Camping at "The Pond" - the early years

Grampa Mac’s Pond (or more accurately the 11 acres of pine woods on the southern edge of Maquan Pond, since passed down to Auntie Maria) was our own sort of private campground / recreation area. Sometimes we would just stop on our way home from the island or the beach just to wash off the salt and sand – much easier for my parents than trying to get us all individually bathed at the house, and much more fun for us kids. Many weekends that were not spent at the island, were spent swimming at the pond. Occasionally we would camp overnight.

In the earliest memory I have of camping at the pond, there is a small brick fireplace with the backside facing the “road” (the cement footing for this can still be found). Relatives cars were parked in various places between the tall pines, vaguely like a wagon train circle. After dark, Dad would stoke the fire and drink his beer, Mom and Aunt Ede would talk or sing songs, we would cook hot dogs or marshmallows, drink "Zarex" punch and run around in the shadows. There were a couple of tents set up and we younger kids got tucked in while the rest of the clan stayed up longer. I remember lying in our tent listening to the voices outside and watching the flickering fire light illuminate the canvas walls. One night I was awakened by lots of shouting and somebody grabbing me and pulling me out of the tent, which had caught on fire from a stray spark – not badly damaged, but Nenna was a wreck.

[Marly, David & Eric on Grampa Mac's float--
Cranberry Cove docks behind]

A boat dock reached out into the water and a floating raft was anchored about 20 feet out from the end. Little kids were allowed to jump off the dock and learn to dive, while bigger proven swimmers were allowed out on the raft where pushing games and cannonballs and general aquatic horseplay was vaguely acceptable. Old truck tire inner-tubes made good floats and we learned to target dive through them (remember to make sure the air valve safely turned away before you dove). Eventually Grampa decided that the liability risk and the appeal of the dock & float for uninvited strangers was not worth it, so he took them down. (In retrospect I think they were needing repairs and as he himself didn’t need or use them, he simply saved himself time, money and aggravation and took them down – and blaming unknown strangers was an easy excuse).

A chain link fence and a few small bushes separated Grampa Mac’s property from the Cranberry Cove beach to the right. Often Nenna would sit on our side of the fence and chat with acquaintances on the other side, but same as now-a-days we were not allowed to cross over to “The Cove” (at least not while the lifeguards and other swimmers were there) and Cove visitors were not allowed onto our side (“excuse me but this is private property on this side of the chain link fence” was our stock comment for people stupid enough to not figure it out as they detoured around the end of the fence and past the “No Trespassing” sign). The one exception was on Saturday mornings when a couple of instructors would bring a group of little swimmer-wannabees over and teach them how to kick and paddle and blow bubbles with their faces in the water. This meant for about an hour in the morning we couldn’t swim while they took over our spot. We quite scornfully scoffed that anyone would need lessons to learn to swim – we never did and we swam just fine.

So we played with plastic golf sticks & whiffle golf balls, paper Dixie cups sunken into the pine needle covered ground served as our “greens”. For a while, tetherball was a good distraction, and it was an ideal location for simply playing Cowboys and Indians.

The sounds of the Camp Kiwanee signal bell and the Camp Rainbow “moot” horn and young camper’s voices from both sides of the pond, and the sight of the sailboats and canoe fleets from the opposing summer camps kept us amused. Every two weeks, new city kids struggled to get their boats to go in the desired directions or even afloat. Flipping a canoe and righting it again were simply fun and intentional games for us. We could overturn, lift, drain and flip up-right the canoe even when we were over our heads and couldn’t touch bottom. Similar to our Island game “Happy Fizzy Party”, falling out of a boat was more fun than staying in it. Hanging out in the trapped air pocket under the canoe was also a common past-time.

The adults spent most of their time sitting in folding chairs on the shore – talking, reading books, and keeping an eye out with occasional obligatory warning shouts when we got too rambunctious. Everything came to a near standstill when Gramma Lil decided she was ready for a dip. No splashing or running allowed until she returned to her chair. Grampa Mac preferred to sit and listen to the Red Sox games on a transistor radio. When the game ended he would run into the water and dive. Then we would wait in anticipation to figure out when and where he would emerge – Grampa could hold his breath an incredibly long time and wouldn’t necessarily continue swimming in the same direction that he initially dove in. He might come up in the lily pads near the Rainbow docks, or on the opposite side of the Cove. One day he panicked us all by not coming up ANYWHERE – well, actually he came up under the Cove dock where we couldn’t easily see him. Mom and Gramma Lil were both quite mad at him and tried to disguise their fear and relief by scolding him for being a bad influence on us – being at the Cove where he of all people knew we were never supposed to go.

