West-isms. In Memory of Edward C. West

West-isms. Things I learned in the 'Special'
In the 1970's I used to hang around with my friends  Glenn and Scott West. Yes, they are brothers, and yes, one of their ancestors is the reason where we lived was named West Island. I don't think I ever believed that then but I do now.

We used to ride around in Glenn's blue '65 Buick Special. Gasoline was about 55 cents a gallon then and a handful of change was enough to actually get somewhere and back. Since the 'Special was a V6 it was better on gas consumption than the V-8's of the time. Those Buick V-6's would sound like a sewing machine when they ran, 'tack'tack'tack'tack. Glenn used to quote a Timex watch commercial from the time starring John Cameron Swayze, Takes a lickin', keeps on ticking" to describe the car's engine.

We used to 'cruise' almost every weekend night until we ran out of gas money or Glenn got tired of driving. Sometimes Scott drove too.
When we couldn't figure out where we wanted to go, The Ave, Route 88, back roads of Dartmouth, Route 105, it came down to how much gas was available for the night. On nights when it wasn't a concern, it was back roads. Not much gas, it was the Avenue. You see the logic was this, even though a car gets better mileage on highways or backroads, the gas lasts longer in the city because you're driving turtle-assed slow or idling in traffic. You get more hours per gallon in the city!

On the rides one of the brothers would bring up tips they learned from their Dad. Like, when you hit a pot hole or a break in the pavement, like where a newly paved portion of road ends and there's a bump, don't hit the brakes, it will cause the drums to go out of round. Back then nearly all cars had rear drum brakes. The out of round condition will create a 'pulse' in the brake pedal. Since few cars have drum brakes, even in the rear, it won't cause the out of round problem. But it can cause a wheel to lock up and cause a skid, unless you have ALBs (Anti Lock Brakes). I still react to this day on bumps and potholes by easing up on the brake pedal.

Glenn had this fantastic habit of making square left turn. Drive right up to the center of the intersection and crank the wheel hard and let it return to neutral steering. It was way we were taught in driving school. Most people today make more a transient turn, cutting over the center line which is in reality, driving sloppy.

Another one from their Dad was don't turn the wheel while stopped. If you're parallel parking turn the wheel before you fully stop. It puts less pressure on the power steering pump and belt.

Looking good. When you roll the windows down only part way, make sure the front and rear windows are even. It allows the cars lines to appear more balanced. The image below shows what I mean.

I seem to remember a sort of game Scott and Glenn played while driving too. The object was to not hit any of the manhole covers on a certain route. Mostly Sconticut Neck road. Avoiding sudden movements while missing imperfections in the road surface gave a smoother ride and the better the ride the better the driver. I recall some discussions between the two over hits and misses.

Everything was done in fun. And an effort to avoid Boredom. But that's another story in itself.

Chasing Rainbows

I  had one of those days yesterday. You know the kind. Everything just seemed to get worse as the day went on.
It started when I got up and found the cable and Internet was shut off. It's happened enough times that I know it's not the end of the world. Just the start to a boring day. Then the clothes dyer quit. It spins but doesn't heat. Believe it or not every sock of mine was in that wet load of clothes. And my bed sheet. The only one. I put the sheet and pillow case on a rocker to dry.

Then I noticed the cat was limping. I checked him out and found a couple of puncture wounds on his neck and leg. Animal bites are nasty with infection. He's on the last month of his 6 month quarantine from the last infection. And he had been confined before that, in January and on the last month he developed an infection. So technically he's been under quarantine all year. If I brought him to the vet there would be a $500 fine for breaking quarantine and possibly having to put him to sleep. Not because he's sick. Just because the law says so.
I knew I still had some amoxycillin drops left over from the last time. It's a cinch I thought, 10 days of drops, 3 times a day and he'll be tip top again. Unfortunately the drops, even though refrigerated turned discolored. If I had an Internet connection I could find out whether or not they were still usable.

Since I had nothing to entertain me I decided to watch a DVD and picked Avatar. I had already watched it about 3 months ago and wasn't impressed. The animation is fabulous, the backgrounds amazing but I had problems with the story. I enjoyed it more this time and probably will watch it again.

About that time I decided it was time to get some Seagram's. As I headed up Dogwood street I saw the sky was unusually angry looking and it was beginning to rain. Looking west there were those puffy white clouds I call anvils. They seem to rise and then spread out horizontally and flat on top. To me these signal a major weather event. Under the anvils there were horizontally streaked clouds with the sun reaching past them. It was like a spectacular sunset hours before the sun was ready to set. I was transfixed on this scene until I reached Hoppy's Landing and noticed a rainbow in the north.

