t say things I thought baristas would say. Instead of statements like, “Decaf cap with a double hazelnut shot,” or “Dry macchiato extra hot skinny with vanilla,” she says things like, “All the vegans I know are chain smokers,” and “They call me ‘The Giant.’”

Everything about True Brew is groovy – from the seven-foot Viking to the chalkboard menus to the vaguely atonal acoustic music you can barely hear above the hiss of the steaming milk. Specialty drinks like the Bikini Bottom, Phrosty Penguin and the Fluffy Bunny compete with a roster of teas for attention. This place is a real tea party, minus the angry pensioners on Medicare-funded scooters. Where else in town can you choose between the Paimutan Peony, Russian Caravan and Green Mango, not to be outdone by the Dragonswell, a cup of iced Blood Orange or the ever-inscrutable Lapsong Sauchang?

I don’t recall how my training shift ended except I remember not wanting anymore coffee that day. A few days later I return. Today is Day One of Market Days, Concord’s three-day outdoor celebration of culture, community, commerce and cheese fries. Rob puts me to work outside, where I stand for the next three hours selling beer to the crowd checking out the rotating local bands, who play everything from foot-tapping jazz standards to original pieces to Grateful Dead covers.

I’m not sure serving beer is a real barista activity, but this is fun! Little girls twirl around in the late afternoon breeze as a couple arrives with ferrets draped across their shoulders. One customer’s making a dent in my canned beer collection, taking a roundabout course towards me every time – like he’d just shown up and was surprised we sold beer. “Cool! Gimme a PBR,” he says. I oblige and he sits right back down where he was before he did his slow serpentine through the crowd. A guy in plaid shorts is on stage with his band, rocking his ukulele like nobody’s business as the crowd cheers. Outdoor beer garden barista duty is a nice way to spend a summer night.

It’s finally my time to head inside, and Sara and Sean put me to work, sending me to Penuche’s for a bucket of ice. “Don’t forget to filter that ice!” Sean yells as I return. Nobody told me I had to filter it, I think, starting to panic. Sean starts laughing, knowing the new guy falls for the filtered ice trick all the time. I half-expect him to send me to the Capital building in search of the double-barreled left-handed bean grinder. Instead, he shows me how to make a smoothie, and seconds later I take my first real order. The customer wants a frozen coffee drink. Before disaster strikes, Sara quietly reminds me that I should probably stop making a hot espresso shot, explaining the physics of ice and hot liquids, pointing out the cold espresso for my use instead.

I recover to make a 32-oz. chocolate masterpiece to calories, ice and caffeine. As more customers arrive, I try my hand at a few other drinks, managing to not quite perfect my puck but drinking at least four more shots of espresso before it’s time to go. I notice one of tonight’s barista’s left a perfectly shaped puck on the knock box, a signature to master craftsmanship of espresso making.

It’s getting late. Sara hands me my share of tips for the night, the most gratifying $20 in singles and quarters I’ve ever held. Barista duty is fun. You need a little bit of skill, lots of practice and someone like Sara whispering instruction in your ear, even if her husband makes you filter the ice.

Grooves of Memory

My family owns a small summer home down a dirt road on the shores of Lake Winnipesauke. The roof needs fixing, the dock has issues, and the mice host winter-long rodent carnivals, inviting their squirrel and chipmunk pals to leap about and feast on morsels left behind on that inevitable brisk Sunday in October when we close up until Memorial Day.

We owe back taxes, the mattresses are lumpy, and the bathroom makes for a great “before” photo. Between my four siblings and me, our children, and my parents - twenty of us in all - we don’t use it very often, our renters have moved on, and if I never rake another wet springtime leaf, I’ll die a happy man. But it’s my favorite place in the world, and I can’t imagine life without it.

