Greenland, that’s a new one on me.
I am used to being told ‘off’ – and have had numerous destinations suggested, but never Greenland.
But that’s where I should move, according to one reader.
When I was a few years younger my father would regularly tell me ‘go to your room’, which was not too hard to take: that’s where all my ‘albums’ were. Exile to ‘Yaroom’ usually consisted of a few hours listening to music with those great old ear-muff style headphones on: the kind that not only produced great sound, but blocked out the rest of the world.
I’ve also had many people tell me to ‘get out of their face’, which I always took to mean out of their heads, or out of their sight: though lately I’ve reassessed that, as people tell me I am a close talker.
Maybe I actually was ‘in their face’.
‘Take a hike’ is one of my personal favorites: there is a certain civility to that expression. The speaker is suggesting, I believe, that after some vigorous exercise I may reconsider my position.
The next time I have the chance to take a long hike I promise that I will use that opportunity to fully consider the merits of re-locating to Greenland.
‘Take a Flying Leap’ is another wonderfully description travel recommendation Twenty years or so ago, when hang-gliding was all the rage, there were thousands of people who took that advice seriously. I am not by nature a timid soul, and if the opportunity had presented itself, I might also have taken ‘wing’ – were it not for the lesson provided by my neighbor Dan.
Dan actually took hang-gliding lessons, somewhere in the mountains of Vermont, I think. He got as far as lesson 3 of 5, where they have you literally take ‘a flying leap’. In lesson three you are supposed to jog down a small hill with the glider on your back, hopping up and down like the Wright Brothers early experiments at Kitty Hawk. But Dan got a little more air than he or the instructor expected: in fact his glider caught a good gust of wind and swooped up about 25 feet in the air, then plummeted to earth like a stone. I didn’t actually see it happen, but I heard Dan tell the story as he sat on his couch with his right leg extended and resting on a pillow. His exposed knee, as I remember it, was as big as a basketball.
Despite Dan’s painful experience ‘The Flying Leap’ does at least offer the hope of survival, even of flight, whereas ‘Go Jump In a Lake’, ‘Take a Long Walk off a Short Pier’, ‘Get Lost’ and others of its kind seem to offer no hope at.
My mother tried hard to be constructive when she was frustrated with me. She wasn’t content just to have me leave her sight, but would suggest that during my absence I seek out assistance. ‘Tell It to the Marines’, she’d say, pointing toward the door. At the time though, this advice confused me, as my father was a ‘lifer’ in the Air Force, and for most of my youth we lived on air bases where Marines were hard to find.
I wonder though, if there are any Marines on Greenland?
My father was once stationed on Greenland, and was issued this fantastic coat with a hood that totally encased your head in wolverine fur (or so I imagined). Years later, when he was stationed at the Pentagon, I would often ‘borrow’ that coat when the temperature got below 40 where we lived in Maryland (which was a deep freeze there) and whatever fur that collar was made of, it would drive the local dogs crazy.
You know, now that I think of it, the only way to get to Greenland these days is to take a flying leap, and if you jump in a lake there, chances are that you will have a very hard landing –on ice.
If you take a hike in Greenland you need the usual outdoor gear, plus an expensive sled and a team of dogs. And with all of the effort you have to give to avoiding polar bears and cracks in the ice, there would be very little time left for pondering the great questions of our time.
No, I’ve decided, I am not going to Greenland.
Sorry to disappoint.
But to show my readers I’m not a bad guy, I am going to meet them half way: I am going to go directly to my room and put on my headphones. I’ve got this great new CD of Inuit Love Songs that I can’t wait to listen to.
One man’s exile is another man’s dream vacation.
Thursday, August 18, 2005
Fly Paper
Americans are great at names –names that bring to mind all sorts of futuristic, utopian images and advancements. And it seems it really doesn’t matter how large the gap is, between the name and reality.
Take the Sagamore ‘Fly-Over’, for example.
My day job takes me over the Sagamore Bridge several times a week, but despite all the construction going on, the old Escort’s wheel’s haven’t come close to leaving the ground.
In my humble opinion it’s more a ‘Swerve Around’ than a Fly-Over.
Maybe that’s a good thing though. From what I have seen, drivers headed to the Cape are having a lot of trouble with the new swerving over. If their vehicles actually went airborne there’s no telling how bad it could get.
Part of the problem is that they have yet to take the rotary out of the equation –which I thought was suppose to be the whole point. But whatever they are doing traffic is already much worse than before.
Before they began the construction, drivers knew what to expect and could mentally prepare for the rotary for a few hundred yards: as they neared the bridge, drivers would go slower and slower and finally, at the edge of the rotary, they’d come to a complete stop.
Many then had a very difficult time starting up again, and merging in to the rotary traffic. On weekends and holidays traffic often wouldn’t move at all but –on the positive side, with nobody going anyplace accidents were few and far between.
With the new construction however, you don’t have the time to ponder what lies ahead. You’re doing the limit (about 75) when suddenly you run into construction, then encounter a few odd international signs, then the big swerve over, and right after that you run smack-dab in to the rotary.
I’m not showing off my extensive vocabulary here: smack-dab is exactly the right term. Cars slow, swerve, merge and then –smack-dab the car ahead of them, and smack-dab the cars to their right and left.
Smack-dab, smack-dab, smack-dab, screeunch!
Maybe they call it a fly-over because every Friday night the choppers are flying over the scene.
“This is Chip Chapstick high over Three in LiveFiveChopperOne reporting that there’s been another accident at the Sagamore Smack-Dab that has traffic backed up to Portland, Maine”.
I think they should have left well enough alone.
The rotary was working just fine thank you.
For hotel owners the existence of the rotary meant that tourists wouldn’t risk being late and losing their reservations and so would confirm ahead of time.
For permanent residents of the Cape the rotary meant that only so many of those so called ‘summer people’ could actually make it over the bridge every day. And that doesn’t even count the number of people who avoided the Cape altogether because they couldn’t deal with the rotary in the first place.
Let’s be honest: it’s a well known fact that rotary’s scare people in to taking alternative routes. A local member of the Thatched Roof Party has told me on super secret double background that the government is secretly exploring the possibility of using traffic rotaries in southern border states to reduce the amount of illegal immigrants.
Sooner or later though, the ‘Fly-Over’will be completed. They have to finish: the construction company has already spent the money from this job on their next big project – finishing Route 44.
When they do finish though, don’t expect any tangible improvements: because of the elimination of the rotary and all the publicity about this ‘Fly Over’ I predict that even more people are going to drive to the Cape, just to experience the thrill.
Instead of choosing the Cape for their vacation because of its quaint charms and beautiful beaches, they’ll choose to come just to experience the amazing ‘Fly-Over’.
And then Cape businesses will get on board, and begin promoting the Cape like it’s an amusement park.
“This summer”, a dramatic new ad campaign will begin, “don’t just drive to your vacation. FLY-OVER!”
Soon thereafter traffic trying to get to the Cape will become unbearable again, necessitating the creation of more rotaries to scare folks away, followed shortly by more Swerve-Overs to slow them down, more Smack-Dabs for the sake of the local auto body repair shops, and a dramatic increase in Helicopter traffic.
In fact government employment statistics predict that there will be a dramatic need for traffic copter pilots and copter personalities in the next decade, especially on the Cape.
When that happens I am going to bite the bullet and dish out the cash for a tunnel pass. It’s either that or stay on this side of the bridge and amuse myself by watching the tourists taking off and landing.
Take the Sagamore ‘Fly-Over’, for example.
My day job takes me over the Sagamore Bridge several times a week, but despite all the construction going on, the old Escort’s wheel’s haven’t come close to leaving the ground.
In my humble opinion it’s more a ‘Swerve Around’ than a Fly-Over.
Maybe that’s a good thing though. From what I have seen, drivers headed to the Cape are having a lot of trouble with the new swerving over. If their vehicles actually went airborne there’s no telling how bad it could get.
Part of the problem is that they have yet to take the rotary out of the equation –which I thought was suppose to be the whole point. But whatever they are doing traffic is already much worse than before.
Before they began the construction, drivers knew what to expect and could mentally prepare for the rotary for a few hundred yards: as they neared the bridge, drivers would go slower and slower and finally, at the edge of the rotary, they’d come to a complete stop.
Many then had a very difficult time starting up again, and merging in to the rotary traffic. On weekends and holidays traffic often wouldn’t move at all but –on the positive side, with nobody going anyplace accidents were few and far between.
With the new construction however, you don’t have the time to ponder what lies ahead. You’re doing the limit (about 75) when suddenly you run into construction, then encounter a few odd international signs, then the big swerve over, and right after that you run smack-dab in to the rotary.
I’m not showing off my extensive vocabulary here: smack-dab is exactly the right term. Cars slow, swerve, merge and then –smack-dab the car ahead of them, and smack-dab the cars to their right and left.
Smack-dab, smack-dab, smack-dab, screeunch!
Maybe they call it a fly-over because every Friday night the choppers are flying over the scene.
“This is Chip Chapstick high over Three in LiveFiveChopperOne reporting that there’s been another accident at the Sagamore Smack-Dab that has traffic backed up to Portland, Maine”.
I think they should have left well enough alone.
The rotary was working just fine thank you.
For hotel owners the existence of the rotary meant that tourists wouldn’t risk being late and losing their reservations and so would confirm ahead of time.
For permanent residents of the Cape the rotary meant that only so many of those so called ‘summer people’ could actually make it over the bridge every day. And that doesn’t even count the number of people who avoided the Cape altogether because they couldn’t deal with the rotary in the first place.
Let’s be honest: it’s a well known fact that rotary’s scare people in to taking alternative routes. A local member of the Thatched Roof Party has told me on super secret double background that the government is secretly exploring the possibility of using traffic rotaries in southern border states to reduce the amount of illegal immigrants.
Sooner or later though, the ‘Fly-Over’will be completed. They have to finish: the construction company has already spent the money from this job on their next big project – finishing Route 44.
When they do finish though, don’t expect any tangible improvements: because of the elimination of the rotary and all the publicity about this ‘Fly Over’ I predict that even more people are going to drive to the Cape, just to experience the thrill.
Instead of choosing the Cape for their vacation because of its quaint charms and beautiful beaches, they’ll choose to come just to experience the amazing ‘Fly-Over’.
And then Cape businesses will get on board, and begin promoting the Cape like it’s an amusement park.
