A Walk in a January Nor'Easter

As a comparatively tiny Cape was beleaguered by King Winter in all his awesome majesty, Sandy Bay experienced the full force of it. We enjoyed the grandeur of it on what through age and caution was of necessity an abbreviated walk around town. Actually there was a mission: that essential of a Sabbath at home --the Sunday paper. Daughter must have her comics come blizzard or no. Mom needs to devour that front page and the insides for the ads. And dad can't breathe without his crossword puzzle.

The snarling Nor'easter was at its height as we ventured out the storm door, shoving hard to push through the snow barricade. We clothed for it, galoshes, buttoned overcoat and of course a crazy cap, a blazing red creation with ear muffs belonging to the son. We have now adopted it as standard blizzard equipment to save ears from nipping. Up the snow-swept streets we sailed, through the cacophony of howling banshees, with smarting stinging gale-tossed snow pelting our skin.

We had gone hardly 100 feet when greeted by a flock of small birds in a quest for food in the swirling snow. Through our mind went thoughts of John Kieran and Elliott Rogers and how much they have impressed us with the importance of these tiny creatures to the joy of our lives. And we knew that they would say there was no bird so humble that didn't deserve to be given the chance for life. So back to the house to scrape the family larder to make sure that these chirpers at least had some breakfast...the selfish thought that if there is reincarnation, we too might be just a lowly bird.

Resuming element-buffing, we noted others, also with weird caps; one boasted a pom pom, another we swear was an abandoned stocking. A Cossack topper, a Kefauver fur piece, were on Rockport's stalwarts. The sights you see when you haven't got a camera!

We came to the first challenge. Winter had certainly stormed the ramparts of the town, piling up a solid wall of snow to block an entry from School into Main Street. But with galoshes on it is almost fun to slough through the white depths.

We came upon a breath-taking sight that would have repaid the most discerning of artists. An angered sea in dour costume, smashing pointlessly against the shore, comber after comber assaulting the bastions of civilization, only to fall apart into insignificance. Every roaring roller was like a giant pounding toward you to sweep you from the face of the earth, with a voice that shook the earth's foundations. We well know how tremendous that roar and banging of ocean-swept waves can be in the height of winter, for when first married we lived in one of those Front Beach apartments. And we loved every single roar, for it was like a symphony sent from heaven. That's probably why we stopped and let the blizzard spank us while we again listened to the aria of the ages.

But folks at home were getting impatient for that Sunday paper so again we trudged and found ourselves up against more drifts, except for the fact that the street itself was nicely plowed by the Rockport highway department. We later heard from visiting milkmen, breadmen and others from up county that Rockport was the tops in taking care of its roads after snowfall. Pete Perkins and your gang, take a bow!

We met up with Charlie Balestraci, who was lucky enough to come home from frigid Florida just in time to catch the winter's worst up here. Charlie with Rockport's Sonny Quinn had been feted in Dania, Florida, by a Gloucester chap named Frank McRobb, a not so dour Scotsman who once buttled for King George V., and who now is the bigwig at the swank Jai Alai palace, a place that nets $7 million a year. Charlie says that Frank went all-out for him and Sonny when he learned they haled from the Cape.

On the way home, headwinds slapped us sillier than we were previously, but when we met up with George Caffrey and Frankie Francis bucking the high drifts in their gravel-laden trucks, plow-equipped, we were ashamed to think of our petty element troubles for we realized they were fighting these same elements the clock around so we and others could get out and circulate. Yes, walking can be fun even in a blizzard. try it and see, friend!
J.P.C., Jr.