Spring Inspection Tour Bearskin Neck April 1964

For the wife and I to take a Sunday walk without our friendly four-footer Molly is a rarity but on this Sunday morning, it was a "mustie." We were invading "Catland" otherwise known as Bearskin Neck. And to the brown bomber, all friendship ceases when it comes to spitting felines. Us, we'd like to keep our cat-owning friends down there and elsewhere.

The calendar may say that this Spring officially opened on March 21, but in our book the season of hope really opened its big blue eyes wide and beaming on April 12--at least in Rockport.

As we left our house in Rockport on foot all the way the 65 pound old gal sensed what was up for she looked away around the easy chair's starboard quarter, her fawn-colored eyes lifted up to us so soulfully that our resistance came close to breaking. Afterward we heard through the grapevine, that there are some citizens of the Neck who wish a cat-chaser would stalk their preserves for a space. Wonder why?

It was a walk before the sun was over the yard-arm, a walk into several alleys where abided what might be called alley cats of the four-footed variety except the cats were too well bred.

Across the street we passed through the first alley headed by a sign of really peeling words noting to those with imagination that it was not a thoroughfare. A fair-to-middlin' code decipherer might have made it out if he had time.

At the far end we looked over the fence into the back yard of the former House of Rapp. That yard was just coming alive after a bitter winter, its crocuses were out, its tulip bed was pushing upward for the day of blooming.

Into Dock Square to our left was a home with scaffolding for shingling the roof, and down the main stem with a fiery cheroot tipped at an angle in his mouth was a saunterer Ingolff Thompson, Saint Mary's sexton, window gazing.

We came to Bearskin Neck to be greeted by a sign that read, "Entrance to historic Bearskin Neck," only to read a second sign just below it which shouted, "Dead End." Historically dead? Well, hardly. It's just that when you hit the rocks by the bay, you've had it , brother. What's deader than the end of the road.

The wife and I were thinking of another summer stroll, mostly before dark, that we took almost nightly down here as we again saw the railed-in piazza atop the colorful pewter shop, the "millyuns" of new and old lobster pots stacked sky-high back of the shops. A new note in that back space that well might be called Motif Lane, was a wee weather-beaten shack labeled "Harbor Master's Office" whose window boasted the kind of mature "art" that brings sparkles to a grampie's eyes.

One difference in the back of these stores since we started the Neck meanderings a quarter century ago, is the colony inhabiting apartments that have sprung up, overlooking the inner harbor. After one shuddering look at the water-logged old Maine coaster Eva S. Cullison alongside Wendell's Alley wharf, we sauntered up through Dana Vibert's lobster shop into the main drag again where we enjoyed the sight of that mammoth arched window fronting the second floor apartment of artist John Chetcuti.

Down Wendell's (Tuna) Alley we wandered to note the elaborate changes. Ed and Doris Coleman's "House of Glass" moved into where Hedlund's Restaurant was up to a year ago. It was the kind of day that broughtout the real wealth of color from the great assortment.
Contractors King & Lilja of Rockport have built a new structure next it, a coffee house with a top deck from where folks may lunch at leisure and enjoy the yacht races. Eddie Donovan, the lobster king, will remain in his old stand.

To the end of the Neck where the town fathers have built a rotary for autoists to save them from backing up to return to Main Street. The town did a good job on this turn-around.
For the wife and me, it was a comfortable tireless walk of a Sunday morning. Try it yourself sometime before your legs quit.

J.P.C., Jr.

Old Castle & Pingree Park

They said we couldn't make it. The winds were near gale force, the rains were tearing the landscape. But out came the sun, down went the wind. So the wife and I with our capricious boxer Molly chevied again to the fringes of Pigeon Cove. We parked in the shadow of the Old Castle, that 17th century dwelling with a 20th century touch of a fuzzy cutout of Santa as a centerpiece.

An old-fashioned sled was in the driveway of a house that had a "For Sale" on it. Maybe the owner won't part with the sled he loved as a child on Rockport's hills. Before us a sign read "Paper House" with an arrow pointing to the left, up Curtis Street. The house made of paper is today protected by the A. Richard Carlsons and Mrs. Stenman. It has much to offer.

A throwback to the past was a green painted bench meant for a passenger bus stop on Granite Street. Across the way was a wrought iron fence spaced with granite pillars topped by granite balls. Molly was having a ball. She had two felines in her range, both black, one treed, the other grounded. Fortunately for us the meeow was faster than the boxer and made the tall timber in ample time.

We were attracted by Madeline Griffin's house, cut in two so that a passageway could be had to the ocean, the number is 161 Granite. As we rounded into Story Street two sparse old ghost-like trees squatted square in the middle of the road within 20 feet, opposite Norm Pool's home. Both were painted white up to about six feet high to warn motorists at night not to smear 'em.

A plaque at Pingree Field read, "Presented by Pingree Recreative Association of Pigeon Cove in memory of Rev. Arthur Howe Pingree, lover of the young for whom he lost his life, July 10, 1915." He must have been really great. But what about that word "Recreative?" It bothers us.

Just before this point, the four-footer's sleek brown broad stern came within a whisker of being whacked by a sleeker limousine. Down came the car window as the smiling driver hollered, "I wouldn't hit that dog for anything!" A dog's best friend must be man.

Pigeon Cove is a gold mine of laughing brooks coursing over rough terrain. On Story Street we reveled in the sound and sight of one. Strollng on a way of houses on one side while on the other nature runs spiritually rough-shod. Makes you tingle that God IS in His Heaven, after all, as Browning claimed.

The Story Elementary School inspires in the Yuletide season with its windows aglow with star cutouts, on the brow of the hill, like a star-studded firmament. Maybe that's stretching the imagination a wee bit but we liked the thought.

By this time Molly had darted out of line to pay a call on Betty Bartlett, for we had reached Pigeon Hill Street. The Bearskin Neck 9 o'clock-sharp closing young merchant wasn't to home, but the boxer relished the snout probe of the period house with its white trim on the front and the second story balcony.

Wintry chills failed to dampen the ardor of young fry shooting baskets at an outdoor hoop on the property of Contractor John F. Lilja. Maybe that's why Sandy Bay has superior basketball teams year in and year out. They train to swish the ball through the twine.

We came to a sign reading, "Pri. Property, pass at your own risk." The way led up past a stack of weatherbeaten lobster pots smack into a ridge of craggy boulders overgrown with briars. The "risk was' sure imminent. Thus we found our way back onto Granite Street and our chariot, a pleasant walk without even rousing up a pinch of short breath. The Cove's an Eden for Sunday Walkers.
J.P.C., Jr.