Revisiting my past life

June 27, 2019 in exploring the USA | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , | 7 comments

Elisia’s exit reminded me of the old days when my group of friends rode the Fitchburg train together.

Boston is so close to my old life, when I lived in Fitchburg and rode the commuter train to school in Waltham. After exploring Boston for a day, the next day Will and I spent the whole day traveling old routes, walking old paths, gaining new perspectives on old vistas.

First we took Route 2 out to Fitchburg. I pointed out the spot where I was pulled over for speeding, and Massachusetts forgot to ask me to pay the ticket for FIVE YEARS. I became disproportionately excited to see the Exit 32 sign to Leominster. When I lived out here I rode the train to school every school day for three years. I got on the same train at the same time every morning, and rode into the city with all the same people. We got to know each other. I even did my Masters Thesis on how fear and feelings of safety are managed on the commuter rail train when packed in there with strangers. My very best friend at that time was Elisia, who lived in Leominster. She has a lovely English accent and we were all delighted the day she told us the highway exit to her home was number 32. We made her say it a dozen times. We giggled with glee and found opportunities to ask about Exit 32 (prounced in Lissy’s English accent) whenever we could, from then on.

A 2005 photo of the house when I lived there.

What it looks like now. Not much change. A new fence, solar panels, a bigger tree, and neglected garden and lawn.

Our first stop was my old house. The old neighborhood looked almost exactly the same except that the trees along the street were larger. The landscaping around my old house looked ratty and unkempt, and there was a For Sale sign out front. I was sad that none of the trees or lilac bushes I had planted had survived. There was a new fence in the back yard and solar panels. I recalled shoveling snow from that driveway so many times.

We drove around the town of Fitchburg, Massachusetts. It has tiny pockets of commerce scattered around the outskirts leaving the center almost desolate. No people walking, and many empty buildings. When pawn shops and consignment shops for children’s clothes are on main street, it’s a sign that people are shopping somewhere else. My two favourite sightings from my past were the library, and of course the train station. It’s a sad town and I felt validated for never liking it while I lived there.

Walden Pond, from the end where the train passes close by.

We returned to Route 2 toward Boston and stopped at Walden Pond, made famous in Henry David Thoreau’s book. While traveling to school I had looked out the train windows at the pond, twice a day, day in and day out for more than a year before I realized which pond it was. Then I read Walden again, despite not liking it the first time I read it, and realized that Thoreau even mentions the train.

Will in the pond. It was a hot day and the cool water felt good on our feet.

I splashed around, getting water on my head and back, and cooling off. {photo by Will Murray}

The pond today is a park, visited by nearly 500,000 people a year. It is open to swimming, fishing, and boating, and is surrounded by trails. Though Thoreau kept fit by jogging around the lake every day, visitors who want to emulate his experience are asked not to run on the trail that follows the shore, but to keep their running activity to the trails farther away.

Will and I explored the brand new beautiful visitor’s center, and then made our way to the pond. The pond is always more serenely beautiful than I expect, for so famous a tourist destination. Today it is protected land, and I get the sense that it is more forested and more lush than when Thoreau lived there. There are many easy trails to follow and we followed them. On the far side of the pond, Thoreau’s cabin no longer exists, but there are granite stones set to show where it used to be. Nearby is a large mound of rocks left by people in remembrance. He wasn’t living there at his death, but close friends the Alcotts (including the famous author Louisa May) laid the first stones at the site after his death. It began a tradition.

The site of Henry David Thoreau’s cabin. You can see the pile of rocks to the left.

A large pile of stones carried by admirers from around the world. Many contain messages from those who left them.

As we prepared to leave, I gave the all-day parking pass that we had purchased to the next car that pulled in to the lot. It was a small car packed with kids that looked around the age of 20, and they were so grateful for the pass. I try to do this whenever I can, handing over a parking pass when there is still time left on it. I think having to pay to park a car is annoying, so I cheat the system. I’m such a law-breaker rebel!!

Next we went to the campus of Brandeis University, where I received my BA and MA in 2007. It was 6pm and nearly empty of people. I was surprised to find every door unlocked. We wandered across the entire campus and you can bet I marched us right inside every building I wanted to explore.

First of all we went into the art building. My first two years at school I knew the Art building because of my job. I modeled for the painting classes. It was good money ($10 an hour – the highest pay available to a student on campus) for very little work. I am not shy about my body and found it interesting and challenging to find new creative poses and then to hold perfectly still. The students were amazingly kind and grateful, and always let me watch them work during breaks. Finally I had completed enough required courses that I had room for an elective, and I took a beginning oil class. The classroom was just as I remembered it, except for a new ugly ducting tube on the ceiling.

Art room Spring 2019.

Painting of art room. Fall 2006.

We walked through the Student Union building where I had talked with Anita Hill the year before she became a professor there, and where I had heard Thomas Friedman tell us why the World Is Flat. (At the University I also heard lectures by Howard Zinn, Azra Nomani, and President Jimmy Carter – it was a good place to hear people.) Up the hill we passed the library with floors that sink down instead of rise above ground level. We climbed the stairs at the Brown Social Science Center, up to the Anthropology Department. It’s still an old, outdated building, but filled with many happy memories. The halls smelled the same. Many of the professors I knew are still there, I could see, from bios posted on a bulletin board. I wrote a note on a paper towel from the bathroom and left it for Laurel, the woman in the office who keeps everything running. I said “Hi, I miss you all.”

We walked up all the steps of the Rabb Graduate Center and on up the hill to the Mandel Quad, where I took an Introduction to Judaism class once I realized I was attending a Jewish-centric school. Ha! Can you believe I had no idea until I arrived on campus? I’m so silly. Finally we went over to my other favourite building on campus: the Mandel Center where I took most of my classes for conflict resolution, mediation and peace building. It’s my favourite because that is where I met two of my best friends in all the world, Mads and Romain, who were also in the conflict resolution program.

This statue of Louis Brandeis is hard to resist. I wanted to show him more stuff, but he was focused on making the world a better place.

It began to rain as we walked back down the long hill. I told Will things like, “if you had a class at the Art building, then your next class was up here at Rabb, or the Mandel Center, you would just be late. That’s all there is to it.” I remembered having a law class at the top of the hill, then auditing a society & economy class with Robert Reich (well-known American economist and political commentator) down at the Slosberg Music Hall at the bottom of the hill. I was always late, and the packed theatre room never had seating available, so I sat on the floor with the other students who couldn’t arrive early.

Will and I were soaked through when we found our car at the bottom of the hill. I had spent a week with Will 24/7 and I am an introvert and used to living alone. Prior to the trip we had scheduled in two days away from each other. I drove him to the train station and he caught a train home to Providence. I drove to a random hotel that I had chosen because it was the cheapest in the whole Boston area, ha ha. I planned to visit with friends for two days and then go meet Will in Rhode Island for the final week.

A loved Trulove

June 24, 2019 in family | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , | 21 comments

This is one of the best ways I remember Grandma Trulove: camping.

While I was in New England, my Great Aunt texted to let me know that my Grandma Trulove died at age 99 on May 16. It wasn’t entirely a shock because she had been declining, but still came with the regret at not having visited her more often, and a discussion about whether to cancel my vacation and go home for the service. I decided to stay in New England. It was a lucky choice, since I never heard any information about a burial or funeral. That wasn’t entirely a shock either.

Grandpa Trulove married Margaret Louise after divorcing my other Grandma Freda. This happened before I was born, so I grew up knowing her as Grandma Trulove, and no amount of understanding legalities made her less of a grandma to me. She was loving and welcoming and fun to visit. Grandma loved creating with her hands, and all the grandkids benefitted from her hobby of sewing stuffed animals for us. My favourite was a large purple stuffed rabbit, and my brother’s was a stuffed green dinosaur.