We’re selling the lake house. In a few weeks we settle on a price, and a long-time friend will buy it. Or maybe he won’t. If not him, then someone else. Selling’s not the tough part. Someone else jumping off our dock into the water? A new family sitting around the big table for a chaotic meal while the rain falls in sheets across the lake? A stranger’s daughter catching the first fish of the summer, begging someone else, between squeals of panic and laughter, to set the fish free? It makes me sick to think of this. These are our memories – our lake, our dinners, our rainstorms, our children, our grandchildren.

My grandmother bought this house on a whim in 1948. She was a dress-shop owning, chain-smoking single parent and former nun from Long Island who fell in love with the lake at first sight, buying this newly built house hundreds of miles away from her home, the drive taking more ten hours on pre-interstate roads and byways.

Twenty years later, near death from lung cancer, my grandmother insisted on one last trip to the house, hiring the local butcher to drive her, her nurse and her oxygen tank to Moultonborough where she watched her grandchildren swim and climb and dig. She died the day after leaving the lake, content she’d said goodbye the only way she may have known how.

My mother’s spent part of every summer since ‘48 at the lake house and doesn’t want to see it go. But she and my dad know it’s time. She told me a few weeks ago how the drive from Long Island only gets longer, opening and closing the house isn’t getting easier, and the taxes and upkeep show no signs of abating. They agree it would be nice to slow down as they reach their mid ‘70s. Selling the house helps them do that, providing a cushion that many don’t have. We’ve talked about it for a decade, and now it’s time to act.

Outside my parents’ bedroom, there’s a wall where we measured each other, tracking how much we’d grown year after year. It was the first thing we did every early summer, proving to ourselves that we’d spent the last twelve months growing, getting older, better, wiser. We were in a rush to outgrow those lines, not caring what we were so quick to outrace. At some point, we stopped growing, and the lines didn’t budge. Look closely and you can see my children, my brothers and sisters, their children, friends from long ago and so many others, their names etched into the pine boards like the graffiti of memory.

The other walls of the house are like a museum to inside jokes, past accomplishments and moments of fancy – Grandpa writes a book! Kara gets married! Tim finishes fourth in a five person race! Molly hates camp! Beer! Sharks! Mountain goat! America! First-time visitors can spend an hour walking around like it’s an eccentric art gallery, taking in everything we’ve hung, tacked and nailed up over the years, wondering how Civil War flags, movie posters, obscure Latin phrases and summer camp portraits tie together to tell the story of our family.

A short path leads from the house to the dock, a simple structure that juts out to give just enough runway for a hearty leap into the water. Sometimes, at moments of calm, the surface is a perfect mirror image of the islands in the distance and the indifferent blue and white sky above, shattered with a cannonball plunge.

This dock’s hosted athletes and actors, scholars and drop-outs, friends and future spouses, and even the Prince of Monaco (true story). This is the dock where my mom saved my dad from drowning and where everyone’s gone skinny dipping at least once in broad daylight. There are few moments more gratifying than leaping into the lake wearing nothing but a stupid grin. The dock’s where we’ve seen otters, bald eagles, moose and spiders that defy description – spiders showing calm defiance in the face of a wielded flip flop or a shrieking older sister. I asked my wife to marry me on this dock, getting the proposal in before she learned of the arachnid situation beneath. It’s on this dock where I felt noiseless for the first time, where I was alive in the moment, not tugged into yesterday or pushed into tomorrow, living for now. How do we put a price on that?

Practicality has a way of trumping most things, especially when money’s involved. In a few weeks we’ll pick a price, and then we may say goodbye quickly, or it may takes a little longer. If we’re lucky, we’ll spend one final week together at the lake, squeezing as much of the house into our lives to draw on it forever, like tiny sips from a bottomless cup.

If I could take one thing with me on the last day, I’d cut down that wall outside my parents’ bedroom and save it for all of us, our names and heights scratched like grooves in an old record that would play our memories every time we touched them.

