To the Headlands and Old Garden Beach

Browsing on foot in Rockport of a Sunday can be rewarding in many ways. At least the wife and I find it so, and we think the four-footer is of the same opinion. With a favored sister, also a bird-watcher, we four headed down Broadway toward the shore and within a city block bumped into the hustling McMasters finishing their daily 10-mile stroll (not five-mile as we were burringly corrected by the lord and master) so as to get home in time for the World Serious game on which Lady McMasters delights.

Ahead, the birder marveled at the mob on T Wharf, but to us it was commonplace. What day-tripper can resist such a view of deep blue water and the myriad of boats in that little cove that the natives insist on calling a harbor. We were surrounded by leaves and more leaves in yards, on lawns, cluttering the gutters, but breathing the spirit of Fall. We happen to be one of those rustic eccentrics who lives to rake and then burn leaves. To us, the odor is rich. No mulch for this scribe.

All along this walk, we were impressed by the beauty of the abundant Fall asters. All summer long, that's no more than an ungainly weed but when the summer flowers are withered, up pops this soft blue gayety to enrich the landscape. Nature sure plans better than man.

Up Mount Pleasant and into Atlantic Avenue skirting the cove, again the bird watcher was stunned at the glory of the Frostbite boats in varicolored sails readying for a Sunday spurt in the bay. So were we though we had viewed it many times. As pacific as the stroll had been, we knew there had to be an eruption, dog-wise, and sure enough it exploded when in a passing car was Molly's kid brother. After all, the old gal hadn't seen him for ages, so she took off on all four dog-power to catch that bus and greet brother rightfully. But horsepower beat dog power.

On the avenue, we were thrilled by the beautiful garden of the Robbins house where petunias, marigolds, dwarf dahlias, snapdragons, and even roses still deified the season. Arriving on the Headlands, a carved fish for a weathervane on the Jack Woodard house struck us as an impressive nautical touch for a prominent Jack Tar out of Sandy Bay Yacht Club. From here we could see that Sandy Bay was alive with Sunday traffic. We asked ourselves when is Rockport going to have a sea-going traffic cop? To us, it's about time.

We had the road all to ourselves. It was apparent that everyone and his grandmother was glued to the TV watching a big game. Ahead of us was the former Blunt estate on Marmion Way, born a half century ago with a real cobblestone wall and a garage built of the same rock. Its firm solid beauty could last through the ages. Here's where the wife reminisced of Rockport's past in this area; of the fact that in her youth there was no dwelling from South Street to Old Garden Beach. And that her father used to walk from his Mount Pleasant Street ancestral home through Cove Hill Lane to Old Garden Beach summers at early morning for a quick swim before hastening to Boston and work. In fact, there was a board walk to the beach, she said.

But Molly wasn't listening. She was busy tearing up the turf in somebody's yard, much to our distress. 'Tis our fear that the selectmen will yet hear of her depredations. Besides the day, we enjoyed several new homes being built in the area as well as nostalgic big pumkins on door stoops.
J.P.C., Jr.