My earliest memories of her are from hunting camp, when I was a child. The family, and a few friends, would all camp together during deer hunting season. The kids would play in camp and most of the adults would go off in search of deer. Grandma would stay in camp to hand out Kool-aid or in case we needed a bandaid. We rarely reached out to her, busying ourselves with digging holes in the dirt, stacking rocks, hurling pinecones or playing in the creek, but it was good to know she was right there.

At home in Klamath Falls, Grandma Trulove presided over the kitchen. She would ask me to help set the large table, and then I helped carry serving dishes to cover the whole table in comfort foods. She liked to paint, and crochet, and by combining her talents and special finds while shopping, she filled the bottom drawer of a dresser in the spare room with gifts. I was allowed to peek into the drawer, where already-wrapped gifts waited for birthdays and Christmas. It seemed magical to me at the time, a reminder that holidays were coming, and that Grandma would never forget.

Grandma Trulove in a Christmas outfit. Look at those shoes!

Here she is posing with the Thunderbird. It was probably the day she and Grandpa bought it.

She also loved to write, and we exchanged hand-written letters all my life until her last few years, when shaky hands made the writing too difficult for her. Once she got older, Grandma always apologized for the shakiness of the cursive writing and the lack of more interesting things to say. Of course I was so pleased to receive one of her letters that I never noticed the things she thought were flaws.

When I was a teenager, Grandma and Grandpa begged for me to come and live with them and go to Mazama High School, only a couple blocks from the house. When I married Tara’s dad, they were proud to make the trip and attend the wedding. Their love was undeniable, and I adored them both.

The best times we shared were when she lived in Sandy, Oregon, which was only 45 minutes away from my home in Portland. I enjoyed our visits so much. In minutes she would begin telling me stories of her life. She told me about when she left home in the 1940s and went to live with her sister in Portland, and how the two of them worked hard to pay the bills and loved the handsome military men that would come into Portland. She told me about the hard times too: her difficult marriage while struggling to raise her babies before she met Grandpa. Most of all she loved to tell me about Grandpa Trulove, who had died in 2002, how he was the best friend and partner she could have wished for, how he always took care of her, and how he gave her a comfortable life with vacations and friends. She loved traveling with him, particularly to Hawaii.

“I don’t know what it is about you,” she said on more than one occasion. “As soon as you get here I just start talking and talking. I tell you things I don’t talk about with anyone.” I told her it was my superpower: people just talk to me. And I asked her to tell me more.

Grandma hated having her photo taken, but I begged for this one and she acquiesced. This is with Tara in Grandma’s place in Sandy, OR in September 2007. I gave her that clock as a Christmas gift many years ago. She gave it back to me when she had to downsize. It’s hanging in my living room right now.

She loved to tell me about her kids and her other grandkids – estranged from my family for some reason. Maybe because they were from a different marriage. She was so proud of them all and excited to show me their artwork and family photos. She told me stories about my mother and father when I was a baby.

She was very proud of her life, and not the typical mooshy grandma stuff, but her individual adventures and accomplishments. When she was in high school, she and her best friend used to stop by the local courthouse on the way home from school, just to sit and watch the hearings. She said it was the best entertainment in town. She got jobs to support the family when she needed to, and she got good jobs, taking over secretarial and financial posts for companies and delighting in the well-earned praise that she received. One of her favourite jobs was in Shasta Lake, California and to the end of her life she marveled at her great luck in getting that job. She talked about creating a whole filing system for Crater Lake National Park in Oregon when she and Grandpa lived and worked there as full time residents. The system was effective and efficient, and she became a valuable resource for the Park offices, being called back now and then to help them on a temporary basis, even after her full-time employment had ended.

Grandma Trulove was a voracious reader, even with poor eyesight. She went through books like meals, eating them up and gaining sustenance from them. She kept bookshelves with her favourites as long as she could, and loaned me some of them: Endurance: Shackleton’s Incredible Voyage, Gone With the Wind, and anything by Louis L’Amour.

Because of her sharp intellect and subtle wit, she was frustrated with her counterparts while living in the retirement home in Sandy, and later in Lebanon, Oregon. She was 92 when she complained to me, “Everybody here is old. All they want to talk about is babies, and their sicknesses and which medications they take. I want to talk about interesting things. There are so many more interesting things to talk about, but they don’t want to.” When she did find close friendships there, it was when she found someone who shared her fascination with the rest of the world.

Grandma’s optometrist was far away in Portland. She needed a good eye doctor because she was legally blind in one eye and partially sighted in the other. “I’ve got to take care of my good eye!” she pronounced. Once I found this out, I took advantage of my employer’s generous family leave policy that allowed me to take a paid sick day to take care of my grandmother. I looked forward to our long days together: the drive to the eye doctor, the waiting room, the visits themselves (she invited me in so I could help explain anything, if necessary), stops for prescriptions afterward, and the long drive back home. She was exhausted by the end of those days, and I was able to keep her spirits up because I was having so much fun.

Grandma and me March 2013 in the waiting room at the optometrist’s office. This is the very last photo I could get her to agree to.

I was broken-hearted when she moved to Lebanon, separating us by 3 hours instead of 45 minutes. That made it much harder for me to visit, and the frequency dropped dramatically. I am sorry about that to this day. My Great Aunt and Uncle live just a few minutes away from the assisted living home, and as a pastor and pastor’s wife, insisted to me that it is part of their church work to visit the elderly in their community. They offered to visit Grandma Trulove, and soon became an active part of her life.

On a visit not too long ago, Grandma was talking about my Great Aunt and Great Uncle, her relatives who had been to visit. I tried to correct her. Grandma was in her nineties and of course things were hard to remember. “No, Grandma, they are from my side of the family. They aren’t actually related to you, but they love you!” Oh my goodness, the look I received. Grandma was almost never angry with me, but that time she made her anger evident. It was as though I was talking trash about her beloved family. She let me know that she was my elder, and she knew more than me, and those two were her family and there would be no further discussion on it! Well, I laughed about it later. But what better compliment than for someone to love your visits so much that she decides you are related!

For at least the last decade, Grandma Trulove wanted to die. I think it was mostly because she missed Grandpa so much, and also because of all the “boring old people” she lived with. She had wretched arthritis and her crafty hands were always in pain and not flexible, so all the hobbies she most enjoyed: painting, sewing, crocheting, and crossword puzzles, were lost to her. She was not interested in computers. Television bored her, and though she always had a set, I never saw it on. She told me without hesitation that she wanted to die, every time I visited. With dry humor she would say, “Well, I was at the doctor on Tuesday. He said I’m in good health as usual.” She would sigh. “I’m ready to go any day, but my body won’t let me: I’m just too darn healthy.” She tried to take it into her own hands by not eating, but her care providers at the home were required to make sure she ate every day. That frustrated her too. She just wanted to sleep and never wake up.

Well, Grandma, finally your battle is over and you won. Thank you thank you for loving me, trusting me, and sharing so many of your stories with me.

Fear leads to dying, not winning

June 22, 2019 in politics, Raving With Abandon | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , | 7 comments

Time to state the obvious. Bringing guns to the Oregon state Capitol is a bad idea.

Some Oregonian politicians don’t like the bill being presented that will place a cap on carbon emissions. The Democrats have a majority and it is expected that the bill will pass. Republicans are desperate to block it, and have responded by fleeing (probably to Idaho) so that there won’t be a quorum, and the vote won’t be valid.

Up to this point in the story, I personally support the actions. It’s childish maybe, but non-violent and powerful. Although I am in support of a cap on carbon emissions, I admire clever humans who find a way to work within a system and get their voices heard. Fleeing a vote has been done before, but not very often. It’s drastic, and has definitely hit the news now, which promotes a continued discussion. All good stuff.

The problem is fear.

