Walk Around the Fourth

The town was panicked on the stillest Fourth in our history. Not a cracker sputtered but the streets were jammed bumper to bumper with day trippers and the like down to catch a glimpse of the lobster shacks and fish huts. The wife and I and our good four-footer decided that even the sidewalks weren't safe for us pedestrians on the only day of the week we had to stroll.

So we decided to walk around the Fourth by sticking to the safety lanes in the neighborhood and see what our closest friends had succeeded to woo out of the late Spring elements and questionable soil.

Crossing our home street we ventured down Moody Lane that lacked a name until we decided our most recent inhabitant ought to be so honored. 'Tis a private path used most frequently connecting School Street in our Rockport with Dock Square. Information Please sponsored by our Board of Trade is at the other end. It was fitting that the first feller we should bump into in a car from Alexandria, Va., was Johnny Day who used to live next door and who got his sandlot baseball know-how in the adjacent school yard.

Just like Johny, the kiddoes were still in that playground despite the fact that town decree had crowded the swings and jungle gym with a hot-topped auto parking lot.

Down past the backyard of Alex Marr, where hollyhocks lent joy to the day bolstered by the gracious sight of petunias, marguerites and roses along the alleyway. across the road, clinging green ivy climbed up a stately chimney on a Bob Rapp summer home.

Just ahead was the sight of a slinking yellow furry critter whose breed held nothing but contempt from our Molly but fortunately the old gal was on a leash and could only dream of downing her first feline. It was a day when the leash was a must if we were to bring her back alive. Car wheels can be so impressive on a careless Boxer.

It was crowds, crowds, crowds in Dock Square that Fourth of July day, what with long distance passenger busses parked all over the lot. New England seemed to have come to Rockport for the day. They came in all shapes and sizes and in all stages of dress and undress but every mother's son of them looked happy and comfortable. It made us feel good they were all with us.

On the Neck we veered off along Middle Road to escape the press of folks for a space. Off to the left we saw one whole bank of deep red roses along the Frank Kenny property and opposite was an equally deep bank of sheer creamy white roses on the Sail Loft property.

On Middle Road outstanding was the done-over property of Heinrich Scottoni who transformed a building into an early American with overhanging floor and leaded small-paned windows. Dark stained, the structure took us back into the 17th century, a touch of old Deerfield dropped down onto Sandy Bay. It's too bad more people don't see it.

The road itself is one continuous bower of red and white roses in all their June fullness. But we were the sole wayfarers bothering to breathe in its luxury. The masses were gawking along bauble row to the south'ard.

Another home here boasted screens reveling in scenes of Rockport's Motif No. 1, and a lighthouse picture that could be anywhere in New England. And overhead was a ship's wheel.

Rambler roses sprayed all over The Rudder as we wound our way back onto the main drag of the Neck. Through an opening we could glimpse the town's Front Beach, really jumping this hot summer day with summer and year-around folks bravely battling near freezing waters.

Off to the right were the century old stone walls along the shore where we recalled our own young'uns would scamper as the old man's heart was literally in his mouth, and the good wife had nary a worry. She knew the powers of kiddoes far better than did her spouse.

Once again on the Neck's main stem, again we found the traffic afoot and on wheels was too much for us and our Molly straining on the leash. It was home again to await a quiet day before we venture forth again.
J.P.C., Jr.

NOTE: "Moody Lane" has now been named StoneBarn Lane for the stone barn which once stood there.