Down Dead-End Lane

They said we wouldn't do it. Too cold and blustery for a Sunday walk, according to the wise ones. But they don't know the Rockport Clarks and their four-footed "rocket" on the loose. And along the way we found another couple with mailmen's blood in thei veins and lollypops in their mouths.

Actually last Sunday it wasn't even ear-lap weather. So out went the wife and I and our Molly sashaying out of School Street, musing down Broadway. It was much like March in January and thankful that the rainy Sunday run of 12 had been broken by the lucky thirteenth weekend.
That's probably why the auto traffic was tremendous, defying us to cross Mount Pleasant Street at the foot of Broadway. Folks were emerging from the storm cellars. And all of them were in a hurry to get nowhere.

We had Molly on the leash because of that traffic. The aging waddler has developed the unwise habit of chasing a car if she happens to spot any kind of a dog in it. All she plans to do is to rub noses but the wife and I fear she may get picked up abruptly in the posterior by a following car --and that could be her finale. Part of homework now is plotting how to get her out of that habit before it gets her for good.

You know, for all the anxieties you have with these four footers, Uncle ought to let us use them for an income tax exemption. We do feed and room them without charge. And no child is anywhere near the care. And particularly since this year, the wife and I are losing one important $600 "exemp" because the young man is on his own economically. Maybe he should quit work!

Enough of that. Ahead is a confusing sign to a pedestrian even though clear to drivers. It says "Alt. 127." That to us would mean Altitude 127 aabove sea level. Yet the ocean lies no more than a scant five feet below our land. Looks like autoists are more intelligent in such things.

Ever see those attractive shallow triangular green blinds flanking a picturesque small paned window beneath the eaves of the historic James Gott Homestead on Mount Pleasant Street? Mrs. James Jarvis Gott Tarr the pastor's widow, still resides there. Her years never prevent her faithfully walking every Sunday to attend service at the First Congregational Churh in which the Reverend was once a preacher.

It took us back to the Vermont farm, away up-State, when on a clothesline nearby we saw the row of clothespins clinched on it with nary a shred of underwear or unmentionables clinging to them. Always prepared is the lady of that house.

And that nostalgic old Victorian era street gaslamp highlighting Architect Freddie Westman's home at Number 20 Mount Pleasant Street commands many pleasant memories of the past when as a youngster in Gloucester our face was glued to the window to watch the lamplighter with the long lighted taper flicking on the gaslights. To us then, darkness was again conquered.

By now we were ready to turn onto Mount Pleasant Place, which proved to be Dead End Lane down past Charlie Orr's house with its spacious backyard, "Chick" Marston' retreat with its array of bikes, and in someone else's bailiwick what passed for an old-fashioned privy, a truly winding, fascinating lane of new homes and old homes, the kind of places, this meanderer would be proud to know as our residence. We personally loathe ranch style houses.

All went well until the wife tried to recall how to get onto neighboring Cove Hill Lane. This fattening old fudge-budge found himself impaled in thorny briars and caught with the threat of dropping all of two feet over a Revolution era stone wall. Molly and "Mein Frau" had executed the manoeuvre gracefully. We managed but with one bleeding finger and scarred up brogans.
There's something about those gals that bring red to my cheeks.

But we all made it, more or less a unit to slither down a lane of ice that challenged one to remain upright on his pins Oh, the wife sure can pick some wierdies for a Sunday stroll. What's one broken neck, more or less?

A fascinating feature of that lane in winter was the sound of a cold but gurgling brook. We found it and were told that along with its mossy banks, beautiful violets abound in the Spring. We'll be back there come Spring just to see those violets, not to pick them because we hate the thought of disturbing nature in its success in glorifying the landscape.

From there onto firmer ground, Clark Aveue and the land of the John Kierans, naturalist extraordinary, and also of bright red barberries still on the bushes, and of the grim grey lobster pots stacked mountain high in backyards.

Then for the first time in this chilling saunter we bumped into our first fellow strollers, Patrolman and Mrs. L. Ellsworth Harris who we learned as we talked on Atlantic Avenue, had covered far more ground than had we.

Sissies, aren't we, but how far did you stretch your legs that same Sunday? Better give the car a rest, and your waistline a break by hitting the road for a breather on Sunday.
J.P.C., Jr.