In Oregon and all across the U.S. are these grass roots militia groups that fancy themselves saviors of American ideals. They’ve bought into the Trump-sponsored belief that there are only two kinds of people: Democrats and Republicans, and you can’t safely have both, and one must oppress the other. These militia people are usually country folk and usually align themselves with the Republican party. They are mostly good people who take their kids out fishing and have the neighbors over for a barbecue, and are quick to offer a hand to a stranger with a broken down truck, and donate to a good cause. But mention politics and they transform.

Politics and power trigger within country folk a deeply held fear of losing a way of life, while they desperately cling to jobs that are part of lagging and changing industries. People on TV talk about systems automation and unmanned transport trucks and using hydroponics to grow crops and making burgers in a petri dish, and this is frightening at a gut level, for folks who don’t know the first thing about all that, and have families to support right now by driving long-haul rigs and feeding the cattle, and repairing the combine, and clocking in at work each day. Those people on TV seem like the same people who talk about saving the environment and advocate for gun control.

So it gets all mushed up together and amplified with Fear Sauce in the common consciousness: “The people who talk about regulating firearms are the people taking away the jobs.” and  “The people who want to put a cap on emissions are the people who want to take away our guns.”

“Is that how it’s gonna be? Well you can take away my firearm when you pry it from my cold dead fingers.”

Fear. It’s fear masked by angry words.

What will the future look like to country families who for generations have lived their lives in a way that seems to be disappearing? It is either frightening, or unknown. And not knowing is scary. It is so tempting to pull out a gun when feeling threatened, especially if you already own one. Or six of them. Legally owning multiple guns is not uncommon at all in rural Oregon.

Ok, so Oregon may be on the brink of economy-changing legislation to combat greenhouse gas emissions. Thursday, soon after the Governor said that law enforcement would be sent out to haul them back to their jobs if they left, the Republicans skipped town. One of the Republicans retorted that he is prepared to shoot any police officer that tries it. (Can’t you hear the fear in that comment?) And then militia groups rallied, convinced that they aren’t being listened to once again, and convinced that the only response left to them is firearms. They announced they will move on Oregon’s Capitol (Salem) to protect the Republicans, even though the politicians declined the offer of assistance. This has shut down the statehouse today.

If the militias want to defend American ideals, they need to focus on the primary one: democracy. Our country wants to be founded on the Rule of Law, not oppression.

Talking through difficult decisions is a skill that politicians need, and a skill that the rest of us need too. Being direct when things are uncomfortable is the only way to work through a problem like being afraid of what might happen. Imagine feeling so disenfranchised that you convince yourself that the only way to be heard is to threaten to shoot someone. It’s an awful situation.

I can’t stand conflict, and I will contort myself to avoid talking about scary stuff, but it never resolves the problem. In fact, come on, say it with me because we all know the cliche: avoiding the problem just makes it worse.

You know one way to avoid a problem? Bring a gun.

Guns scare the other people, yes. It shuts them up for a while, yes, so you can yell the stuff you want to yell. But it does not resolve anything! A protest group at the Capitol is going to be filled with fear, and hiding their fear behind angry shouts. And probably, somebody in their agitation is going to make the wrong move, probably by accident, and all hell will break loose. There won’t be any way to protect lives. Right to life doesn’t apply when there is a fearful mob and loaded guns.

Democracy turns out to be scary. Having to talk about decisions that might change your life forever is scary. Putting it all out there on the table means you might have to give something up. But you’ve got to believe in the process of negotiation and consensus. You’re probably going to have to let go of some things you want, no matter how it goes. You have to give up the idea of zero sum. The only way to win is to listen to each other, and to be brave enough to explain why you’re so scared.

If there is a gun in your hand, that will never happen.

Boston Vortex and Freedom Trail

June 20, 2019 in exploring the USA | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 7 comments

King’s Chapel faces a whirling vortex of wind in Boston’s downtown, at the corner of Tremont St and School St. {photo by Will Murray}

We found out there is a vortex in downtown Boston, right in front of King’s Chapel. It took us all day long to realize this phenomena was specific to the intersection of Tremont ST, Beacon ST, and School ST.

King’s Chapel was originally an Anglican church attended by Royalists (supporters of the British King), but not supported by the Puritan founders of the city of Boston. In fact, when the Royal Governor demanded that land be provided for construction of the church, the Puritans refused. So, he seized some land already used as a burying ground and had a church built. Before he got a chance to worship there, the Puritans found out that King James II had been deposed, so they captured the Governor and shipped him back to England.

The original wooden church of 1686 was replaced with the current church in 1754. Rhode Island architect Peter Harrison (called America’s first architect) built it. The stone chapel does not have a steeple because the Royalists ran out of money. (The Puritans chuckled with glee, and did not buy anything at the Steeple Bake Sale.) It became Unitarian in 1785 under the ministry of James Freeman, and with that the establishment of the Unitarian Christian faith in America.

This was the site of our meeting place for the Boston By Foot Road to Revolution tour we were about to take. The weather was sketchy, but with only one day in the city, we had no choice but to show up in our rain jackets, and wait for our guide under a bank’s entryway while watching other tourists begin their Freedom Trail tours. The wind was astonishing! It whipped through the streets between tall buildings, blowing hats off heads, hurtling discarded Starbucks cups airborne into bushes, stripping tender early season leaves off the trees. Rain flew sideways, making umbrellas useless, even if they hadn’t already been yanked inside out by gusts. I watched as the wind grabbed a woman’s plastic poncho and pulled it nearly off her body. With her arms through the holes, she maintained possession of the poncho, while it flapped madly in the wind and rain above her head, a wet angry flag. When we spotted our tourguide, Linzy, she was surpised to see we hadn’t canceled. The others had.

Bravely the four of us (Will, me, Linzy, and her friend) all determined to go through with it. Linzy walked with us for a 2-hour tour past the physical remains of key moments in the political history of what is today called the United States of America. It’s an awkward story for me because it includes the invasion of my indigenous ancestors, but for today I’ll just set that aside and talk about the white man’s version of the tale.

Linzy told us about King’s Chapel, one of the symbols of the newly settled country, and a place visited by men whose names, like George Washington, appear in our founding mythology. The bell that rings today is one that was repaired by Paul Revere in his own foundry. We moved along the street and only a block away, the wind died down and our umbrella could be used as designed.

Benjamin Franklin is the most famous student from the Boston Latin School.

We walked to the Boston Latin School, founded on April 23, 1635. It is the oldest public school in America, and when it opened, offered a free education to boys of the community, regardless of what resources the family had. A statue of Benjamin Franklin, once a student there, honors the site of the original school.

The Old State House in the center of Boston, and in the center of U.S. history.

My favourite Boston building is the Old State House, built in 1713. The first floor was a merchant exchange and the second floor held offices of government, including that of the Governor, appointed by the English King. Until 1775, the Governor addressed the people from a balcony overlooking King Street.

The Old State House is adorned with the lion and unicorn, royal symbols of the King.

One of the lovely Boston churches.

Eye-catching frame of the Custom House Tower.

The Old State House is the oldest surviving public building in Boston. The plaza in front of the lion and unicorn is the site of the Boston Massacre. In March 1770, some boys taunted the British sentry until the sentry hit back. This drew a crowd of laborers, sailors, and bystanders, some carrying clubs. Seven soldiers were sent to defend the sentry, and they surrounded the crowd. The mob became cacauphonous and in the melee, the sentry fired his gun. The soldiers thought an order had been given, so they fired into the crowd. Five people died as a result, and many call this the first bloodshed of the Revolution. (Though that’s in dispute, as our tour guide in Salem explained how technically the first blood was spilled in Salem.) Six years later, the Declaration of Independence was read in the very same spot.

A statue of Samuel Adams in front of Faneuil Hall, currently swathed in protective covering during rennovations. {photo by Will Murray}

Nearby is Faneuil Hall, famous today as an indoor market. Peter Faneuil was the wealthiest merchant in Boston, and had no family or heirs. He proposed in 1740 that Boston have a central marketplace, and he offered to fund the construction entirely. The vote passed and the marketplace was built. As an afterthought, he added a second floor for a meeting space. The meeting space was immediately valuable as a public hall for gatherings, meetings, and ceremonies. 277 years later, it is still used in this way: market on the first level, gathering space at the top.