Conquering China

If I learned anything in China, it’s that carny folk are the same the world over. It’s been a very long day scouring miles of market stalls, looking for deals I didn’t need, and I’m dog tired. My expat colleagues lead me from the massive four-story train station market, and we trek across the city, my arms loaded down with bags of Mao doodads and faux leather satchels.

As we stop to gaze upon another vast collection of semi-jade figurines, wallets, lighters, sunglasses, and countless heaps of scarves, a tiny woman motions to me from across the plaza. Behind her hang dozens of blue, yellow and pink balloons, and she beckons me to come hither, shouting at me in Mandarin. My five-day crash course in the local tongue hasn’t enabled me to decipher much, let alone why she singled me out.

Faster than I can say, “Gregory Peck and the defense of Hill 266,” I’m holding a plastic shotgun in my hand and firing at the balloons. “How much?” I ask, blasting away. She holds up two fingers. Two Yuan? That’s less than a nickel, and I’d try anything for a nickel. So I keep shooting.

For the next ten minutes I hit at least 75 balloons. At this point, Michael, my co-worker, eggs me on and I hit another 50 or so, the small woman staring passively over my shoulder as she pumps the twin-gauge toy gun, handing it to me in a rote muscle memory motion. Finally, with almost no balloons left and my hand cramping, I put the gun down. “How much was this?” Michael asks, and we look as the woman writes down, “200 x 2 = 400,” underlining the 400 for emphasis, holding out her palm in the universal carny sign for, “Pay up, moron.”

I don’t know much about China quite yet but enough to know that 400 Yuan is around $60, and I didn’t fly from Boston to New Jersey, New Jersey to Beijing, Beijing to Dalian, over 6000 miles across Canada, the frozen Arctic, through Russia and above Inner Mongolia to drop $63.50 on a classic midway canard. This is nuts. “This is nuts!” I shout. “Only 200 – that’s all I’m paying,” I say, holding up a peace sign that means anything but. The tiny woman’s voice grows shrill as a few people gather around. She bangs her finger down on the 400 figure. “I won’t pay it,” I say and then do what any cheapskate, embarrassed American would do – I throw down a 100 Yuan bill, beg Michael for another 100 and take off in a sad kind of speed walking stumble.

I’ve come to Dalian, China on business, my company setting up shop here a few months earlier, and despite the “misunderstanding” on the plaza, I think I’ve conducted myself well, straining to understand the language, accepting the ludicrous levels of service in the hotel and eating things I never would have ordered back in the States (sea sausage and seaweed, anyone?). I’ve learned to mutter the basics – “Good morning,” “Thank you,” “You’re welcome,” and my favorite, “Right On!” which is pronounced “DOO EEE,” exactly how Maury Finkel of Finkel Fixtures says it, Ben Stiller’s alter ego in the film version of Starsky and Hutch.

Dalian is a port city of six million on the northern coast of China. The city has more people than Houston, Chicago and almost two entire Bostons combined. Yet China refers to Dalian as a second-tier city, not fit to match the ranks of Shanghai, Beijing or Shenzhen. Here for almost ten days, I spend hours driving to all ends of Dalian, staring at the forests of half-built concrete towers that stretch to the horizon and the massive shipping container cranes in the harbors, like so many mutant red crabs poised to snap at unsuspecting passersby.

I make the very best of the nightlife Dalian offers, spending time in bars named “Brooklyn,” “Sisters,” and “Friends.” It’s at Friends where I meet the owner, Paul Collins from Hyde Park. About a decade ago, Paul set down roots in Dalian, fell in love with a local girl and now tries in vain to serve me homebrew hooch from one bottle and “snake juice” from another. I decline both, especially the one where the lifeless snake sits coiled, fermenting in the milky gray liquid. In the basement bar of my hotel, I witness New Visions, a drummerless cover band from the Philippine, crush a version of “Sweet Child O’ Mine.” Jesse, the band’s leader and keyboard player, attacks each stanza with vigor before telling me over a beer about his five kids and pregnant wife back home in Manila, a lonely look in his eyes.

