playing in "The Fields" (or Hall's Farm)

On a triangular patch of land between the railroad tracks and the homes on the west side of Phillips St (where now the South Hanson Train Station parking lot is located), the Hall family had their farm. Before my time it must have been a productive venture but I only recall it being mostly overgrown fields and run down abandoned barns and pigpens.

Emily Hall (we called her Momily for reasons unknown, but probably similar to the reasons our cousins and others called Mom “Nenna”) was friendly and very much the farmer wife. Bud was the father, big and strong and we mostly avoided him although he seemed nice (we were little and he was big and that alone was enough to scare us off). I remember contemplating the circumstances of his death – walking home from the post office, crossing the tracks, and collapsing on the side of the road with a heart attach, spotted by a passing motorist – less than 50 yards from his front door.
The oldest son Al Hall competed in 4 Olympics (1950’s & early 60’s) and won medals as a Hammer Thrower. Although he was considerably older than me, it was fun to watch him on TV claim to know him. David Hall went off to Vietnam and went MIA after his helicopter crashed (we found his name on the memorial wall in D.C.). Sally Hall, daughter & youngest – but still older than us, later married and moved to Guilford NH (location for a few stories - including a ghost story - to come later).

The most famous family story involving the Hall family and ours is this: Nenna crosses the street to visit with Momily. Al and various Olympian friends and team-mates (including a western European javelin thrower who was married to Bob Backus, a shot putter) were practicing in his yard. Knowing that my mother was known as a tomboy and athletic, they dared her into trying the shot. Her expertise was with baseballs and footballs, and had never held a shotput before. They handed her the 16 pound iron ball after quickly demonstrating how to hold and push it. She lunged and thrust it airborne. Surprised and impressed they grabbed the tape measure – on her first and only attempt, it fell only a few feet short of the women’s Olympic record (with a 16 pound men’s shot – not the 8 pound shot the women use). The astounded javelin thrower insisted that mom train for the Olympic team, Nenna replied “and what will I do with my six children?”.

The house, just in off of Main Street, was a typical rustic old white farm house, with few modern amenities but always smelling of good food. I vaguely recall there once being a fire, but it was caught before it did TOO much damage.

Between the railroad tracks and the house was “The Witch Tree”. This was an enormous tree, scraggly and twisted, always looming visible from where ever we were, and (at least seemingly) perpetually barren. During the daytime we might be brave enough to approach it, but come dusk when the sunset silhouetted it’s gnarled branches and the flying squirrels that inhabited it could be seen sailing to the ground (looking remarkably like the flying monkeys in the Wizard Of Oz) it was a terrifying sight. One night under a full moon (don’t ask what we kids were doing anywhere near there at night – really – well we might have been out on the pretense of searching for nightcrawlers in the back yard to go fishing with the next day) I remember Laurie being incredibly brave (or foolhardy – possibly responding to a dare by Billy Tobin) actually touching the tree. It was a sad day when that tree was cut down.

Further along, the distance between the tracks & Phillips St widening (and therefore the farm), separate “fields” became like rooms and various kids were assigned their spots where we would fix up with invisible walls and improvised furniture and we would visit each others “homes”. Maybe Eric had the old pig house, someone had the space between two logs, someone else had that clear spot over there, etc… Now this is not unusual behavior as many little children make play houses with invisible wall in the pine grove or under the forsythia bush (don’t they?), but our central feature in our make-shift neighborhood-in-the-fields was our elaborate church.

Just off the main cart path was a clearing with a thick tree stump about chest high, with remnants of other trunks scattered about roughly in a semi-circle. With a little muscle and rearranging we had pews and a pulpit. Wes being the eldest son and the one who conceived of most of our adventures was the primary preacher and master of ceremonies. Laurie or one of the older cousins occasionally got invites as guest speakers. During funerals for deceased pet turtles or baby birds who had unsuccessfully attempted to fly too soon, anyone could get up and say their piece. I believe we even convinced Nenna to attend a service or two. As most good churches, this one had it’s own adjacent and crowded cemetery - full of shoebox coffins, popsicle stick crosses and dandelion bouquets.

When we got a little bigger, we found that atop of a hill beside one of the dilapidated barns that we had always steered clear of was a zip line and a rope swing. The barn was scary and full of old rusted junk and occasional dead cats, but the zip line was even scarier – going down a steep hill between the tall pines. I was still small enough (or maybe scared enough) so I stayed away from the zip line, so the rope swing was my favorite thrill ride. Set high and with some sort of rod/handle instead of the traditional seat, you could spin it and wind, wind, wind it up until your toes couldn’t grip the ground anymore – then pick up your feet and let it unwind faster and faster. By touching one toe as a pivot point and keeping a tight spin you could go incredibly fast, the whole world becoming a dizzy blur. This was entertainment for many hours at a time.

Later, with Bud and David gone and Al famous and moved on, Momily moved to New Hampshire to live with her daughters family and sold the farm to a local business tycoon. Much to our intrigue and amazement the house was lifted onto a trailer and moved – first to the Ocean Spray parking lot, then to behind the Urann house (we were not supposed to play inside it, but who could resist), and eventually to High Street where it now sits. The land was bulldozed clear, in preparation for much speculated industry that would move in and make him rich. All vegetation was removed and the rich loam soil pushed into huge mountainous piles. Always able to make lemonade out of life’s lemons, this became the perfect motocross training grounds with flat tracks and hill climbs and jumps and stream crossings. As various friends and neighbors also acquired dirt bikes, we would go out in groups and race or play follow the leader – trying to find a route that others couldn’t follow us through. One day the rear tire of my Suzuki sank up past the axle into the quicksand-like mud along one of the streams. Eric and I were unable to overcome the suctioning effect to extract it, and had to go home to recruit more help. One day my brother David was riding with Johnny Casoli, who had no speedometer but wanted to know how fast he was going. Dave paced along side, staring at his meter – ignoring the mostly flat raceway (mostly, except for a few random 1-ft high lumps of dirt). Johnny appeared at our door announcing David was hurt and unconscious. Mom took the car, and we with dirt bikes (any excuse was a good one) sped up to help. Dave was dazed but on his feet and had removed his shirt (???), and had decidedly unusual lump on his collarbone. He indeed had broken it, and we were later told by the doctor that when he lifted his arm to remove the shirt it was miraculous that he didn’t puncture his lung with the broken bone.

Neither Gillette nor Anheuser-Busch ever built in “the fields”. Now the commuter rail station and parking lot cover the lower end, and a couple of small businesses built facilities at about the mid-section. The rest is mostly overgrown again.

http://video.google.co.uk/videoplay?docid=4245867189656042017
Al Hall hammer throw video

The Monkee Club (by Eric & Wes)

The Monkey Club inspired tree-climbing antics. Wes, Laurie, and their adored cousin, red-headed and antic Tommy Tobin, were the founding members, but the littler ones were soon sworn in, solemnly and with some magisterial words from Wes, after climbing to the top of the maple tree in the front yard on Phillips Street, much to the dismay of step great-grandmother “Nana” Grace McClellan who spied them from next door. Norway maples lined the road, apple trees blossomed in the back yard, and all provided stairways to Heaven for the merry band of acrobats. But the island had two of the best jungle gyms that the Monkey Club could scramble up, over, around, through, in and out, and down. Just to the south of the path leading to the bunkhouse and maybe six feet from the western bank of the island was a leaning birch tree, about ten inches in diameter at the stump. Mature and thick, it made a perfect horse for the climbers. The oldest would pull themselves up first, bending the topmost branches groundward under their weight. The younger ones would follow, generally in particular order of ages. God forbid that Eric should precede Marlene, or Marlene sneak in ahead of Donnie or Tommy. Once most were in the saddle, hanging on with anticipation, the heavyweights, all small for their age, whether Wes and Laurie or diminutive but daring John White, would jump off, grab the topmost branches now close to the grass, and give the others a bronco-busting ride, yanking and pulling and thrashing the tree up and around, trying to shake everyone else from their precarious perches. Success was guaranteed, for as others let go, the tree bucked higher, leaving only one or two clinging madly, joyfully to the birch’s smooth sides, until all would tumble to earth or, eventually, and to their great surprise, the tree itself followed under the weight of the entire tribe, and dropped them all with a resounding crack and dull thud into the grass. The near horizontal “brontosaurus” dropped the six little Blausses with a finality that left the younger ones sad, the older ones guilty, and Laurie and Tommy on their feet, agile and balanced as always.
Tom was president of the Monkey Club, Laurie vice president. Wes was modest enough to let others scale the heights. He was always good about including everyone in his clubs, games, fantasies, and plays. Never taking the lead roles himself, he usually played the foiled villain with a smirky, wisecracking Donnie as his retarded cohort, while Laurie and Tommy became the heroes of every game or skit that he created. Eric claimed later that he learned from Wes’s example that having a brother or sister for a hero was sometimes better than being the hero oneself. Always at the end of the line, the last on the heap, Eric and Dave frequented the island years later as young adults, and in one of their many gasoline-fed campfires burned the existing remains of the birch, long dead like the dinosaurs, flammable as ancient coal, a meager reminder of sweet summer days gone by when
"the tree could bear no more,
But dipped its top and set me down again.
That would be good both going and coming back.
One could do worse than be a swinger of birches."
--Robert Frost, "Birches"

Behind Nana and Grampa Roddy’s house on Phillips Street a cluster of maple trees stood, overgrown and heavy laden with tangled vines of Concord grapes. Large, blue, and juicy, the grapes provided a treat come autumn for the intrepid tree climbers — with Nana’s permission, of course. The island had grapevines too, about a thousand square foot of them. Probably once fruitful but now overgrown and barren, the vines, like the cherry trees, had once been pruned and tended by Eversons, the art now lost to the Blausses. Reaching as high as ten feet or more in places, strangling the life out of the sumacs that supported them, and engulfing other bushes in an ever spreading blanket of greenery, the grapevines offered a most challenging opportunity for a “Monkey.” Laurie and Tommy reached the highest spots attainable to a lightweight. The featherweights followed, eager to emulate the grand, heroic feats of their older sister and cousin. When heavier cousins Skip and Bill Tobin attempted to scale Tommy’s summits, they broke branches and crushed the flimsy sumac with their extra pounds, upsetting the Monkey Club leaders and leaving the entire tribe lower in the jungle canopy than they had hitherto been able to climb. Down below Wes warily waited. He, more than Skip and Bill, understood the near-sacred nature of these vulnerable places. What the sixty-pounders could achieve atop the trees and vines, he at eighty plus pounds could not without wreaking similar havoc on the fragile structure, and he was willing to leave the best climbs for those who didn’t weigh as much. Being small was an advantage in the Monkey Club.