After the Cove closed for the day, we would go beach-combing for left behind towels, toys, sandals, and whatevers. I would suppose that Mom went YEARS without every buying new towels. We would climb into the lifeguard tower/chair and yell rules at imaginary swimmers.

Once we all got a little older (Wes & Laurie in highschool) the rules changed and we got to spend longer time at the pond, with Tobin and Blauss tents pitched for the entire summer , and parental supervision less constant. We graduated into “The Older Years” of camping at the pond.


http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&hl=en&q=camp+kiwanee+rd,+hanson,+ma.&sll=37.0625,-95.677068&sspn=59.252398,110.390625&layer=&ie=UTF8&z=16&ll=42.056654,-70.852697&spn=0.006883,0.020514&t=k&om=1

The Day I Quit Smoking

One evening I was hiding at the bottom of the back stairway (through the years we rarely used the front stairway – except for illegally sliding down the banister, or for evening spying ventures) spying on Dad and Uncle Mac, who were sitting at the kitchen table, drinking tea, smoking a cigarette, and talking. The kitchen was small and cramped (it was pre-addition) and not lit too brightly. Evidently I was not hiding very well because Dad spotted me and called me over. He apparently decided that of the available motives, I must have been interested in the cigarette. Although I wasn’t even old enough to attend school yet, he must have felt it was not too early to teach me something. So he showed me how to hold the cigarette properly and how to suck air through it. He handed it to me and coaxed me along. One attempt had me gasping and choking and feeling sick. Nenna came running in from the living room and scolded Dad and her brother who were laughing quite hardily, and helped me rinse out my mouth. Since that day, I never seriously contemplated smoking a cigarette. The candy ones would be quite enough after that (which we did get great pleasure out of – rolling the box into our t-shirt sleeve just like Dad did. That was a good enough imitation for me).

Nana

Nana (Grace McClellan) lived next door with Grampa Roddy and Aunt Evelyn. They were old. Grampa Roddy didn’t interact much with us kids, and Aunt Evelyn (who wasn’t actually related to us) was quite deaf and not very mobile – mostly staying in her downstairs front room. But Nana, although technically our step-great grandmother, was nice to us kids. I liked to go over and visit with her every so often. She would play dominoes with me, and then give me those little chewy candies – the rectangular half white / half strawberry nugget with the different colored gummy Dot’s sort of things embedded in them. Nana would call on the phone when she needed anything and someone – depending on what was needed - would run next door. She defended me one day when Nenna was angry at me for coloring on the walls (upstairs front hallway near the top of the stairs was my favorite location). Nana scolded Mom for being so strict and offered that I was always welcome to stay with her. I was cool with that. When Mom asked what she would do if I colored on her walls, Nana decided she would then send me back. Again I was quite pleased. “Good, then I’d get to live at home again” I declared as if I had already moved out and was now returning.

One morning when I was 11, Nana called and Nenna got that “trouble” sound to her voice. Mom and Dad were back and forth, Nana came to our house for a bit which was unusual, and Wes told me Roddy died. I only remember seeing a big black station wagon parked in front of the house and some men bustling around, and then they brought a stretcher to the front door and took him out (covered by the white sheet) and drove away.
After that, Mom would occasionally send one of us over to visit – one at a time and on a rotating schedule.

Being a retired teacher, she would help me with learning my cursive writing. She also was the one who showed me how to tie my shoes – bunny-ear style (I still tie that way). Mom may have tried but it’s Nana I remember instructing me, foot up on a chair in her den. Up the side porch and into the kitchen I would poke my head and call to her, and she would come out of the den or Aunt Evelyns room or from upstairs and invite me in. We would sit at the kitchen table and chat, she'd have me do some small task for her, then she would send me to get the box of black wooden dominoes kept on the bookshelf in the den. The dining room had a big round table with the single large pedestal leg centered under it, but usually we’d play on the kitchen table. For good luck, I would touch the deer hoof that hung by the door – intrigued that it was real and that Grampa had made it.