I imagine the fact that the sky was so ominous to me had to do with the fact that I had spent the  last two hours watching a fantasy planet being destroyed by humongous Mechs and Scorpions.

Coming out of the dark clouds the bands of the rainbow seemed to point directly to a sunny spot in Mattapoisett between Brandt Island and Gellete road. It was spectacular. Looking east I found the other end of the rainbow coming out of the overhead clouds and reaching out to Falmouth.

The beautiful sun drenched rainbow's end in Mattapoisett seemed to call to me and I headed up the Neck for Route 6 east. It was a good decision because the sun streaming through the streaked clouds was so intense drivers going towards Fairhaven could barely see due to sun glare. I moseyed on down toward Ned's Light and kept the rainbow in my sights. The big rain clouds from Dogwood street were following me. A rain cloud over my head wherever I went seemed appropriate considering the day I was having.

For some reason I turned away from Ned's Light before I reached the last road there and headed towards Marion. Now both ends of the rainbow were visible and I saw the entire arc. I don't think I have ever seen such a perfect rainbow and I am certain I have never seen on that lasted so long.

Marion was very dark now that I brought my rain cloud into town and I was having trouble seeing with my smoked aviators on. I started thinking of having to euthanize my cat. I really couldn't conceive that and got a little choked up and to had to put it out of my mind.

I ambled down Converse road following the arc of light. I wondered if rainbows were the 'rays of light from the heavens' that so many ancient stories talk about that deliver a miracle to the Earth's people. The radio played Edgar Winter's Frankenstein. Next, I howled to Werewolves of London. When The Monster Mash came on I suddenly realized I haven't seen any Halloween decorations in Marion.  Every house and lawn looked perfect. Like in the Stepford Wives. Hmmm, would that make the wives in this town 'Marionettes'? I got a bit of a chuckle out of that and headed back to Route I-195 and by now the clouds over Bristol County had parted and switched into a normal sunset routine.

So what's the punchline. I really don't know. I got home, gave the cat the discolored amoxicillin and ate pumpkin donuts from Market Basket. I put the dried sheet on my bed and we both took a nap and waited for another day.

The Midlife Chrysler and TV Babes

Well, I thought mid life crisis cars were always red. I really don't feel like I'm having a midlife crisis. Actually I have had so many crisis, from near death experiences, getting hit  by lightening and PTSS (Post Tramatic Stress Syndrome) I guess this one is minor.

But I LOVE my Chrsler Sebring Convertible. I've gotten so many compliments at drive thru windows, Walgreens, Burger King and Dunkin Donuts. As well as people on the street. My cowboy hat and dashboard Hula-girl just complement the deal.

Wait until I get my vanity plate, CBRING, it'll seal the deal.

As for TV babes I don'yt know what it is but they're so damn alluring. Take for instance Annie Little. Never heard of her? I'll bet you've seen her. On the Amazon Kindle commercials. She sings "Take me away, my love." The song on the commercial, you know the one where they use stop motion, and dress her as an aviator among other costumes. She's hot! Mybe it's because they never give you enough of her. What I mean is they leave wanting to see more of her.

Well I guess that's not so for "Flo" the Progressive commercial woman. She's so damned cut and her voice is so sweet. And you can tell she has a great sense of humor. How about Alexandra Steele on the Weather Channel. Weather babe to the max! She even has a name like a porn star. I sensed a  lot of competition between her and Heather Tesh. They have since separated the two.
Megan Kelly on FOX News channel. Major Babe! Most of the woman on that channel have the best legs and give you a glimpse or two.

Maybe it's that inside I know they're unobtainable. I seem to want the unreachable more than what's right in front of me.
Well, maybe someday I can find a hot weather babe who can forecast the great days for us to go for a ride to get clam cakes. Until then I'll keep watching the Weather Channel and Fox news.

Clam Cake Nirvana: Update

This clam cake research is harder than I thought. After about 6 samplings I realized that it's nearly impossible to declare one clam cake the best of all rest. Each clam cake recipe has is unique and has points all it's own. Evelyn's Nanaquaket Pond Drive Inwas given a second chance and I found it to be better the second time around. For $4 I got 4 cakes and a bowl of chowder. It was a thin chowder, the Rhode Island type. Not New England, the creamy type nor the sacrilegious red New York chowder. OK, some NY chowders are good but I like the other 2 types better.

