After the Blizzard - A Walk Along With Others

Although snow hills lined both sides of the streets, the weather was ideal for walking Sunday, so mild that not even mittens were necessary. So the wife and I and our four-footed female boxer, Molly, decided to see some of the after effects of the Cape's record blizzard.

This time for once the hiking urge was not original. There's nothing like a snow deluge to ground folks and teach them that feet were made to move shanks mare and not just to push down on a bar of iron to jump a gas wagon from low to high.

We had hardly emerged from our Rockport doorway to thread our way through the waif-size path the head of the household had shoveled but what we were greeted by the sigh of youngsters turning the snow mounds into a winter playground. Took us back to the days when we had kids just like that.

A touch of snowbound Valley Forge was noted in the pitiful gesture of the stubby little cannon on the church lawn doing its darndest to poke its snout over the drifts. We came onto a Main Street where the road surveyor, Pete Perkins, and his loyal gang of five men had completely cleared one whole side of snow during the day and were just finishing up that phase of their 3-day toil. In fact they had even cleaned the sidewalk for its entire width.

What amazed us was that although we even invaded some back streets on this walk we were able to trod on plenty of bare ground. We got to thinking that their example might well be copied by some other communities. For a space we had given Molly her freedom to roll in the snow, rush up and down the snow heaps but the time had come for the leash for we were nearing the sacred precinct of another female boxer for whom our wheezing gal shows nothing but jealousy. And I'm still no athlete when it comes to separating warring femmes of whatever specie.

Down along Front Beach, the silence of the greyish-blue sea offered a weird contrast to only two days before when it was tearing up the shore with a meanness that only the sea can show. Some of the results were strewn even onto the edge of the road, in kelp, seaweed, and plain debris.

The snow had left a strange pattern along the low stone wall of the cemetery opposite the beach. It seemed like a sullen grey shroud while for a background were the snow-splashed tottering headstones of slate.

Although the walkers were far more than usual, folks were also on wheels once more after back breaking hours of shoveling out their cars. Snow narrowed roads jacked up the danger of being on foot with cars whizzing by both ways. Cleared roads presented the temptation. The fact soon drove us onto a side road, Smith Street, for safety's sake.

The wife and I soon discovered that it was about time we had included this way on our strolls. First we were faced with a tercentennial marker that said John Pool, Sandy Bay's second settler, built the first framed house on the spot back in 1700 and that the same gentleman furnished the lumber that built famed Long Wharf in Boston in 1710.

That was the past. But the street in the present is one of fine, solid homes that do credit to the town. All well kept along with their grounds. Even their dogs were polite. One of their number gave Molly, a 21-bark salute.

Another greeting from somewhere in the area could be taken as a gentle warning to the sniffing stalker to clear out. They sounded much like geese. We were too happy they were not on the loose for we could see our Molly coming out second best. A pinched nose wold ground her for good.

From there up Beach Street onto Granite where he-males still battled with shovels, again out of harm's way down placid Norwood Court, into King and back onto Beach where for the first time we spied a bell buoy washed up on Back Beach along with all manner of ocean spewed debris.

It was a glorious Sunday stroll, one that we know many others enjoyed just as we three did.
J.P.C., Jr.