“This summer”, a dramatic new ad campaign will begin, “don’t just drive to your vacation. FLY-OVER!”
Soon thereafter traffic trying to get to the Cape will become unbearable again, necessitating the creation of more rotaries to scare folks away, followed shortly by more Swerve-Overs to slow them down, more Smack-Dabs for the sake of the local auto body repair shops, and a dramatic increase in Helicopter traffic.
In fact government employment statistics predict that there will be a dramatic need for traffic copter pilots and copter personalities in the next decade, especially on the Cape.
When that happens I am going to bite the bullet and dish out the cash for a tunnel pass. It’s either that or stay on this side of the bridge and amuse myself by watching the tourists taking off and landing.
Wednesday, August 03, 2005
A Leak on the Mayflower
Help me out here: I want more than anything to write about Karl Rove, but I can’t figure out how to make it relate to life in Plymouth.
Sure, I know, my columns are only loosely connected to Plymouth in the first place, but I have to try.
Did you hear the one about Karl Rove on the Mayflower?
Yeah, he was coming over from England in 1620 and the ship sprang a leak.
Karl had nothing to do with it!
Myles Standish was there though too, and said if anyone on his ship was involved in the leak, he’d personally throw them overboard.
John Billington, spokesperson for Myles Standish, calmed the crew down by assuring them that he had specifically spoken with Karl about the leak and had been assured that Rove knew nothing about it whatsoever.
Besides, Billington said, the ship itself was not exactly new, not what you would normally think of as ‘seaworthy’, and was leaking like a sieve before this latest leak was noticed.
Selectperson-in-Waiting William Bradford wrote in his journal that the whole leak business was the fabrication of a group of disgruntled indentured servants who wanted their own plots of land in the New World. “That”, he wrote, “and the usual kind of hi-jinks you can expect when you’re cooped up for an extended period of time on a floating cesspool”.
Bradford also argued that Rove never really did anything specifically illegal.
Marine Law is very clear about people who deliberately cause a boat to leak: to be thrown overboard for leaking, the law states that you need to deliberately cause the leak, know that the leak will likely cause the boat to sink, and not care.
“How could Karl not care if the boat sank,” Bradford asked, rhetorically. “He was on the boat in the middle of the ocean, he had to care. Therefore even if he had inadvertently caused the leak he should not be thrown overboard.”
When later investigations revealed that Rove had in fact been at least aware of the leak, and had said nothing about it, Standish-spokesperson Billington told the crew that awareness of a leak and responsibility for a leak, were not the same thing.
Asked if Rove would now be thrown overboard, because he had at the very least been ‘involved’ with the leak, Billington said that he could not comment.
“We have ongoing leak here”, Billington angrily replied, “and it would inappropriate of me to comment on the seriousness of this leak until the boat sinks, or the leaking stops.”
At a later meeting with the indentured servants on Social Security, Standish himself, when asked, clarified his position, stating that anyone responsible for sinking the Mayflower would be removed from the Mayflower, provided of course that it was physically possible to remove someone if and when the ship was underwater.
“In my experience it is rare to find anyone on a ship that has already sunk,” Standish said in his matter-of-fact way, and flashing his famous grin. “Generally everyone gets off the boat while it is sinking, and some –following the rodent model, long before that.”
“But let me assure the future American people that, if and when the leaking is completed,” Standish continued, “and the ship is completely underwater, anyone still on board, and found guilty of a crime, will not be allowed to stay.”
So you see, it’s hopeless: big time politics and small-town life just don’t mix.
I wish they did: Plymouth can be so provincial.
Sure, I know, my columns are only loosely connected to Plymouth in the first place, but I have to try.
Did you hear the one about Karl Rove on the Mayflower?
Yeah, he was coming over from England in 1620 and the ship sprang a leak.
Karl had nothing to do with it!
Myles Standish was there though too, and said if anyone on his ship was involved in the leak, he’d personally throw them overboard.
John Billington, spokesperson for Myles Standish, calmed the crew down by assuring them that he had specifically spoken with Karl about the leak and had been assured that Rove knew nothing about it whatsoever.
Besides, Billington said, the ship itself was not exactly new, not what you would normally think of as ‘seaworthy’, and was leaking like a sieve before this latest leak was noticed.
Selectperson-in-Waiting William Bradford wrote in his journal that the whole leak business was the fabrication of a group of disgruntled indentured servants who wanted their own plots of land in the New World. “That”, he wrote, “and the usual kind of hi-jinks you can expect when you’re cooped up for an extended period of time on a floating cesspool”.
Bradford also argued that Rove never really did anything specifically illegal.
Marine Law is very clear about people who deliberately cause a boat to leak: to be thrown overboard for leaking, the law states that you need to deliberately cause the leak, know that the leak will likely cause the boat to sink, and not care.
“How could Karl not care if the boat sank,” Bradford asked, rhetorically. “He was on the boat in the middle of the ocean, he had to care. Therefore even if he had inadvertently caused the leak he should not be thrown overboard.”
When later investigations revealed that Rove had in fact been at least aware of the leak, and had said nothing about it, Standish-spokesperson Billington told the crew that awareness of a leak and responsibility for a leak, were not the same thing.
Asked if Rove would now be thrown overboard, because he had at the very least been ‘involved’ with the leak, Billington said that he could not comment.
“We have ongoing leak here”, Billington angrily replied, “and it would inappropriate of me to comment on the seriousness of this leak until the boat sinks, or the leaking stops.”
At a later meeting with the indentured servants on Social Security, Standish himself, when asked, clarified his position, stating that anyone responsible for sinking the Mayflower would be removed from the Mayflower, provided of course that it was physically possible to remove someone if and when the ship was underwater.
“In my experience it is rare to find anyone on a ship that has already sunk,” Standish said in his matter-of-fact way, and flashing his famous grin. “Generally everyone gets off the boat while it is sinking, and some –following the rodent model, long before that.”
“But let me assure the future American people that, if and when the leaking is completed,” Standish continued, “and the ship is completely underwater, anyone still on board, and found guilty of a crime, will not be allowed to stay.”
So you see, it’s hopeless: big time politics and small-town life just don’t mix.
I wish they did: Plymouth can be so provincial.
Thursday, July 28, 2005
Weather Mand
Can anyone tell me what the weather is like around here?
I’m not kidding: I’ve forgotten what it is supposed to be like.
I remember as a kid spending time in Holyoke, thinking the weather there was perfect in the summer.
My grandfather was a supervisor in the Water Department in Holyoke: it was largely a ceremonial role, I believe, giving him the authority to take my brother and me fishing in the town’s reservoir whenever he wanted.
Maybe I am mistaken, but as I remember it Indian Summer lasted all summer long then: warm days, dry and deliciously cool nights.
I also remember swimming all day, eating at least a dozen ears of corn at one sitting, and then sitting on my grandparents’ screened porch and playing Scrabble until every word in the dictionary had been used and we all just sat there in the early evening light, speechless.
Now that was weather!
I guess I always believed that New England –from one end to the other, was just like that.
But we didn’t really live in New England then – we were just visiting.
Remember when local newspapers would print who was on vacation, and who had relatives visiting? Were we actually that safe then, or just a little more naive?
I was actually born in Massachusetts, in Chicopee Falls ( a pretty name, but Westover Air Force Base in point of fact), and later lived for two years in Bangor, Maine. While my memory of the Connecticut River Valley is idyllic, my memories of Bangor winters are different, so I don’t think I am simply being nostalgic.
And both western Massachusetts and Bangor had what I remember as predictable climates.
I have lived here in Plymouth for over twenty years now, and I have no sense of what the weather is supposed to be like, season to season.
Is that because here on the coast we don’t –and never have, had consistent weather?
I get the sense it’s something else: not exactly what you might think of as the effect of Global Warming, but maybe part of that phenomena.
My wife came home a few hours after sunset the other day –during this recent stretch of brutal humidity, and when she got out of her air-conditioned car she looked like something out of a Charlie Chan movie: her glasses were completely fogged over.
Inscrutable, was the word the war-time movie propagandists used to describe the impending ‘yellow peril’.
This weather is inscrutable.
This oppressive humidity reminds me of the kind of weather I got used to, growing up in the Washington D.C. area. The summers in Washington are consistently hot and humid –double nineties are not unusual: but because it is so predictably uncomfortable from June to September every building is fully air-conditioned.
In July in the D.C. area it can be 77 by 7, 88 by 8, and in the nineties by the time the sweating, aluminum-clad snack trucks begin arriving at construction sites.
But you can learn to live with anything, if you know what to expect.
Here, though the coastal waters often moderate the cold, the homes are still built to withstand the temperatures and cost of winter: the houses insulated so well that, when we get this kind of humidity, traditional colonial-style, wooden homes are swollen with the heat that can’t escape.
If this continues, and the wood keeps swelling up, you could see dozens of gray and white gambrels break free of their foundations and float off, east, like Dorothy headed for Oz.
Actually I don’t think I would mind that. It’s probably a bit cooler, up a few thousand feet.
It’s so humid the fireflies can’t light their little torches.
It’s so humid the mosquitoes can’t hold on long enough to bite.
It’s so humid you can put a teabag in an empty cup and, in an hour or two, voila!
It’s so humid I can’t remember what the weather is supposed to be like ‘round here’.
I’m not kidding: I’ve forgotten what it is supposed to be like.
I remember as a kid spending time in Holyoke, thinking the weather there was perfect in the summer.
My grandfather was a supervisor in the Water Department in Holyoke: it was largely a ceremonial role, I believe, giving him the authority to take my brother and me fishing in the town’s reservoir whenever he wanted.
Maybe I am mistaken, but as I remember it Indian Summer lasted all summer long then: warm days, dry and deliciously cool nights.
I also remember swimming all day, eating at least a dozen ears of corn at one sitting, and then sitting on my grandparents’ screened porch and playing Scrabble until every word in the dictionary had been used and we all just sat there in the early evening light, speechless.
Now that was weather!
I guess I always believed that New England –from one end to the other, was just like that.
But we didn’t really live in New England then – we were just visiting.
Remember when local newspapers would print who was on vacation, and who had relatives visiting? Were we actually that safe then, or just a little more naive?
I was actually born in Massachusetts, in Chicopee Falls ( a pretty name, but Westover Air Force Base in point of fact), and later lived for two years in Bangor, Maine. While my memory of the Connecticut River Valley is idyllic, my memories of Bangor winters are different, so I don’t think I am simply being nostalgic.