Island Games (by Eric & Wes)

Donnie and Eric poked around for hours at a time in the pram, taking turns rowing, naming landmarks like Hidden Cove, and catching crabs. Afraid to grab at a pinching rock crab, Eric stuck to snails and hermit crabs in their stolen periwinkle shells. Wes, Laurie, and Marlene were climbing in the dense jungle of grape vines that blanketed a sumac grove behind the outhouse and provided hours of near trampoline-like pleasure on the treetops. Curled up in the sun, Fluffy or Snowball or whichever cat was then the family pet watched Dave dig in the sand. Edna watched too.
Toward midday, the gang gathered for lunch, peanut butter and jelly or banana sandwiches, followed by Edna’s eternal admonition, “No swimming for an hour now. You could get a cramp and drown.” The kids could easily entertain themselves until the afternoon sun beat down so intently that clothing fell in little heaps across the bristly lawn, summer-baked to a prickly carpet, and everyone migrated to the small, sandy beach. It was time for a “Happy Fizzies Party.” A big kid must have named it, but everyone took part. All the kids, including the Tobins and other friends, crowded into the big boat and rowed into the channel, a little toward the dike from the dock. Donnie dropped anchor, a half of a cement block tied to the bow rope, and then everyone went stark, raving mad. Crawling over the seats and each other, balancing on the gunwales like tightrope walkers, kids would start shouting silly phrases like, “Washington Crossing the Delaware!” or “Happy Fizzies Party!” At the end of each statement they would strike a ridiculous pose and then plunge, as accidentally-looking as possible, into the river. The water, cold, salty, and bubbly or fizzy as it was, no doubt gave the activity its name.



Using boats and plastic floats or inner tubes for bases and pitcher’s mound, they played water baseball and kickball. The batter stood at the end of the dock. Often a beachball, light and brightly-colored and striped, was hit with a whiffle-ball bat and floated through the air like a balloon toward the dripping infielders. Beachballs broke easily. More often a heavier plastic ball, about a foot in diameter, sold at the Brant Rock Market next to the plastic buckets and shovels, served the purpose. Pitchers dove and shortstops dog-paddled and catchers danced on the pier. Shouts and splashes punctuated the hot afternoon, refreshing everyone, and wild, wet laughter entertained them all.



Headhunter! A game invented by us, a perfect pastime for a jungly island and a tribe of active, anxious, young savages. Here in Eric’s own words is a description of the game and environs:

“The landscape of the island has always been a changing scene. Clearings and paths overgrow in a season. You stop mowing. It never stops growing. Sapling sumac and blackberry vines spring up in weeks and take right over if unchecked. Dad was not as diligent as some of us later became about mowing. About twenty feet out of the porch door, facing southeast, was a grove of sumac. Pretty good size too, up to six or seven inches at the butt. The yard was mowed.






















“The Grove” was also mowed about twenty feet in. To the right, looking south from the door, at the edge where the land dropped off about four feet to the river, and running alongside the grove, was a cleared extension from the yard, about twenty feet wide. The grass in this area was a little pricklier on the feet. On the edge of the lawn where it dropped off to the river bank, there was a brown porcelain stove that Mom and Dad burned the paper trash in. Just a few trees into the grove a hammock hung, tied to two trees. The hammock served as goals in a game of Headhunter. One person would be IT. When gathering around to start a game, someone would yell, “Not IT!” The last one to say, “Not IT!” was IT, although some of us little kids might get out of IT sometimes. Being IT to a young, little fellow like myself was a dreaded and burdensome task.
The game went as follows. Everyone not IT would lie across the hammock face down and count to whatever. I remember Dave and me repeating the numbers counted out by the big kids, somewhere around ten, because we couldn’t count much higher. Whoever was IT had this old wet mop. The difference between Headhunter and Hide and Seek was that the person who was IT would hide. After the count those who weren’t IT would look for the one who was. As those not IT strayed away from the hammock they became more vulnerable to the Headhunter, whose job it was to tag someone with the mop before they reached the hammock. Upon reaching the hammock we always dived across sideways and somersaulted right around it. The younger the child, the closer to goals one stayed, so when the bigger kids dove across the hammock we were usually on it already, holding on tight for the ride. The hammock would flap around like a sheet in the high wind, and Dave, Marlene, and I must have looked like cowboys on a rodeo bull, hanging on so as not to be bounced off and fall easy prey to the wild, approaching Headhunter. I can still see clearly in my mind the view of the trees against the sky, upside-down from looking under the hammock, spinning and tumbling around as each lucky player made it back safely to goals ahead of the Headhunter’s screeching yells. And I can still see Donnie. He was IT. He kept his cool in his hiding spot long enough for the more timid of the players to wander further from goals. I was halfway past the house. Some of the big kids were even further toward the bunkhouse when Donnie stood up from behind the brown porcelain stove, shaking his mop violently in the air and screaming, “Ya! Ya! Ya! Ya! Ya!” I don’t remember whom he chose to tag but he had us all dead to rights, and immortalized himself in my mind as the undisputed Headhunter champion of the island and the world. As the dry and lightweight tassels of the mop hovered against the southern sky at dusk, and the tribal-sounding yell pierced the silence of the quickly approaching twilight, in the view of the low, jungle-looking fauna, even his face was momentarily transformed into that of a savage. And I hardly noticed that he wasn’t robed in grass clothing and adorned with a necklace made from the teeth of his past victims — or that he was wearing glasses.”

Going to the island (Eric's version - as transposed and possibly embelished by Wes)

Sometime in the course of every summer, before the arrival of the youngest sisters Debbie and Heather, Mom and Dad would pack their six children into the station wagon, along with piles of bedding and beach towels, two weeks’ worth of food, diapers, kerosene, oarlocks, mosquito repellent, beer, Band-Aids, and all the other supplies necessary for a vacation at the island, the only vacation affordable to a family of limited means. For the Blausses it was a little leftover bit of Eden enjoyed for a couple of weeks, and a couple of long weekends every summer. Parental preparation loomed large, but for the six children it promised nothing but fun, fun, fun.
Packed to near bursting with provisions, the Chevrolet beach wagon waited in the dirt driveway at 30 Phillips Street as everyone piled in on a Saturday morning in July. Dad had a week’s vacation from Peaceful Meadows, and was eager himself to sit on the porch of the two-room cottage, cradle a bottle of beer, and, as he so often said with a contented grin, "watch the rest of the world go by." The cat was always the last passenger to load in. Then, last minute bathroom runs completed and all in readiness, doors slammed, the car motor rumbled to life, and the journey commenced.


At Lloyd Prario’s service station on Main Street, just beyond the deserted Hanson railroad station, with the smell of gasoline rising through the tailgate window, Dad would gas up the car for the big trip. Eighteen miles away high adventure and sweet relaxation waited. Wesley, Laurie, Donnie, Marlene, Eric, and Dave could hardly wait. Long years afterward the smell of gasoline still reminded Eric of going to Brant Rock, where the Green Harbor River joined the Atlantic, a salty smell of passion that bonded him and his siblings forever to the sea.
The oil checked and the tank fueled up, and with a friendly good-bye from Lloyd as he stepped back inside to work on his perfectly-detailed dollhouses and model country stores, Dad would turn the car southeast down Route 27. Moments later Laurie would burst into song:
"Oh, you can’t go to Heaven
In a rocking chair
‘Cause the Lord don’t want
No lazy bones there,"
with the brothers and sisters gleefully joining in, repeating each line in an ebullient echo. Verses followed for each family member:
"Oh, you can’t go to Heaven
In Daddy’s car
‘Cause the darned old thing
Won’t go that far."
Nor would Mommy’s boat, Wes’s pants, Laurie’s bike, or any other number of bright ideas provide the requisite transportation to Paradise. "The Ants Go Marching" came next, or "One more river, and that wide river is Jordan," with a succession of sing-along favorites close behind, and the singing didn’t stop until the familiar sights and smells of the coast caught the children’s attention. Next to Dad sat Little Dave in the car seat with its own plastic steering wheel and horn. Mom rode shotgun position, turned sideways to accompany the chorus of high-pitched voices. The Blauss family was going to the island! After a whole year they were on their way again. The thought of salt water, clam shells everywhere, crabs side-stepping under the wharf, periwinkles or snails clinging to the wooden posts that held up the dock, waiting for the tide to rise again, kept the kids in high anticipation. And for Eric, in the rough years that followed, the smell of beach roses always brought on the longing for and refreshed the vision of those hot, safe island days.