When I was 13, I would stop in every Saturday morning and she would give me a list of groceries to pick up at Clarkes Store. I could be trusted going the 100 yards to the end of our street and crossing Main Street and returning with the items undamaged. I enjoyed having my special job and getting my little candy reward. One snowy Saturday morning I was playing outside and forgot. When Mom reminded me to do the store run, I knocked and poked my head into the kitchen – but she didn’t answer. I entered the kitchen and called but no response. I turned the corner and looked in the dining room and only saw her feet and ankles lying on the floor behind the dining table pedestal– black shoes and baggy tan stockings. I ran home and told Mom. That was my last and lasting image of Nana.
When Mom was cleaning out the house, we kids got to go in and select an item to keep. I wasn’t able to get the dominoes, so I selected a large white radio/alarm clock that had been in her bedroom. I used it for many years after.

My Timeline History

Date === who involved == event
2/28/1955 === Me ===== Born
12/10/1956 == Marlene === Born
6/19/1958==== Eric ===== Born
1958 ======= Mom ===== Buys island from Grampa Mac
2/28/1960 === David ===== Born on my 5th birthday
9/1961 ===== Me (6 yrs) == Enter 1st grade, LZ Thomas School
9/1962 ===== Me (7 yrs) == Enter 2nd grade, LZ Thomas School
4/8/1963 ==== Sue Hanlon == Born (unknown to me at the time)
9/1963 ===== Me (8 yrs) === Enter 3rd grade, Indian Head
11/22/1963 == JFK ======= Assassinated
5/1964 ===== Me (9 yrs) === Minor LL BaseBall - Orioles
7/4/1964 === Grandmother Mary Blauss == passed away
9/1964 ===== Me (9 yrs) === Enter 4th grade, Indian Head
9/1965 ===== Me (10 yrs) == Enter 5th grade, Indian Head
11/9/1965 === New England, NY == Great northeast blackout
12/7/1965 === Debbie ===== Born
9/1966 ===== Me (11 yrs) == Enter 6th grade, Indian Head
1966 ======= Great-Grampa Roddy == Passed away
1967 summer = Family ===== EXPO67 Worlds Fair vacation in Montreal
9/1967 ===== Me (12 yrs) == Enter 7th grade, Indian Head Jr High
1967 =======Red Sox ===== Impossible Dream pennant year
1968 spring/summer == Family = Live at Rexham Beach during parents separation
1968 Fall === Mom & Dad === divorced
9/1968 ==== Me (13 yrs) ==== Enter 8th grade, Indian Head Jr High
2/1969 ==== Nanna (Grace) == Passed away
1969 ====== Island ======== New tide gates installed
1969 ====== Music ======== Woodstock
1969 summer == Me ======== Work at Maquan School - janitor
8/1969 ==== Mom & Henry === Married
9/1969 ==== Me (14 yrs) ==== Enter 9th grade, WHRHS
9/1969 ==== Wes ========= Start college – Marietta Ohio
2/1970 ==== Dad & Allie ==== Married
1970 Summer == Me ======= Work at Camp Kiwanee
9/1970 ==== Me (15 yrs) === Enter 10th grade, WHRHS
1971 summer == Me ====== Start working at gas station
9/1971 ==== Me (16 yrs) === Enter 11th grade, WHRHS
9/1972 ==== Me (17 yrs) === Enter 12th grade, WHRHS
1973 Spring==Me (18 yrs) === get drivers license
6/1973 ==== Me (18 yrs) === WHRHS Graduation
6/1973 ==== Me & Laurie === Hike Appalachian Trail (PA to MA)
11/1973 === Heather ======= Born

Night Crawlers

We were nocturnal creatures. Starting with evening visits from Peter Pan (which were always after Wes went to his evening boyscout meetings - funny, he never had the outfit or acquired any badges) to Dark Town, Kick The Can, Night Crawler hunting, Camp fires - all sorts of night activities kept us prowling around in the dark. We also loved spy shows - Man From Uncle, James Bond, Get Smart, etc...