In front of Faneuil Hall is a statue of founding father, Sam Adams. Adams was born in Boston, a relative of President John Adams, and very active in politics. His family owned a company that produced malt used for brewing beer, and today there is a popular beer named after him.

We walked through an older part of Boston, with cobbled streets too narrow to fit a modern car. It’s hard to believe there are still places like this in the U.S.

Looking toward the Union Oyster House, from Union Street. (The Holocaust Memorial is right behind us, but that’s history for another day.)

Linzy told us about the history of Boston.

From there we walked past a hundred authentic Italian restaurants, in Boston’s Old North End. Linzy remarked as multiple tourists passed us with boxes of pastries from Mike’s, that it is where all the tourists go for authentic Italian pastries. “The locals go to Bova,” she added. We made a mental note.

Paul Revere owned this house from 1770-1800. {photo by Will Murray}

A statue of Paul Revere, with the famous spire of the Old North Church in the background.

It turns out, Paul Revere’s Midnight Ride, and the famous ‘one if by land, two if by sea’ plan, did not go down exactly as legend has it. Longfellow did the guy a solid for some reason.

During the planning stages of the revolution, there was a secret provincial council meeting in the town of Concord, Massachusetts. A spy network was organized between Concord and Boston, so the council could hear any Boston news. One enthusiastic member of the spy group was Paul Revere. People in Boston found out that British Regulars were planning to go out to Concord and confiscate an arms cache, and then arrest the council members, so the spy network was engaged.

There were two main routes to Concord from Boston, one was longer but entirely a land route. The other was shorter but required crossing the mouth of the Charles River where it emptied into the Bay. The spy group knew the British were about to move, and split up. Revere had been the one who told the sexton in the church about the lantern plan, and he may actually have been the person who went over there and told him to put up the two lanterns to send a signal across the water. THEN, Revere snuck illegally across the river in the night (because times were so tense the British had initiated a curfew and no one was allowed on the water after dark) ahead of the British Regulars and that’s when the ride began. Revere and others saddled up and tore along the road in the night, alerting everyone along the way to Lexington. As people found out, they jumped on their own horses and joined the spy group, alerting the countryside. Revere was captured by British soldiers before he made it to Concord, but he did play a key role that night.

The Old North Church, famous for holding the lantern signals.

We ended our tour at Coppy’s Burying Ground. The cemetery is the final resting place of many Boston patriots, including Robert Newman, the sexton at the Old North Church who hung a lantern. There are also unmarked slave graves here. By this time the weather was lovely. We sat on a park bench in the sun, drying out and resting after being on our feet for hours. Remembering the tip from Linzy, we bought some pastries to go at Bova, then had drinks at the very old Bell In Hand Tavern, operating since 1795 (except during prohibition).

We then went back to where we had parked, to drop off and get stuff from the car. As we left the City Hall Plaza and entered the intersection in front of King’s Chapel, we were bombarded with wind! It was a ferocious wind that nearly knocked us over. All day I had been thinking that the morning’s vortex was a product of the stormy weather, but no, apparently it’s a micro weather force, created by the arrangement of tall buildings and streets.

Copp’s Hill Burying Ground. See that skinny house between brick buildings?

This home is apparently not small. It faces the brick wall, and here, we are looking at it sideways.

Bell In Hand Tavern. Lovely atmosphere, crazy expensive drinks.

We walked over to Boston Commons and ate our pastries beside the pond, then walked across the channel to the giant milk bottle. The 40-foot wooden Hood Milk Bottle has a tiny restaurant in the bottom of it, closed for the night. We walked back to the North End and chose an Italian restaurant and had a splendid dinner.

Lovely Boston views as we walked through the city. Hard to believe this weather is the same day as the weather we had in the morning.

Lights add sparkle to downtown gardens in the evening.

View of the Boston skyline across Fort Point Channel.

 

High Rock Tower and Pawsox fireworks

June 18, 2019 in exploring the USA | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , | 3 comments

High Rock Tower in Lynn, Massachusetts.

On our way out of Salem we made a fun stop in Lynn, Massachusetts, to climb up the hill at High Rock Tower Park. The tower is tucked into a densely populated residential area, and the approach that we used has no parking area (we found street parking). There are no informational or directional signs, so when we found it, then hiked up the hill to see it, I felt like we had discovered something special.

This approximately 5-acre piece of land has held an observation tower since the 1840s. The original tower was burned down in 1865. The current tower is 107 feet high and was built of granite in 1904. Since 2002 the observatory has been open to the public for views of the starry skies, from 8-10pm. It contains a 12-inch Meade telescope and visitors get a good look at the craters of the moon, the rings of Saturn and the great storms of Jupiter.

If a person were to approach from the other side of the hill, there are wide streets and parking spaces. I don’t know why the map app sent us in the back way, but it was more fun. Up on top we found a small city park there as well, with a jungle gym for the kids and grassy lawn to play in. A few parents and kiddies were running around, but it was mostly abandoned. No one was appreciating the beauty of the place, the tower itself, the gigantic boulders of fascinating porphyry rock (a reddish rock with big crystals embedded in it) all over the site, or the incredible views. Will and I did appreciate all of that, however.

View of the sea overlooks Stone Cottage, also part of the site. There is a clear view of Nahant Bay, and the community of Nahant, on an island.

The Boston city skyline appears to the south, while standing at High Rock Tower.

Will then took me to see a ball game in his hometown of Pawtucket, Rhode Island, at McCoy Stadium. That is the home (for now) of the Pawsox (the Pawtucket Red Sox), a team affiliated with the Boston Red Sox. Of course seeing a hometown minor league game was fun, but there was the added excitement that we might get to see one of the major league players on the field, while they got up to speed after an absence from the Boston team. Will thought maybe Dustin Pedroia would be playing that night. Pedroia is one of the players who was a star when I was watching a lot of baseball about ten years ago, so it would be super cool to be able to watch him play.

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Tickets for the game.

Pedroia would be playing!

It was a warm night. We parked in a neighborhood and walked to the stadium. It felt wonderful to be sharing a small-town experience with all the other happy people walking to the game with us. Once we got our tickets and got inside the stadium, I checked the roster. Yep, Pedroia was on there.

We were hungry and I had fun standing in line for deep fried food and beer, all the stereotypes of baseball you could ask for. We found our seats and settled in. By the time we sat down the game had already started.

The Pawsox played the Gwinnett Stripers, from Gwinnett County, Georgia. I didn’t know anything about either team, but you can learn the players pretty fast by watching them during a game. These days of course you get up-close photos of the players, their positions and their stats up on the marquee every time they are at bat or make a significant play. That helps you learn. Another fun tradition is that each player picks a theme song and a few seconds of it are played as they approach home plate to bat. I learned who the country guy was, the hip hop guy, etcetera.

Hoping for a Pawtucket Red Sox run.

We had a pretty decent view of the field from our seats.

Stripers pitcher fixin’ to let loose.

Even though I only had my phone camera, I thought it did alright with capturing the scene.

The Stripers started off strong with three runs in the first inning, and another run in the the second. Pawsox gained momentum as they played, and by halfway through the game were clearly putting their hearts into it. That isn’t a way to win a game though. We finally got two runs in the 5th inning, but never caught up, and we lost the game 5-2.

I’m glad I got to see a game there. The team has been sold and is going to move to the city of Worcester in 2021. Once they move they will no longer be the Pawsox. It’s a pretty significant loss for Pawtucket, a small town that really doesn’t have much to brag about, or for the citizens to come together and enjoy.

After the game we hung around for fireworks. It’s a summertime tradition at McCoy stadium. Will’s mom is not a fan of the fireworks I hear, because it makes a lot of noise when many people are trying to get some sleep. I recommend being AT the game for the fireworks, because then all the light and noise go together, and it’s a lot of fun. After the show we walked back along the sidewalks to the car, in among many tired happy families heading home.