From Hanson through Pembroke and Duxbury, along King Philip’s Path and over the bridge at Route 3 the overcrowded vehicle groaned happily. Soon they had reached the north end of Duxbury Bay’s extensive salt marsh and then the historic Winslow house and the sign for Camp Cedar Crest. They recognized they were close now. The old Chevrolet passed a few more sandy streets and cottages with neat hedges, came abreast of the Green Harbor Marina, and out onto the dike. The dike, the dike!

Upon riding onto the dike everyone except Dad would exclaim, "Hi, island!" Pulling the car up to the guard rails on the river side, Don clambered out, untied the rowboat from the roof racks, and heaved it over the guard rails, the bushes on the slope below so thick that the sturdy, little vessel would slide right down the twenty foot embankment, gently and undamaged, on the cushiony underbrush. The boat was soon in the water and the Chevrolet partly unpacked. Most importantly the heavy aluminum beer keg that would provide their source of potable water was hoisted with effort over the side and everyone stepped back as it rolled crashing down the hill, ending with a splash in the marsh grass. The little kids remained itchily in the car. The loaded boat had no room for more than Dad and Wes once all the provisions had been stowed aboard. The first trip over began. Dad rowed. Mom and her children closed the car doors and drove the short distance to Marshall Avenue, then a left on Webster and another on June Street. In a little pink house lived the Helpins, where Edna stopped to fill more jugs of drinking water. The children were becoming antsy now to get on with it. Back in the car Edna drove slowly around the bend of the dirt road. A tall chain-link fence surrounded a high voltage electrical transformer, and just to the far end of the fence a circle of dirt and grass had been worn down by car tires, a circle about thirty feet in diameter. A guide wire from an electrical pole anchored in the middle of it. Often another car would be parked there already, belonging to Belle and Bill Dexter, "Auntie Belle and Uncle Bill." They owned, after years of squatting, the little log cottage down the path, the family’s next, if temporary, destination. Nine years of residence on the unclaimed property had given them title to it. Uncle Bill mowed the trail from the parking area to the river. In some places boards or slabs provided dry footing over the muddy spots. Blackberry bushes groped out from the sides, snares for unwary children carrying bundles and boxes of provisions. A lightly-laden younger child could pause and refresh himself on fruit before running to catch up with his older siblings. The Dexters’ cottage and clearing seemed a long way from the car. It wasn’t, much less than a quarter of a mile. The world just seemed that much bigger when we were small.
The Dexters and their grandchildren relaxed in lounge chairs and hammocks on the shaded lawn at path’s end, Uncle Bill nursing a Narragansett beer, Auntie Belle with a mixed drink and Kent cigarette in hand. Edna and Auntie Belle exchanged big hugs. Uncle Bill’s greeting, though seated, was no less sincere. Now another generation had arrived. In terry cloth underwear and no shirt, three-year-old Cathleen Dexter, their granddaughter, ran uninhibited over the soft carpet of grass, so gentle on bare feet compared to the bristly island lawn. Three years older, Marlene was just as likely to run shirtless after her under the shade trees. Modesty was not an issue for Edna’s children until the girls started to develop, and the Blauss girls developed late. The island was private, and the Dexters’ was the transition into the freer world where underpants ruled. No one deliberately stripped on arrival, but a toddling David clad only in diapers fit seamlessly with the terrain.
After nearly a year’s absence, everyone visited. Donnie and Eric tangled cheerfully on the rope swing. Into the hammock clambered Cathleen, Marlene, and David, maybe baby Brenda Dexter as well, and Laurie provided wild pushes, while Edna sat with Belle and Bill and exchanged the news of the year. Cathleen and Brenda were the children of Laddy Dexter, lobsterman son of Belle and Bill, who had settled in Brant Rock, less than a mile from the cottage where he, his brother Danny, and his parents had spent their summers, and his parents’ presence provided easy babysitting service. The kids romped. The adults jibber-jabbered while awaiting the arrival of Wes and the unladen boat.
Eric ran to the riverbank, hurdling a ditch, barely noting the old stone fireplace and Uncle Bill’s thatch duck blind, to await Wes’s arrival. The muddy riverbank dropped into salt water, shallow off the Dexters’ pier. Clamshells littered the bottom. Dropping to his belly on the rough wooden planks, Eric reached down into the river to examine several. While he paddled, Wes appeared around the end of the island with the empty boat. "Hello!" shouted Eric, leaping up to run with the news. "Here he comes! Hurry up! Hurry up!"
Edna would stay with the Dexters a while longer. Not enough room in the boat for everyone, but the kids crowded down to the shoreline, possibly with supplies in tow. "All aboard that’s getting aboard!" Laurie announced. Into the back clambered Eric and Dave, Laurie wedging her skinny self between them. Marly and Donnie got the front seat. Wes stood up with one oar, handed the other to his brother. "Here, Donnie, help shove off," said the rower. Shoving against the muddy bottom, they broke the suction of the mucky flats and inched off from the bank. The boys sat. The oars were slipped back into the oarlocks. Wes turned the stern upriver and the bow toward the island, pushing one scull forward and he other back. Often one oar only worked at the turn, the other poised horizontally, relaxed over the water’s surface. Eric would study his older brother’s rowing techniques. ‘I’m going to row the same way,’ he’d think. From Dexters’ dock to the end of the island was about a hundred feet. A wide flat extending out from island’s end gradually dropped to a depth of four or five feet at high tide. Showing off, Wes pulled hard. The boat, overfull and low in the water almost to the gunwales, raced over the flats, just clearing the muddy bottom. Eric watched the swirls of water twisting off the end of the oars, the boat racing away from them with each pull.

As the family rounded the point of the island, the dike came into view. If the tide was coming in, white foam floated up the channel in the current. Wes steered out toward the center of the river to avoid shallow water and the thick, algal bloom that covered large areas of the river in midsummer. The green, slimy growth could drag on an oar, making it too heavy to pull a stroke, and the oarsman would perform annoyed contortions, rolling the blade, until the gunk fell off. Sumac groves swept by, the stand of birch trees on which they would soon be swinging.

There, close by, sat the little barn red cottage. Closing in on the sandy landing area, Wes alternated strokes, left, right, left, right, one oar in the water at a time, the port oar pulling slightly harder, arching the boat around the end of the little dock and pulling it up alongside. "Land ho!" yelled Laurie. "All ashore that’s going ashore!"
Donnie, holding the bow rope, secured the rowboat. Everyone else scrambled onto the pier. Someone had to go get Mom, still over at the Dexters’. In the early summers the job went to the "big kids", Laurie and Donnie, but soon Eric was volunteering to go, hoping to practice his strokes and turns the way Wes and Mom did. There was no rush. The children unloaded provisions. Bags and pillowcases and cardboard boxes were lugged up onto the lawn, then instantly deserted as their bearers raced around in a near frenzy of delight at their summer homecoming. Back upriver Eric headed to pick up Mom. Pulling alongside Hidden Cove, not really a cove, but a little indentation in the bank that Donnie had named, where a double birch tree grew out from the island almost parallel with the water, Eric practiced his sculling techniques. Pushing the left oar and pulling the right, he turned the boat in a few quick circles. Then scaring himself because he was alone, he rowed as fast as he could for his mother. Hopefully she would be waiting for him at the dock and not still jibber-jabbering with Auntie Belle and Uncle Bill. That was unlikely. A whole year had passed since they last saw each other. They had plenty to talk about.

But now Edna was ready to move on. She had plenty to do when they got to the island, even if "those kids" hadn’t vandalized the cottage as they did almost every offseason. "Those kids" broke windows, scattered crockery, smeared peanut butter on the walls. Edna didn’t know who "those kids" were, but once or twice they were spotted retreating from the island as the family approached, and many times they had broken into the empty camp and spent the nights drinking and trashing the place. Occasionally they might be spotted on the mainland, carrying guns. The little ones were fearful of them. Was there vandalism this time? Edna wanted to know. Eric reported that all was well on the island. Still, even without "those kids’" efforts, Edna had many chores ahead, washing the dishes, airing out the blankets, and all.

She and Eric pulled up at the dock. Eric beamed as his mother commented on what a good rower he was becoming.

Hail Hail, the gangs all (almost all) here

Tom*, Don, Skip*, Nanna (in background), Marlene in the baby seat, Wes, Grampa Roddy, Laurie, Jojo*, Mo*, Billy*

* indicates cousin

??? circa 1958 = if it's summer '58 Wes is 7-1/2+, Laurie is 5+, I am 3-1/2 and Marly (the baby) is 1-1/2, Eric would be a newborn (June 19th) and not shown here. The (Aunt Sally) Doyle cousins are not yet born (well, maybe Mark is).

Eric, Dad, Laurie, Dave (born 2/28/60), Mom, Marly, Don, Wes
??? late 1960 - early 1961 ???

Debbie ('65) and Heather ('73) are still not in the picture yet!

