A Walk in Wintry Summer

Summer sure sneaked into Sandy Bay Sunday despite the chill winds. First sign of it was the thermometer reading 40 degrees as of mid-morning. Next was the strange sight of Artist Iver Rose and his missus strolling down Jewett Street toward their Main Street seaside home. Tradition has it that when Iver sets foot in Rockport from Broadway (New York), then that's the first day of the summer season.

We passed the time of day with him prior to our stroll. The Roses, in full bloom even to Iver's sheer silk muffler, made a special trip to talk business with a fellow Rockport artist, maybe a merger for all we know, and then were planning to inspect their manor by the sea to learn if the winter storms had left it intact. They were bound back to Manhattan to escape the North Atlantic blasts.

The wife and I with our four-footer, Molly, the boxer, waited untl the sun was high before we ventured forth. The wife this time plotted a short course to fetch up on Bearskin Neck, so we could experience a bleak but quiet Neck with shuttered windows and sea gulls as our only companions. That's what she thought.

On the way we spied another warm weather portent. Boys were playing baseball in the parking lot and having a lot of fun about it without fear of breaking a window.

Emerging from our own thoroughfare, School Street onto Main Street, we couldn't resist peeking into the new Oleana eaterie and its breath of Sweden, doing a thriving business. Down the avenue to scan a pile of sawn logs to the rear of Engineer Sterling Pool's yard, to note again that ancient lantern hanging over the front door adding to the richness of this center of town period dwelling.

Charming variations of wooden fences that build beauty into Dock Square and are probably one of the big reasons why outsiders repeat their visits to our town caught the wifely eye There was the plain white fence over to artist Harold Rotenberg's, the fancy white picket fence fronting the Pool property with its eight softly rounded stone pillars, the stately and smart white wooden pickets guarding longtime Advisory Board Chief Bob Rapp's former abode.

We hadn't walked another 10 feet when we were hit by the fact that old-fashioned wooden blinds mark this neighborhood. The Rapp house boasted green ones, Gene Thibeault's Rockport Market vaunted marooon ones, while Davy Jones' Locker was content with drab blackies. Who said blinds are a thing of the past?

Not only does Dock Square sport distinctive fences and blinds but its chimneys are varied. F'r n'instance the tall sparse red brick soot carrier shooting skyward from the tiny lone story ell of the so-called Wee Shop is taller than the shop itself. And across the way is a short stubby stack from a "skyscraper" in comparison to its neighbor. That's Rockport for you!

Then we ran full tilt into the third and conclusive sign of summer in winter. Traffic from the Sea Fencibles to the start of the inner breakwater was so thick that a pedestrian had to hug the sides of the walls. We who had looked forward to a stroll by ourselves found ourselves instead in the midst of all manner of cars, bearing license plates from New Jersey, Connecticut, New York and Rhode Island as well as our own Bay State. Wouldn't surprise us to know that one from l'il ol' Arkansaw sneaked by too.

There were some shops open like that of Shorty Lesch, who greeted us from the side door commenting on that fact that Rockport was getting like this every wintry Sunday if the sun favored the land. What else can the Boston folks do on a good Sunday, he said. It all makes for business.

Paying no attention at all to this mad rush was one weatherbeaten shack that today only housed the haunts of its one-time lobsterman owner, a shack that sported an upper window of six panes of bluish tinted glass, the kind of colored glass that antique dealers crave.

By this time we had sauntered into Wendell's Alley, which its owner, Eddie Wendell, prefers calling Tuna Alley. The extra-high tides of a month ago dug dangerous pot holes into it and threw askew the Republican and Democrat benches of the old Country Store.

It was a different Neck at this time of year, but a place we will visit again of another Sunday to see how a season can change the town's favored spot.

J.P.C., Jr.