And both western Massachusetts and Bangor had what I remember as predictable climates.
I have lived here in Plymouth for over twenty years now, and I have no sense of what the weather is supposed to be like, season to season.
Is that because here on the coast we don’t –and never have, had consistent weather?
I get the sense it’s something else: not exactly what you might think of as the effect of Global Warming, but maybe part of that phenomena.
My wife came home a few hours after sunset the other day –during this recent stretch of brutal humidity, and when she got out of her air-conditioned car she looked like something out of a Charlie Chan movie: her glasses were completely fogged over.
Inscrutable, was the word the war-time movie propagandists used to describe the impending ‘yellow peril’.
This weather is inscrutable.
This oppressive humidity reminds me of the kind of weather I got used to, growing up in the Washington D.C. area. The summers in Washington are consistently hot and humid –double nineties are not unusual: but because it is so predictably uncomfortable from June to September every building is fully air-conditioned.
In July in the D.C. area it can be 77 by 7, 88 by 8, and in the nineties by the time the sweating, aluminum-clad snack trucks begin arriving at construction sites.
But you can learn to live with anything, if you know what to expect.
Here, though the coastal waters often moderate the cold, the homes are still built to withstand the temperatures and cost of winter: the houses insulated so well that, when we get this kind of humidity, traditional colonial-style, wooden homes are swollen with the heat that can’t escape.
If this continues, and the wood keeps swelling up, you could see dozens of gray and white gambrels break free of their foundations and float off, east, like Dorothy headed for Oz.
Actually I don’t think I would mind that. It’s probably a bit cooler, up a few thousand feet.
It’s so humid the fireflies can’t light their little torches.
It’s so humid the mosquitoes can’t hold on long enough to bite.
It’s so humid you can put a teabag in an empty cup and, in an hour or two, voila!
It’s so humid I can’t remember what the weather is supposed to be like ‘round here’.
Friday, July 22, 2005
All in the Family?
It’s no secret that my employment history is a bit –as they say, checkered. And that’s one of the reasons I got so excited when the world’s largest corporation recently made me an offer...
It wasn’t a job offer, not exactly: even better, they offered to treat me like one of the family.
Instead of $47,503 for their Andes Vista-Cruiser SUV with full Red-State Option Package (protruding chromed grille, ski-rack, tow-package and over-sized fluorescent ‘W” sticker) my ‘employee price’ would be $41,222.
I don’t know where you come from, but around here when somebody offers to give you $6,000, that deserves a hug!
I went down to my local Massive Auto Company dealership and –except for a few skittish guys from the service department, managed to give every one of their actual employees a big squeeze.
I had to pass on the vehicle though.
Despite all the love my checking account still can’t absorb another $500 a month in auto payments, plus the $100 or so more in insurance costs, or even the cost of fueling that baby up for a trip to the gas station and back.
But in the glow of an emotional high I started to think that maybe there was something here that we could all share in –whatever our automotive needs or financial wherewithal.
Why can’t we all get employee prices, on everything?
Cars are, for better or worse, an inescapable part of our lives. In Plymouth most especially, transportation is always an issue. So the idea of being treated as one of the family by an auto manufacturer really hits home.
But there are other things that hit home too, and in the wallet. Take electricity for example.
We are one of those modern Plymouth families who moved in to a home that old Thomas Alva would have loved: it’s 100% electric.
Our heat is electric, our stove is electric, and our electricity is electric. When the lines go down –from weather or accident, nothing works, not even the toilets (the well water is pumped up by an electric motor). Imagine that: every time I flush the toilet I am literally flushing nickels and dimes down the drain.
What, I wonder, is the employee price for electricity? What do Mr. and Mrs. NStar and their family of employees pay for each of their kilowatts?
A little love from that power-couple would go a long way.
And speaking of power couples, what’s up with Mr. and Mrs. Exxon-Mobil?
I sent them a nice card when they first announced their engagement a few years back, but I never got as much as a thank-you.
Now that they’re officially a couple they’re sending me cards and letters too, and calling night and day.
If anyone can afford to share the love, it’s the Exxon-Mobil family.
I’m not asking for my gas free, just at the price that good friends of the family pay.
At the store where I work they give employees a 25% discount. If you took 25% off my gasoline bill each month and I could almost afford to pay my electricity bill!
I have a little more empathy for the Adelphia family: they’ve had their own financial troubles of late. Things got so bad a few years back that even they had to take advantage of the family discount themselves –only they chose the wrong family.
According to the authorities they were acting as if they were the Royal House of Windsor, using a few hundred million of the company’s money like it was their own.
Still, gas and electricity are one thing –access to the internet, email, or cable television are quite another. One is a necessity, the other supposedly a luxury.
But with electricity bills going up, gas bills higher than ever, and a host of other rising costs cable television is –for many, a necessary refuge from the harsh financial realities.
Not that I need a refuge from reality –but others might.
By the way, if you can already afford the Andes Vista Cruiser with Optional Red-State Option Package than you already have a refuge from reality, don’t you?
I don’t know: maybe I am being unrealistic if I expect Mr. And Mrs. Exxon-Mobil, the NStar family, and the Duke and Duchess of Adelphia to share the wealth.
If every one of us got the ‘family’ price on electricity, the employee price on cars, a barrel or two of gift gasoline, a Royal freebie of cable television and other perks, than those corporations sharing the love probably couldn’t afford the lobbyists they need to convince the politicians we elect to keep the regulators off their backs.
And where would be then?
It wasn’t a job offer, not exactly: even better, they offered to treat me like one of the family.
Instead of $47,503 for their Andes Vista-Cruiser SUV with full Red-State Option Package (protruding chromed grille, ski-rack, tow-package and over-sized fluorescent ‘W” sticker) my ‘employee price’ would be $41,222.
I don’t know where you come from, but around here when somebody offers to give you $6,000, that deserves a hug!
I went down to my local Massive Auto Company dealership and –except for a few skittish guys from the service department, managed to give every one of their actual employees a big squeeze.
I had to pass on the vehicle though.
Despite all the love my checking account still can’t absorb another $500 a month in auto payments, plus the $100 or so more in insurance costs, or even the cost of fueling that baby up for a trip to the gas station and back.
But in the glow of an emotional high I started to think that maybe there was something here that we could all share in –whatever our automotive needs or financial wherewithal.
Why can’t we all get employee prices, on everything?
Cars are, for better or worse, an inescapable part of our lives. In Plymouth most especially, transportation is always an issue. So the idea of being treated as one of the family by an auto manufacturer really hits home.
But there are other things that hit home too, and in the wallet. Take electricity for example.
We are one of those modern Plymouth families who moved in to a home that old Thomas Alva would have loved: it’s 100% electric.
Our heat is electric, our stove is electric, and our electricity is electric. When the lines go down –from weather or accident, nothing works, not even the toilets (the well water is pumped up by an electric motor). Imagine that: every time I flush the toilet I am literally flushing nickels and dimes down the drain.
What, I wonder, is the employee price for electricity? What do Mr. and Mrs. NStar and their family of employees pay for each of their kilowatts?
A little love from that power-couple would go a long way.
And speaking of power couples, what’s up with Mr. and Mrs. Exxon-Mobil?
I sent them a nice card when they first announced their engagement a few years back, but I never got as much as a thank-you.
Now that they’re officially a couple they’re sending me cards and letters too, and calling night and day.
If anyone can afford to share the love, it’s the Exxon-Mobil family.
I’m not asking for my gas free, just at the price that good friends of the family pay.
At the store where I work they give employees a 25% discount. If you took 25% off my gasoline bill each month and I could almost afford to pay my electricity bill!
I have a little more empathy for the Adelphia family: they’ve had their own financial troubles of late. Things got so bad a few years back that even they had to take advantage of the family discount themselves –only they chose the wrong family.
According to the authorities they were acting as if they were the Royal House of Windsor, using a few hundred million of the company’s money like it was their own.
Still, gas and electricity are one thing –access to the internet, email, or cable television are quite another. One is a necessity, the other supposedly a luxury.
But with electricity bills going up, gas bills higher than ever, and a host of other rising costs cable television is –for many, a necessary refuge from the harsh financial realities.
Not that I need a refuge from reality –but others might.
By the way, if you can already afford the Andes Vista Cruiser with Optional Red-State Option Package than you already have a refuge from reality, don’t you?
I don’t know: maybe I am being unrealistic if I expect Mr. And Mrs. Exxon-Mobil, the NStar family, and the Duke and Duchess of Adelphia to share the wealth.
If every one of us got the ‘family’ price on electricity, the employee price on cars, a barrel or two of gift gasoline, a Royal freebie of cable television and other perks, than those corporations sharing the love probably couldn’t afford the lobbyists they need to convince the politicians we elect to keep the regulators off their backs.
And where would be then?
Thursday, July 14, 2005
Oh Say Can You See?
As I write this my South Plymouth neighborhood is popping like a bag of Orville Reddenbacher in the microwave: supposedly you can’t buy fireworks in Massachusetts but I guess you can lease them for the evening.
Farther off more serious, and possibly even legal explosions, seem to mimic a line of thunderstorms approaching: or perhaps more accurately, the sounds recall the sonic booms of my youth.
That’s no metaphor: my father was a ‘lifer’ in the Air Force and when I was a boy it was not unusual to first feel, and then hear the sounds of military jets breaking the sound barrier over the base.
That was the first bit of science that really caught my attention. The idea that objects could travel faster than the sounds they made was intriguing. Seeing the silver jets at air shows go flashing by just a few dozen feet off the ground, followed moments later by their sounds, was exhilarating.
Later I learned that light also had a speed: that the stars in the sky that you watched on your back on a warm summer night, might not actually be there at all anymore: that what you were seeing was in fact ‘old’ light.
Somewhere in the same dark sky where lightning bugs and imported bottle rockets are obscuring the stars on this Independence Day night– but far over the western horizon, another display of pyrotechnics is underway: a $300 million dollar display in fact.
They call it ‘Deep Impact’, hoping I think to get some of the same kind of attention that a recent movie of the same name attracted.
But there’s the problem as well. In order to keep the public’s attention NASA and others in the business of science and space exploration need to please both the public and their peers.