One item apparent to the observant visitor is China’s attempt to generously translate most public signs into English. Phrases like “No Climbing. Thanks a Cooperation,” “Steam food of beautiful lake,” and the cryptically poetic, "Intention. Ten years of consistent,” abound, only to be joined by “Speaking cellphone is strictly prohibited when thunderstorm,” and the ever-relevant, “No Naked Flames.” My personal favorite is “Octopus Little Meatball,” a fair description of my physique after almost two weeks of bar-hopping.

On my one full day in Beijing, a city hard to describe other than it’s like the Los Angeles in Blade Runner except everyone’s either in a Bentley or on a bicycle, I take a guided trip to the Great Wall of China. I hadn’t believed the hype, thinking it was no more than a quaint stone outcropping, like Stonehenge. No. It’s massive, stretching across northern China for what seems like forever. Imagine a 30-foot high stone wall stretching from Portland, Maine to Portland, Oregon, only to loop back again, across hills, valleys, ravines, crevasses and countryside.

It’s pouring rain, and as I stand outside “The Great Wall of Handcraft Product Shop,” I notice the sign, “Heart cerebral disease sufferer ascend the Great Wall to please watch for.” I am please to watch for and spend the next hour hiking up the steep steps into the hazy rain, surrounded by hundreds of others doing the same. A group of Chinese men are laughing, running up to the Attila-facing wall and its crenellations, screaming out towards the long-gone Hun hordes. I join them and shriek away, and they burst out cheering – “Very good!” one of them yells. As I near the highest point, I slow down to take a photo, and I notice the graffiti. It’s everywhere a person can bend or reach to write his name - Chinese characters, names in many languages and simple cartoon figures.

And then I see it, written in everlasting white paint - “Shary Fuckin Vasco USA” with “China 2012” bookended by a heart and a smiley face. Ms. Vasco has taken the opportunity to leave her mark on this ancient structure, one of the world’s great wonders, and she’s done so with gusto. It’s one thing to write, “Shary was here” for eternity, but another to use your full name, date, country of origin, current mood, and favorite adjective. I’ve traveled to the other side of the planet, been exposed to this timeless culture, eaten things that will haunt my dreams (raw horsemeat and ocean critters, for example), walked in the footsteps of emperors and had my eyes opened to how big this world of ours really is only to be confronted by Shary’s scrawl like she was doodling in her remedial Civics notebook. I could have stayed in Newark if I’d wanted to see this.

Doesn’t she get it? I’m now a World Citizen! I have a passport with a real-live visa glued in it. I laughed with the German guys from VW, had lunch with someone from Malaysia and even shared a fruit plate with drunken Australians. As a newly christened Citizen of Planet Earth, I consider shouting an apology for Shary’s choice of self-expression. But even if I wanted to, no one really seems to care up here on the Wall, everyone’s too taken with the surroundings to notice.

I’ve since friended Shary on Facebook. She’s a young woman from New Jersey with dozens of photos of her school trip to China on her profile, and she seems perfectly nice and well-adjusted. Perhaps I’m the one who needs to rethink things. Maybe that’s what being a World Citizen is all about – leaving a little image of yourself in a new place so a stranger on the other side of the world may learn more about you. Even if the adjectives don’t translate. Doo eee, Shary Vasco! Doo eee!

The Note, or "Why I'll Never be Skinny"

I’ll never be skinny. Of this I’m certain. As I consider another self-inflicted, pre-summer weight loss journey, doomed again to end in false peaks and dashed expectations, I wonder why. Why is it I’ll never do yard work shirtless or always avoid pickup basketball for fear of being on the “skins” team? I’m the most optimistic guy around, a real glass half full kind of fella, someone who sees the dawn of a new day as an opportunity. Maybe it’s because my glass is half-filled with a chocolate Fribble. That might be the first clue.