The Rat Patrol of Abbey Road

In the Spring of 1968 we temporarily left 30 Phillips St and moved into a summer cottage on Abbey Street (I later wished I could say I once lived on Abbey Road, but it was in fact Abbey St.) near Rexhame Beach in Marshfield. Dad and our neighbor/carpenter Henry Howland were building an addition onto our house and we needed to be out so they could finish the work. I am not sure if I realized at the time that when the addition was finished and we returned to our newly improved home that Dad would be leaving it. Traveling daily back to Hanson for school was a logistical nightmare for my mother I’m sure, but for me it meant a long car ride listening to the newest music on the AM radio (The Who’s “Happy Jack” was the big hit then) and being the first 7th grader to arrive at the Indian Head Jr High School. I would do my unfinished homework or help the teacher by doing some chore or just sit and daydream. I got dropped off 1st and early, High-Schoolers Wes & Laurie were the 2nd stop and just in time, then the rest followed (I have no recollection of what the leaving school routine was). It was an unusual arrangement but we were living at the beach and it was a splendid adventure.

The ocean was just over the hill to the east, the South River behind us to the west, and two streets to the north was a large beach parking lot surrounded by acres of sand dunes with many scrub brush patches and crisscrossing paths – all easily within our 1/4mile-from-base “exploring radius”. Many of the surrounding houses were vacant until summertime, so there were not too many people to worry about bothering with our noise level or routes of travel. Our favorite section of dunes was between the river and the parking lot – set far enough back from the tar so the average beach visitor ignored them. One of our favorite TV shows was “The Rat Patrol” -

{ THE RAT PATROL followed the adventures of an elite team of commandos of 111th Armor Recon, attached to the Long Range Desert Group, as they wreaked havoc with Rommel's Afrika Korps during WW II.Led by the charismatic Sergeant Sam Troy, our heroes often found themselves pitted against their German nemesis DAK Hauptmann Dietrich.}

– brave army guys racing around the desert with machine guns mounted on their Jeeps. So, in vague imitation (lots of artistic license here) we fought to expel the enemy from our Rexhame dunes – running in tight formation. Not having machine guns available, we used sticks, broom handles, or simply grasped imaginary gun handles with fists vibrating in the air from the kick of the imaginary guns. Not having Jeeps we ran in pairs, one close behind the other, driver in front and gunner in rear – racing up the back side of dunes and leaping from the tops of the steep crests, airborne until we eventually landed well below in the sloped sand. Just like in the Army, you had to be a well oiled machine and totally trust in your partner – the gunner couldn’t out-jump the driver or else you would land on top of him. The driver couldn’t lead the gunner blindly into a pile of broken glass as we were often barefoot (and as evidenced by charcoaled driftwood, broken bottles, and random lost or discarded clothing, other people used these dunes after dark for their own more adult games). So we would fight about who’s turn to be the Germans, then we would split up and hide – then crawl and scout and spy through pretend binoculars and run and chase and capture (or argue about being shot or not – we would have LOVED paintball except the physical evidence would have ruined lots of good arguments) and escape.

When the weather was fowl we watched the river. Storms and full moons raised the river above its usual banks, making it flood up through the back yards and the road – creeping ever closer to our steps. The worst storm brought the river into our backyard and the ocean was sending foam and spray over the height of land between us and the Atlantic. At one point we decided it would be more interesting if we could walk up to the parking lot and climb the highest dunes overlooking the ocean. Mom was always one who loved watching the ocean during a good storm so was sympathetic to our pleas. After lots of verbal warnings and instructions, allowed us older kids out the door while she kept the younger ones safely inside. We didn’t last long. Rain and sand was whipping, completely horizontal, stinging our faces and drenching us through our rain coats. Walking backwards didn’t help – the wind so strong we had trouble making any progress against it. We made it past the neighboring house and turned onto Standish St. We might have gotten along as far as Gilbert St before we smartened up and retreated.

The fierce German Army couldn’t stop us, but we were no match for a good old New England nor’easter.

http://www.bigredhair.com/movies/ratpatrol.html

Our Favorite Foxes

It was a warm summers day, the big kids (Tobins included) were playing in the back yard, I was in the kitchen where Mom was washing dishes. The window above the sink looks out into the back yard and (as this was before we had a fence) beyond to the tar drive leading to the back of the warehouse. Much to my mother’s surprise (and then concern) she noticed a fox casually meander out of the woods and down the asphalt slope towards the parking lot. This was highly unusual behavior for a fox. She called out the window “Look, a fox” to alert the children. Laurie mis-heard, confused as to why Mom would bother to point out a box, but noting the concern in her voice decided it was worth looking at. About this time the fox changed direction and headed towards our yard. I decided the screen porch was a better vantage point to see what the commotion was about. Kids were climbing into the dogwood tree and to the top of swingset. Cousins ran up the slide and jumped onto the playhouse roof. Billy chose the sapling tree next to the shed, not the best choice. Saplings aren’t good for climbing and bend like a fishing pole with a big catch on the line. He clung tight with arms and legs wrapped around the drooping branch, hanging as if tied to a pole being carried by cannibals. The fox wandered right into the commotion, curiously investigating the strange being hovering above. Apparently this fox didn’t feel like exerting himself and wandered down into the parking lot. Mom had quickly called the police about our suspicious acting intruder. They quickly arrived in our driveway and along with a couple of fast responding firefighters restrained and captured the animal which following testing was confirmed to have been rabid. For days later, now-brave children would re-enact what they did and where they went, for any and all audiences.

Although this fox was a cause of great momentary excitement, our favorite fox was Disney’s “Swamp Fox” – a very short lived television series.

http://www.startedbyamouse.com/archives/SwampFox.shtml
Originally on: ABC (60 min.)
Status: Ended Premiered: October 23, 1959 Last Aired: January 8, 1961
Show Categories: Action/Adventure, Drama
"Swamp Fox, Swamp Fox, tail on his hat. Nobody knows where the Swamp Fox's at..." So begins the legend of 'The Swamp Fox'. In reality, this Revolutionary War hero was Colonel Francis Marion--a semi-renegade patriot with an ax to grind with the British. The series takes us through the life of this hero, and gives us a glimpse into the lives of the men and women who helped make this country...
starring Leslie Neilson.


Wes had us all running around the yard singing the theme song (one of the earliest songs I recall singing) and chasing the British out of the neighborhood.

Those Dammed Rivers

Flowing water held a fascination for me as a child. Probably it started in the bathtub where I discovered that by covering up the overflow drain with my foot, I could make the water rise to abnormal levels – causing it to find another way out. More than once did Nenna find water dripping through her bedroom ceiling (coincidently located right below the bathroom). The bathroom was simply another playroom.

(This just in! – I just had another memory -- of us taking turns standing on the stage (aka – toilet) doing Elvis imitations – Eric & David very young (3 & 5?), very naked, but enthusiastically strumming air guitars and singing Ain’t Nothin’ but a Hound Dog)

Sorry about that interruption == so anyway, after it was ever-so gently (sure!) explained to me that playing with water in the bathroom was not allowed, I had to find my fun outside. The swampy woods and streams behind Urann’s pond were always fun to play around and attempt to jump, but I didn’t have much control over them. The pond was already formed by a manmade coffer dam, but I was intreged that the outlet river actually was underneath the Ocean Spray parking lot -- you could hear it running below at the storm drain.

I discover that damming up the out-flow from tidal pools at the beach was very empowering and simultaneously creative, and an easy media to work with.

Then Wes discovered the stream flowing out of the woods beyond the Hannigans house up the street. With his 8mm movie camera in hand and younger siblings and cousins in tow, off we went to film adventure movies in the woods. Large trees fallen across the river were perfect for adaptations of Robin Hood / Little John type stories – all scripted and filmed by Director Wes. My preference was playing with the flowing water – stacking rocks and inserting sticks, diverting the direction here & there.

Just a bit further up Phillips Street was “Wampatuck Road” – an unused dirt road to nowhere (but strangely listed on every map of Hanson as if it were a Main St) with swamp water on all sides and crossing the road in many spots as tiny rivers. It started as a route to explore, but became a destination for aspiring water control engineers. Complex dam systems creating reservoirs and canals and locks were being continuously constructed. Occasionally we would be appalled to discover (because as outstanding outdoorsmen and naturalists, we could interpret the tracks) that horses had ridden through and stomped some of our creations. Yes, we worked in miniature – our stone and earthen dams were typically about 1 – 2 inches high. Undeterred, we returned on many warm sunny days, spending painstaking hours working on our dammed rivers.

Although the others were good builders and enjoyed the work, I alone was acknowledged as the Master of all Dam Creation.

Kick the Can and the Mother of All Water Fights (by Marlene)

The best part of summer (excepting the years we camped at Maquan Pond) was staying up all night playing kick the can - hide and seek with a portable (kickable) goals.

I remember one night, playing down at Grammie's house (next door to Nessarella's Farm Stand). We talked Dad into joining the game. Now Dad was a great playmate - When he was in the mood. But ordinarily, he was happier suppying us with an empty beer can than in joining the horseplay. And this particular night, he wanted to finish the game and be done with it as quickly as possible. So he vollunteered to be 'IT', counted to 100, picked up the can and tucked it into his back pocket. He walked around the yard, finding each of us and touching the can in his pocket while calling us by name. Eric, ever the advocate of fair play, quickly and loudly proclaimed, "NO FAIRS! NO FAIRS! THAT'S CHEATING!!!!!

So now, Laurie was alerted to the nature of the game, and she decided to supply justice. She began following Dad, with her ninja-like abilties, and at 'the opportune moment', she ran up behind Dad and kicked the can right out of his pocket. As I recall, that ended the game and Dad decided it was time to go home and 'put the kids to bed.'


But the most awesome night of kick the can also happened to be the only time I've ever seen Nenna intimidated - or been her partner in crime. I had called a personal 'time out' to go into the house and use the bathroom. Just as I reached the top of the stairs, I met up with Mom coming out of the bathroom with Debbie's potty chair pot in her hand. She grinned at me and said, "Watch this."