I am introduced to Salem witch history

June 14, 2019 in exploring the USA | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 8 comments

A view of the Salem Witch Trials Memorial. It is simple, but unexpectedly impactful.

To keep each post somewhat on topic, I hopped around in the timeline. We were in Salem two days. Today’s post is witchy, and yesterday’s was everything else. They aren’t chronological.

After a cold, wet morning on the sea looking for whales, we arrived in the wet afternoon at the city of Salem, Massachusetts. Salem is famous nationwide for being the locus of the infamous Witch Trials. I honestly didn’t know much about them before we went. I didn’t ask Will what he knew, but luckily he was ready to take a close look at the witch history with me, and by the end of the visit I had learned a lot.

In 1692 three girls in Salem Village, ages 9, 11, and 12 began a game of fortune telling. After playing at fortune telling over time they started acting oddly, making strange gestures and sounds. When the 9 and 11 year-olds, the daughter and niece of Reverend Parrish, began spasming and screaming, Doctor Griggs was called. The girls said they had been bewitched by three people: one family’s slave woman, Tituba, a homeless beggar-woman named Sara Good, and an elderly, bed-ridden woman named Sara Osborn. Dr. Griggs diagnosed bewitchment (not sure if the diagnosis came before or after the accusations), and soon after, other girls in the town began displaying the same uncontrollable behavior, and naming the so-called witches in town who caused it. Some people suggest that contributing factors of the hysteria may have included the severe Puritan lifestyle, the harsh living conditions, fear of Indian attack, a smallpox epidemic, belief by many colonists in the existence of witchcraft, and the fact that the slave Tituba used to tell neighborhood children wild stories of beasts and magic that she recalled from her Barbados upbringing (thus igniting their imaginations). Basically everyone was under a lot of stress.

The three women were hauled into court and proceedings began. The two white women denied being witches, though 70-year-old Sara Osborn barely knew what was going on. Tituba originally denied it, but after being harrassed for some time, confessed and said she had done a deal with the devil. She also claimed that there were other witches working with her, after coming to understand that she could get off with her life by becoming an informant. After hearing from Tituba that there were other witches, the whole town became hysterical, believing her story and accusing each other of witchraft. When pressed in court, several other women also followed Tituba’s lead, confessing and naming other witches, in order to receive a lesser sentence. Not only children were seized with fits of hysteria, but adults as well. Not only outcasts were accused, but also upstanding members of society, including a former minister (who had since moved to Maine but was hauled back), and eventually including one of the main accusers, 80 year old Giles Corey. By the end of 1693, over 200 people had been accused and tried, 19 of them hanged, 5 had died in custody, and one was pressed to death (more on that later).

Will found the site of a memorial, and led us there. See the photo at the top for a full view. The memorial is a grassy rectangular area with trees, surrounded by a low rock wall. Inset in the wall are 20 stone benches. Each bench has someone’s name, the means of death, and the date of their death. Each bench has flowers and beads left in remembrance. I don’t know why the 5 who died in jail weren’t honored. I feel the court was just as much responsible for their deaths as for the ones who were actively hanged or pressed.

Benches in the memorial. A cemetery can be seen behind the wall.

There is an engraving for each of the 20 people killed for being witches.

Right next to Martha Corey’s bench is Giles Corey’s bench.

After walking through the solemn memorial, we entered the cemetery nearby. We were interested in the gravestones with the very old dates and the scary skull with wings adorning so many of them. The cemetery is called The Burying Point. It contains the graves of Capt. Richard More, a Mayflower pilgrim and witchcraft trial judge John Hathorne, an ancestor of Nathanial Hawthorne.

A typical gravestone in The Burying Point. Mary Groue 1683

Capt. William Hathorne 1794

Martha Dean December 24, 1732

The next day we finally made it to the Salem Witch Museum and I was finally educated on the story I told above. I had never heard about the part the slave woman played, and I didn’t realize actual trials were held and the people found guilty or not guilty, and I didn’t realize men were charged as witches too. Fourteen of the deaths were women, six were men.

The Salem Witch Museum is beautiful. There is a gorgeous, wizard-like statue of Roger Conant, the founder of Salem, in a tall hat and flowing robes. However suggestive the statue and its placement may be, Conant had nothing to do with witches or the witch trials. His evocative memorial is misleadingly situated directly in front of the museum by coincidence.

The Salem Witch Museum across from the Salem Commons.

Roger Conant, founder of Salem, has nothing to do with witches.

As you can tell by looking at it, the building was orginally a church. The statue of Conant was erected in 1913 beside the church. In the 1960s it was a vintage car museum.  The building was opened as a Witch Museum in 1972. Sadly, visitors who don’t take the time to read the plaque or ask any questions, often assume the statue is of a witch.

The museum is unlike anything I’ve experienced before. You pay for your ticket and wait with a very large group until they have assembled enough people, then usher everyone into the theatre room at once. There is seating for maybe 80 people in the center of the room on stools or benches. Turns out, you want the stools, and you want to be in the center of the room.

When the program begins, all the lights go out and a recording begins playing, and lights illuminate different static displays along the walls. Each new chapter of the story illuminates a new scene with life sized people surrounding us. Will and I were too close to the side of the room, so we couldn’t see the first three scenes that were above our heads. But soon the story circled around enough that we could see better. As the light moved around the room, we turned on our stools to follow the story.

The recording told the highlights of the story of the witch trials. They also told the story of wealthy Giles Corey. This man was caught up in the accusations of bewitchment and was a loud supporter of the need to punish the witches. He so firmly believed in the proceedings that when his own wife Martha was accused, he believed at first that she was a witch! One month later, Giles himself was accused and suddenly he got a whole new perspective. Once a person made a plea of guilty or not guilty to the court, their property was seized by the government. He wanted his assets to go to his sons, and refused to enter a plea. The court insisted that he plea, but Corey refused. They decided to torture him till he plead guilty or not guilty. They placed 80-year-old Giles Corey on a table, placed a board over the top of him, and began loading it up with boulders. Each time they demanded that he plea, Corey instead shouted “More weight!” and they complied. For two days this continued. On the third day he died.

The final scene in the museum was when the reverend from Maine was on the platform before his hanging. He recited the entire Lord’s Prayer without a single mistake. People at that time believed it was impossible for a witch to do that. But he was already up there, with the noose around his neck, and people were frenzied. They voted to hang him anyway, and Reverend George Burroughs was killed.

There was a brief sumary by a narrator then, and it ended by saying that the people of Salem and Massachusetts realized how ridiculous it all was and apologized and paid reparations, “…and we never gave in to our fears again.” Will and I have been laughing about that ever since. Oh sure, we humans learned from our one mistake once and for all, and were never motivated toward violence due to our fear ever again. Good grief, what a claim.

Off to the side of the theatre is a small actual museum with artifacts and information boards. There was a docent who guided us through and gave us information about famous witches on TV and movies, and on more real life witch hunts, like the red scare, where Americans were outed for being secret communists, the Japanese internment camps where Japanese Americans were imprisoned for being culturally Japanese, and the ostracizing of homosexual men due to the HIV/AIDS scare. She concluded with information about real witches today, who have a legitimate religion based in living in harmony with nature.

After that, Will wanted to hunt down the actual spot where Giles Corey was pressed. We think we found it, but there is no memorial to know for sure. We found the location of the jail where the accused were held while awaiting trial, now called The Witch Gaol.

Plaque at the site of the Witch Gaol.

On our walking tour of the city of Salem that morning, we saw The Witch House. It was the home of Judge Jonathan Corwin, who served on the court that found 19 people guilty of witchcraft. He purchased this home in 1675 and lived there all his life. It is now a museum, which opened in 1948.

