Fall in Pigeon Cove

A Sunday drizzle doesn't make for a pleasant stroll, so the wife and I and our cat-hater cheated on four wheels as we hit for Pigeon Cove to park near the Cape Ann Tool Co. It was to be a short stroll this Sabbath, hoping to stay as dry as the weather would allow.

Below us was a weather-beaten black and white striped barber pole flagging the establishment of the original cemetery commissioner, Johnny Francis, and boasting a nostalgic sign, "Ask for (a hair tonic)" which we trust is not-intoxicating.

Across the lively highway we noted an attractive home-like structure labeled The Story Library. The wife is one of the three who guide it through its bookish destiny. The curbstone border along the properties appeared to have gone on a bender. Not one of the long slabs jibed.

The wife had an urge to poke through Edgemere Road just to see what it was like. Here it was that the venerable Nestor of selectmen, Eli Morgan, long resided. A short road, now hot-topped, leads abruptly to the waterfront. The sea was ugly, frothing with white caps far below the road.

Edgemere Road loops past the home of one Critchet, he of the Gloucester National Bank, we presumed, on the very verge of the Atlantic. We admire a man perched where the sea in all its moods is so close. As we approached this off-street haven, we could see a healthy kitty dash madly around a house. Our Molly has a penchant for felines, but this time the dampers of her snout were down. Kitty took no chances and leaped to a porch top out of danger. To this hour, Molly does not realize how close she came to making the fur fly.

In the Tool Company's yard, we could see a mountain of purplish colored slag that lent beauty to the town's principal industry. We are ever impressed with the austerity of the company's red brick office building that is in such sharp contrast to the dingy gray mustiness of the forge plant across the street.

From here the good wife as usual had ideas to round out the Sunday walk by passing a "No Trespassing" sign. Me, I wondered what if anything of interest could lurk behind the dingy street frontage only to become excited at the suddenness of a hidden abandoned quarry a hundred feet up a woodland path. A mountainous slab of rich brown granite rose from the sylvan pond that winter-times must provide an ideal skating pond, and summers, a swimming pool par excellence. Only thing lacking was a diving board. Who owns it, anyway? The town should for recreation's sake. In the backgound loomed the light poles and homes of Curtis Street.

A few wheezes farther we came upon another abandoned water-filled quarry pit on the other side of the rise. The granite slabs of this one were encrusted with greenery. It was real shallow. It looked as if no one had yet discovered it. Continuing along the wooded path, we found it strewn with fulsome fall-painted oak leaves as we emerged onto Curtis Street, where punkins adorned the door stoops.

A vigorous police dog, male gender, was the welcoming committee for the loud-mouthed Molly. They woofed and they snoofed.
J.P.C., Jr.

Bits for a Telephone Share - Pigeon Cove

We cheated again. The ancient wagon was used to cart us and the female monster Molly down to the Cape Ann Tool Company to reach our objective. The day was fine, the air brisk. We were set for a bout with adventure, knowing that with us was a sportive quadruped that had the temper of a prima donna that might look upon our limbs as prey, as well as those of people who never fed her. A fearer of canines for years, we were on tenterhooks every inch of the brief promenade.

But first there was none but delight to greet us. A row of old-time lobster shacks with vari-colored buoys plastering all of them, and lobster pots stacked high before them all. Then we came to a door of a small shack where a sign read "Please do not park in front of windows or doors." Our reportorial sense was aroused and spotting a native, fast becoming a rarity, we inquired the wherewithals. It seems that the one occupant, Emil Hietala, nearing 80, broke his hip a couple of years ago, and has not poked his nose out of the modest establishment in that time, so naturally he wants to look out. How can he do it if the view is blocked by a car? His son, who works next door in the Cape Ann Tool Col, visits him daily.

A pleasing sight to one who loves the old-time waterfront was tubs of trawl lines, the trawl buoys that dotted the lane. The lobstermen also try their hand at trawling along the shore. Theirs is a year-round enterprise and they risk their lives battling the angry seas.

That cove that Pigeon Covers insist is a harbor was bristling with activity. Lobster boats sporting trawl gear right down to the tubs filled the compact harbor with its rock-strewn shore--rocks greened by time, and too much decked with rubbish spilled by the non-civic minded. Its breakwater was impressive. An unfinished job. The original was apparent. So was what looked like a new part. But that only emphasized the stark gap where it seemed as if some of Uncle Sam's loose change would come in handy to close that gap and give this industrial small fleet the protecting it deserves.

We weren't exactly off the beaten path on this pocket-size jaunt. There appeared to be enough gas-buggy traffic to warrant a traffic cop to protect the pedestrians. Not only fishermen, but plain nosey folks like ourselves were a-visiting. And then we came across Rockport's veteran lobster dealer, Roy Moore, who can only be called the elder, to distinguish him from his High school-teaching son bearing the same name. As we chatted, he pointed across the cove to say that it was there that Alexander Graham Bell lived while he was experimenting with the telephone. "He would come down to the cove here and try to sell telephone stock to the fishermen for 25 cents a share," said Moore. "And they all laughed at him."

Roy said Eli Morgan, onetime selectman, used to tell him that story. And Eli would always chuckle that many of those fishermen later rued the day that they didn't dig up even a tenner and buy that paper. The Cove would have had several millionaires if they had followed through. Moore also recalled that even he could see the vast change in that same Wharf Road area. "It's a lot different than 50 years ago," he remarked. "There used to railroad tracks right from the quarries to the wharf. There'd be two-masted and three-masted schooners waiting to load stone for the big cities. And George Frost had big coal barges coming in here to supply him."

Also a fact we didn't know, Roy looked across the Cove at the array of sultry gray buildings that make up the active Cape Ann Tool Co., part of Cape Ann's thriving industry. "See that smallest black building on the end?" he asked. One story, hardly more than a baby shed, uninviting. "Well, that's the original Cape Ann Tool Company!" From that the Deans moved onward and upward to their own benefit, and also to the benefit of hundreds of Cape Anners. And all without fuss and fanfare.

Looking across to the opposite shore, we spotted the former home of our editor and envied him for the choice view he had of a quaint waterfront panorama. before him was a bit of 19th century excitement inhabited by people who remain down-to-earth despite the inroads of progress.

Our musings were rudely interrupted by the ructious female. Off the leash, she had run afoul of a weird looking hunk of offal that may have at one time resembled a half loaf of bread. By now it must have been attaining an age beyond good health. But like all four-footers, Molly is a scavenger at heart. A wee bit of disciplining was in order, accompanied with a tug to wrest the clump from her fangs without losing a hand. The deed was done. A few seconds and she never missed it. A neighborhood pooch gave her the welcoming yowl; she yapped back. They both tail wig-wagged "top of the day," and the visit to the Cove was as successful to our Molly as to ourselves. Why not include it in YOUR strolls too? We promise you enjoyment.
J.P.C., Jr.