A Valentine Day's Walk to Saratog'

Overhead it was vitamin-loaded. Underfoot it was treacherous this Sunday afternoon what with shoulder-high snowbanks on either side of the streets. So the wife and I and our Boxer decided to cheat again and go in the family buggy to the rear of Long Beach to see what ol' man winter breathed on the terrain.

On the way through South Street, snow-covered fields bordered by hedges lent scenes of artists' delights. But a brindle boxer anchored in the middle of the road spotted our 65-pounder and gave a Don Quixote windmill charge that threatened to end in splayed boxer but for the fact that the good wife threw over the wheel just in time for a perfect miss. Meanwhile our genteel gal jumped all over me to get to the door window to salute her Romeo, drooling all over my right mitt in the doing. Boxers can be so devastatingly messy.

We hailed mail courier Dick Smith as he collected the love and marriage missiles from Uncle Sam's shiny mail boxes along the way. And then down Thacher Road to our rendezvous with the sky and the sea and the dunes back of the barred-window cottages. We had reached the toll gate, where collectors maintain an iron curtain against day trippers, such as we. Pictured in our minds was a lonely soul in a chair waiting for the cars. But that is in summer weather, not with a surrounding of snow-filled trees and sharp tracks of wild rabbits that offered a wild challenge to our Molly as her nose sniffed with jet speed. Even the triangular print of birds marked the snow and sent the four-footer turning cart-wheels trying to track down a victim in the flesh.

The long row of camps that hop with fun and bathers throughout the hot months were barricaded against snows and cold. Although the road was plowed out by Road Surveyor "Pete" Perkins and his Rockport gang, you just couldn't reach the cottages through the huge drifts. The great white wall was between us and the sea.

The wife and I were impressed that here on the cottage-filled strand, individualism held sway as owners belted forth love for color by choosing paints without worrying about dictation from any historically minded group. There were light blues, garish yellows, dull greys, and sheer whites. They were America speaking independence freed from color regimentation.

Along the way we collided with an old-fashioned well sweep covered by a roof which we lifted up and peered into the bowels of a hole that showed water at quite a depth. And it wasn't even frozen over. All the time we were in sight of traffic-clogged Thacher Road running parallel to our stroll. Even on our stretch, cars were barrelling in both directions as cottagers from Greater Boston came down to see the effects of storms.

And of course our Molly had to meet up with at least one pooch. This time it was a wee poodle belonging to a cottager down from the big city. Molly with all her beef can be a bit rough with the under-privileged, so the carpet-bagger scooped up his pedigreed while mater ran ahead with the leash and in seconds had long-ear under control. The wife is a dash gal. Me, I'm not, but for sure.

We noted in this area, a sign that read, "No parking in this fire break." It made sense, whoever put it there. Before us the marshes, as the distaff side remarked, were like the Arctic tundra and to us, like the Siberian steppes that we have never seen. Somewhere over the snow mounds we could hear a soft steady roar of the sea that we knew must be our friend, the ocean.

Above we revelled in the sight of smooth fulsome puffy clouds in a blue, blue sky. And it was here that we came to our old pal, Saratog Creek, with its bridge and invitation to cross into Rockport proper. Here, Molly really had a ball in the mountainous snow even to snouting what appeared to be bear tracks. Us, we had to retreat for the snows were much too much for us Sunday strollers.

Yup, we would have enjoyed your company along with us on this wintry snow-heaped Sunday.
J.P.C., Jr.