Home of Judge Corwin, now a museum called the Witch House, because it is the only building left in Salem that has a connection to the 1692 witch trials.

Salem is about more than witches

June 13, 2019 in exploring the USA | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , | 6 comments

Derby Wharf Light Station in Salem Harbor, Massachusetts.

If you’re just tuning in, I have been recounting my journey to New England in May. It was a two-week trip, and I spent the time with my friend Will. We did a ton of stuff, so I’ll be blogging about it for at least another month.

I have time to drag it out. I played so much in the first half of 2019 that I am totally out of money and I need to stay home for a good long time, so there won’t be any new vacations to talk about till my birthday trip. Every 10 years I like to go somewhere amazing for my birthday. At 30 I went to Greece & Turkey, at 40 I took Tara to Egypt, and for 50 I want to go to New Zealand. I’ve got six months to figure out how to pay for it, since my birthday is in January. Anyhow… back to the story:

For those of you at home playing lighthouse bingo, we have spotted four so far that I mentioned in a previous post (I’m counting the Thatcher Island Twin Lighthouses as only one). Number five was in Salem. In the evening after our cold wet whale watch, the weather took a drastic turn for the better. We decided once more to go in search of a lighthouse. Derby Wharf Light Station is number five.

Two kids try to unlock the light house door.

The Salem Maritime Historic Site is not only part of the US National Park System, but also the oldest National Historic Site in the country. The website says the purpose of this site “is to preserve and interpret resources along the waterfront of Salem, Massachusetts that explain the nation’s settlement, its evolution into a maritime power and its development as a major industrial force.” Along the wharf we got an up close look at Pedrick Store House, that was dissassembled and reconstructed here on the wharf. The point of erecting the storehouse on the wharf is to emulate the days when merchants commonly stored their goods near the ships. A replica tallship, the Friendship of Salem, was docked right behind the storehouse, but undergoing repairs. Typically it is a working tallship. Sorry, I didn’t get a photo of either.

We walked to the end of the wharf in the warm and lovely sunshine with a few other people. Grandparents were walking their granddaughters, who asked to go inside the light house. “We can’t, it’s locked, see,” said Grandpa. After her grandpa was out of sight, the oldest girl got to work. She reached into her bag and pulled out a bunch of keys, and began trying them in the lock, one at a time, while her sister watched eagerly. The adults hollered after a while, and the girls gave up. We caught up with them all before we arrived at the Custom House, and the grandpa gave me his email address so I could send the photo of the girls.

The beautiful old Custom House is also part of the National Historic Site.

We admired the Custom House in the lengthening shadows of evening. Also from the website: “There has been a Custom House in Salem since 1649, collecting taxes on imported cargos first for the British Government during the Colonial period, then for the American Government after the establishment of the U.S. Customs Service in 1789.” It was closed so we were not able to go in and explore.

We returned to Wingaersheek Inn (which I have to mention again because of the funny name) and turned in for the night, but not before we looked up a walking tour for the next day.

Salem offered splendid weather for our walking tour the next morning. What a change in 24 hours! Not a cloud in the sky, we met our guide early and walked the city streets while he told us about the history of Salem that had nothing to do with witches. “Witches are a different tour,” our guide said. He pointed out historic buildings and places occupied by famous people in US history. He pointed out Front Street that used to be the waterfront of Salem Harbor – now so far away from the water we couldn’t even see it from there. The land was filled in and the city expanded over time. After a couple hours, he said goodbye and went back to meet his next group. Will and I bought ice cream and sat in the sunshine to eat it.

Along Salem’s Washington Street during our walking tour.

Daniel Low & Co. established 1867, had a signature silver “witch” spoon for sale – clearly they knew how to capitalize on tourist trinkets. They also sold Nathaniel Hawthorne spoons. The company is now out of business, but there is a nice restaurant at street level now.

Built in 1698, this is the former home of the London Coffee House. Now it’s a sandwich shop. {photo by Will Murray}

A plaque on the building reads: “Lyceum Hall. In this building on February 12, 1877 Alexander Graham Bell presented the first public demonstration of long distance telephone conversations.”

We gazed at this church while we ate our ice cream, from a shop called Melt.

We wandered around town for the rest of the day, exploring things that seemed interesting. We found the site of the old witch jail, the site of the pressing, and also went to the witch museum, but I’ll cover all that tomorrow in my witch-centric Salem post.

We got a laugh out of this.

This honors Salem author Nathaniel Hawthorne, who apparently added the “w” in his name to distance himself from the witch trials Judge Hathorne, his relative.

Gloucester lighthouses and whales

June 9, 2019 in exploring the USA | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 14 comments

Dog Bar Breakwater Lighthouse at the end of the day.

We arrived in Gloucester in early evening: too early to quit the day. So we went to the beach in search of a lighthouse, and found two.

It is said that Gloucester has the oldest seaport in the U.S., with documented use by Europeans since 1616. I’m sure the Wampanoag tribes were using it before then.

Eastern Point Lighthouse on Gloucester Harbor is operated by the Coast Guard and today is not open for visitors. You are allowed to park in a nearby parking lot and walk the beach, however. It is photo-worthy and worth the visit. The Eastern Point Lighthouse also has an interesting history.

In the 1820s, to protect mariners and their interests, the community at Gloucester Harbor lobbied for a lighthouse. In 1829 President Andrew Jackson tried to block construction (the lighthouse friends website notes that Gloucester had not supported Jackson in the 1828 election), but Congress overruled and work eventually went ahead. So many costs were cut in construction that the original 1832 structure was poorly made. It was soon battered and decayed in the harsh conditions of the seashore, and appeals went out for it to be replaced.

The next lighthouse was completed November 3, 1848. The current tower was built in 1890.

Originally the Eastern Point Lighthouse had a fixed white light. For a time it had a fixed red light, then a flashing red light. Today it has a white light that flashes every 5 seconds. For those who aren’t familiar, lighthouses employ different strategies to differentiate themselves from each other in the night or in a fog, such as colours or the seconds in between flashes of light.

Looking back at Eastern Point Lighthouse from Dog Bar Breakwater.

Since we were there anyway, we walked out along the huge granite stones placed along the Dog Bar breakwater. A few people were out there fishing from the breakwater. We walked to the very end and that’s where we found Dog Bar Breakwater Lighthouse, which doesn’t look like more than a shack with a light on top, but in the fog, it’s really all you need.

The breakwater was constructed over Dog Bar Reef. It is 2,250 feet long and constructed of local granite blocks. Built to further protect the harbor, construction lasted from 1894 to 1905. So many ships crashed into the breakwater during construction that it became obvious that another light was needed to help ships avoid it. Before automation, the lighthouse keeper had the additional duty of attending to the breakwater light, which could be a treacherous journey under crashing waves and icy granite boulders in the winter. Yikes!

Dog Bar Breakwater Lighthouse.

The fishing boat Still Kicking approaches, with the Boston city skyline visible on the horizon.

Still Kicking makes her way safely around the end of the breakwater.

From shore we looked back across the water, lit up in the sunset, to the breakwater light you can pick out on the left.

We watched a golden sunset and made our way back to the beach and called it a day.

The next morning we had planned to spend all morning on the sea for a whale watch. The weather was cold and raining and windy, so that was perfect. Not. But at least the weather was not so bad that the whale watch was canceled. I put on the warmest clothes I had, put a fushia raincoat over the top of that, and off we went!

Cape Ann Whale Watch does a pretty good job of taking care of their passengers. They provide safety instructions, informational talks, educational talks, and updates on what’s going on. They guarantee a whale sighting on every trip, and we definitely saw whales. But for the first 3 1/2 hours, we saw a whole lot of rain on the waves, each other, and nothing else. One really awesome thing is that this was my very first trip on the Atlantic Ocean!