So we practiced stealth movement and spying. We would sneak down the front stairs and hide in the shadows of the darkened front room and spy on the grownups watching TV in the living room or talking in the kitchen. We even spied one night when the minister stopped by to visit, then retreated up stairs in time for Nenna to check up on us in bed (I imagine she and the minister were impressed by how well behaved and quiet we were). We were amazingly sneaky quiet and practiced our Indian move-without-a-sound skills. It was one thing to sneak and spy on the grownups - they were clueless. It was quite another challenge to sneak up on each other, especially in an old house with so many creaky floor boards. After we were all tucked in and checked up on, I would slowly carefully silently slide out of my bed and in a pushup position start tip-toe/finger tip crawling my way across my floor, into the hall, into the girls room, right up to Laurie's bed and "RAAAA" - scare the bejeabez out of her. Of course she would attempt the same maneuver on me. There were easier victims to be had, and we often practiced on them. Marlene sometimes attempted to try her hand(s, fingers & tip toes) at this game, but being just enough younger, she didn't have the same success rate. Laurie and I were each others biggest challenge. Occasionally we got caught if we forgot which board was the creaky one, and occassionally we met half way. One night I snuck in while she was in the bathroom and hid under her bed, and waited about fifteen minutes - knowing she was listening for me to crawl in - before I announced my victory with traditional "RAAAAAA"! One night I hid under my own bed and waited for her to come to try to sneak up on me. Of course she thought that by getting that close without me calling her out that she had imminent victory and was poised to attack me in my bed. It had not occured to her that she would receive a pre-emptive strike from under it.

The best maneuver was one night when she caught me before I could "RAAAAA" her, but I had inadvertently caught her illegally eating cookies in bed - so she shushed me, invited me to climb under the covers, and taught me how to eat without leaving incriminating crumbs. The secret she demonstrated was to inhale through the mouth while biting, to suck any crumbs inward before they could fall out. It certainly sounded logical, and I got to eat cookies in her bed without fear of getting caught (if I did spill any crumbs, she would have been the one to get in trouble because "hey, there are no crumbs in my bed!").

I guess it's no wonder why we were cat people, not dog people - all of our games involved hiding, stalking, creeping, pouncing, and then gloating over our victims just to prove superiority.

Uncle Mac & Claude

Uncle Mac was an idol. His given name was Edgar but I don’t recall ever hearing anyone call him that - always Cam (middle name Cameron) or Mac (last name McClellan). He always called us boys by nicknames that he alone assigned and used. I was ‘Dukie”. Eric was “Clyde”. David was “Sport”. Maybe he just couldn’t keep our real names straight, but he never ever mixed up our nicknames. Although short, he was very strong and athletic. He could do one-handed pushups. He could do them with Eric or David sitting on his back. He could stand beside Nana’s house and drop kick a football over our roof – between the spruce trees across the parking lot – and into the rubbish cage behind the drug store. He was impressively skilled and physically brutal in a pickup pond hockey game. He coached the local Babe Ruth League baseball team and could hit balls over the center field treetops. Legend has it that he was invited to try out for the New York Yankees after high school. There was also that story about him making a small pond by peeing in the woods.

But above and beyond all of that, Uncle Mac had a rubbish truck. On occasion, he might stop by our house at the end of his pickup route and let us ride to the dump with him. Once there, we would climb into the back, stand on top of the rubbish, and hang on as the truck bed tipped up up up and the rubbish slid down down down out from under our feet. We clearly had the coolest uncle in the world.

He was so cool that for some God-only-knows-why reason, Mom let him give David a pig. Claude was a good pig I suppose, and David at 5 years old loved Claude. Because we had no pig pen on our ¼ acre lot, the playhouse in the back yard became Claude’s home. Except of course Claude was an escape artist pig. Numerous attempts to gate him into the playhouse had imperfect results. He would inevitably get loose and roam the neighborhood. Us kids would give chase, the neighbors (kids and adults) would attempt to help, even the local policeman pitched in – but to no avail. Either no one was quick and strong enough, or no one was brave enough to catch him. So Dad would come home, call out “Come here Claude”, pick him up and put him back in the pen. It didn’t take long to realize that Claude had to go. So Uncle Mac took David and Claude to a pig farm in Hanover, where David sadly sold his pet pig for $5. Sadder yet was the fact that a five dollar bill really didn’t seem like much money. Uncle Mac fixed that by bringing David to the bank and trading the five dollar bill for 500 pennies. David was much happier – 500 pennies was a whole lot of money for a 5 year old boy back in 1965. He would carry the coins around in a plastic bucket and scoop them up and watch them slip through his fingers back into the bucket. It seemed to ease the pain of losing his pet Claude!

