Tool Company to Andrews Point - Part I

When the wife and I walked along the Pigeon Cove shore we saw so much it takes two installments to tell it all. We were with Rockport's dean of selectmen, Bill Reed and his missus, and the Walter Johnsons of Phillips Avenue.

We soon found out that the most delightful side of the North Village is the back side. The start was from the Tool Company where Walter reigns daytimes. From the uplands we overlooked the active little harbor. Working on his boat we noted the veteran fisherman "Honey" Oman.

On a shed was the lettering, "Sta Out!" done in the good old Svenska colors of blue and yellow. Along the path was a beer keg buoy. Here our 60-pound canine cyclone met her first dog of the day. That event ups heart to mouth wondering if 'tis friend or foe. But it was jolly sniffing, dog-wise, and off they hopped to share explorations. We breathed easier.

Selectman Reed, who has the only house on LaRose Avenue, spoke of the seaweed along the shore that he used for fertilizer and found it paid off. We skirted the shore back of the Hotel Edward, where Bill once bell-hopped and hoisted the flag every morning.

In front of us was the old Pigeon Cove School building where kiddoes went to classes in the first and second and fifth and sixth grades, now the home of Victor Lawn, a recent addition to Sandy Bay.

Walter called our attention to a mass of overgrown pobble stones which he labeled seagull eggs. Sheer white by eternal washing of the seas, they stood out as a waterfront heritage. We were threading our way along a rough hewn path. To the rear was thick brush. Before us was sheer ledge and always the sea. A glorious sea of turquoise blue was dotted with white sails manned by those Rockport yachtsmen who refuse to call it a season.

In advance we warned that under no circumstances would we imitate a mountain goat on this safari. But we just can't never win nohow. That nimble Town Hall savant Bill Reed kept us scampering from one boulder to another. Native pride alone kept us from ker-plopping. Sunday-best shoes were never made for such ramblings.

Weekend skindivers from Lord knows where were noted along the rocks with their red buoy flags, their oxygen tanks and man-from Mars rubber suits, ready to explore the ocean's bottom, maybe for lobsters, maybe for stones, and maybe just for the fun of it. With the temperature falling, none of us envied the venturesome youngsters.

Fascinating was the fact that along this shore path, you would mince over granite slabs that nature dumped there in some age or other, and then fade into a secluded woodland path flanked by brush and briar with bushes sporting pale blueish berries that even a "dawg" shouldn't taste. Nature is all snarled up in Pigeon Cove.

One sure thing, our Molly was not berry-picking. She just loved those high-flying birds that haunt the shore. She had herself a real ball trying to leap high enough to reach the pin feathers of a goose, skimming the shore. But the old gal had finally met her topper. They were miles ahead. The goose in our oven would never hang high because of our Molly. Who cares! I'm a steak hound when the dividends pour in.

We passed the quiet depths of the rock strewn shore where the mothers of the Cove are wont to bring their young'uns summer-times to bathe in a quiet swimming pool of ocean water. That recess is carved by the elements. Even Al Faulk couldn't have done better by it!

Ahead of us that eager beaver selectman started pulling up what to us was just ignoble chick-weed. Reed sounded irked by our ignorance as he exclaimed: "That's ragweed!" I'm just one of those characters that ragweed never harmed so why should I yank it out of existence?

It was a longer hike than the wife and I usually take but worth all the time and effort.

J.P.C., Jr.