Cruddy weather notwithstanding, the group of about 100 passengers on board was excited. While we waited to leave the dock, most people were outside on the deck, smiling, joking around, taking photos of the sights in every direction. While waiting, we watched a ship dropped from dry dock into the water. I was interested because I had never seen that happen before. I think working sea vessels have a great look about them, and I enjoyed all the sights of the shore.

We looked at all the activity around us while the boat was still docked.

I thought this old mill building was really pretty.

Thatcher Island Twin Lighthouses. If a ship puts sights on both towers, they point to true north, so that sailors can check and/or adjust their compass.

When we were finally underway, there was no lollygagging! We headed out to sea quick, quick. For a solid 90 minutes aboard the Hurricane II, we left solid ground behind us. The Hurricane II claims to be the largest and fastest whale watch ship in the area, and can cruise up to 30 knots! Speeding along out at sea in that weather drove almost everyone indoors.

A few of us tried to stay outside and make the most of our whale-less morning.

I was soon soaked through and went indoors to warm up and to buy snacks because we had skipped breakfast. We sat indoors and read information placards on the walls that provided whale information. Did you know that since whales have to actively remember to breathe, they can never actually go to sleep? They go to sleep with half their brain, while the other half reminds them to surface and breathe, then the active half goes to sleep and the rested half wakes up and takes over. Did you know that the white and black pattern on the tails of Humpback Whales are unique, so that’s how they can be identified?

The woman providing annoucements also told us about the mysterious sea serpent believed to be in the area. The first recorded sighting is dated 1638, and sightings continued through the 1800s. There were many sightings in 1817 near Ten Pound Island, just offshore from the city of Gloucester. Possibly the “sea serpent” was a whale.

Will is better at being cold and wet, but I am sensitive to cold, so he followed my lead on indoors vs. outdoors. When I thawed out, we went back on deck. Every 45 minutes or so, we would get an update over the loudspeaker that went something like, “Well, we saw whales here yesterday, but now we don’t see anything, not sure why. We’re gonna head up north and check it out there.”  And later, “We haven’t spotted any whales here, so now the Captain’s gonna take us over to this one place where there are usually whales.” And finally, “As you know, whales are wild animals, and they don’t come when we call. We are glad that these whales are free to live in their environment without restraint and we can continue to learn about them. We are heading back in folks.”

Grumpy, cold, wet people (many of whom had been drinking for three hours with nothing else to do), complained about the absence of whales. And then, viola! Whales everywhere. In the next 30 minutes as we headed toward shore, the crew spotted six whales and some dolphins. It was still raining and the visibility wasn’t awesome, but we definitely saw them. The whale pics are all Will’s photos, because my fingers were frozen and I kept my gloved hands in my pockets for extra warmth.

Here’s me, demonstrating my balancing skills as the boat tossed around on the waves. {photo Will Murray}

A whale tail! You can see the white markings on the black skin. {photo Will Murray}

The crew spotted six humpback whales with their binoculars, but we only followed one at a time, and the passengers got to see two of them up close. {photo Will Murray}

This is what the whales looked like diving. {photo Will Murray}

With great relief, the crew did not have to go back on their word about guaranteeing a whale sighting on every trip. They handed out little cards as we got close to shore. The cards were brief surveys. Apparently there was supposed to be some kind of environmental education during the trip, because the final question was, “What changes will you make in your personal life to support a safe and healthy environment for the whales?” Since I didn’t know what they wanted to hear from me, and since I already try to minimize my carbon footprint and protect the environment, I didn’t know what to write. Will suggested “Eat less whale.” So that’s what I wrote on mine. I am fairly certain I’ve never eaten whale, but I’ll continue to avoid it.

The incentive to get us to fill out our cards was that all completed cards would be submitted to a drawing for a free whale watch. Guess who won a free whale watch!! I laughed out loud and was convinced that  someone must have got a kick out of my promise to eat less whale. The whale watch was a $45 value and transferrable and had no expiration. Though I doubt I’ll want to repeat this experience, I have lots of Boston friends who might.

Back on shore I wanted to ride around in the car for a long time with the heater on, to dry my jeans out. Will drove and I rested my hands on the heater vents and finally I got warm again.

We explored the Gloucester seashore, and found that it is a city that loves its monuments. We found a bunch of them in a short amount of time.

A monument to Ten Pound Island lighthouse.

We saw a plaque for the Ten Pound Island Lighthouse, which the Hurricane II passed close by earlier in the day. Though the website for Eastern Point Lighthouse claims that Winslow Homer lived there, it looks rather that the famous painter lived with the Ten Pound Island lighthouse keeper in 1880. While there he painted harborscapes that remain famous today.

Along the Gloucester beach there are many monuments, such as this one that acknowledges the mariners that have died at sea here since 1716.

“In honor of an intrepid son of Gloucester, Nathanial Haraden, sailing master of the US frigate Constitution, commended for gallantry in action at the seige of Tripoli, August 3, 1804.”

Fishermen’s Wives Memorial with the family poignantly looking out to sea.

Gloucester’s most famous memorial, the Fishermen’s Memorial.

The Fishermen’s Memorial commemorates the many lives lost at sea. It includes a quote from the Bible, “They that go down to the sea in ships, that do business in great waters; These see the works of the Lord, and His wonders in the deep. Psalm 107 23-24.” And also: “Men known to be lost at sea and honored here: 5,386.” The total is lives lost from 1716-2001. Think about that: 5,386 lives lost. As of 18 years ago. The people honored at this monument include the crew of the Andrea Gail, lost at sea in 1991, whose story was told in the book and movie The Perfect Storm.

Photo from medievalart.org

When we had our fill of monuments, we hopped in the car, said goodbye to Gloucester, and made our way toward Boston. On the way we drove past Hammond Castle. It was closed, so we just looked at it from the parking lot. This place was built in 1926-1929 as a private residence. Whoah. Today it’s a museum and hosts events like medieval festivals and halloween parties – of course! Lots of people have their wedding photos taken there. I’ve included a shot of the other side of it that I grabbed off the interwebs.

Our view of the back of Hammond Castle, through the trees. Not impressive in a photo, but it was cool to see it in real life.

My place in June

June 6, 2019 in looking at the land | Tags: , , , , , , , , , | 7 comments

Pretty little chicklet before her head feathers grew in. I took this photo the middle of May, before I left for New England.

Even babies like to roost, as this one does in mid May. Look at her sleepy eyes.

I’m taking a break from telling what I did on vacation to update what’s happening at my place lately. It’s a cloudy wet day, so for a change I am not outside working hard. I wandered around with a camera instead, to supplement photos that I did not have already.

First of all, I want to talk about the chicklets, the Lil’ Hussies. They were tiny and cheepy when I left, with fuzzy fluff on their heads instead of feathers. I returned the end of May and almost all the fluff is gone, and everyone has big girl feathers. They eat and drink so much now! I am grateful to Tara’s dad, who housesat and kept all my animals alive while I was gone.

The growing chicks are filling up their cage, but so far still plenty of room for them. There is a box filled with straw in the top, and on cold nights they all huddle together there and stay warm.

The chick on the right is an Ameraucana. The chick on the left is a Buff Brahma. She has feathers on her feet.

The Ameracaunas can get a puff of feathers at their cheeks and neck.

The first thing I had to do when I returned was to mow the property. I should know better than to leave during May – the fastest growing time of year for grass around here. In the weeks I was gone, my land became a jungle. Then I had to mow it! And when I got the grass cut down in the flat areas, I began with the weed whacker and began hacking down the grass along the creek and around the trees, where I can’t mow.

Some deer grazed in the luxurious grass in the back of the property near the bee hives before I had a chance to mow down there.

Looking over the top of my riding lawn mower. What a job ahead of me! Oy!

Time for weed whacking. The grass was literally taller than me.