(PS: nobody wanted to play in or clean out the playhouse after Claude, so it eventually was torn down)

Ellen, Flowers and Cans

I’m about six years old and Wes, Laurie, and the Tobins have a fun plan. They pick a handful of flowers and give them to me, and talk me into bringing them two houses over where five year old Ellen Howland lives. I am supposed to give her the flowers and tell her that I love her. Although I am rather intimidated about performing this assignment, I am more intimidated about the consequences of NOT carrying out the big kids instructions. They are semi-hiding behind Nana’a house watching as I knock on the door. Ellen does come out and I do give her the flowers, but didn’t carry out the remainder of the instructions. The big kids were quite pleased with themselves anyway, and are proud of how funny and tricky they are.

I’m about nine years old and have played little league baseball for a full season. I am in the back yard tossing a can in the air and catching it, just for practice. Ellen is swinging on our tire swing and watching me from about twenty feet away. As she swings side-to-side back-and-forth, she decides that I wouldn’t be able to hit her with the can – so she challenges me to try. So I try (I might have mentioned that we are fairly competitive) because she told me to.

I carefully gage her speed and distance – and hit her in the forehead, right between the eyes. She is now crying loudly and bleeding. I am pleased with my perfect aim versus a moving target. I do not understand why Dad and Mom are so angry at me. She told me to throw it! They should all be proud of me, not spanking me.



I have never heard Ellen repeat the flower story, but she has often (and with the proper sense of awe and respect) retold “The Can” story.
Even 40+ years later she remembers clearly how I impressed her.

Start of Fishing Season

Fishing season used to open on April 15th, and anyone under 16 years old didn’t need a license. Now we were not a big fishing family but for some reason we all got excited about opening day. We would get our poles ready on the 14th, and spend the night searching the yard for night crawlers. That morning we were up before the sun, strapping our poles and lunch boxes onto our bikes. We would peddle the mile or so to Poor Meadow Brook trying to arrive before the rest of South Hanson junior fishermen. The state stocked the river with Rainbow trout the week before, so we were confident and eager. Each with our own cans/jars/boxes of worms, we would pick our individual spots on the river bank. Great planning went into selecting our location, and as typical 8 to 14 year olds, we all felt as if we knew all of the ins and outs of why the fish would be where and how to best catch them. They liked overhanging or submerged branches, the deep side of a river bend, down stream side of a boulder – yes we were self-proclaimed pros. Well, semi-pros – we lost a lot of worms and hooks and caught our share of overhead branches with errant casts, We might split up with some on the east bank and some on the west bank, but always the smaller kids had to be near a bigger kid – in our minds because the youngsters couldn’t get the worm on the hook or the fish off of it. Occasionally some Elm Street or Main street kids would try to crowd in on our turf, and a few grownups might pass by but they would move further up stream where our commotion wouldn’t spook the trout. We actually did catch a few fish over the years, and although I remember trying my hand at gutting and de-boning, I was fairly content to let Dad do it. Mom would cook it but wanted not part it gutting them first – if we expected her to clean fish, she expected we would NOT fish. I suspect that was a major reason we quit fishing – not because we got old enough to need to buy a license.

My Worst Nightmare

I am standing in our driveway. I can see through the screen porch and kitchen window to where Mom and Dad and Uncle Mac and Aunt Shirley are sitting at the table, playing cards. A big snake comes out from under the shed and starts to wrap around me. I try to yell but they don’t hear me. The snake wraps further around and I can’t yell any more, and they still don’t see me and my problem.

I was 5 or 6 ???

I have never forgotten that dream (obviously)

I suppose from watching too much Mutual of Omaha’s Wild Kingdom?

Memorable Motorcycle Moments (hint: they are mostly crashes)

1) David breaking his collarbone while riding with Johnny Casoli and watching his speedometer instead of the trail.


2) David being a spectator in his cast, watching the races at Middleboro, and getting run over by an errant motocrosser.


3) David with a stuck throttle shooting off the end of the Middleboro track during a race.


4) Laurie filming crashes at the Middleboro race Track.