The scientists justified this mission in terms of the potential for uncovering the raw materials of creation –believing that comets represent the primordial play-doh that our solar systems began with. But they also made sure that this mission went off with a ‘bang’ on July 4th: packing their craft with an eight-hundred pound slug of pure copper that they hoped –and publicized, would create a spectacular display in the night sky.
To their credit their aim was true, their copper slug brutally efficient, and the show a perfect coming attraction of the film that would play at 11: fireworks over the water to the sound of the 1812 Overture.
But the thrill is gone – at least for me.
The timpani drum roll that Air Force jets used to produce in my stomach now comes buffered by the disquieting knowledge that the United States spends more of its wealth on weaponry than any other country.
The amazing designs that fireworks experts can produce from canisters of gunpowder fade in the light of the truth that we are the only country in the world that could but does not provide health care for all of its citizens.
The brilliance of the engineers and scientists who managed to build the Deep Impact craft, and hit that far away, moving target does still not justify, in my opinion, the enormous expenditure of time, money, and most importantly, imagination.
Couldn’t our scientists have imagined a way to create ‘energy independence’ without despoiling the arctic wilderness?
Couldn’t our politicians have imagined a way of spreading democracy without destroying a country’s infrastructure and killing thousands?
We bicker amongst ourselves over the cost of educating our children, while we allow $300 million to be spent to take a pot shot at a rock in the sky.
When I was a child sonic booms convinced me that man could move faster than sound.
When I was a young man the idea that it was theoretically possible to move faster than light fascinated me.
Now I see much of science as a kind of acceptable perversion –focusing far too much of its time devising ways to produce perpetually youthful skin (or its illusion), end erectile dysfunction, or set off galactic fireworks displays.
Here on earth, in Plymouth, I am only interested in the speed at which wisdom travels, and I am finding it very difficult to wait even one more star-spangled night.
Farther off more serious, and possibly even legal explosions, seem to mimic a line of thunderstorms approaching: or perhaps more accurately, the sounds recall the sonic booms of my youth.
That’s no metaphor: my father was a ‘lifer’ in the Air Force and when I was a boy it was not unusual to first feel, and then hear the sounds of military jets breaking the sound barrier over the base.
That was the first bit of science that really caught my attention. The idea that objects could travel faster than the sounds they made was intriguing. Seeing the silver jets at air shows go flashing by just a few dozen feet off the ground, followed moments later by their sounds, was exhilarating.
Later I learned that light also had a speed: that the stars in the sky that you watched on your back on a warm summer night, might not actually be there at all anymore: that what you were seeing was in fact ‘old’ light.
Somewhere in the same dark sky where lightning bugs and imported bottle rockets are obscuring the stars on this Independence Day night– but far over the western horizon, another display of pyrotechnics is underway: a $300 million dollar display in fact.
They call it ‘Deep Impact’, hoping I think to get some of the same kind of attention that a recent movie of the same name attracted.
But there’s the problem as well. In order to keep the public’s attention NASA and others in the business of science and space exploration need to please both the public and their peers.
The scientists justified this mission in terms of the potential for uncovering the raw materials of creation –believing that comets represent the primordial play-doh that our solar systems began with. But they also made sure that this mission went off with a ‘bang’ on July 4th: packing their craft with an eight-hundred pound slug of pure copper that they hoped –and publicized, would create a spectacular display in the night sky.
To their credit their aim was true, their copper slug brutally efficient, and the show a perfect coming attraction of the film that would play at 11: fireworks over the water to the sound of the 1812 Overture.
But the thrill is gone – at least for me.
The timpani drum roll that Air Force jets used to produce in my stomach now comes buffered by the disquieting knowledge that the United States spends more of its wealth on weaponry than any other country.
The amazing designs that fireworks experts can produce from canisters of gunpowder fade in the light of the truth that we are the only country in the world that could but does not provide health care for all of its citizens.
The brilliance of the engineers and scientists who managed to build the Deep Impact craft, and hit that far away, moving target does still not justify, in my opinion, the enormous expenditure of time, money, and most importantly, imagination.
Couldn’t our scientists have imagined a way to create ‘energy independence’ without despoiling the arctic wilderness?
Couldn’t our politicians have imagined a way of spreading democracy without destroying a country’s infrastructure and killing thousands?
We bicker amongst ourselves over the cost of educating our children, while we allow $300 million to be spent to take a pot shot at a rock in the sky.
When I was a child sonic booms convinced me that man could move faster than sound.
When I was a young man the idea that it was theoretically possible to move faster than light fascinated me.
Now I see much of science as a kind of acceptable perversion –focusing far too much of its time devising ways to produce perpetually youthful skin (or its illusion), end erectile dysfunction, or set off galactic fireworks displays.
Here on earth, in Plymouth, I am only interested in the speed at which wisdom travels, and I am finding it very difficult to wait even one more star-spangled night.
Tuesday, July 05, 2005
Jimmie's Sprinkles
If I had an ice cream stand I’d call it Jimmie’s Sprinkles.
At least that’s what I’d like to call it, but in a town that depends so much on the tourist dollar that may not be a good idea. Customers, from other parts of the country, might not get the joke.
Do you?
I love language, and part of what I like about it is the confusion it creates.
At Jimmie’s Sprinkles I’d have Frappes, Milk Shakes, and Cabinets one after the other on the same menu – and at the same price.
Frappes are what we here in Plymouth are supposed to call that frosty blend of a few scoops of ice cream, milk, and flavored syrup.
Much of the rest of the country however calls that same concoction a Milk Shake. In Rhode Island the same drink is called a Cabinet.
Then again, many locals are not really local, and they use an American dialect I like to call McDonaldese. If you speak McDonaldese skip the rest of this column and go directly to the second window.
Even if you’re not from these ‘parts’ I strongly advise you to adopt the local lingo. Taking the time to understand out local ways can save you a lot of grief.
My friend Dan bought his first house in Plymouth because of his confusion about the term ‘deeded beach rights’. His tiny gambrel with ten hardy shrubs and 1000 square feet of sod was located way off in the woods on the western side of Route 3, down some dirt road, but he was sure there was a path back behind his new home that led directly to the ocean.
A few weeks later Dan discovered he had the right to swim in a nearby cranberry bog.
Musty is a great local word: people tell you they have musty basements. My first house had deeded beach rights to my neighbor’s musty basement. He was pretty good about it too. Whenever the temperature got above 80 he’d open up his bulkhead door and stock the thing with brown trout.
Visitors to Plymouth are often amused at the names of our Ponds.
First off they’re amused that we call just about everything that isn’t saltwater, a pond. Water in the basement, as I said, qualifies as a pond. Goldfish Ponds are ponds. Inflatable pools larger than 8 feet across are often referred to as ‘personal’ ponds.
But most of all they are amused at the names, as I said. They assume that the locals are a bunch of simple-minded folk who just couldn’t think of anything better than ‘Long Pond’, ‘Round Pond’, ‘Square Pond’ and such.
Where they’re from there is very little water, except in the man-made lakes and golf course waterfalls created by developers. Leave the naming to developers and you end up with hundreds of names like Sunset Lake, Sunrise Lake, Postcard Lake, Watercolor Lake and the Lake, I mean like.
For some reason developers don’t like to call anything a pond...
But Plymouth ponds were named long ago, by practical men who were often lost in the woods, scared of the natives, and eager to get the heck back to their musty shacks and do a little preventive thatching.
So these individuals named the ponds for practical reasons: mainly for ease of navigation, but also so as to remember just what the pond was like so they wouldn’t have to go back for a second look.
It was those common-sensical pioneers who gave us Muddy Pond, Shallow Pond, Ugly Pond, and Not Another Pond.
They also came up with Bloody Pond, Freakin Pond, One More Pond, and Once-a-Pond-a-Pond.
There are over 7000 ponds in Plymouth and mysteriously, around 1693 they stopped naming, with 1103 ponds still to go.
“Perchance I beholdeth one more freakith pond”, Isaac Hummarock declared that year in his diary, “likely I goeth out of my freakith gourd”.
Ah yes, those were the days: when there were a half dozen ponds for every resident of Plymouth. Now the population has increased to the point where we have to share our ponds with seven or eight strangers, many of whom think they’re swimming in Cape Cod Bay.
It’s pitiful.
But it doesn’t have to be that way.
If we all do our part, embrace our local lingo and customs, we can develop a sense of community and cooperation, and then finish the job.
At Jimmie’s Sprinkles we’ll offer a free booklet on local language and customs to anyone who wonders out loud what the difference is between a Cabinet and a Frappe, or between a Frappe and a Milk Shake, or between New Hampshire and Massachusetts.
And to anyone who spends more than $30 on any non-sale item, we’ll give them a map to the location of those 1103 anonymous ponds, together with a list of suggested names.
It won’t change the world, but if we work together at least there won’t be more poor souls like Dan, wandering the mosquito-infested woods looking for the perfect wave.
At least that’s what I’d like to call it, but in a town that depends so much on the tourist dollar that may not be a good idea. Customers, from other parts of the country, might not get the joke.
Do you?
I love language, and part of what I like about it is the confusion it creates.
At Jimmie’s Sprinkles I’d have Frappes, Milk Shakes, and Cabinets one after the other on the same menu – and at the same price.
Frappes are what we here in Plymouth are supposed to call that frosty blend of a few scoops of ice cream, milk, and flavored syrup.
Much of the rest of the country however calls that same concoction a Milk Shake. In Rhode Island the same drink is called a Cabinet.
Then again, many locals are not really local, and they use an American dialect I like to call McDonaldese. If you speak McDonaldese skip the rest of this column and go directly to the second window.
Even if you’re not from these ‘parts’ I strongly advise you to adopt the local lingo. Taking the time to understand out local ways can save you a lot of grief.
My friend Dan bought his first house in Plymouth because of his confusion about the term ‘deeded beach rights’. His tiny gambrel with ten hardy shrubs and 1000 square feet of sod was located way off in the woods on the western side of Route 3, down some dirt road, but he was sure there was a path back behind his new home that led directly to the ocean.
A few weeks later Dan discovered he had the right to swim in a nearby cranberry bog.
Musty is a great local word: people tell you they have musty basements. My first house had deeded beach rights to my neighbor’s musty basement. He was pretty good about it too. Whenever the temperature got above 80 he’d open up his bulkhead door and stock the thing with brown trout.
Visitors to Plymouth are often amused at the names of our Ponds.
