Tool Company to Andrews Point - Part II

Here we are again, the wife and I and our four-footer Molly with the Cove's Bill Reeds and Walter Johnsons continuing along the shore path of Pigeon Cove fringing the deep blue Atlantic. If you are like us who thought the town of Rockport had lost all its shore line you should have been there. We must have walked nearly two miles on that shore-skirting stroll without once trespassing.

At one time we were rubbing elbows with a well groomed hedge of the Ingalls estate. Then we passed in front of a spacious backyard occupied by a most attractive lady wrapped in a lawn chair enjoying the late season yachting scene and smiling at her Cove neighbors' greetings -- our guides. Real folksy!

Our selectman was mighty proud of the several town ways to the shore that he and his confreres over the years had been able to rescue for the town. We gained respect for him and his with every telling. This one we came to emerged from Phillips Avenue down through the Pingree property to the rocks. The woodland way merged into the sea. He told us about the Rev. Arthur Howe Pingree and how he gave his life to save others in a drowning tragedy.

Next we passed a common stone where the imprint of what must have been a tablet stood out like a sore thumb. We recalled that this must have been the tablet facing the sea placed in tribute to the late famed American poet, William Rose Benet. But what had become of the tablet? The wife and I recalled him and his wife, Marjorie Flack, as friends, though poetry is as hard for me to take as was castor oil in my tender years.

Ahead was a mass of gulls whitening ocean-swept boulders. What particular morsels attracted the flock to that area was beyond us. But at least we were protected from their unsavory air bombardment especially since I for one sported my Sunday best. Being gulled out from the air is not to this gentle hiker's choosing. Not with the current cleaner's prices.

There's one outstanding quality about four-footers like our 60-pound charge of dynamite. They can put to shame their supposedly more intelligent two-footers when it comes to rock scampering. While we were threading our way with old maidish caution from crag to crag, she was leagues ahead, snorting her way into new adventure. When I say "we" I really mean me because the rest of the party, including the missus, showed Alpine blood.

We passed outgrowths of spruce and pines growing along the shore and came across driftwod that would bring raves from he-men with large fireplaces. Driftwood that was whitened by time and the sea. Gnarled shapes that reflect ages.

Industrialist Walt and Town Leader Bill are not birders in the true sense like law-giver Larry Jodrey, but for the occasion both sported powerful binoculars to scan the horizon, Bill mostly to keep watch over the antics of the skin divers, Walt to bring into the focus the Isles of Shoals. They even let us take an occasional peep and to us, a glimpse at that far off patch of sea-going tug bound for Maine-iac land was much more fetching.

We came along Chapin's Gully, as Bill described it. And to us it looked like a miniature Rafe's Chasm with the sea swirling angrily in. Then to a cookout in the rocks where the Andrews Point folks hold their annual shore spread for the chosen ones.

Beyond was the exotic house of stone built by one George Bray with a companion smaller stone home on the grounds. The rough-faced stone and a wall added to the grimness of the construction.

One of the shore's marvels next faced us. Extensive veins of quartz in the ocean side ledges gleamed in the Fall brilliance. No one could explain it except to blame it on that glacier spree of ages ago. Our "selectman" had to admit he had been assigned before Christmas-times to come and chip off some for presents to amateur geologists in the family. As a good father, he did so. We would, too.

Ambling along a beautifully built stone wall standing seven feet tall we finally made Hoop Pole Cove. Neither guide could tell us why the name. But all of us had to admire its loveliness with its picturesque brown snails tht youngsters of Bill's and others love to color for keepsakes -- even for ear rings.

And finally to the Walter Johnson homestead for good old Svenska java and the richest softest sponge cake you ever tasted. Marie is a grand cook as well as a friendly guide to us of the South Village. The wife and I and the menace can truthfully say it was our best Sunday walk. Now we know why Cover-ers say they have the best. To that we heartily say Amen!

J.P.C., JR.

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.