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.
Showing posts with label Wendell. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Wendell. Show all posts
Monday, January 18, 2010
Friday, November 6, 2009
A Walk in Wintry Summer
Summer sure sneaked into Sandy Bay Sunday despite the chill winds. First sign of it was the thermometer reading 40 degrees as of mid-morning. Next was the strange sight of Artist Iver Rose and his missus strolling down Jewett Street toward their Main Street seaside home. Tradition has it that when Iver sets foot in Rockport from Broadway (New York), then that's the first day of the summer season.
We passed the time of day with him prior to our stroll. The Roses, in full bloom even to Iver's sheer silk muffler, made a special trip to talk business with a fellow Rockport artist, maybe a merger for all we know, and then were planning to inspect their manor by the sea to learn if the winter storms had left it intact. They were bound back to Manhattan to escape the North Atlantic blasts.
The wife and I with our four-footer, Molly, the boxer, waited untl the sun was high before we ventured forth. The wife this time plotted a short course to fetch up on Bearskin Neck, so we could experience a bleak but quiet Neck with shuttered windows and sea gulls as our only companions. That's what she thought.
On the way we spied another warm weather portent. Boys were playing baseball in the parking lot and having a lot of fun about it without fear of breaking a window.
Emerging from our own thoroughfare, School Street onto Main Street, we couldn't resist peeking into the new Oleana eaterie and its breath of Sweden, doing a thriving business. Down the avenue to scan a pile of sawn logs to the rear of Engineer Sterling Pool's yard, to note again that ancient lantern hanging over the front door adding to the richness of this center of town period dwelling.
Charming variations of wooden fences that build beauty into Dock Square and are probably one of the big reasons why outsiders repeat their visits to our town caught the wifely eye There was the plain white fence over to artist Harold Rotenberg's, the fancy white picket fence fronting the Pool property with its eight softly rounded stone pillars, the stately and smart white wooden pickets guarding longtime Advisory Board Chief Bob Rapp's former abode.
We hadn't walked another 10 feet when we were hit by the fact that old-fashioned wooden blinds mark this neighborhood. The Rapp house boasted green ones, Gene Thibeault's Rockport Market vaunted marooon ones, while Davy Jones' Locker was content with drab blackies. Who said blinds are a thing of the past?
Not only does Dock Square sport distinctive fences and blinds but its chimneys are varied. F'r n'instance the tall sparse red brick soot carrier shooting skyward from the tiny lone story ell of the so-called Wee Shop is taller than the shop itself. And across the way is a short stubby stack from a "skyscraper" in comparison to its neighbor. That's Rockport for you!
Then we ran full tilt into the third and conclusive sign of summer in winter. Traffic from the Sea Fencibles to the start of the inner breakwater was so thick that a pedestrian had to hug the sides of the walls. We who had looked forward to a stroll by ourselves found ourselves instead in the midst of all manner of cars, bearing license plates from New Jersey, Connecticut, New York and Rhode Island as well as our own Bay State. Wouldn't surprise us to know that one from l'il ol' Arkansaw sneaked by too.
There were some shops open like that of Shorty Lesch, who greeted us from the side door commenting on that fact that Rockport was getting like this every wintry Sunday if the sun favored the land. What else can the Boston folks do on a good Sunday, he said. It all makes for business.
Paying no attention at all to this mad rush was one weatherbeaten shack that today only housed the haunts of its one-time lobsterman owner, a shack that sported an upper window of six panes of bluish tinted glass, the kind of colored glass that antique dealers crave.
By this time we had sauntered into Wendell's Alley, which its owner, Eddie Wendell, prefers calling Tuna Alley. The extra-high tides of a month ago dug dangerous pot holes into it and threw askew the Republican and Democrat benches of the old Country Store.
It was a different Neck at this time of year, but a place we will visit again of another Sunday to see how a season can change the town's favored spot.
J.P.C., Jr.
We passed the time of day with him prior to our stroll. The Roses, in full bloom even to Iver's sheer silk muffler, made a special trip to talk business with a fellow Rockport artist, maybe a merger for all we know, and then were planning to inspect their manor by the sea to learn if the winter storms had left it intact. They were bound back to Manhattan to escape the North Atlantic blasts.
The wife and I with our four-footer, Molly, the boxer, waited untl the sun was high before we ventured forth. The wife this time plotted a short course to fetch up on Bearskin Neck, so we could experience a bleak but quiet Neck with shuttered windows and sea gulls as our only companions. That's what she thought.
On the way we spied another warm weather portent. Boys were playing baseball in the parking lot and having a lot of fun about it without fear of breaking a window.
Emerging from our own thoroughfare, School Street onto Main Street, we couldn't resist peeking into the new Oleana eaterie and its breath of Sweden, doing a thriving business. Down the avenue to scan a pile of sawn logs to the rear of Engineer Sterling Pool's yard, to note again that ancient lantern hanging over the front door adding to the richness of this center of town period dwelling.
Charming variations of wooden fences that build beauty into Dock Square and are probably one of the big reasons why outsiders repeat their visits to our town caught the wifely eye There was the plain white fence over to artist Harold Rotenberg's, the fancy white picket fence fronting the Pool property with its eight softly rounded stone pillars, the stately and smart white wooden pickets guarding longtime Advisory Board Chief Bob Rapp's former abode.
We hadn't walked another 10 feet when we were hit by the fact that old-fashioned wooden blinds mark this neighborhood. The Rapp house boasted green ones, Gene Thibeault's Rockport Market vaunted marooon ones, while Davy Jones' Locker was content with drab blackies. Who said blinds are a thing of the past?
Not only does Dock Square sport distinctive fences and blinds but its chimneys are varied. F'r n'instance the tall sparse red brick soot carrier shooting skyward from the tiny lone story ell of the so-called Wee Shop is taller than the shop itself. And across the way is a short stubby stack from a "skyscraper" in comparison to its neighbor. That's Rockport for you!
Then we ran full tilt into the third and conclusive sign of summer in winter. Traffic from the Sea Fencibles to the start of the inner breakwater was so thick that a pedestrian had to hug the sides of the walls. We who had looked forward to a stroll by ourselves found ourselves instead in the midst of all manner of cars, bearing license plates from New Jersey, Connecticut, New York and Rhode Island as well as our own Bay State. Wouldn't surprise us to know that one from l'il ol' Arkansaw sneaked by too.
There were some shops open like that of Shorty Lesch, who greeted us from the side door commenting on that fact that Rockport was getting like this every wintry Sunday if the sun favored the land. What else can the Boston folks do on a good Sunday, he said. It all makes for business.
Paying no attention at all to this mad rush was one weatherbeaten shack that today only housed the haunts of its one-time lobsterman owner, a shack that sported an upper window of six panes of bluish tinted glass, the kind of colored glass that antique dealers crave.
By this time we had sauntered into Wendell's Alley, which its owner, Eddie Wendell, prefers calling Tuna Alley. The extra-high tides of a month ago dug dangerous pot holes into it and threw askew the Republican and Democrat benches of the old Country Store.
It was a different Neck at this time of year, but a place we will visit again of another Sunday to see how a season can change the town's favored spot.
J.P.C., Jr.
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