First off they’re amused that we call just about everything that isn’t saltwater, a pond. Water in the basement, as I said, qualifies as a pond. Goldfish Ponds are ponds. Inflatable pools larger than 8 feet across are often referred to as ‘personal’ ponds.
But most of all they are amused at the names, as I said. They assume that the locals are a bunch of simple-minded folk who just couldn’t think of anything better than ‘Long Pond’, ‘Round Pond’, ‘Square Pond’ and such.
Where they’re from there is very little water, except in the man-made lakes and golf course waterfalls created by developers. Leave the naming to developers and you end up with hundreds of names like Sunset Lake, Sunrise Lake, Postcard Lake, Watercolor Lake and the Lake, I mean like.
For some reason developers don’t like to call anything a pond...
But Plymouth ponds were named long ago, by practical men who were often lost in the woods, scared of the natives, and eager to get the heck back to their musty shacks and do a little preventive thatching.
So these individuals named the ponds for practical reasons: mainly for ease of navigation, but also so as to remember just what the pond was like so they wouldn’t have to go back for a second look.
It was those common-sensical pioneers who gave us Muddy Pond, Shallow Pond, Ugly Pond, and Not Another Pond.
They also came up with Bloody Pond, Freakin Pond, One More Pond, and Once-a-Pond-a-Pond.
There are over 7000 ponds in Plymouth and mysteriously, around 1693 they stopped naming, with 1103 ponds still to go.
“Perchance I beholdeth one more freakith pond”, Isaac Hummarock declared that year in his diary, “likely I goeth out of my freakith gourd”.
Ah yes, those were the days: when there were a half dozen ponds for every resident of Plymouth. Now the population has increased to the point where we have to share our ponds with seven or eight strangers, many of whom think they’re swimming in Cape Cod Bay.
It’s pitiful.
But it doesn’t have to be that way.
If we all do our part, embrace our local lingo and customs, we can develop a sense of community and cooperation, and then finish the job.
At Jimmie’s Sprinkles we’ll offer a free booklet on local language and customs to anyone who wonders out loud what the difference is between a Cabinet and a Frappe, or between a Frappe and a Milk Shake, or between New Hampshire and Massachusetts.
And to anyone who spends more than $30 on any non-sale item, we’ll give them a map to the location of those 1103 anonymous ponds, together with a list of suggested names.
It won’t change the world, but if we work together at least there won’t be more poor souls like Dan, wandering the mosquito-infested woods looking for the perfect wave.
Wednesday, June 29, 2005
Heavenly Hash?
Plymouth for me is an abstraction, like the four-foot ice cream cone on top of Gellar’s in Manomet.
It’s not a particularly well-designed cone, and I certainly know that if I had the chance to give it a big lick I would not be pleased with its metallic taste – but it represents an ideal worthy of my aspirations.
I think we all carry around images of an ideal Plymouth, and often find it difficult to reconcile those images with the reality we see every day.
The First Church of Nostalgia:
Many ‘townies’ see Plymouth through the prism of the past. 100 years or so ago the town was still a collection of neighborhoods and villages- each truly separate and unique. There was by necessity, in those days, greater self-sufficiency and, paradoxically, a resulting closeness.
The core of those old neighborhoods still exists today- at least physically, but they are no longer completely distinct and separate from the town, except in the memories of our oldest residents.
Beach Stickers and Bonfires:
To some degree the nostalgic vision of old Plymouth –and perhaps the general notion of the ‘New England Village’, was responsible for the next wave of residents who came here. They didn’t know the old neighborhoods, or recognize them as distinct and separate, but they accepted the vision of a community which offered a certain quality of life that they wanted to participate in – either on a temporary ‘summer’ basis, or year-round: never mind that by moving here in large numbers they were necessarily changing what they found most appealing about the area.
Single Family Homeys:
For the next wave of residents –in which I include myself, the appeal of Plymouth as an historic entity or quaint New England village was not, at least initially, particularly important –especially considering that for people looking for their first home it seemed that the tighter grasp a town had on its past, the higher the cost of their property. No, Plymouth’s greatest appeal to those who came here from the Sixties on was, I believe, the basic notion of affordability. Instead of the corner store, we looked for two full baths. Instead of a town green, we asked for 1000 square feet of sod.
Mock Apple Pie
And finally, or at least most recently, are those who have come to Plymouth for the golf, or the après-golf, and who live in someone else’s idea of the perfect retirement community – developments that have almost nothing to do with the historic or imagined Plymouth but in their own way represent an ideal.
I guess what I am getting at is that we all have these ‘visions’ of Plymouth that are often odds with one another, and with reality. Even my vision of a Plymouth is such a stereotype. People are always more complex than we imagine.
We hold on to these mental images though because like all stereotypes, they offer the fantasy of a simple, manageable world. That’s usually a harmless thing, except when we insist that everyone else act as if our vision was reality.
I firmly believe that for the town to move forward we have to open our eyes to a far more complex and challenging reality of what Plymouth is, and should be.
Instead of fighting against affordable housing, or trying to restrict who moves to town because of their ‘demographics’, the town should aggressively pursue a mix of development that appeals to the young and old, rich and poor, commuter and retiree.
Instead of holding on to (or creating) imaginary villages, I feel we should be focusing on improving services for all town residents, no matter where they live.
Instead of focusing on the town being simply cheaper for all of its existing residents –and criticizing town officials for any expenditure that impacts the tax rate, we should concentrate on making the town more attractive overall: better schools, smooth, paved roads, well-kept parks and recreational facilities and the like will attract (and keep) a variety of people and businesses in town, and keep our community economically vital.
Admittedly my vision of Plymouth too, is an abstraction: I buy in to the idea of a town that has for nearly 400 years offered the nation a lesson in the benefits of positive civic engagement. That, I agree, hasn’t always been true.
In some ways we’re like that French girl standing in New York Harbor. We’re a four hundred year old electrified ice cream cone that you can see from far out at sea: a cone that no matter what the reality is, is always topped with a scoop of your favorite flavor.
It’s not a particularly well-designed cone, and I certainly know that if I had the chance to give it a big lick I would not be pleased with its metallic taste – but it represents an ideal worthy of my aspirations.
I think we all carry around images of an ideal Plymouth, and often find it difficult to reconcile those images with the reality we see every day.
The First Church of Nostalgia:
Many ‘townies’ see Plymouth through the prism of the past. 100 years or so ago the town was still a collection of neighborhoods and villages- each truly separate and unique. There was by necessity, in those days, greater self-sufficiency and, paradoxically, a resulting closeness.
The core of those old neighborhoods still exists today- at least physically, but they are no longer completely distinct and separate from the town, except in the memories of our oldest residents.
Beach Stickers and Bonfires:
To some degree the nostalgic vision of old Plymouth –and perhaps the general notion of the ‘New England Village’, was responsible for the next wave of residents who came here. They didn’t know the old neighborhoods, or recognize them as distinct and separate, but they accepted the vision of a community which offered a certain quality of life that they wanted to participate in – either on a temporary ‘summer’ basis, or year-round: never mind that by moving here in large numbers they were necessarily changing what they found most appealing about the area.
Single Family Homeys:
For the next wave of residents –in which I include myself, the appeal of Plymouth as an historic entity or quaint New England village was not, at least initially, particularly important –especially considering that for people looking for their first home it seemed that the tighter grasp a town had on its past, the higher the cost of their property. No, Plymouth’s greatest appeal to those who came here from the Sixties on was, I believe, the basic notion of affordability. Instead of the corner store, we looked for two full baths. Instead of a town green, we asked for 1000 square feet of sod.
Mock Apple Pie
And finally, or at least most recently, are those who have come to Plymouth for the golf, or the après-golf, and who live in someone else’s idea of the perfect retirement community – developments that have almost nothing to do with the historic or imagined Plymouth but in their own way represent an ideal.
I guess what I am getting at is that we all have these ‘visions’ of Plymouth that are often odds with one another, and with reality. Even my vision of a Plymouth is such a stereotype. People are always more complex than we imagine.
We hold on to these mental images though because like all stereotypes, they offer the fantasy of a simple, manageable world. That’s usually a harmless thing, except when we insist that everyone else act as if our vision was reality.
I firmly believe that for the town to move forward we have to open our eyes to a far more complex and challenging reality of what Plymouth is, and should be.
Instead of fighting against affordable housing, or trying to restrict who moves to town because of their ‘demographics’, the town should aggressively pursue a mix of development that appeals to the young and old, rich and poor, commuter and retiree.
Instead of holding on to (or creating) imaginary villages, I feel we should be focusing on improving services for all town residents, no matter where they live.
Instead of focusing on the town being simply cheaper for all of its existing residents –and criticizing town officials for any expenditure that impacts the tax rate, we should concentrate on making the town more attractive overall: better schools, smooth, paved roads, well-kept parks and recreational facilities and the like will attract (and keep) a variety of people and businesses in town, and keep our community economically vital.
Admittedly my vision of Plymouth too, is an abstraction: I buy in to the idea of a town that has for nearly 400 years offered the nation a lesson in the benefits of positive civic engagement. That, I agree, hasn’t always been true.
In some ways we’re like that French girl standing in New York Harbor. We’re a four hundred year old electrified ice cream cone that you can see from far out at sea: a cone that no matter what the reality is, is always topped with a scoop of your favorite flavor.
Friday, June 24, 2005
Happy Billington Day!
Billington Day is almost here, and while I know a lot of you are planning big barbeques, I think it is appropriate that we take a moment to remember who the Billington Boy’s were, and why we celebrate this day.
Nearly 400 years ago young Francis Billington climbed a tree and saw a patch of water to the west that he thought was the western ocean, but turned out to be a large pond. Francis’ brother John later got lost in the same woods, and didn’t turn up for over a year.
In their honor Plymouth planners have for hundreds of years deliberately created confusing, maze-like subdivisions and streets, and every year on Billington Day town residents spread out to give bad directions to unsuspecting travelers. Not vague directions mind you: very specific, easy to follow, eminently plausible yet absolutely inefficient directions
How do you get to the Plymouth Rock?
On Billington Day in 1999 I was asked this by a sweet young couple from Ohio, as we stood on the little bridge on Water Street overlooking Brewster Gardens. Careful to stand between them and the direct line to the columned canopy over The Rock, I pointed out Leyden Street, which I engagingly described as ‘America’s First Main Street’. “If you go up that street, and through the lights on Court”, I started, and sent them on their way up to the top of Burial Hill, down its northern edge, to the Court House, and then eventually up Water Street from the opposite end -after a lunch break at Martha’s Galley.