I followed her into my bedroom where she walked over to the window and told me to open the screen. Down below, I saw Laurie hiding between the house and the tall patch of Pampas Grass. Mom reached her hand out the window, leaned through the window herself and called, "Oh Laurie."

Laurie looked up and saw Mom with pot in hand an instant before she felt the warm water flowing down her back and soaking into her clothing. She had no way to know that Mom had indeed washed the pot and filled it with clean, warm water. She assumed the worst and screached in protest - probably the only time I've ever heard Laurie screach!

Within seconds, all the neighborhood friends had come out of hiding and were conferencing at the lamp post (goals). Within minutes, they had all dissappeared to their own homes and reappeared, armed with various water pistols and squirt bottles. They boldly entered the kitchen and counter-attacked this deranged woman we called Mom. By the time the water fight ended, Mom was hiding under her bed (can you imagine?) By the time Henry came home from work around 2 in the morning, Mom had finished mopping up the foot of water that had innundated the kitchen floor, but she couldn't disguise the fact that all the vinyl tiles had become unstuck and would never cover the floor again. Mom was contrite and never initiated another mob scene. Henry was pissed, but fortunately, that skilled carpenter was always happy to show off his skills and prove to Mom how much he loved her by repairing and improving the house as an on-going hobby.

Terror -the sequel (by Wes)

Imagination is a wonderful gift, and it keeps them crazy. It’s the summer after Wes’s senior year in high school. He works in the dish room at Jeff’s, a classy restaurant on Main Street, just above the hollow of Poor Meadow Brook. On weekends the crew cleans and scours until one in the morning. When they come out from their kitchen duties they all smell of beer and French fries. Luckily Wes has Maquan Pond and his grandfather Edgar’s waterfront property to head for. A little skinny-dipping before sleeping bag time washes away the stench and grease. Since it’s July, the family is already down there, asleep in a big army tent in Grampa Mac’s pine grove. Wes will take his midnight swim – this was before Jaws cured him of midnight swims – and then head back up to sack out. He fishes the car keys out of his cutoff shorts and climbs into his ’49 Chevy. He drives out of the parking lot, left onto route 27, and heads past the foot of Phillips Street, down to the lights at 58.
In those days you could take an early left onto Indian Head Street without going through the lights. He does. A man is hitchhiking, silhouetted against the traffic lights. He’s heading southeast toward Plymouth, maybe. Wes is headed north. The guy looks a little grungy. It’s at least the very witching hour. Wes slows down to make the turn, and turns, and drives on. His imagination kicks in. Boy, was that guy creepy looking. Gee, just like in all those spooky hitchhiker movies. The hitchhiker is always a crazed killer. What if that hitchhiker was a crazed killer? What if Wes had stopped and picked him up? Wes would never stop and pick him up. Wes hates crazed killers. But what if the man were really crazy? What if he was looking for his next victim? Luckily he’s heading to Plymouth for his next victim, and Wes is going in a different direction. But what if he changed his mind? Maybe he doesn’t care if his next victim comes from southeast of Monponsett or not. What if he jumped onto the back of the ’49 Chevy? Which he couldn’t, since the trunk on a ’49 Chevy is seriously rounded, and he’d slide right off. And Wes is going too fast. But what if when he slowed down to take the turn, the guy jumped on back? What if he’s hanging on to the back right now, clutching the bumper and rear license plate? Good grief, Charlie Brown! A serial killer is tailing Wes right into the piney woods where his innocent younger siblings are peacefully sleeping, unaware that death is rapidly approaching on the trunk of their brother’s car.
Wes turns down the dirt road into the piney woods. There is no psychopath on the back of his car. He knows that. He recognizes that fact quite clearly. He is a very bright boy. He is hyperventilating – and the stench of beer and French fries is overwhelming him. Still, you can’t go skinny-dipping alone in the middle of the night when there’s a madman on the back of your car. He could kill you even quicker than a shark in the dark. No, Wes doesn’t even think about a shark in the dark. Robert Benchley hasn’t scared him to death with Jaws yet. But what about that enormous snapping turtle that lurks in the black lake? Never mind about the turtle. No one’s going anywhere near the water with a homicidal fruitcake on his tail. Wes careens a little wildly around a couple curves to shake him off, but since he’s not really there, he can’t. When Wes reaches the tent, he’s still not with him, and Wes is scared to death. He slams on the brakes about three feet from the tent door. Does he dare turn out the headlights? Yeah, he has to turn out the headlights. He’s more scared of draining the battery than of feeling the killer breathing down the back of his neck – no, he’s not! – yes, he is! – but there’s no way Wes will be coming back out here later to shut off the lights. Besides if he doesn’t shut off the lights, he’ll wake up the kids.
What the hell, wake ‘em all up! They are all awake anyway. Laurie’s never one for letting the brothers and sisters sleep before it’s necessary, and tonight they have cousins Billy and Tommy Tobin, and their friend, bull-sized Franny Kramarski, the cheerful Pollack, staying over with them. Reinforcements! Yes! Wes lunges from the car to the tent (a three feet dive at most) and then, gathering his wits, enters calmly, to cheerful greetings, and announces calmly, to general consternation, that a murderous hitchhiker jumped onto the back of his ’49 Chevy down by the lights at 27 and 58, has followed him into the woods, and is in fact outside the tent this very moment, ready to do his worst.
Pandemonium ensues.
If any members of the Blauss-Tobin-Kramarski clan are less imaginative than Wesley Blauss, they are at least as eager for a good old-fashioned screamfest. The demented dishwasher is forced to recount the tale in lurid detail. Their eyes grow wide in the abrupt glare of flashlights popping on all over the tent. A hitchhiker? Murderer? Here? In the woods? At one in the morning?
And then, Laurie remembers. She’s left the axe outside. In the crotch of a nearby pine tree.
The axe!
Omigod, the weapon of choice for your average American axe murderer, left right out there in the pitch black where he can easily spot it.
Pitched whispers all around.
They’ve got to retrieve the axe.
“Laurie—you left it there—“
Fearless Laurie takes a flashlight. She will fetch the axe. Everyone waits breathlessly while she unzips the tent door, slips out into the night. Silence. Silence. Little noises. Silence. A rush of footsteps, and she returns, diving through the tent door. Wes zips it behind her to prevent any forcible entry. Where’s the axe?
“It isn’t there! It’s gone! I know just where I left it in the crotch of that tree, and now it isn’t there.”
“Omigod! The axe murderer has the axe!”
Pandemonium reensues. More or less.
And they have nothing with which to protect themselves except—they look around. The broom. That’s it. They have a broom. (Mom is a stickler for cleaning up every living space, tent included.) Wes takes the broom. He’s the oldest. And if he swings it wildly enough, he may fend the psychopath off long enough so that Wes is the last to die. Like musk oxen facing the wolves, they back into a circle, all their little heads bristling outward in a show of terror-stricken camaraderie.
They will face this cruel fate together. They will sacrifice the littlest ones, Eric and Dave, only if they must. They will be brave. Resourceful. Strong.
Snap. A twig cracks outside the tent.
A rushed intake of breaths all around, followed by intense silence. They cringe. So tight is the circle their shoulder blades have begun to fuse together.
Rustle. Shuffling in the grove.
No one inhales. No one exhales. Everyone holds his final breath in dread unison.
Thud! A heavy footstep in the pine needles.
Crash! Trees falling to the crazed murder weapon. (It may be pinecones dropping, but these are pinecones with the weight of imagination hurling themselves down like grenades.)
Moments pass. Seconds slip away. Minutes crawl. The night woods are alive with the sounds of – the night woods, amplified by ear drums stretched taut with smothered screams forced inward, accompanied by the pounding of nine little tell-tale hearts. The axe murderer is everywhere. He’s on the left of the tent, he’s on the right. North! South! West! He’s upon them! He’s holding them in awful suspense. He savors the agonizing beauty of an infinitely momentary pause before the attack begins. Where will the axe fall first? Through which pitch of canvas will it suddenly rip, cleaving an innocent sibling to the brisket? In Wes’s hands the broom swings crazily. More danger by far from concussion at Wes’s hands than dismemberment at the hands of –
“I have to go to the bathroom,” whimpers Eric.
The woods fall hushed.
“Sssshhh,” they all admonish. “You have to wait.”
The stillness stretches almost to eternity, and then Eric wails, “I really have to go to the bathroom.”
“No, you don’t.”
“Yes, I do.”
“Hold it.”
“I can’t hold it.”
“There’s an axe murderer out there.”
“I gotta pee.”
“He’ll chop it off.”
“I’m gonna wet myself.”
“All right,” says Wes, considering the options carefully, and finding none. “All right.” Gotta think this out. Death or wet sleeping bags. Neither alternative appeals, but the wet sleeping bags would be really gross. “All right. Here’s what we do. (They are speaking in stage whispers now) I’ll unzip the door. Then I’ll slip out with the broom and stand there outside the door. You duck out between my legs, take three steps, pee, and I’ll cover you with the broom.”
Silently Wes kneels before the flap and begins to unzip. It takes forever to unzip a tent flap when lives depend on absolute silence. Eric clutches his crotch. His big brother steps out onto the damp pine needles, soaked in the blood of dead squirrels and decapitated skunks. With an upward sweep he drives the nightsoft cobwebs from the air before them. Now, Eric!
Eric leaps out from between his brother’s legs, nearly upending him. He takes three steps forward and pees all over the bumper of Wes’s car. The broom ricochets wildly through the shadows as the terrified kitchen boy wards off serial killers and vampire bats. Then as one the pair fling themselves headlong back into the tent. They pant. They curse the darkness (the Tobins are more expressive than the Blausses are ever allowed to be by their mother, and their curses are more colorful and crude). The children sit in a huddled circle, backs inward, faces turned to impending doom, and await the morning.
The morning comes. Bird song filters through the grove. A groggy gray steals over the wakeful band. Not so wakeful after this night of the living dead, but everyone is struggling to keep his eyelids open. The flashlight batteries have long since died, but now they begin to see each other by the dawn’s early light. Up peeks the sun behind the tent. They are a retarded sight, the lot of them.
Laurie slips out into the relative safety of daybreak to relieve herself. She returns with a weak grin, clutching the axe. “I forgot,” she says. “It was in the other tree.”
“There wasn’t really a guy on the back of the car,” Wes says. “I was just hallucinating.”
Laurie swings at him, but fortunately the axe misses and only grazes a younger brother. Franny and Billy land a couple of friendly punches in his ribs, and Tommy, the monkey on his back, gets him in a headlock. The youngsters set upon their eldest sibling with pillows and, by the time Mom shows up with breakfast, the tent is full of sleeping children, covered in a snowfall of feathers.

