Long Beach Spring

The sun smiled warmly upon us -- the wife, Molly, the boxer, and me -- as we shortened our Sunday stroll to walk the length of Long Beach and return to the family chariot. An engagement prevented a longer hike.

There is nothing more barren looking than a summer resort area early in Spring. With buds a-popping, grass beginning to green, and a perfectly mild day, the boarded-up cottages with no sign of life within resemble tombs. What a contrast to the sparkle of midsummer!

There were signs of life as we approached the beach. Off in a parking lot were dads and sons opening the baseball season. It was the kind of fraternizing that keeps the sons' confidence through the years. And it's a great cure for juvenile delinquency.

What interested us, as it must have more than 50 others noted along the beach lanes, was the status of the brand new seawall that Builder Joseph Perry and his men from New Bedford are constructing. We can report that they are making grand progress. Large sections of it are already done. The section near Gloucester is all done except for replacing the metal rails and stairways. Yet to be done are sections toward the Rockport end.

They tell us that two Gloucestermen, Curtis Clark and Louis Houle, came close to death last Thursday while working on the wall construction. The 36-foot wooden form, eight feet high and four feet wide, into which the concrete is poured, fell over on them. Fortunately it pinned them into yielding sand instead of onto ledge. A large gang of workers rushed over and by sheer brute strength succeeded in lifting the form enough so the two could wriggle out. There wasn't time to get the hoist alongside. Only injury reported was a bruised arm for Clark.

The wife recalled that a half century ago her folks had a cottage at this beach and observed that some of the places hadn't changed a bit. There are fewer weathervanes and flagpoles displayed than in the past. The "architecture" is the same helter-skelter type, just as the summer folks drop clothes fashions once they come through the toll gate road.

The tide was low, the surf foamy but musical. The sand was that hardness that horses love. One young man was giving his horse a gallop up and down the entire strand. That was right up Molly's alley. She tried her speed with that of the horse, and darned if she didn't overtake the fine looking equine and stay with her for quite a distance. But it sure winded that boxer.

We used to cuss people who let their dogs run on the beaches. But now we see it from the other side of the fence. Of course we know that the old gal can't have her freedom in the bathing season, but during the winter and spring what better place to let 'em streak? She was quick to rub noses, or whatever dogs do to get acquainted, with at least five other gallopers, dogs even we'd like to know, they were so friendly.

In the distance Gloucester and Boston draggers chugged by apparently on their way to the fishing grounds for a chance at that valuable haddock. A sail apeared toward the horizon. And Thacher's twin lights took a breather. Yes, it was a beautiful place to be.

Missing was the picturesque gnarled oak timber sticking out from the sand a year ago, the ribs of some ill-fated fishing boat of a half century ago. We saw that the seas had restored much sand to the beach. After that terrific blow of April 1958 that felled two huge sections of the seawall, the beach was gouged out in some areas.

Great piles of grout lining the beach as riprap for the wall, young America discovered, made a real playland for climbing and hide-and-seek. Danger of the heavy granite sliding from beneath them didn't seem to bother them one bit.

J.P.C., Jr.