Why take the trolley, I thought with an air of self-c0ngratulation, when I can mis-direct you all about town!
Tourists are easy though, and perhaps less satisfying. After all, they are already committed to wandering. Far more satisfying –and traditional, are bad directions given to new residents of town who are as yet unaware of our holiday traditions: such as the town regulation that goes all the way back to the first Billington Day that stipulates you cannot speak at town meeting unless you have been lost in Myles Standish State Forest.
I was minding my own business at the MRA ball fields off State Road on Billington Day last year when a family in a brand-spanking new Ford Extrapolate rolled up to me and, after I hit the ground expecting bullets to come flying out as the tinted windows on one side began to descend (thinking it might be that nice young couple from Ohio), someone from inside its vast interior meekly asked for directions to Armstrong Rink.
After I dusted myself off I was the very model of helpfulness, going so far as to illustrate the best route on a napkin using a felt pen and hardened old French fries as street signs.
“You’re in luck,” I said, with a profound earnestness, “Plymouth is a big town, but I know a short-cut.” And with those fateful words I described the miracle of Ship Pond Road (‘The virtual spinal column of central Plymouth’ I believe I said), which would take them through the historic heartland of Plymouth while bypassing the congestion of a more ‘direct’ route.
Of course I neglected to mention the washboard dirt surface, the unmarked streets that branch off from either side and take you to the far hinterlands, or the take-your-life-in-your-hands intersection with Long Pond Road.
“If you make it that far,” I said with a wink, knowing full well that my holiday spirit would be misread as ‘local color’, “you take a right on Long Pond and continue on until you see the entrance to the Myles Standish State Forest…”
Sure, I know what you’re thinking: you love the idea, want to keep up the tradition, but are concerned that you won’t be able to keep a straight face when dispensing your bad directions. Well try this: tell the unsuspecting traveler to stay on the road they are on!
“Whatever you do, make sure you stay on _____ Street!”
If they’re on Sandwich Street it will soon change to Court Street, back to Sandwich, then change to State Road, Will of the Wisp Boulevard, and Ellisville Avenue before leaping in to the Cape Cod Canal. Chances are they’ll never make it that far, coming to a screeching halt somewhere down ‘3A’.
In this part of the country, even roads with apparently only one name change at the town line: Carver Road becomes Plymouth Road, Bourne Road becomes Plymouth Road. Wareham Road becomes Plymouth Road –all depending on where you are and which direction you are headed in. Then consider that many of the roads I just mentioned can be in Plymouth, then Bourne, then Wareham, then Plymouth again. What a hoot!.
If you’re having a Billington Day Party make sure the fun starts early by printing out directions from Internet.
Those web trip planning sites are notorious for using old maps for their databases and when you add their out-of-date directions to Plymouth’s maze of forest roads, ‘pork chop lots’ and changing names you can almost guarantee that family members that you had to invite -but don’t really care to see, somehow won’t show!
History, tradition, being lost for days in Myles Standish State Forest – its all of part of living in America’s Home Town.
Happy Billington Day!
Nearly 400 years ago young Francis Billington climbed a tree and saw a patch of water to the west that he thought was the western ocean, but turned out to be a large pond. Francis’ brother John later got lost in the same woods, and didn’t turn up for over a year.
In their honor Plymouth planners have for hundreds of years deliberately created confusing, maze-like subdivisions and streets, and every year on Billington Day town residents spread out to give bad directions to unsuspecting travelers. Not vague directions mind you: very specific, easy to follow, eminently plausible yet absolutely inefficient directions
How do you get to the Plymouth Rock?
On Billington Day in 1999 I was asked this by a sweet young couple from Ohio, as we stood on the little bridge on Water Street overlooking Brewster Gardens. Careful to stand between them and the direct line to the columned canopy over The Rock, I pointed out Leyden Street, which I engagingly described as ‘America’s First Main Street’. “If you go up that street, and through the lights on Court”, I started, and sent them on their way up to the top of Burial Hill, down its northern edge, to the Court House, and then eventually up Water Street from the opposite end -after a lunch break at Martha’s Galley.
Why take the trolley, I thought with an air of self-c0ngratulation, when I can mis-direct you all about town!
Tourists are easy though, and perhaps less satisfying. After all, they are already committed to wandering. Far more satisfying –and traditional, are bad directions given to new residents of town who are as yet unaware of our holiday traditions: such as the town regulation that goes all the way back to the first Billington Day that stipulates you cannot speak at town meeting unless you have been lost in Myles Standish State Forest.
I was minding my own business at the MRA ball fields off State Road on Billington Day last year when a family in a brand-spanking new Ford Extrapolate rolled up to me and, after I hit the ground expecting bullets to come flying out as the tinted windows on one side began to descend (thinking it might be that nice young couple from Ohio), someone from inside its vast interior meekly asked for directions to Armstrong Rink.
After I dusted myself off I was the very model of helpfulness, going so far as to illustrate the best route on a napkin using a felt pen and hardened old French fries as street signs.
“You’re in luck,” I said, with a profound earnestness, “Plymouth is a big town, but I know a short-cut.” And with those fateful words I described the miracle of Ship Pond Road (‘The virtual spinal column of central Plymouth’ I believe I said), which would take them through the historic heartland of Plymouth while bypassing the congestion of a more ‘direct’ route.
Of course I neglected to mention the washboard dirt surface, the unmarked streets that branch off from either side and take you to the far hinterlands, or the take-your-life-in-your-hands intersection with Long Pond Road.
“If you make it that far,” I said with a wink, knowing full well that my holiday spirit would be misread as ‘local color’, “you take a right on Long Pond and continue on until you see the entrance to the Myles Standish State Forest…”
Sure, I know what you’re thinking: you love the idea, want to keep up the tradition, but are concerned that you won’t be able to keep a straight face when dispensing your bad directions. Well try this: tell the unsuspecting traveler to stay on the road they are on!
“Whatever you do, make sure you stay on _____ Street!”
If they’re on Sandwich Street it will soon change to Court Street, back to Sandwich, then change to State Road, Will of the Wisp Boulevard, and Ellisville Avenue before leaping in to the Cape Cod Canal. Chances are they’ll never make it that far, coming to a screeching halt somewhere down ‘3A’.
In this part of the country, even roads with apparently only one name change at the town line: Carver Road becomes Plymouth Road, Bourne Road becomes Plymouth Road. Wareham Road becomes Plymouth Road –all depending on where you are and which direction you are headed in. Then consider that many of the roads I just mentioned can be in Plymouth, then Bourne, then Wareham, then Plymouth again. What a hoot!.
If you’re having a Billington Day Party make sure the fun starts early by printing out directions from Internet.
Those web trip planning sites are notorious for using old maps for their databases and when you add their out-of-date directions to Plymouth’s maze of forest roads, ‘pork chop lots’ and changing names you can almost guarantee that family members that you had to invite -but don’t really care to see, somehow won’t show!
History, tradition, being lost for days in Myles Standish State Forest – its all of part of living in America’s Home Town.
Happy Billington Day!
Tuesday, June 14, 2005
Pajama Party
I have managed with mice and squirrels, and a family of migrant raccoons in my attic, but these caterpillars have got to go.
Okay, maybe they aren’t caterpillars: I’m no entomologist. But you know something, I don’t care.
I have always said that a big plus to living where I do, set back from the road, nestled in the trees, are the wild creatures that I see every day.
In our twenty years in this house we have seen fox and deer, wild turkey, families of quail, a great, waddling old badger (I swear!) and a whole host of other creatures cavorting about (or in )our home. And apart from taking action to stop a few from eating away at the attic timber, we have all gotten along just fine.
But these caterpillars are making me nuts.
First of all, it’s the sheer number: I am sure some naturalist has already explained why, and it probably has something to do with the 50 feet of snow we just recovered from, and the 40 days of rain that followed, but all that I know is I am being invaded.
Choose your allusion: invasion of the body snatchers; men from mars, plagues of locust. It all fits.
And what the heck are those clumps of twisted bark hanging from nearly invisible threads? It looks like some creature climbed three quarters of the way down, ditched their pajamas, and hopped off. Are their naked caterpillars cavorting in the bushes?
My son, the college boy, is pretty darn messy: but even he doesn’t leave his pajamas balled up and hanging from the ceiling.
That’s a scary thought though, isn’t it: an invasion of tiny college boys who move in to your yard, sleep all day, eat pounds and pounds of Cheerios, and talk back to you when you ask them how the job hunting is going?
And you know what, the fuzz on my sluggish son’s chin bears an eerie resemblance to the fuzz of these caterpillars.
Wait a second, I’ve got to go check something.
Okay, I’m back, and you can relax: the Cheerios are disappearing at the same alarming rate as before, and there are no small bite marks on the boxes, or tiny rolled-up pajamas in the cabinet where we keep the cereal.
I’m not paranoid, but you have to admit we’ve had it pretty rough in the past few years here in America’s Home Town.
I used to boast about our ‘ocean effect: breezes off the water from Cape Cod and Buzzards Bays, that kept the temperatures a good ten degrees lower than abutting communities. Now I wonder if that same weather pattern is responsible for our record snows, long-lasting murk, and the growth in the critter population.
Is it me or do we have more than our fair share of skunks in Plymouth?
And whatever happened to the ‘wild’ in the wild turkeys that are thriving in these parts? Our turkeys are not domesticated fowl, their tax-paying citizens. You can set your watch by their appearance at certain well-worn entry points on Beaver Dam Road in the morning, and I swear I sat next to one on the train to Boston: he tried to disguise himself, but that turkey-neck gave him away.
But back to the real pillars of our society: the caterpillars. Did you ever see the old Marlon Brando classic motor bike film, ‘The Wild Ones’? That’s the way these caterpillars have come rolling in to our town: loud, obnoxious, and looking for trouble. What’s next, is what I want to know? Are they going to want to date our daughters?
The moral of ‘The Wild One’s is not to pre-judge leather-clad motorcycle punks. They’re really not so bad.
Okay, I am willing to admit right now that I misunderstand these caterpillars. They are probably just harmless young moths, trying to enjoy themselves before they are drawn to the flame of adulthood. But if I get just one more of these things stuck in my hair, or find another one in my cereal bowl, Brando or not, I am going to hire a crop duster and have them eradicate every thing that crawls, hops or flies.