5) Sand pit hillclimbing near Bog 19


6) Night riding through the bogs & woods to Halifax and an All-you-can-eat spaghetti meal at Kittie’s Restaurant.


7) Me wiping out on a bog road and getting run over by Laurie near the cranberry dump, and being grateful that large Clayton on his Yamaha 350 was not the one right behind me.


8) Watching Dave Gurney hanging on to the handle bars, belly on the seat, feet dragging behind in the tar – up until he hit the jump leading into the woods trail at full throttle.


9) Riding the riverbed, laying in wait for Eric to turn the blind corner, then spraying him with mud.


10) Riding the bog roads, waiting for Eric to almost catch me, then spraying him as I wheelie through a puddle.


11) Practicing jumping the big hill behind Casoli’s and swerving around the parked Tractor Trailer on the minibike – then switching to the big bike, not landing it in time to swerve, and crashing underneath the truck


12) Laurie hitting an unseen chain across a bog road with her front tire which flipped the chain up, hitting her in the chin and throwing her off the back of the bike.


13) Building a ramp in the parking lot behind the house, then convincing all the neighbor hood kids to lie down while Eric and David jumped over us.
(Hey, Mom wouldn’t let us jump cars but she never said we couldn’t jump little kids)
(PS: the record was 14 kids lying side-by-side)
(hard to believe there were that many dumb kids in one neighborhood)
(I always had to volunteer to be the last one in the lineup)
(beyond the distance of 10 kids, I only trusted Eric - David had a history of occasional mis-cues on motocycles)

Mom and me in the parking lot - 1971

We were never too chicken to play in the snow

We were so full of hot air

It’s winter and cold, but instead of staying in bed wrapped up in blankets we try to get up ahead of the other kids. Why? Because we heard the furnace kick on, sort of like a starting gun for the race to claim the best registers – the holes in the floor with the metal grates where the hot air comes out. The two best ones are in the living room and are worth fighting for. There we sit, knees pulled up to our chins, pajama or t-shirts pulled over our legs and held tight to the floor where we sit squatted, trapping all of the hot air inside the shirt. We might be savvy enough to allow a younger sibling to temporarily sit on the one we first claimed – so nobody else tries to steal it while we run to the bathroom. They are thankful to be the chosen one, however momentary, who gets both the luxurious warmth and the honor of saving big brother or sisters spot. We could even manage to eat breakfast where we squat, squeezed behind the chair near the laundry room door or beside the couch near the window – but getting dressed for school there was nearly impossible. Sooner or later the furnace would take a break and the hot air flow would stop and we would scramble to finish getting ready for the bus. Boy, we hated to give up our precious hot-air T-shirt tents.

An Emotional Drain - or - I didn't see that coming

One summer day as I was playing outside, I spotted the town DPW crew using a strange rig to clean out the storm drains along the road. Now storm drains already held a fascination and we could happily idle the hours away dropping sand, stones, sticks, leaves, whatever into the water below – or if they had dried out, we would put gum on the end of a stick and try to retrieve coins or other cool prizes out of them. I’m sure we did our share to cause the town to need to clean them out. So, up Phillips Street they came – odd bucket, upside-down, hinged, jawed and toothed hanging from a cable from a boom-arm off the back of a big truck. I climbed the maple tree that hung over the north driveway and the next drain they would clean. I had a perfect view looking almost straight down into the hole as they removed the heavy metal grate and scooped away. The workers knew they had an audience overhead and chatted with me as they worked. As they were almost done I decided to climb down, but as I turned my head a small branch hooked my glasses and they tumbled down, bounced in the dirt at the edge of the road, and disappeared down into the not-yet-covered pool below. The workers scurried to try to locate the glasses, now vanished under the muddy stirred up mess to no avail. I was filled with anguish, knowing that losing glasses would be no small issue and an expense too large for me to comprehend. With nothing more to do here, the work crew moved onward and Mom soon arrived home to find me wandering anxiously around the front yard. She looked at me wondering what was different about me (you know that feeling when someone has shaved off their moustache but you can’t figure it out) and why I was so nervous. I assumed that she must have been very distressed, but thankfully she didn’t really scold me. She found my previous pair of glasses – frame broken and taped back together – and I wore them until we could get them replaced (evidently for the second time).

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.