Nugent's Stretch To Cape Pond

A rainy Sunday afternoon seldom lends itself for a pleasure jaunt except that the wife and I refuse to let the weather stand in the way of giving the lower limbs a workout. We decided to recheck a path choked with memories.

First stop was at the old Bass Rocks Railroad Station, or rather the site of that wee wooden ginger-breaded structure that squatted down at Beaver Dam flush with the main road to Rockport. A one-car Budd rumbled past as we viewed the mess that picnickers planted. Nothing short of a town dump it was, with paper bagfuls of beer cans, swill and the like, rusted parts of engines, melting remnants of ice cakes, blotting out the beauty of austere oaks and stirring pines. And also it was dimming the beauty of the nearly historic stone structure that is the Babson shrine, a museum visited by hundreds from all over the world every summer. Of course our Rockport could at least place a waste barrel inviting to wayfarers to leave their rubbish inside it. But maybe the wayfarers can't read.

Speaking of the Babson museum, once a cooper shop in the 17th century, this later became the summer kitchen of the Nugents' house where their 14 children were raised, including George and Jim, Catherine and Jenny, all of whom had to traipse at least two miles, spring, fall, and winter, to school in Rockport. They were sure a hardy lot.

Memories were blasted at this point by the phwat-phwat of model planes in the neighboring field. Their zooming reminded us that there must be safer zones on the stretch, so all three of us ducked the Sunday traffic whiz of the open road to the other side of the street to enter the road to Cape Pond. We failed to see a "No Trespassing" sign until we emerged a half hour later. This is the rustic woodland path where years ago, we took our youngsters for Sunday walks and where they found a wealth of adventure and gave us countless seconds of anxiety as they braved what at least the old man felt was human peril.

We saw the old ball field, Webster's I think they called it, now a mass of scrub pines and firs for an outfield that would even stump Roger Edwards. Here's where the baseball greats of Cape Ann used to strut. Mighties like Duffy Blatchford, Grover and others of their ilk had their big innings on this sward.

Since folks are ordinarily too lazy to stroll through the woods, there was no filthy rubble along the way. Instead there was the welcome sight of blue and white violets in the center aisle all along the way, splattered with bright bluets poking up their heads. And again we were intrigued by an ancient rough-hewn stone wall bordering the entire way. Our son used to persist in trying to walk its length years ago as the family chief had conniption fits.

Molly the boxer held no nostalgic thoughts as she tore through the brush and sloshed through a lazy brook that disappeared beneath the path. Her failing eyesight missed a scared wild rabbit that took to the brush in a hurry, but she was quick to spot a pheasant whose loud squawk could be heard a mile as she gave Molly a fast fair-thee-well into the ether. Licking her chops at the base of a tree did no good for our drooling bone-chopper.

Thence onto Cape Pond itself, bathed this day in shrouded fog, lending an air of mystery to all of us and to the ghosts of ice-houses long dead with only their cement foundations left to mark their burial. Life sprang into view with the scene of a cluster of jack-in-the-pulpit geting ready to preach "Spring is really here."

J.P.C., Jr.