Evelyn's $4 combo is great. I added a quahog and found it to be one of the best Quags I have ever had, really!
Flo's Drive In in nearby Portsmouth, RI  has clam cakes with a style all their own. More fluffy and less clams but still very good.
The Country Whip in Acushnet has a tasty clam cake too. I ordered a quahog there and was surprised to get it in a round plastic container like Chinese take out sauces come in. Not bad either.
The Cool Cone in Wareham, MA has a good recipe too along with their quahog, even though they weren't tops on the list they are worth a visit.
Gene's Seafood in Fairhaven has a style more like Flo's and are good if they haven't been sitting under the heat lamp.
The Seafood Hut in Acushnet is near the top and is the closest to home.
Down the Hatch's clam cakes are good but a bit pricey at double the average cost.
Hugo's in Freetown, MA was the top in the early stages of this sampling and I may have to go back and re-evaluate the cakes ;)
Well I think that's all my reviews. Sorry it isn't more detailed with prices and menu lists. But the point of this have proven that clam cakes are a great road food and most of the places I sampled were worth the drive, if not just for the scenery.  If you have a favorite place that I have missed give me a shout!

In Search of Clamcake Nirvava

I had an idea some time ago to find the best clam cakes in the area and keep a log of the bivalve biopsies.

In an instance of utter spontaneity I decided to start with 'The Sea Food Hut'. Located at 2 South Main street they are located right on the Fairhaven/Acushnet town line. This is the typical New England snack shack defined. You order from outside the window of the small building. The parking lot is best described as 'small'. About 6 parking spaces small but don't let theat deter you. The Sea Food Hut offers all manner of fries delicacies, clam cakes, fries, onion rings, fried clams, scallops and fish to name just a smidgen. I have had their fish and chips in the past which were lightly battered, not quite like the traditional English fish and chips which have a heavy batter. This day though I was on the hunt for clam cakes. More commonly known in other parts of the country as fritters clam cakes deserve to be in a class of there own.

I ordered only a half dozen, since I have tried to lose weight this year and have lost about 15 pounds over a little more than 2 months. This is a tough job, but somebody has to do  it. These were cooked to order and of course there's a short wait until your number is called. I had a seat at one of the 2 picnic tables there and watch the traffic flow through the intersection of Main street and Alden road. When my order came up I helped myself to a couple of squirts from the bottle of vinegar on the counter and decide to head out Main street into the Acushnet back country since it was a beautiful top down day.

Their clam cakes were GOOD. Really good. Nicely cooked to a golden color and not greasy. I don't remember any pieces of clam in them but I didn't mind at all. In a short time, just a few miles, all 6 clam cakes were GONE. Clam cakes aren't like fries or onion rings, when the box is empty there aren't any that fell to the bottom of the bag. I still craved more cakes.

I kept driving through Acushnet into Rochester and then to Freetown when I suddenly remembered another tiny clam shack on (50) Middleboro road in that town. Hugo's is about the same size as Seafood Hut, maybe smaller. A dirt lot offers plenty of parking and has either a tiny grandstand or a seasonal plant display stand. I think it's for sports teams to pose for pictures while having ice cream. Neat idea. I ordered another half dozen cakes and sat and read their sizeable menu. In a couple of minutes the guy inside cooking told me he made a mistake and dropped a dozen in the fryer by mistake. Would I like the whole 12? Hell ya'! When they were done I offered him the extra $2 for the large order but he declined, so I left it in the tip cup.

I headed South on Middleboro road towards Sassaquin pond in the far north end of New Bedford. I took a look at my first cake from this batch and was surprised. The were a little darker then the previous batch from the Seafood Hut. Little bumps and ends were nicely browned and they reminded me of the Holy Grail of clam cakes. Mc Cray's. Though long gone several restaurants have offered 'Mc Cray's' style clam cakes and fried clams. I took a bite and indeed, they were about the closest to Mc Cray's cakes I have had. Even better than the former Mc Cray's II in Tiverton, RI. The middles were a little doughy, but that was fine with me. And clams! Each one had real clams. Real clams have real clam necks, so be forewarned, some bites can be chewy. These were a little saltier than the Acushnet batch but not overly so. My intention was to eat 6 cakes and bring the remaining 6 home. But they were so good I ate all 12. Yep, that was on top of the first 6, so I ate 18 clam cakes that day. I swear that Hugo's were so good I had no choice.

Today I found myself craving something fried and decided to try Evelyns Drive In in Little Compton, RI. Set on the Sakonnet river, not far from the Old Stone Bridge there is large dirt parking lot, plenty of picnic tables and an indoor dining room. A nice spot to sit awhile.  I got my order quickly. So I assume they cook batches at a time and sit under the warmer, or I just had good timing. These were nice light inside and a little chewy, in a soft way. A very nice chewy. I didn't find any clams in them but these were not greasy and very good. The 6 were gone in a few minutes as I  headed south on Main road, Route 77, an excellent scenic drive.