You can never have enough terror in a cheerful childhood.

Burning at the Pond

Most people refer to the seasons in a general framework – winter, spring summer, and fall. Others are more specific – hunting season, fishing season, ski – about identifying seasons. I love autumn in general, but specifically my family always got (gets) excited about the time from January 15th through April 30th – “Burning Season”!

Sure, like most folks we would rake and clean all around the house and shrubs in the early spring and burn the pile of leaves and broken branches. But for us, that was just like doing stretching exercises – it was just a warmup, spring cleaning spring training. The real game was at “The Pond”. Not to be confused with the previously blogged Urann’s Pond, “THE POND” is Maquan Pond where Grampa Mac owned 11 acres of open pine woods on the southern edge, between The Rainbow Girls camp and Cranberry Cove (Hanson’s public beach). Following a mild winter there would be enough branches that had fallen for a good weekend burning party. Following a particularly GOOD (i.e. BAD) winter there would be enough branches and whole trees downed for numerous weekends of pyromania gluttony. This was not just burning brush – this was a well produced event. First make sure Grampa got the permit, second find out what weekend was available to the largest number of relatives (most importantly the Tobin boys). Then shop for supplies – from filling the gas can to filling the cooler. Preparation activities for the designated Saturday started long before the 10:00am allowable start time posted on the permit. Gather and load the rakes, axes, shovels, buckets, chairs, blankets, gloves, coolers, etc… Drive to the pond and determine where best to light the fire (near the largest amount of blow-down, out of site from vehicles on the Camp Kiwanee Road, where it would be unlikely to spread – in that order of importance). Then we would start building the pile (envision your living room stacked to the ceiling with pine branches). Occasionally, after a really GOOD winter and with enough available helpers, we would divide into two teams, make two piles, and let the competition begin!

If mom was not bringing the littlest kids until later, we could fire it up by 9:30. Now considering the flames produced from the living room sized pine pile and the fact that we had already been working for a solid hour or more – it was break time. Stand back and admire the lighting of the Olympic torch! Have a donut and some hot chocolate from the thermos. Once the initial flames settled down into a solid steady burn, it was back to throwing more fuel to the fire. Usually we had predetermined area to clean, sometimes we would fight about whether or not someone had taken branches from the opponents turf. Always we would scold someone for not pulling their weight (measured in arm loads and frequency). This routine would continue all day until 4:00pm when the permit said to extinguish all flames. Our version of the English language interpreted this to mean don’t throw any more onto the fire after 4:00pm. As previously mentioned, we were not visible from the Kiwanee road, and Grampa Mac had once upon a time been a policeman in town, and Uncle Mac was a beloved “Townie” so we never felt too compelled to follow the letter of the law in this regard. Besides, the best portion of the day was yet to come.

By 5:00 the fire had reduced itself to a pile of bright red glowing coals and small flames about the size of loveseat. With caution, you could get close enough to cook hotdogs on a stick. Potatoes would be wrapped in foil and tossed right in to bake. These, plus chips & cookies & soda equaled supper. Once darkness fell, we settled in to chairs and blankets, with guitars and fire-poking sticks to keep us amused. By 10:00 or 11:00pm when the refreshments were gone and the fingers too cold and the embers quite well contained the last couple of fire tenders would go home.

Sunday morning was a new day, and by simply raking the ashes off the top of the pile the still glowing coals underneath would easily re-ignite with the introduction of more branches and pine needles. Pretty much Sunday was a repeat of Saturday with less prep work and an earlier closing time. No surprise that on Monday there was plenty of heat still radiating off of the ottoman sized pile of ash covered coals. The amazing part was that on Thursday the ash pile had shrunk to about the size of a toss pillow but was still warm to the touch. We never did (haven’t yet) burn down the woods as Nenna feared. This annual spring cleaning ritual was our payment to Grampa for letting us all invade and camp and swim for the summer (stay tuned for separate chapter). We burned. We camped. We swam. I don’t think us kids ever saw it all as connected - it was just another fun thing to do. It was all more fun than most kids could ever hope for.

http://maps.yahoo.com/index.php#mvt=h&q1=480%20indian%20head%20st,%20hanson,%20ma,%20us&trf=0&lon=-70.857375&lat=42.054869&mag=3

BLACKOUT !!

November 9th, 1965 Nenna was at school (she was taking night classes at BSC) and Aunt Maria was babysitting us kids. Late in the afternoon as it was getting dark out, all of the lights in the house went out. Strangely enough, so did all of the neighbors lights. As a family who regularly camped at the island and the pond, candles and hurricane lanterns were never packed away. We kids knew where they were all kept and we could see again in no time. As this was how all big storms were handled, this would have been no big deal – except that there was no storm at all, and Mom and Dad weren’t home, and this was probably more responsibility than Maria had planned for. Dad was at his Ocean Spray night job and not easily contacted under good conditions. Mom was in Bridgewater and no one could guess when she would get home. Next door, Nana (step-great grandmother) and (great-)Grampa Roddy had to be checked on. Who would go? Although news didn’t travel too fast without electricity anywhere so we didn’t hear any speculation as to the cause of this darkness, we were quite scared of UFO activity. Neighbor Henry Howland (later to become my step-father)on the other side of Nana’s house used to tell tales of how he came from Mars, and although we figured (but not totally certain) that he was making it up we (especially Laurie) were thoroughly convinced and wary of UFO’s real existence. I also have a vague but uncertain recollection of Billy Howland being there with a puppy, who (the puppy, not Billy) pooped on the living room rug. [I need Wes or Laurie to confirm or debunk this, please]

So eventually Mom came home, Dad came home – safe and sound. The lights came back the next day. News of a failure at a Niagra Falls Power Plant reached us. As amazed as we were that 1) our electricity came from that far away and 2) that all New England and New York were blacked out, our real surprise (much to Henry’s delight) was a report that UFO’s over Niagra had caused the whole thing. His mother ship simply needed power to get back home.

To this day I can still see Laurie - one random evening - coming home from babysitting at the Mahoney's house, crossing Nana’s back yard, racing from the back of the Nana's house, ducking behind the apple tree and dashing to our back door -- terrified at seeing glowing lights in the sky beyond Halls Farm (despite wearing glasses, she obviously had better eyesight than the rest of us and could see things that nobody else could).

http://blackout.gmu.edu/events/tl1965.html

http://ufologie.net/htm/blackout65.htm

http://www.ufocasebook.com/bestufopictures.html

More “Dark Town”

There were three ways to win at “Dark Town”.
1 – be “IT” and find everybody without anybody getting to the light switch and turning it on.
2 – be able to get from your hiding spot and sneak back and turn on the light switch without getting caught.
3 – hide where “IT” can’t find you so he/she gives up in frustration.

Now when Wes claims it was dark, he is talking PITCH BLACK, shades pulled, door at the bottom of the stairs closed, can’t see your hand in front of your face dark! Laurie (as always) reigned supreme – hiding in the hamper under the clothes or scaling the hall walls, feet and hands pressing against the opposite walls and back pressed against the ceiling and “IT” walking right under her, completely unaware (I’ll bet she even had the presence of mind to hold her breath when “IT” passed under) of her proximity inches overhead. We learned stealth movement that would have made Indians jealous. One night in a stroke of pure genius, I conceived the boldest and most perfect hiding place. The light switch (gouls – or however you spell it) was just inside the door to Wes’ bedroom, on the right wall which had a long low bookcase cabinet & desktop. “IT” (in this case probably Wes, but I don’t truly remember who) shut off the light and started to count.
[Now it was common knowledge to listen to the scurrying of footsteps away from gouls to gauge how many went in which directions, so my plan was dangerous]
I ever-so-carefully climbed up onto the desktop, feet as far away as physically possible, body twisted and bent while reaching with one arm to get my hand as close to the switch as possible. Wes (or whomever) yells “Here I Come, ready or not” practically in my ear and I, to his complete shock and horror (and when I say horror, think back to his previous writing about how we dealt with fear), immediately flick on the light and yell “GOULS”.

It only worked once, but once was enough.

(“For a moment, wasn’t I a king” == Garth Brooks, The Dance)

Our Favorite Jokes

At one time, we knew proudly almost every Italian joke known to mankind. Then we expanded on this - we decided each one should be numbered so that in an effort to save time we could simply call out "Number 83!" and every child within earshot would burst out laughing. (OK, we didn't ACTUALLY number the jokes - we simply concieved of this scheme and randomly called out numbers and laughed at them just to confuse other unwitting people).