While fiercely hacking the 6-foot tall grass down to size, I unintentionally exposed a bird’s nest. By the time I realized what it was, I had cleared all the protective grass on every side. Thankfully I did not disturb the nest itself, or the blackberry shrub it is built in. Once I realized what I had done, I grabbed piles of the long cut grass, and laid them against the side of the nest, to provide shelter on all sides, with a couple small holes for the mama to get through to the nest. I hope I haven’t ruined this baby’s chance at life, but I certainly didn’t help. I hope mama comes back.

A bird’s nest in a blackberry bush.

Such a beautiful egg. I don’t know what kind of bird it is though.

I had heaps of laundry to take care of when I got back, obviously. I washed my sheets while I was at it. Racecar, who was not quite ready to let me out of her sight, wanted to be on the bed while I made it with clean sheets.

Racecar is nonplussed when I toss the sheet over her.

Likewise unperturbed when I tossed the comforter over her.

The next morning she burrowed under the covers for the delicious warmth of the down comforter. I got up and left her there.

I left the bed with Racecar still burrowed beneath the covers. I had been working at my computer for two hours when I detected movement. She emerged, and gave her paw a few licks. “Good morning!” I called to her. She immediately curled up and went back to sleep. Yeah, I’ve had a morning or two like that.

Racecar is not yet prepared to face the day.

When I left, the apple trees were blossoming, and the peach, and the plum. My little orchard is still there for me, with one casualty. I had not been able to recall what one new tree was, but it died over the winter, so now I don’t need to remember. I’ll have to pull it out and replace it with something else. I have a green apple, red apple, peach, plum, and pear. What should I have next? A cherry I think!

An apple tree in blossom before I left, and bees happily collecting pollen.

A close up of one of my wonderful honey bees.

The plum a few days ago. Look at all that fruit! (and all that tall grass in the background I still need to cut down)

While cutting the tall grass, I kept staring down the bank at my “dam.” It was created over time. Remember that winter when I lost so many trees? Well, a tree fell across the creek at this spot and is firmly lodged there. I don’t own a chainsaw or a tractor, and have spent the time since just fretting about it, and worrying that it could result in a dam and a flood. Well, it happened. Someone upstream of me must have had their woodpile flooded, because a bunch of cut wood came down the creek and stopped right there at the downed tree. Once the big holes were stopped, then all the little branches and weeds of winter creek flow got lodged into the big pieces of wood, and blocked it up. I had my dam.

As I swung the weed whacker back and forth cutting grass on the hill above the dam, I thought what I had thought twenty times already: that could be firewood if I could get it out of there. So the next day I put on shorts and water shoes and climbed into the creek.

Turns out, those water logged pieces of wood are a lot heavier than they look. I thought I would be able to lift most of it and hurl it from the water. Nope. They will have to be dragged out. And the big trees will have to be cut up. I suspect that I will not be able to put off learning to use a chainsaw forever.

First look at the dam.

After a couple hours of work, not enough difference to satisfy me. How frustrating. I did another hour of work after this and then gave up. All the rest is too heavy for me to lift.

I had to take a shower. All that wood and plant debris held in situ in stagnant water. Phew!

And finally today the rains came, so I had permission to stop working. Instead I ran around taking photos of flowers in my gardens.

Buttercups are supposedly a weed, but they are so pretty. And the deer love them!

Foxglove is one of my favourite wild flowers.

Groundcover doing well in the shade beneath a hemlock tree.

Salmonberry is past flowering stage. I haven’t seen one ripe yet because as soon as they get close, the birds eat them.

Vinca also likes the poor soil beneath the hemlock tree.

I don’t remember what this is called, but the deer don’t eat it. That makes it a favourite plant.

While deer won’t eat rhododendrons, they are happy to eat their cousins the azaleas. Thankfully, these are close to the house and escape the teeth.

These lavender flowers remind me of badminton shuttle cock. Gosh, I don’t think I’ve played that game since high school. Ah, I digress…

This rose is a surprise and a joy. I bought it last year, mostly dead, at a 75% off plant sale at Fred Meyer. It was so cheap it was worth the gamble. Look what happened.

Another plant I bought because it was on sale for being mostly dead. It came to life too, but I don’t know what it is. This is the third year it has come back. I just love those rich red trumpets.

Well, that’s most of the big news. Small news is: no, I have not even started weeding. One of my gardens is so buried I’m not even sure where the actual plants are anymore. I need a warm day, a good audio book, and some sturdy jeans so I can sit my butt down and weed for an entire day and give my pretty plants a new life. Oh, there’s some bad news too: I went to check on my oak tree down by the creek and I can’t find it. That means those bratty deer ate it again. I had the thought before my trip that I should cover it, since they ate it last year too and it had some nice strong stems and lots of big healthy leaves in May. Well, a good idea is wasted if I don’t act on it. Drat. Now I need to find the tree and hope they left enough of the stem so it can try again next year. Grrr. Deer!

Cascade Falls and Bauneg Beg Mountain

June 5, 2019 in exploring the USA | Tags: , , , , , , , | 13 comments

Flags fly in the center of town at Old Orchard Beach.

Will and I stayed only one night in Maine, in a great little place on Old Orchard Beach, just south of Portland. We found a cute diner and had a yummy breakfast, then explored the beach. It was empty due to the season. The sun beat down, but it was a chilly May morning.

Old Orchard Beach in Maine.

Photogenic pier into the Atlantic Ocean.

Along our westward route leaving the beach, we sought out a short trail that promised a waterfall. The trailhead to Cascade Falls was easy to find and we began walking the short loop, admiring the new plant growth along the trail. I particularly liked the fiddleheads – new fern fronds. Apparently you can eat them, but I never have. The weather was lovely with a few bursts of sunshine, and we soon left the loop and went down a hill to the base of the falls. A family was already there, with two little boys who played with trucks and shovels in the mud at the base of the falls.

Fiddleheads along the trail.

It looked like winter storms had brought some trees down recently, and the view of the falls was somewhat blocked, but it was still pretty. There was a dark copper colour to the water, and we talked a little about what might cause it. I recall streams and lakes this colour when I lived in Vermont and Massachusetts, so it must be something about the soil in New England that causes it.

The water was a rich coppery red.

I liked the reflections on the water.

Cascade Falls beyond downed trees.

The red water makes it look dirty, but I doubt this is pollution, and suspect it’s minerals in the water.

It was a lovely trail, but short, and we soon left to go find a more substantial trail. I had spotted one in a list of trails called Bauneg Beg Mountain, that promised views. I thought it would be fun to hike to a mountaintop in Maine, because the rest of the two-week vacation would be in low elevation places. Soon we found that trailhead too. There was only one other vehicle at the trailhead, and two people stood at its raised hatched showing the inside filled with gear, and reviewed some documents. From their discussion, they seemed to be preparing for some kind of trail maintenance.

This “mountain” peaks at 866 feet, so it’s not representative of the kind of mountain that Maine really has to offer. There are 13 peaks in Maine above 4000 feet and one above 5000 feet. But the trail was beautiful and the land was heaped with rocks that add interest to a trail. There were a couple of marshy areas, but for the most part it was drying up from winter. Much of the incline is gradual, but after a short section of steep incline over boulders, we were treated with a wonderful view. It was better because at that point in the season, trees were not fully in leaf, and the views were more clear.

Near the beginning of the trail, we passed stone walls that reveal old property boundaries.

I love catching blossoms along trails. Spring is always the best season to find flowers.

Looking up at boulders beside our trail.

This is the “mountain peak.” In the west, we would call this a hill.

Panoramic view from Bauneg Beg Mountain. As you can see, our view is better while there are no leaves on the trees.

We had completed the loop in only 1.6 miles, and gained nearly 300 feet. While a somewhat short and easy hike, it was enough to feel good about getting into the car and heading south again. We crossed the New Hampshire border, blinked, and then crossed the Massachusetts border. States are small over here.

We prepared to drive across the state of New Hampshire….for a few minutes.

We headed out toward Gloucester, found our room for the night and got the proprietor to prounouce it for us: Wingaersheek Inn.

One of my many guises

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