That will leave only the problem of getting rid of 32,000 sets of caterpillar pajamas –and that’s just in my yard.
Is there a Goodwill for critters?
Okay, maybe they aren’t caterpillars: I’m no entomologist. But you know something, I don’t care.
I have always said that a big plus to living where I do, set back from the road, nestled in the trees, are the wild creatures that I see every day.
In our twenty years in this house we have seen fox and deer, wild turkey, families of quail, a great, waddling old badger (I swear!) and a whole host of other creatures cavorting about (or in )our home. And apart from taking action to stop a few from eating away at the attic timber, we have all gotten along just fine.
But these caterpillars are making me nuts.
First of all, it’s the sheer number: I am sure some naturalist has already explained why, and it probably has something to do with the 50 feet of snow we just recovered from, and the 40 days of rain that followed, but all that I know is I am being invaded.
Choose your allusion: invasion of the body snatchers; men from mars, plagues of locust. It all fits.
And what the heck are those clumps of twisted bark hanging from nearly invisible threads? It looks like some creature climbed three quarters of the way down, ditched their pajamas, and hopped off. Are their naked caterpillars cavorting in the bushes?
My son, the college boy, is pretty darn messy: but even he doesn’t leave his pajamas balled up and hanging from the ceiling.
That’s a scary thought though, isn’t it: an invasion of tiny college boys who move in to your yard, sleep all day, eat pounds and pounds of Cheerios, and talk back to you when you ask them how the job hunting is going?
And you know what, the fuzz on my sluggish son’s chin bears an eerie resemblance to the fuzz of these caterpillars.
Wait a second, I’ve got to go check something.
Okay, I’m back, and you can relax: the Cheerios are disappearing at the same alarming rate as before, and there are no small bite marks on the boxes, or tiny rolled-up pajamas in the cabinet where we keep the cereal.
I’m not paranoid, but you have to admit we’ve had it pretty rough in the past few years here in America’s Home Town.
I used to boast about our ‘ocean effect: breezes off the water from Cape Cod and Buzzards Bays, that kept the temperatures a good ten degrees lower than abutting communities. Now I wonder if that same weather pattern is responsible for our record snows, long-lasting murk, and the growth in the critter population.
Is it me or do we have more than our fair share of skunks in Plymouth?
And whatever happened to the ‘wild’ in the wild turkeys that are thriving in these parts? Our turkeys are not domesticated fowl, their tax-paying citizens. You can set your watch by their appearance at certain well-worn entry points on Beaver Dam Road in the morning, and I swear I sat next to one on the train to Boston: he tried to disguise himself, but that turkey-neck gave him away.
But back to the real pillars of our society: the caterpillars. Did you ever see the old Marlon Brando classic motor bike film, ‘The Wild Ones’? That’s the way these caterpillars have come rolling in to our town: loud, obnoxious, and looking for trouble. What’s next, is what I want to know? Are they going to want to date our daughters?
The moral of ‘The Wild One’s is not to pre-judge leather-clad motorcycle punks. They’re really not so bad.
Okay, I am willing to admit right now that I misunderstand these caterpillars. They are probably just harmless young moths, trying to enjoy themselves before they are drawn to the flame of adulthood. But if I get just one more of these things stuck in my hair, or find another one in my cereal bowl, Brando or not, I am going to hire a crop duster and have them eradicate every thing that crawls, hops or flies.
That will leave only the problem of getting rid of 32,000 sets of caterpillar pajamas –and that’s just in my yard.
Is there a Goodwill for critters?
Monday, June 06, 2005
Invasion of the Plymouthian Arthropods
Don’t call me a ‘Plymouthian’!
To my ear that term sounds like something taken from one of my son’s Art History books (..the façade of the Parthenon is covered in vertical Plymouthian columns), or something out of a B-Movie of the Fifties (Invasion of the Plymouthian Arthropods).
Speaking of films, if I am going to refer to local residents by one name I prefer the affectionate term used by John Wayne, describing Jimmy Stewart’s character, in “The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance”.
Screenwriter Willis Goldbeck used the word to describe a character who was both an idealist and, perhaps, a bit naive –which I think is a good description of many of the residents of this town (myself included).
The term? Why “Pilgrim”, of course.
It might be argued that we are not all pilgrims in 21st Century Plymouth, at least not in the dictionary sense: “a person journeying to a sacred place.” But here on this historic coast – in a town founded by pilgrims -in the strict dictionary sense of that word, and in a country that still believes in the myth of the eternal pioneer, is there a better or more affectionate term to apply to one another?
And Goldbeck’s use of the word pilgrim, was again, not limited to the dictionary definition: in fact in the film John Wayne seemed to use the term with an awareness of the mix of respect and amusement that most modern-day Americans feel toward those first boatloads of Bradfords and Howlands and Allertons.
Those first settlers were after all, a bit unprepared for what lay ahead. In fact our ‘pilgrims’ really had no clear sense of where they were going, and how they would manage to survive.
Imagine the conversation that perhaps, a father back in Holland had with his son, hearing that he intended to head over to the new world.
“Where is it, exactly, that you are going?”
“To Myles’ place in Virginia.”
“And are his parents going to be there?”
“Well, no, but they are planning to come over on a later boat”.
“And what are you going to be doing?”
“Starting a new colony”.
There is a certain desperation that we associate with the American ‘pilgrim’, and rightly so. In the traditional sense a pilgrim is someone who goes on a sacred voyage and then, it is implied, after they get to their destination, turn around and head right back to their normal life. For most of history pilgrimages were a kind of ‘dream vacation’: a chance to get out of the muddy field, buy a few sacred snow globes, and see what lay beyond the hill. But the American pilgrim does not usually have a return ticket. The American pilgrim puts his thumb out and just goes…
We have the freedom to do that, and the faith. Faith and freedom are an intoxicating mixture, and a rare combination even in these days when democracy is, allegedly, on the march.
So let’s celebrate that naïve faith we all share, whatever our circumstances, and celebrate as well the factors that have brought us together in this historic community.
Forget Plymouthian. Let’s call each other pilgrim, and let’s do it with that cocky, John Wayne west-coast drawl, moving toward each other, hands outstretched, and with the stiff-hipped gait of someone who has been a bit too long in the saddle.
Repeat after me, “Howdy, Pilgrim.”
And let’s all make a point to respect our friends in neighboring communities, by referring to them by the names they have chosen: Carverites, Kingstonians, Warehamalians, Bourneolians, Sandwichidoridians, and Foul Mouthians.
It’s the least we can do.
To my ear that term sounds like something taken from one of my son’s Art History books (..the façade of the Parthenon is covered in vertical Plymouthian columns), or something out of a B-Movie of the Fifties (Invasion of the Plymouthian Arthropods).
Speaking of films, if I am going to refer to local residents by one name I prefer the affectionate term used by John Wayne, describing Jimmy Stewart’s character, in “The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance”.
Screenwriter Willis Goldbeck used the word to describe a character who was both an idealist and, perhaps, a bit naive –which I think is a good description of many of the residents of this town (myself included).
The term? Why “Pilgrim”, of course.
It might be argued that we are not all pilgrims in 21st Century Plymouth, at least not in the dictionary sense: “a person journeying to a sacred place.” But here on this historic coast – in a town founded by pilgrims -in the strict dictionary sense of that word, and in a country that still believes in the myth of the eternal pioneer, is there a better or more affectionate term to apply to one another?
And Goldbeck’s use of the word pilgrim, was again, not limited to the dictionary definition: in fact in the film John Wayne seemed to use the term with an awareness of the mix of respect and amusement that most modern-day Americans feel toward those first boatloads of Bradfords and Howlands and Allertons.
Those first settlers were after all, a bit unprepared for what lay ahead. In fact our ‘pilgrims’ really had no clear sense of where they were going, and how they would manage to survive.
Imagine the conversation that perhaps, a father back in Holland had with his son, hearing that he intended to head over to the new world.
“Where is it, exactly, that you are going?”
“To Myles’ place in Virginia.”
“And are his parents going to be there?”
“Well, no, but they are planning to come over on a later boat”.
“And what are you going to be doing?”
“Starting a new colony”.
There is a certain desperation that we associate with the American ‘pilgrim’, and rightly so. In the traditional sense a pilgrim is someone who goes on a sacred voyage and then, it is implied, after they get to their destination, turn around and head right back to their normal life. For most of history pilgrimages were a kind of ‘dream vacation’: a chance to get out of the muddy field, buy a few sacred snow globes, and see what lay beyond the hill. But the American pilgrim does not usually have a return ticket. The American pilgrim puts his thumb out and just goes…
We have the freedom to do that, and the faith. Faith and freedom are an intoxicating mixture, and a rare combination even in these days when democracy is, allegedly, on the march.
So let’s celebrate that naïve faith we all share, whatever our circumstances, and celebrate as well the factors that have brought us together in this historic community.
Forget Plymouthian. Let’s call each other pilgrim, and let’s do it with that cocky, John Wayne west-coast drawl, moving toward each other, hands outstretched, and with the stiff-hipped gait of someone who has been a bit too long in the saddle.
Repeat after me, “Howdy, Pilgrim.”
And let’s all make a point to respect our friends in neighboring communities, by referring to them by the names they have chosen: Carverites, Kingstonians, Warehamalians, Bourneolians, Sandwichidoridians, and Foul Mouthians.
It’s the least we can do.
Tuesday, May 31, 2005
Baseball, hot dogs, and a working knowledge of meteorology
It has come to my attention that parents are dropping off their kids at the Little League fields in town without the proper equipment or preparation.
Given the mobility of the modern family it is certainly possible that many of you aren’t from ‘these parts’, and so are unaware of how the game is played in New England.
So, as an experienced Little League administrator and parent, I thought I would use my column this week to inform you of some basic ‘truths’, and perhaps run down the list of equipment and special rules that make baseball in this area so.. well, unique.
First, metal cleats are against the rules, for safety reasons. If you want to have the latest foot ware for your young ballplayer I suggest the LL Bean combination baseball shoe and wader. It keeps the youngsters feet dry, even when standing in base path water up to their thighs, and provides remarkable traction rounding second.