My entire life has been a steady war with myself – always debating whether the fries are worth it, if a bowl of Honeycombs is the best pre-dinner snack or if my dental work can survive another caramel apple. My childhood’s filled with memories of, “Stop eating so fast,” or “This pound cake is for the whole family!” or “Remember, Timmy - horizontal stripes are for the other kids.”

Over the years, I’ve done my best to tackle this head-on through dieting, even winning a few battles. Three years ago, I counted calories and lost almost 20% of my body weight in the process. I poked extra holes in my belts, bought new clothes and hoped I’d finally figured out how to get and stay skinny. Sadly, after fifteen months or so, the pounds slowly returned, like the distant jingle of the ice cream truck that draws closer and closer with each bomb pop and fudgesicle, returning every ounce I thought I’d shed for good. No matter how long – two days, six months, three years – I end up back where I started, no wiser for the journey and no closer to that elusive feeling of complete control over my weight.

But a few weeks ago, while rummaging through an old scrapbook, I stumbled across what I think is the reason I’ll never be skinny.

It was 1977, and I sat in my pediatrician’s office, knowing I was in big trouble. A year earlier, he’d told me I needed to stop eating so much. I was not remarkably fat – it wasn’t like they needed to wheel me into the office on a makeshift gurney with reinforced struts. I was a nine year old boy with a love of candy, root beer and anything potato-related. My rotund belly hung over my belt, and my pants never fit right. As I sat in the room, my mom next to me, I knew I was in for it. My doctor hated fat kids.

Dr. Rieger was not my favorite adult. Maybe it was his stern gaze or his way of grabbing me by the arm with just enough force to let me know I couldn’t run if I’d wanted to – either way, I dreaded these visits.

He entered the room, my chart in his hands. He didn’t launch into an attack on my weight or grab my stomach or tell me I’d never have a prom date with a gut like that – instead, he motioned for me to follow him. So I did.

He led me into a small room off the hallway, my mother right behind me. He sat me down and handed me a pad of paper and a pen. And this is what he told me to write: “I know I eat too much. It is my responsibility. My mother has done all she can. I’ll try much harder. Tim O’Shea.” As you can see, I’ve upgraded the spelling.

If a handwriting analyst examined the note, he’d see a touch of Stockholm syndrome mixed with a hint of feigned enthusiasm in my penmanship, maybe topped with a dollop of outright fear, considering the creepy tanned glare of Dr. Rieger hovered over my shoulder, he the scourge of all Nassau County tubbies, making sure I wrote down every word he quietly uttered in my chubby ear.

In the ABC Afterschool Special version of this incident, titled “A Slice of Shame,” a young George Hamilton plays Dr. Rieger, my mother by a mid-‘80’s Tyne Daly or Danny Devito, and I by Mason Reese in his deviled ham heyday. In this version, the music swells as I finish the note with a flourish, the strings rising to a crescendo as I stand, handing the paper to George Hamilton as I embrace my mother. And just before the screen fades to black, the doctor joins in and we hug, joyful in the belief this is the last day anyone can ever call me “Porky.”

But I was no Mason Reese, my mom was no Danny Devito, and there was no music, just the dull, everyday sounds of a little boy forced to admit he loved cake more than himself.

I can’t confess to knowing what I felt at the time, except that I saved the note and have kept it with me for over three decades. What was Dr. Rieger’s goal? Instilling in me a steely resolve to be more like Slim Goodbody and less like Mayor McCheese? Of course we all know age nine is the perfect age to be shamed into developing a healthy perspective on nutrition and weight, the right moment to understand and embrace the more subtle aspects of the doctor-patient motivational relationship scale.

But in truth, I can’t blame my weight struggles solely on the note – there are hundreds of other reasons like Diet Coke, cheese, red wine, heartburn medicine or certain adjectives like zesty, whipped, slathered and bottomless.

