A Fall Walk on South End

It was a walk into summer-time in a winter month. The dateline read a Sunday in the last of November, but the thermometer plainly read in the high 60's, shirt sleeve clime here in Rockport town, and that's how the male was dressed. The good wife was dressed accordingly, and Molly sported her accustomed skintight garb. We were at peace with the world.

We sneaked a gas buggy ride up South Street to Briarstone Road , where we descended to stroll down the road to the ocean, only to bump up against a beautiful shepherd dog hid behind a startling white picket fence. That gave our four-footed monster a chance to bellow at fever pitch with the shepherd yawking just as feverishly, but the fence was high enough to thwart both. Whether they were swapping the Indian love call or hymns of hate we'll never know. With guilty feelings, we just kept a-going and finally our Molly surrendered and galloped up to us.

Hardly was that uproar a thing of the past but what we came upon a second walloping woofer, thist time on the Roger W. Howard estate. But all our 65-pound pooch did was to snub the home dog.

It is a street of beautiful homes, the kind that make our assessors glow and fellow townsmen proud. It is a street that charms visitors with its picturesque accents like the rustic electic lamp fronting Ernest Parsons' property, and a gateway of two huge anchors held up by huge timbers at the end of a street rushing into the sea.

Popping all around us were guns of hunters eager to crush small animal life. We hoped their ammo would go sour. We are among the weaklings who would like to see wildlife roam in safety. Then up through the lush greenery of the Locke Anderson estate, in through alleys trying to find an exit to pass a wintry cordwood pile and onto Marmion Way.

Past a home where the folks think enough of their kiddoes to have nailed crude boards at short intervals on a tree so the young Americans could climb into a tree house. Well we know how a tree can be a great factor in character building for the next generation. We love those people.

We came across an artesian well being drilled into the expansive estate once owned by the Radcliffes, a summer tourist home, overlooking the broad Atlantic. A short distance away was a trailer off the wheels, a type of home that worries town planners hereabouts. In the heavens, two jets were streaking heavy white scars, a sight that never loses its fascination for us.

Again Molly came upon a challenger protesting invasion. This time, we thought it had to be a "she" and that meant a hassle, so out came the leash. Oh, why can't these femmes get together?

But this "she" didn't quiver at the sight of Molly. It was a wee snip of a black-headed, white-bodied bird that peeped right back at our yapping "gal" on the beach, as the big round sun set a brilliant yellow in back of us all.

Traffic was heavy as we spotted Post Office custodian Eben Knowlton and others cruising the shore line, plastered with myriads of cat-o-nine-tails in the fens.

Yes, it was a rewarding stroll that brought reveries to us, the wife and I, and a mud-wallowing delight to our mischievous four footer. Why not try it some time, folks?
J.P.C., Jr.