Southboro Again

After Don and Carol dropped me off Wednesday night in Connecticut I walked seven or miles into the evening and set up camp off to the side of a grocery store. At five-thirty in the morning it started raining again, which I didn't think it was supposed to, but I stayed fairly dry in my tent at least, and by eight or so the storm moved on and I got up and packed my things. No more than an hour and a half or two hours into the day I made it to Westerly, Rhode Island, and wandered around for a little while along the water.
I walked fairly late into the day, not pulling over until eleven or so in the little town of Charlestown Beach. I put up my tent right in front of the post office, across from a bar and restaurant, and no sooner had I crawled inside and pulled off my shorts did the beam of a flashlight come shining on my rain flap and the burly voice of a police officer called me back outside. "Can you come out here sir? What are you doing on federal property? You're a laud of the post office. You can't camp here."
As always happens when I'm accosted by the police after setting up camp and then told to move, I get a little irritated. This time, of course, it's my fault, as I should have known to at least hide out behind the building instead of out front by the street. My irritation is usually, as it was this time, not directed at the police, who are simply doing their job and seem sympathetic when they've heard my story, but towards the people across the street at the restaurant who must have called me in. Why, I wonder, does anybody think that a guy with a backpack and a tent is such a danger, such a menace?
After they run my license to make sure I don't have any warrants the police tell me about a church only a mile or so up the road where they say I should be okay to stay for the night. They offer to give me a ride, even, but I turn them down and finish packing up my stuff. Backpack reloaded I start out towards the church, then decide as I go past the restaurant that I want to go in and maybe show whoever it was that called me in that I'm not such a threat. The first person I meet, the hostess, acts a little hostile, making me think that it was her. "Guess I'll sit at the bar," I say, because that's the only place with any people, and she says "Well, are you going to eat or drink or what?" eyeing me coldly. For a second I feel like heading straight back out, but I sit down anyway, order a bowl of chowder and make friends with the people near me. My story gets passed along a little bit, I think, and I feel a much better atmosphere by the time I leave and head down the street.
I find the church without any trouble and roll out under the stars, and sleep well, and nobody bothers me the next morning even though people are coming and going nearby while I'm still sleeping.
Sunday I walked through Providence and made it across the border into Massachusetts, and by Tuesday afternoon I was into Boston city limits and Don and Carol came and found me again, by the side of the road. I wasn't planning to stay more than one day with them this time, but the forecast says that Hurricane Earl could stir up some trouble in this area tomorrow, so I've decided to stay under a warm roof to see what happens and then get back on the road on Saturday.