Oregon Trail Walk - Pigeon Cove

For too long the wife and I had neglected our Sunday strolls, what with money-making projects and then federal and state income tax returns to steal away our Sunday hours. But finally the air was cleared, the day was perfect for January with just below freezing temperature, so up comes the wife with sealed sailing orders right after lunch. Our four-footed menace and myself were the crew.

The 1950 Wheezer deluxe was pointed toward the argumentative North Village, the land of the Cove-ers. Anything could happen. We had visions of wrassling matches between the fattening femme boxer and the village prides with us in the middle. The wife has a penchant for us to live dangerously.

It was on Haven Avenue that the chugger choked up and let us out. Still no word as to destination but the fact the the missus put our Mollie on a leash indicated breakers ahead. We just gritted our falsies and tagged behind. The day itself was sparkling clear, the sun bright, and the clouds delicately flecked, blessing a calm sea highlighted by a snow-capped breakwater. It was just a mitten-less winter day, perfect for digesting a meaty meal.

First thing we knew, the boss had left the highway and straddled a chain fence, again invading private property. Some day the gendarmes are going to catch us in the act but it's too late in life for us to stop following the leader. We were told we were following the Oregon Trail. Our history book never dared to move that trail so far east, but as we said before, anything can happen in the cove. We just followed suit as the wife led the way along a snow-covered path that all of a sudden came to a Currier & Ives scene brought to life:

A quaint little frozen-over pond rimmed with winter-greyed willows, with youngsters in all manner of rigs having the time of their lives skating over a frozen surface that we were soon told was no more than three foot deep. Eleven year-old Bobbie Day, one of the skimmers, informed us that only that morning he and Tommy Anderson, 13, had cleared off the snow with two rough-hewn plows.

This pond was the Oregon. When and why it ws so named remains a mystery to us despite our questioning afterward many old-timers. Our introduction to the existence of such a place was from the late Bill Reed 30 years ago. We still are curious as to how Oregon ever reached the Atlantic.

Bobby wanted us to be sure to know the Cove boasted another safe and sane skating rink right next door, small as it was. They call it Silver Lake, also in a tree setting. The wife and I were glad to know that one section of the Cape boasted two such picturesque spots so safely shallow for youth to have winter fun.

While we were chatting with our new young friends out darted the menace to slither all over the ice in a four-footed display of how not to grace the ice. But she too had fun. The wife remembered the Oregon as one place where our daughter used to skate in her younger days with the Pigeon Cove chums. Now that we have seen it we were both glad this was the choice rather than the abandoned water-filled quarry pits of the area.

On the way back to the road we stopped to take a longer look at one of the Cape's oldest houses, the Witch House, built in 1692, the present-day owners of which own both the Oregon and Silver Lake. The property of Mrs. Oliver Williams, it has been in the possession of her family for many years. A little probing in the neighborhood revealed that it was built by two Salem brothers who moved here with their mother to save her from being tortured for witchcraft during the height of that madness. To us, it was just a beautiful home of the 17th century, one that could readily grace Deerfield or Williamsburg, one that would do New England proud as the seat of an historical house furnished in the spirit of our founding fathers.

We were further impressed by the mammoth boulders in the area, especially one at the gateway to Oregon. They looked as if they had been there since time began. We had hardly started chugging again toward home and hot coffee when outside there was a terrific roaring coming from the throat of another boxer who seemed to long to get inside the car after the household pet. We recognized the massive male as belonging to telephone tech Roger O'Maley, once of Gloucester. Our sympathy went out to both dogs as we came nigh to springing an arm socket trying to quiet Mollie's leapings.

The time for romance passed, and for us it was just home, gal, home, after a pleasingly brief meander of a wintry Sunday afternoon.

J.P.C., Jr.