March - Broadway and Beyond

Excuse please! We're a-trying to catch up with our Sunday walks. So that the intervening return of winter snows won't fool you, this was a perambulation taken on March 9, it was Spring- like then, before snow blotted out the crocus buds. There are no walks like those in Sandy Bay. And we have two inveterate around-the-town daily hikers, "Babe" Grace, retired telephone mogul and his missus, to prove it.

Up Broadway we strolled and the first blot on the horizon was that measly little cannon in its all too modern cement casement still resting in the scant space beside the new town office building. Historic, yes. Fitting? well, we have our doots, as the Irisher might say. A statue to John Henry Dennis, exemplar of town government, might be far more to the point. Cannons are destructionists. Old John Henry was a builder, cantankerous as he might have been.

Quieting our ruffled nerves was a darling little gal in blue astride a miniature blue bicycle awhirl in the joy of an early Spring and all we could think of was good old Browning and his "God's in His Heaven, all's well with the world". We were back on the joy of a hike. Children can do so much to unsnarl the fretting of age.

A glance at the blacktop and sure enough, you couldn't see the road for the buzz-wagons. They were a-whizzin' down and a whizzin'-up, with nary an idea where they were heading and seeing nothing of the day's beauty. To us they were just gas-happy. And we envied them not a bit. We are sure they didn't see the home-town postmaster, Ralph Wilson, gloating over his grandchild, who in her carriage had captured the keys to Uncle Sam's mail dispensary and was determined in her girlish way never to give them up. J. Edgar himself couldn't have solved this one. We forgot to check if the Rockport post office opened the next day.

Five corners was as frantic as ever. Without a traffic cop, the flow depends largely on the "give-and-take" of the motorists. And who gives when behind that futuramic metal wheel? Our sympathy was out to Gloucester's City Auditor Kenneth Simpson Webber and his good frau Katy, who were caught in the swirl. And by the by, that is actually Dwight Dutton Square, named for a World War I hero, in case you never heard.

We paused to watch Gillie Everett busy working on his greenhouse on Agawam Lane, named for an Indian tribe long extinct. He was wielding a whitewasher with vigorous swabs. Spring does that to the more ambitious. But not to us who have no "do-it-yourself" inhibitions.

All through this stroll we couldn't escape from the fact that here in the sacred season of Lent, a mildness pervaded the atmosphere that gave zest to every step. It also convinced us all the more that every man-jack ensconced within a heated car was cheating himself or herself of the inspiration of being on foot. It is hard to believe that mechanism has robbed folks of the will to walk and see rather than ride and miss all the glories of leisurely ambling to pass the time of day with folks you know and respect.

Down past the Building Center that used to be a garage. There was the appealing announcement of how to win a bike. Great thought, for it means that some youngster is bound to be made happy and will forever remember that establishment as a wee bit of heaven. Would that more business emporiums would give a thought to childhood. It would make more than their cash registers ring happy tones.

There before us were 20th century sleds which on the balmy day appeared out of tune with the world. A mere matter of seven days brought the thought more into focus. March never lets us down when it comes to flaky treatment.

A glance at Evans Field, Hibbard-land, left us no doubt that winter remained, for there was no cries of harassed coaches or scenes of foul balls hurdling the fences and youngsters having a gay time searching for the pellets in the tall grass.

Along came Bill Reed, one of the town fathers, a perennial in town hall, on a Sunday ride a-wondering when we were going to invade the precincts of Pigeon Cove to describe his glorious walks. The Cove always appealed to us as out of America. Maybe we'll try it sometime. Right behind was Al Brown, the tax collector, extolling the virtues of Squam Hill for a stroll. But they say they grow the canines man-size up there in the hills. And we still own only that lone Sunday suit.

Around the Mill Pond, we noted a thin coating of ice, forbidding to skaters. And adacent to Architect Herb Murphy's chatelier by that pond we espied an old-fashioned "privy." That in the old days was an air-conditioned lavatory that often cooled us in the middle of the night -- and made a man of us!

The picturesque brook was running fiercely into the mirrored pond and again we felt at peace with the world. Such glimpses are what make walks worthwhile.

To climax it all, we met up with an ardent nativve, Beano Evans, and had with him the kind of chit-chat that swells our pride in old Rockport as against the invasion of the past score of years. The old town pump was a-quiverin'!

J.P.C., Jr.