Otherwise, our favorite jokes (translation = long winded stories that weren't really all that funny) revolved around some poor old woman with a dog named "Bummitches". Some trajedy always befell the poor dog causing the woman to wail "OH my poor Bummitches",

to which the response came


"Why don't you scratch it?".

Terror, the prequel - or - Dark Town (by Wes)

They lived in a cheerful state of terror. It seemed natural in childhood. When the wolf in Disney’s Lambert the Sheepish Lion appeared, fiendishly lit in a flash of animated lightning, their hearts nearly stopped. Lambert found the courage to save his adopted sheep family from the ravening beast. The Blauss children did not. They cowered on the living room couch, knees high in a prenatal position. Several evenings later when both parents were out at work or on errands, Wes drew that wolf from memory on a page of notebook paper. Laurie and he hid under a bureau in fright. The picture lay on the floor where they dropped it, scant feet away, but they dared not move from their retreat for fear it would attack. When Mom came home, they crawled out and rushed to the safety of her bewildered presence with vast relief. (They were probably in high school at the time.)
So — let’s imagine. They were — are still — awesome at it.

“There was a dark, dark town, and in the dark, dark town, there was a dark, dark street, and on the dark, dark street, there was a dark, dark house, and in the dark, dark house, there was a dark, dark room…”

Night after night Nenna could be persuaded to repeat this litany in a sepulchral monotone, her children hanging on every dark, dark, frozen like birds before the cobra’s gaze, waiting for the awful moment when, after following her through corners and closets and boxes and every other dark, dark enclosure imaginable, she suddenly bursts out, “THERE WAS A GHOST!” Oh, the shrieks and shivers that ensue, followed by pleas of, “Say it again, Mom. Say it again.”
One night, late for work at Ocean Spray Cranberry Company, she is browbeaten into yet another telling of the awful tale. She says, “There was a dark, dark town, and in the dark, dark town THERE WAS A GHOST!” After everyone recovers from the trauma of this premature ejaculation, they respond with indignation. The unfairness of it all! She had cheated. Say it again and say it right. As Gwendolyn remarks in The Importance of Being Ernest, “The suspense is unbearable. I hope it will last.”

And when the nights come early after daylight savings ends, the six Blauss children and various friends and relatives turn out all the lights upstairs and play Dark Town, a hide-and-seek game in which no one can see anyone in the almost pitch black three bedrooms and a bath, and people hide under beds in bath tubs, and in laundry hampers, waiting either to be caught or to scare the shit out of the person “IT.” Heart failure and hilarity. One night Dad comes up and hides in the bathtub. At an opportune moment he reaches out and grabs the unsuspecting Wes in the dark. Wes is terrified of the dark for years thereafter.

(we are mostly high school & middle school ages)

Our Favorite Books

Reading was always encouraged. Unfortunately, many of our favorite books were imaginary.

"Ten yards to the Outhouse" by Willy Makit (illustrated by Betty Wont)
"Yellow River" by I.P. Freely
"Antlers in the Treetops" by Whogoosed DaMoose

Aunkie's Farm

The announcement that "we are going to Aunkie's" always brought excitement to the family.

Aunkie [Ruth Annis Stoddard, Grammy’s sister, Nenna’s aunt] and Uncle Fred owned a dairy farm in Bowdoin Maine. It was a long ride in our old station wagon, but we kept it interesting by playing the “candid camera” game. Wes would sit in the back window with an 8mm movie camera. We would wave and make faces and act strange to following or passing cars, then flash a sign that said “Smile, you’re on candid camera” (a popular TV show in the 60’s, maybe the original “reality” show) and watch how people reacted to it. There was of course the Volkswagen game – everyone picked a color and counted how many they spotted along the way, first one to 21 wins. Yellows (very rare) were worth 7 points – all others 1. Last option, the alphabet game – first to spot all letters in order (no sharing letters – find your own, and you had to point out the word on the sign/license plate as proof) wins.

Eventually we would turn into the long driveway that led past the cow barn on the left and up to the house. There was a hay barn where we crawled through the bales and rearranged them to make paths, tunnels, and forts. There was electric wire fencing around the pasture behind the house, cow patties in the field, woods and water behind the pasture. Red Dust the horse roamed the pasture. He was an imposingly large stud from Oklahoma who occasionally would charge little kids who annoyed and provoked him. Aunkie and Fred never had children, but did take in a “ward of the state” who seemed to enjoy having similar aged visitors to show around and get to share some of the daily work load. In the morning I would be sent out with a woven straw basket to gather eggs, finding the ones in the coop and on the ground. The hens weren’t too particular where they layed the eggs, but the rooster was particular as to who was allowed in (and it wasn’t little kids!) so you had to be quick. It was well worth the effort when Aunkie and Mom cooked up a delicious smelling breakfast of eggs & bacon & pancakes. We kids didn’t actually get up before dawn to help with the morning milking (Dad, being an old Peaceful Meadows Farm hand pitched in), but at some point in time we did get a chance to try hand-milking a cow if we were brave enough.

After a number of years and a barn fire, Aunkie and uncle Fred had a brainstorm idea – sell the farm, but keep the land across the street and build a camp ground. We got to get a sneak preview on one visit – bulldozers were bulling (dozing doesn’t sound right) along clearing the area where the man-made pond would be. The engineers knew that there were springs to fill the pond, but badly underestimated how fast. The trees to the south end never did get cleared out in time, as the bulldozers almost didn’t get out in time! Aunkie and Fred downsized to a mobile home, but built a recreation hall, a boat house & snack bar, grassy camp sites, docks and a diving board. Across the pond were three A-framed chalets for rent. Stoddards Campground was in business. This was more exciting than camping at “The Pond”, what with all of the facilities to amuse us. We could canoe around the trees at the end of the pond, fish, dive, climb on the old farming equipment that was scattered around the property, buy candy bars, watch the square dancers at night (Aunkie and Fred were avid square dancers and hosted dances in the rec hall).

One summers day cousin Tommy, Laurie and I went boating across the pond. After exploring around the A-frames we decided to race back to the boat. Laurie and I were 1st and 2nd and started to push off. Tom took a running jump off the dock, but didn’t quite make it (well, one foot made the boat, just not enough to make it into the boat - he made the water just fine). We gleefully rowed away from our swearing crying cousin – who, left in his despair, went into hiding. Hours later when grownups realized he was nowhere to be found, the search party was organized. Eventually he was discovered – back on the right side of the pond, hiding in a hay wagon, still ticked off and Laurie and I.

In the winter we were allowed to try the snowmobiles in the woods across the pond. I wasn’t quite big enough yet to drive one, so I only got to ride on the back with cousin Skip.Later, when Uncle Fred passed away, Aunkie sold the campground to friends (Earl & Barbie) and moved across the pond into a new trailer. Occasionally some of us would visit - but we were older, she was older, the camp wasn’t ours to have the run of. Escalating insurance costs closed the campground, but the memories and the dream to someday own one remain.

http://maps.yahoo.com/index.php#mvt=h&q1=bar-b%20circle,%20Bowdoin,%20Me,%20us&trf=0&lon=-69.939255&lat=44.026859&mag=2&env=F

On the map, the farm house is at the end of Rocky Ridge Lane. The campground was where is now labeled Stoddard Pond Road, Hains Drive and Bar-B circle (on the west shore). Aunkies trailer was in the field across the pond, the A-frames in the woods just south of her trailer (on the east shore)

Ruth Stoddard is now buried on Deer Island.

Dinosaurs at the Island (by Wes)

When Wes’s short, wiry best friend John White suggests they play Dinosaur Tag along the jungly island path, they agree, but with great reservations. Off he lopes, up the trail ahead of them, to seek a hiding place in the grape vines and sumac. They are to count to a hundred and follow. They count to a hundred and don’t budge. He’s gonna ambush them, they agree, victims of the obvious. That is after all the main idea of the game. Minutes go by. They take a tentative step or two, then retreat to the sanctuary of the mowed clearing. They can’t very well walk right into the reach of the jaws that bite, the claws that catch. Eventually he comes down the path. “What’re you guys doing?” he demands. “Aren’t you coming?”
“We’re too scared.”
“Scared of what?”
“Scared of the dinosaur.”
“I’m the dinosaur.”
“I know. But you’ll jump out at us and growl.”
“Well, yeah, that’s what the game’s about, right?”
“We’ll get scared.” (Wes would admit to this. Laurie never confesses to being scared; she is fearless, except in his company, when, by sibling osmosis, he can infect her with his hideous imaginings.)
A long pause follows, while the three of them try to conjure up an alternative. It’s John who finally proposes a solution.
“I’ll be a wounded dinosaur, so I can’t run fast.”
“OK, and you have to make a lot of noise so we know where you are.”
“And you have to lie in the path so we can see you.”
“But what about the hiding?”
“You can’t.”
So John, grateful to be spending part of his summer vacation with friends at the beach, away from tedious Hanson, relents. Back up the trail he lopes. Wes and Laurie count to one hundred and follow. His pathetic growls reach their ears before they even turn the bend. The sight of him, lying on his side in the middle of the path, clutching his belly as Mesozoic moans emerge from his mouth, greets them with ample warning. No semblance of surprise here, yet still the suspense is horrible. A cruel suspicion mocks them. What if he isn’t really wounded? What if he’s only feigning agony? Laurie and Wes approach, oh, so tentatively. He wallows in mock pain. This tiny tyrannosaurus is no match for the two of them, but they leap back anyway to avoid his flailing fingers. Foolhardy Laurie, however, must creep closer. In a moment he’s on his feet. He lunges to tag them. They shriek and flee. John is swift, but panic makes them faster. They race screaming back down to the clearing. He follows. He looks at them, awed by his ability to instill fear.
“All right,” he says, thinking hard. “I’ll be a dead dinosaur.”
“No, no, maybe we’ll go climb grape vines instead and play monkeys.”