I called my mother the other day to try to grasp why our family doctor did such a thing. “He was obsessed with kids who were overweight,” she told me. “You had a big gut, and you were a chubby boy.” And in the background my dad yelled, “And you still are!” causing both my parents to guffaw mightily until I found an excuse to say goodbye. Early onset dementia or questionable parenting? I really can’t be sure.

Somewhere in the depths of my psyche lurks the tally of the lasting damage that morning in Dr. Rieger’s office caused, and I bet years of costly primal scream therapy would get at the root of the issue. Unless I start screaming for ice cream, that is.

I’d be misguided to blame my life-long travails on an earnest pediatrician who was legendary for making house calls and for saving two of my siblings’ lives (true story). I blame a combination of these and other reasons, too numerous to catalogue.

But I’m exhausted, fighting this war of the waistline, especially when there are others to wage, like ones of the wallet, hairline, lawn care, dental hygiene, tax returns and the New York Mets. Sometimes I just need to sit back, grab a bag of chips and let someone else worry about life’s problems. Then again, maybe an apple would be a better choice. After all, I can always try much harder.

Everybody Loves Free Parking!

In this age of political rancor, where the shrill screams of angry zealots have all but destroyed rational discourse, where familial bonds are torn asunder by strident, unwavering positions, and where the generous back and forth of informed discussion sounds more like howler monkey mating season, we at least have one phrase we can all agree on – “Free Parking!”

Free parking is something everyone loves – from the anti-evolution legislators to the groovy yoga gurus, from the buttoned-up shop owners to the macchiato- guzzling skinny jean hipsters– all of us, given the choice, would choose free parking. If Free Parking ran for governor, he’d win every vote. If Free Parking created a law letting teenagers earn their driver’s licenses via a hand puppet correspondence course, we’d name our pets after him. And if Free Parking were your girlfriend, you’d treat her right, that’s for sure.

Concord’s drivers have a complex relationship with parking. Remember the stories of families trapped in the Capitol Commons garage for days, held back by an unyielding soft rubber gate? Or the local property owner manhandling a female enforcement officer who had the temerity to leave a ticket on his windshield? Or the angry letter from out of towners Edna and Vern Walleye of Goose Dung, Wisconsin declaring they’d “Never return to Concord because of the parking tickets!” Are we falling to pieces over parking?

After dumping four dimes in one of the city’s remaining old-style meters, earning me exactly thirty two minutes, I head into the Police station, ready for a day with Concord’s Parking Enforcement division to see for myself.

Dave Florence, the city’s Parking Manager, greets me at the door and introduces me to my guide – Kate Kelleher, a seven-year veteran of the division. Every day Dave sends out three officers on foot, assigned to one of three downtown walking zones (North, Central and South), another to patrol the city in the team Jeep and one meter tech who collects the cash and maintains the kiosks and meters across the three zones.

Today, Kate and I have Central, right in the heart of downtown.
Before we head out, Dave explains the big change in parking over the past two years. About eighteen months ago, Concord entered the “Parking Pay and Display” age, decommissioning more than 600 single space meters in favor of seventy six Scandinavian-made full service kiosks, group meters that take cash or credit, print receipts and send text alerts when the machines need new paper, a fresh battery or a reboot. “It’s made things a lot easier,” Dave says as he waves us goodbye.

Kate and I start walking in a large loop from North State to Park to North Main to Pleasant and all streets in between. Kate’s job, eight hours a day, is to ensure citizens and visitors adhere to the rules, which boil down to the phrase, “No Free Parking.”

I learn fast this rule is not applied equally. A select group of elected state officials parks gratis on North State and Park Streets –the heavy yellow bags atop the gunmetal gray meters announcing this are hard to miss. Also, any drivers with state plates or those who sport a handicapped pass park for free. We see plenty of those this morning.

