It's Good to Walk Even on Easter

What does anyone do on an Easter afternoon? Walk, of course, even if you have to wear cast-offs. It's traditional in New England at least, and respectable folks leave their gas wagons home for a while. Obedient to our august selectmen's wishes, again we leashed our brown bomber, the quadruped Molly, as we idled fom our home base on School Street into a litter-less Main Street (Gloucester, take notice!).

In the window of the store once owned by Mrs. Jennie Savage we admired an Easter egg tree, gaily colored. So did we like a gnarled old scrub tree in the yard of Betty Bruni on Jewett Street, where colored eggs were implemented by a hen, a duck and a life-like Easter bunny.

Easter finery perched atop Rockport ladies' heads, resembling eye-fetching pancakes, floated past. Style, they call it in some circles. Into Broadway we sailed, our haughty four-footer still prancing on the leash, scoffing at neighborhood hoodlums yapping at her withers. Even our Rockport constabulary noted how well we were keeping the leash edict. At Five Corners we took a left up the hill past Eddie Doyle's future golden garden. Eddie was once a minion of the law in Clamtown (Essex).

Into Poole's Lane we headed for the railroad yard. The wife and I knew this lane well, when it was hardly more than a footpath. Those were the days when our young fry were gaining their feet, the days when there was a piggery owned by the grocers Ketchopoulos, a fount of exploration at that age when every grunt was a challenge; the day when a planked footbridge crossed a rushing gurgling brook another half hour pause of childish diversion. That lane had many lessons for our boy and then our girl that no textbook could ever give. Too bad modern educators couldn't abandon their textbooks and slide rules and take their young charges into the fields and show them the force of nature.

Off the leash, Molly raced down the lane, probing yards on both sides, having a ball. Down past Jim Ketchopoulos' yard, we saw where a horse barn stood and a granite trough still stands, covered with lobster pots. By this time, we were plumb up against the town's first Housing for the Elderly Project, 50 units that to us look crowded, with double-deckers. After 60, who wants to climb stairs?

Into youth's domain we passed Evans Field, where little children were frisking away at bat-the-ball, home-plate-or-bust, and fly the homespun kite down the rugged hill. As we ambled up the cinder path we dropped in for a moment on railroader Spencer Perkins to enjoy the warmth of his Busted and Maine potbellied stove, glowing red.

Onward and upward, we trudged, Railroad Avenue down Broadway and past a third spectuacular Easter egg-colored scrub tree in the well groomed front yard of former Postmaster Ralph Wilson on Broadway. Thence into School Street and our domicle where Molly grunted her way into slumberland, dreaming of the felines she had failed to conquer.

J.P.C., Jr.

Walk Into Sea Lanes

Sundays can even be busy days with us old Rockporters to the point where sandwiching in time enough for a stroll may be difficult. Such was last Sunday, one of the most ideal, weather-wise. So it was not until approaching twilight that the wife and I and our fast fading four-footer could find moments to meander along new lanes. This time the wife chose a walk into sea lanes close by.

At Patch's Corner, it looked as if the seats were taken over by the summer folks in garish array, easing out the local characters. For all, the sky offered a glorious twilight show of rare clouds, pink tinged. On a door in the square a nameplate reading Frank Jordan reminded us of his old native Rockport saying about the "mess of green corn...the summer's gone." The old call fire department missed a lot with his passing.

Up the Main Street we poked through the tide of trippers on their way back to 128 and the cities, and in no time we escaped into the first of our sea lanes. On Pier Avenue, we enjoyed the last vestiges of the rampantly beautiful rose garden of Mrs. Edwin N. Kent. Staying on for the summer were her colorful petunias and geraniums. By the way, this has been a rose garden since 1936.

From there to the shore where a forbidding sign screamed "positively No Trespassing" and the signature was S.H. Pool whom many know and respect as Sterling H. Pool, Rockport's sanitary engineer. His is a modest private beach hemmed in by grim stone walls, but we felt he wouldn't mind Molly scratching up a bit of its sand or madly dashing after an unwary gull. Molly has yet to catch one.

Across the way to invade the rose bowered white picket fence of our long time friends, the Parker Eldridges. Their patio overlooks the bay with its colorful boating and swimmng activity. Visiting them was Oscar Benson, who was painting the Methodist Church in a rich white, and whose son-in-law is the church pastor, Rev. Robert Mezoff. Next door is the home of Mary Velanti, a physical education teacher of Greater Boston. The structure by the sea was formerly occupied by artist Yarnall Abbott and before that was a barn used by the same Frank Jordan for his delivery wagon.

Back on the Main Street, it was worth noticing the old Grand Army Hall, a college frat initiation type structure, changed from grim red brick to sheer white. Its quaint small windows mark it here in Sandy Bay. It's the worship hall for the Christian Scientists. Onto another sea lane, leading down to "Blue Gates," where Edith Lowell lived: an old house and a picturesque one overlooking the bay, ivy enclustered and worthy of an artist's brush; a wonderful lawn and a yellow cat for decoration. What more could an author want for a background?

Maybe you wonder why all this time the "monster' has been so peaceful. A walk to our sea lanes forbids us take this canine atomic bomb off the leash. We have too much respect for our summer kinsfolk and their fanciful leash-bound pets.

Finally into the choicest sea lane of them all, that of Ivar Rose and his wife. She has converted an alley into an irrestible flowery retreat. Candy tuft geraniums and purple petunias are the words the "botanist" wife used in describing what artist Ivar and the missus had growing there. Plus religious figurines and striking stone work, it is no wonder that both summer and year-around folks pause to look down the alley in admiration.

And as we again stopped at the head of that alley, we couldn't help but again look at the little long shop wherein for years, Jennie Savage once presided as counsellor-philosopher to Rockporters of all ages, regardless of religion, color or party, native or carpet bagger.

Even the main stem with its side lanes to the sea offer a quiet walk of a Sunday to all of us.
J.P.C., Jr.