Monkeys aren’t as scary as dinosaurs, quick or dead.

(Wes is in grade 7, Laurie 5th, and John 8th at the time. )

My Music (part 2)

Saturday night sittin' home alone
disconnect the phone, Put those records on.
Up in my room, tryin' to find the chords
learning all the words To all my favorite songs.
I love to hear those voices talk in rhymes.
I know I've played this one a hundred times,
And I know the songs will end too soon,
When I'm listenin' to the music in my room
Up In my bed by the radio
Kept it turned so low listenin' in the dark
Closing my eyes, whispering along
Waiting for the song that always hit the mark
I counted two's and four's instead of sheep
I sailed across the Mersey in my sleep
And I knew the songs would end too soon
When I listened to the music in my room
(Music in my Room by Cheryl Wheeler)



My personal breakout was the summer of 1970 after freshman year of high-school when, following 2nd cousin Dave Gurneys advise, I got hired at Camp Kiwanee as a kitchen hand. We shared a cabin on the south end of camp with the other kitchen crew teens. Dave brought his guitar and amp, so I got to bring the Les Paul. Dave was a year older and a better player than I, and he taught me how to play bar chords along with most of the White Album – and we could play LOUD. Through High School, I would get to jam with Dave and his brother John and friends and started to learn about finger picking. Dave taught me the Beatles “Blackbird”. But it was at home in my bedroom with a record player and all of the accumulated black vinyl discs that I really immersed myself. For literally hours on end I would play records over and over, with guitar in hand, listening and copying and imitating and learning. Having never taken lessons, there was a lot of pure discovery involved. Although scales were widely known by others, I had to stumble across them for myself. I learned to hammer on and pull off and bend strings and slide up frets. I discovered I had a knack for discerning the individual notes and could even tell the hand position on the neck. Accurately copying picking patterns was a challenge I greatly enjoyed – especially when I was successful. I wore out record player needles on CSNY’s 4 Way Street, Manansas double album, Stephan Stills solo albums, James Gang Rides Again, Loggins and Messina Live, Allman Brothers Eat A Peach and Jessica, Traffic’s Low Spark Of High Healed Boys, Marshal Tucker’s Searching For A Rainbow, the Eagles Desporado and of course every Beatles from Meet the Beatles to the White Album.


These are my favorite set of changes
already good for a couple of songs
thought I might play them one more time and over again
If your still listening I hope you remember
the kid with the big white guitar
And all those sad stories to tell
(My Favorite Changes by Stephan Stills)


I enjoyed unusual chord formations and tonal expressions and would try to “invent” chords. I started to try my hand at writing my own songs while I was in high-school. Sometimes I started with words and put music to them, but equally as often I would find a chord change I liked and tried to build a song around it. Despite all of my copying, I was developing my own playing style as well – my own being a blend of Stephan Stills, James Taylor, and the Kinks Dave Davies or Neil Young. My writing style was mostly sad/wistfull lyrics with country/folk-rock flavored music. There was still lots of musical interaction with Laurie, Marly, and Eric and this caused us all to learn the songs that the others were favoring. Eric was into southern rock – Skynyrd, ZZ Top, The Band and most lead guitar dominated songs. Marlene developed a fondness for America, JT, and multilayered acoustic guitars and counterpoint vocals. Laurie seemed to like whatever we already knew but willingly would learn any new song we presented to her. I feel that this was the point in time where I (and probably each of us) came into my own. Learning new music was no longer a joint communal effort but a solo adventure, although we always came back to share what we had learned with the others. Being competitive, we each wanted to show somebody else what we had learned – and we were always willing to learn from the others as if not doing so would cause you to fall behind, so learning, sharing, teaching and being taught was a constant cycle towards improvement and a mechanism for bonding. Whatever differences we might have as siblings, sharing music could (and probably still does) prompt us to put them aside and pull together.



Now deep in the heart of a lonely kid,
suffering so much for what he did
They gave this plowboy his fortune and fame
and since that day he ain’t been the same
See the man with the stage fright
just standing up there took him all his might
But he got caught in the spotlight
and when he gets to the end
he wants to start all over again
(Stage Fright by The Band)



So senior year of high-school 1972/73 I got together with friends Mark & David Tanner and “Touch of Blue” was formed. Mark (a junior) played piano (with sheet music only) and had a Robert Goulette type Broadway Stage voice. David (a sophomore) was a violin player, which by default made him our bass player. Junior Steve Makein (or at times, his younger brother Brian) was the drummer. At various times we were joined by Lisa Tanner singing (Mark’s twin sister), Ray (a junior saxophone player), Maureen and Dianne (guitarists and singers). We played a few dances for Indian Head Jr High School and Sacred Heart High. One Indian Head dance we recruited extra horn players from the high school band and added some Chicago and Blood, Sweat & Tears songs to the repertoire. Flutist Cheri Grono became my first official girlfriend in the process.

We are riding on a railroad
singing someone else’s songs
Forever standing at the cross roads,
step aside or move along
(Riding on a Railroad by James Taylor)

Summer of 1973 after graduation, I hiked with Laurie from Harrisburg Pa to the Conn/Mass state line via the Appalachian Trail. She had learned and taught me all about packing light, but I still decided to bring along a guitar for the 400 mile trip. Mom’s Yamaha was offered and accepted and, with only a green garbage bag for protection, it rode strapped to my backpack and survived (mostly, technically it did get home in one piece) run-ins with trees and bad weather. It was played almost every night for our 4-week adventure, and was a good conversation starter with other hikers - impressed that anyone would willing carry the extra weight, but grateful for the unusual (for AT hikers) distraction and unexpected entertainment. With writing in log books or reading others entries, or occasionally playing cards, singing was the primary evening entertainment and I had lots of time to improve my finger picking. Mellow more than rock was the favored mood of the trail music, so James Taylor and CSN reigned. It resulted in a significant advancement of my playing style and ability.


Dear Mister Fantasy play us a tune,
Something to make us all happy.
Do anything, take us out of this gloom.
Sing a song, play guitar, make it snappy.
You are the one who can make us all laugh.
Doing this, you break down in tears.
Please don't be sad. If it was a straight life you had,
We wouldn’t have known you all these years
(Dear Mister Fantasy by Traffic)


Breakups and falling outs and moving ons ended the band after a couple of very fun and educational years. Jimmy Willis opened a small music shop in a storefront on the corner of Main & Phillips St. This is where I had my first encounters with the local country music community. Luke Weatherfield was a Berkley grad who taught there (he later founded the Mass Country Music Awards Association), and Arthur Foley (a local version of Chet Atkins) and a young Brockton lad named Deane Sampson (famous for having a wooden leg, tho at the time I didn’t know it) hung out there on Saturday mornings and jammed. Arthur would demonstrate, Deane would imitate, and I would watch in awe. Later I got a call from Steve who was drumming in an old-time country band. The bass player was leaving for a new band and Steve thought I should audition. Although this seemed ludicrous to me – having never attempted to play a bass before and not really knowing much country – I went, I sat in for a set, and got offered the job. So with Chuck Stevens as the band leader, I became an Echo Mountain Boy along with Steve Makein and (coincidently) Deane Sampson. Many times Arthur would appear at our gig and sit in for a set. Chuck could play every song in the world in the key of E, with A & B or a surprise F# the only other chords in his vocabulary. Chuck’s feeling for beats per measure was shaky at best. I theorize that by the end of any song, we had played the correct total number of beats, but you simply couldn’t predict which measure would get too many, too few or the proper amount. Most importantly what I learned was to listen to not so much the song, but the singer and the other musicians. This is where you would find the necessary clues to predetermine what the next chord change might be or if the beat of the song was about to change. If Chuck was short of breath, get ready to jump the chord early – if he had a good breath, hang on a bit longer. Together Steve and I got very adept at this skill. On a song I had never heard before, I could tell by listening to Deane’s (and later Mike Roberts) choice of scale progressions if the chord change was about to lead from the E to an A or to a B. Playing the bass was fun enough but I still preferred to play “Guitar”. Jam sessions filled the void. Playing with Eric and Jimmy Borgazani and Dana Colly and Brian Makein’s band-mates were terrific opportunities for musical experimentation. Jimmy went to Berkley School of Music and was into Steely Dan and chord inversions. Dana got a pickup for his Bari Sax and played Jimi Hendricks and Traffic through my Wah-Wah pedal. Eric was playing lots of lead guitar and quite well. Brians guitarist was unbelievable fast but played only original music and for the life of him couldn’t jam on Sweet Home Alabama. I had learned a lot of techniques by simply watching Deane, Arthur and Mike, and had a pretty good country feel to my playing. Musically, it was a wide range to be home on and I felt that although I wasn’t the most technically proficient player around, I could play any style with anybody well enough to fit in and contribute. In my mind, this meant that although I wasn’t a great guitar player, I was a good musician. I cling to that belief to this day.


God knows that I love my music
Ain't no one gonna change my tune
Don't ya know that I love my music
Ain't never gonna change my tune
(My Music by Loggins and Messina)