Kate says hello to lots of people. “When you walk the same blocks every day, you get to know names and faces,” she says, waving to Paul the UPS guy. Kate shares with me the games people play with parking as we stroll along. “Some people put the receipt upside down, and others jumble them in a pile on the dashboard hoping I’ll give up. People get creative.” Kate tells me stories about drivers putting their tickets on others’ windshields, feeding the same meter just before time’s up (aka, meter feeding) or using someone else’s expired handicapped pass. There are few things lower than stealing dear departed Gammy’s past-due handicapped pass to save a measly two bits.

As we turn off North State and walk up Capitol, Kate spots a crumbled ticket on the ground, the yellow envelope crushed into a wad of frustration. “Do they realize we keep track of these?” she says as she taps her computer. In a few weeks, Mr. Impulsive Parking Violator will get a letter explaining that, despite the attempt to camouflage the ticket as a Bit-o-Honey wrapper tossed in the gutter, he’ll have to pay the $10 for the ticket and upwards of another $30 for attempting such hijinx.

In fact, Dave Florence’s team mails out 200 letters a day to drivers across this city, the state and the nation. Failing to mail in your $10 violation within ten business days tacks another $10, and after twenty days, another $20 is added. Earlier, back in the office, Alison McLaughlin, the acting Parking Clerk, showed me one. And to you, Ms. Colleen Bovio of Texas, who received a $10 ticket in 2010, I say, “The city of Concord awaits your $40.”

From her hand-held computer, Kate can ping the database to see if a car belongs to Ms. Bovio from Texas or the thousands of others who’ve chosen not to pay. “If you have five or more unpaid tickets or if you owe at least $100, you’ll probably get the boot,” Kate tells me as she writes her first ticket of the day. The boot’s a nasty looking metal clamp that shows everyone you never carry change in your car or you just don’t care. The boot forces you to care, or at least to pay your parking debts. When I’d arrived at the station earlier, a gentleman was settling his $175 parking bill. Perhaps the magic words on the fat red sticker on his window, “We intend to impound your vehicle . . .” were enough motivation.

We’re on School Street, where most drivers are too cool for its parking rules. Kate writes three tickets in succession. A few minutes later, near the corner of Pleasant and North State, we spy a car with MA plates, no receipt in sight. I notice a fancy straw boater hat in the backseat - a vacationing gondolier perhaps? As Kate readies the ticket for printing, my gondolier arrives breathless. “I swear I was just going to the bathroom!” Sadly, he held no oversized oar nor spoke Italian.

Kate lets him off. “If he was holding a cup of coffee, he was definitely getting a ticket,” she says. Let that be a lesson – when confronting a parking enforcement officer about your non-existent receipt, don’t do so while balancing a $5 Salami Footlong and your giftwrapped dream catcher wind chimes.

We’re about hour or so into the morning and Kate’s given out ten tickets. “I average about fifty a day – most of them for expired meters,” she says. That violation is by far the most common in Concord. Of the 26,000 total tickets written in the past year, 85% (22,000) were for an expired meter, with overnight parking (985) and parking zone (598) a distant second and third. And to the lone double parker in the past year, kudos to your for your careless uniqueness (and your $25).

We’re on our third loop already, and it’s time for a break. Back in the station, Dave shares a few statistics, including the fact his department is completely self-funded. “No tax dollars are used to run this team. We are completely user fee funded.” This plunges me into an existential mind freak. Dave’s team exists to write tickets so they can exist to write tickets. Dude, I think I just blew my own mind thinking about parking.

Dave explains it’s not all about tickets. “Last year we had close to 550,000 transactions where people successfully parked in a downtown spot and paid their fee,” meaning that for every twenty six compliant parkers, there was only one rule breaker. Fines brought in around $320,000 last year, but the rules followers paid almost double that amount into the city’s coffers.

It’s clear we may love Free Parking, but we love paying for it even better. Besides, I paid forty cents about seven hours ago and didn’t even get a ticket. Free parking is possible, but it sometimes depends on who you know. Then again, just wait for the weekend. It’s always free on the weekends.