Insulated jackets or fleece pullovers should not be worn on the field. During games the official team jersey must be on the outside of any other clothing, and tucked in to baseball pants. This helps teams differentiate each other on the field, and guards against the ball disappearing in to a fold of clothing. Ask the coach for a shirt three-times as large as you need, so you can comfortably fit the thermal underwear and sweatshirt underneath.
Your young ball player should also never go to the field without a copy of the ‘Little League Guide to Basic Meteorology’. This wonderfully concise little book gives even the youngest player an understanding of the basic kinds of weather they can expect to confront on the field, and how that weather impacts play.
Low hanging clouds, fog, impenetrable mists, and hail are not officially recognized by the manual as ‘weather’. Instead, think of those phenomena as you would dust: annoying yes, but not an impediment to play.
Snow, sleet, acid rain, cats & dogs, frogs, locust, and any other of the Seven Plagues of Egypt are officially recognized as weather, but are not a guarantee of postponement. The standard rule of thumb when confronted by these conditions on the day of a game is to go to the field and wait for an announcement. In New England a forecast of rain throughout the day will often turn out just to be intermittent showers –punctuated by lightning, the glow from which can really brighten up a ball field.
Parents of players should also go to the park with the expectation that they will be needed to help prepare the field prior to a game. Don’t wait to be asked! Bring your own wheelbarrow, shovel, and kitty litter (a great drying agent!) and pick out a particularly muddy or snow-covered section of the infield to work on.
Do not, under any circumstances, make mud caricatures of the opposing team’s coaching staff, as this can often delay the start of the game.
Many parents and coaches alike have asked me for an easy way to determine if, after inclement weather, a field is suitable for play. Simple: if a player can walk the entire base path from home plate to home plate, without becoming lost or having one or more pieces of clothing sucked off by the mud, ‘Play Ball!’.
Yes, yes, I know, they do things differently where you come from. But you’re in New England now. We invented the game. In fact, we invented basketball and volleyball too.
You may think it’s crazy to play in these kinds of conditions, but after being stuck in our cabins for six months, being crazy outdoors seems less crazy by far.
Given the mobility of the modern family it is certainly possible that many of you aren’t from ‘these parts’, and so are unaware of how the game is played in New England.
So, as an experienced Little League administrator and parent, I thought I would use my column this week to inform you of some basic ‘truths’, and perhaps run down the list of equipment and special rules that make baseball in this area so.. well, unique.
First, metal cleats are against the rules, for safety reasons. If you want to have the latest foot ware for your young ballplayer I suggest the LL Bean combination baseball shoe and wader. It keeps the youngsters feet dry, even when standing in base path water up to their thighs, and provides remarkable traction rounding second.
Insulated jackets or fleece pullovers should not be worn on the field. During games the official team jersey must be on the outside of any other clothing, and tucked in to baseball pants. This helps teams differentiate each other on the field, and guards against the ball disappearing in to a fold of clothing. Ask the coach for a shirt three-times as large as you need, so you can comfortably fit the thermal underwear and sweatshirt underneath.
Your young ball player should also never go to the field without a copy of the ‘Little League Guide to Basic Meteorology’. This wonderfully concise little book gives even the youngest player an understanding of the basic kinds of weather they can expect to confront on the field, and how that weather impacts play.
Low hanging clouds, fog, impenetrable mists, and hail are not officially recognized by the manual as ‘weather’. Instead, think of those phenomena as you would dust: annoying yes, but not an impediment to play.
Snow, sleet, acid rain, cats & dogs, frogs, locust, and any other of the Seven Plagues of Egypt are officially recognized as weather, but are not a guarantee of postponement. The standard rule of thumb when confronted by these conditions on the day of a game is to go to the field and wait for an announcement. In New England a forecast of rain throughout the day will often turn out just to be intermittent showers –punctuated by lightning, the glow from which can really brighten up a ball field.
Parents of players should also go to the park with the expectation that they will be needed to help prepare the field prior to a game. Don’t wait to be asked! Bring your own wheelbarrow, shovel, and kitty litter (a great drying agent!) and pick out a particularly muddy or snow-covered section of the infield to work on.
Do not, under any circumstances, make mud caricatures of the opposing team’s coaching staff, as this can often delay the start of the game.
Many parents and coaches alike have asked me for an easy way to determine if, after inclement weather, a field is suitable for play. Simple: if a player can walk the entire base path from home plate to home plate, without becoming lost or having one or more pieces of clothing sucked off by the mud, ‘Play Ball!’.
Yes, yes, I know, they do things differently where you come from. But you’re in New England now. We invented the game. In fact, we invented basketball and volleyball too.
You may think it’s crazy to play in these kinds of conditions, but after being stuck in our cabins for six months, being crazy outdoors seems less crazy by far.
Monday, May 23, 2005
The Thatched Roof Party
NML051905-1
The Scarlet “V”
The results are in: and after a long and scientifically rigorous analysis of the raw data I feel comfortable in ignoring the facts and saying that the news is, well, confusing.
Nothing, it is abundantly clear, is abundantly clear. Or should I say that it is abundantly clear that nothing is abundantly clear?
Nevertheless, a lack of clarity has never stopped me before, so here are my observations:
The override referendum was soundly defeated
-but one of the leaders of the naysayers didn’t make the cut
Teacher’s jobs are still on the line
-but word from the State House is that more cash is on the way. How much is not, at least at this time, abundantly clear.
It is official; Town Meeting has decreed that the Selectmen are over-compensated for their efforts
-then again, later Town Meeting officially asserted that they are not; then again they are, then again..
It is not true –my sources indicate, that Dramamine is given out to all town meeting members.
Here are my conclusions:
Hey hey, hey ho, the status quo has got to go
-just not yet.
“Put it on the Ballot” failed as a campaign slogan
-but then, to be fair, it hasn’t been fully tested.
We need to have a ballot referendum on the question of whether voters approve of the concept of ‘Put It on the Ballot” and so I propose that we put it on the ballot and see what the people think.
Then again, what the average ‘pilgrim’ thinks is still not clear, given the fact that 75% of the town’s registered voters were too busy thatching their roofs on Election Day to make it to the polls.
My sources indicate however, that there is a disparity between the actual number of thatched roofs in town (which according to the Building Department is 12) and the number of voters who never made it off their ladders in time to vote.
Do the 25% of registered voters who did manage to cast a vote speak for the entire town?
If not, what part of the town do they speak for? (The thatched roof section?)
If so, they’re going to need to speak up: I can’t hear them way down here in the village of South Plymouth.
I propose that the town establish an award to be given to the ‘village’ with the highest turnout on Election Day (as a percentage of registered voters).
How embarrassing would it be if the model ‘village’ of Pinehills won that award?
I also propose that –in deference to our pilgrim forefathers, anyone who can’t manage to vote in a local election (or come up with a better excuse than that they were thatching their roof) should have to put on a long skirt or pumpkin pants, and a heavy polyester puffy shirt embroidered with a scarlet “V”, and climb up on one of those rickety wooden ladders so they can actually thatch some roofs –at the Plimoth Plantation, in late July.
Then again, maybe we should put that on the ballot.
(You know, come to think of it, maybe there should be some additional incentives to get people out to the polls. My family has always taken advantage of the fact that the Plimoth Plantation offers free admissions to residents of the town, and has politely declined when the Plantation asks us to make an additional donation. But I do appreciate the value of their presence in town. What if the Plantation were allowed to discriminate between town residents who vote, and those who don’t? What if they could charge an admission fee for residents who did not take their civic responsibility as seriously as others? It would seem to be a ‘lesson’ that could be incorporated in the Plantation’s educational mission. )
The Scarlet “V”
The results are in: and after a long and scientifically rigorous analysis of the raw data I feel comfortable in ignoring the facts and saying that the news is, well, confusing.
Nothing, it is abundantly clear, is abundantly clear. Or should I say that it is abundantly clear that nothing is abundantly clear?
Nevertheless, a lack of clarity has never stopped me before, so here are my observations:
The override referendum was soundly defeated
-but one of the leaders of the naysayers didn’t make the cut
Teacher’s jobs are still on the line
-but word from the State House is that more cash is on the way. How much is not, at least at this time, abundantly clear.
It is official; Town Meeting has decreed that the Selectmen are over-compensated for their efforts
-then again, later Town Meeting officially asserted that they are not; then again they are, then again..
It is not true –my sources indicate, that Dramamine is given out to all town meeting members.
Here are my conclusions:
Hey hey, hey ho, the status quo has got to go
-just not yet.
“Put it on the Ballot” failed as a campaign slogan
-but then, to be fair, it hasn’t been fully tested.
We need to have a ballot referendum on the question of whether voters approve of the concept of ‘Put It on the Ballot” and so I propose that we put it on the ballot and see what the people think.
Then again, what the average ‘pilgrim’ thinks is still not clear, given the fact that 75% of the town’s registered voters were too busy thatching their roofs on Election Day to make it to the polls.
My sources indicate however, that there is a disparity between the actual number of thatched roofs in town (which according to the Building Department is 12) and the number of voters who never made it off their ladders in time to vote.
Do the 25% of registered voters who did manage to cast a vote speak for the entire town?
If not, what part of the town do they speak for? (The thatched roof section?)
If so, they’re going to need to speak up: I can’t hear them way down here in the village of South Plymouth.
I propose that the town establish an award to be given to the ‘village’ with the highest turnout on Election Day (as a percentage of registered voters).
How embarrassing would it be if the model ‘village’ of Pinehills won that award?
I also propose that –in deference to our pilgrim forefathers, anyone who can’t manage to vote in a local election (or come up with a better excuse than that they were thatching their roof) should have to put on a long skirt or pumpkin pants, and a heavy polyester puffy shirt embroidered with a scarlet “V”, and climb up on one of those rickety wooden ladders so they can actually thatch some roofs –at the Plimoth Plantation, in late July.
Then again, maybe we should put that on the ballot.
(You know, come to think of it, maybe there should be some additional incentives to get people out to the polls. My family has always taken advantage of the fact that the Plimoth Plantation offers free admissions to residents of the town, and has politely declined when the Plantation asks us to make an additional donation. But I do appreciate the value of their presence in town. What if the Plantation were allowed to discriminate between town residents who vote, and those who don’t? What if they could charge an admission fee for residents who did not take their civic responsibility as seriously as others? It would seem to be a ‘lesson’ that could be incorporated in the Plantation’s educational mission. )
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