So...this is the tally, Hugo's is definitely number 1, The Seafood Hut is a close second and Evelyn's is a tight third. Even though I haven't tried Gen's Seafood's clam cakes in quite awhile I giving them a distant 4th. Some day I'll try one just to confirm my rating.
Flo's (Closed Hurricanes) on the beach in Portsmouth, RI will be tried next. They are a different class, more cakey.
So there you have it, the Great Clam Cake Search. If you have any suggestions drop me a line.

Summer Re-run Time

Well it's that time of year again. If you live on the Island you know what I'm talking about. Fog. And with the June fog comes, gasp!

The Lady In White!

If you have never heard the legend, read on.

As far as ghost stories about West Island go, this one is the oldest I know of, going back to the early 1970's.


The story is known as " The Woman in White" or "The Lady in White." I know of several people who were there the night she emerged from the waters at the West Island Town Beach.

She first appeared in the 1960's and usually appears around the beginning of June, mostly on foggy nights.

The largest group to witness her was in 1971 or 1972 when she appeared during a Fairhaven High Class party on the east side beach known as Crescent Beach. She walked down Crescent Beach from Monastery Rock, barely noticed at first. When she reached the small dirt road connecting the parking lot and and the beach some of the group began to see her, not giving much thought to her presence. What gave them concern was the fact that those who saw the sight said that she was visible if you didn't look directly at her, and if you turned towards her she vanished. As you turned away she would reappear, continuing on her pilgrimage.

Wearing all white, she was dressed in a flowing sort of robe. Supposedly she drowned, or WAS drowned at Crescent beach and would leave the scene of her demise (the sea), perhaps in search of her lover who committed the foul act. The appearances occur sometime in the first few days of June, right around sunset on a foggy night.

There is also the supposed Marsh Men who appear farther down towards Bass Creek in the marsh between Monastery Woods and the woods on the West side of the marsh. They travel back and forth between the two woods toiling away the night. It has never been known why they carry out their tasks or what they were carrying, if anything, and which way they were moving their goods, east to west or west to east, as no one was ever successful in sneaking up close enough. They can be seen on any random night in the summer as dimly glowing silhouettes when the fog rising up through the marsh grass cloaks their endless drudging, back and forth and if you get close enough, you can hear their feet sloshing through the mud.

http://home.comcast.net/~nokatay/westisland/Ghost_Stories.htm

Blue Suede Signs

I guess this is sort of a rant. If you live in the town of Fairhaven you probably have noticed the new blue street signs. I'm color blind but I KNOW these signs are blue! Vivid blue I guess. Now I'm not complaining about the color, I think it's very visible. The thing that has my nuts torqued is WHY.

Maybe I'm missing something but the most important issues in town have been the budget and whether or not the middle school should mandate uniforms. The uniform issue seems to have the town divided. I've seen a mini van parked at Wood School with a big placard in the windshield declaring "no" on the issue. Personally I think it's a good idea.

"Sign, sign, everywhere a sign. Blocking out the scenery and breaking my mind. Do this, don't do that. Can't you read the signs?", Five Man Electric Band.

Actually I love signs. I developed an appreciation for them when I worked at Poyant's Sign, as a color blind sign painter, mind you. My problem is, why replace nearly every street sign in town when the money could have been spent more wisely elsewhere? I know the fabrication of these signs and the installation of them, some with new poles, isn't cheap. Was this some sort of Homeland Security grant? I suppose it would help terrorists find their way, so that doesn't make sense to me.I could understand replacing missing or damaged street signs with new ones, but if the new ones were blue and the old ones are green it would be kinda' ugly.

My other concern is that they have been installed too low. They can be reached by a reasonably tall person or a couple of drunken teens with one on the shoulder of the other. I know the latter method works for pilfering traffic signs from experience. I still have a vintage 25 MPH speed limit sign, the old kind with highly embossed raised letters. I once scored a 6 foot high, orange 'Construction Ahead' sign from the causeway when it was rebuilt about 1977. Keep in mind I was about 4'9" at the time, lugging it home and up to my room was almost as hard as trying to explain to my mother as to how I came about to posess such an item.

I predict that the sign announcing the beginning of Goulart Memorial drive and the accompanying 'West Island' sign will disappear before the Fall, if not by September. And no, I will not have any part of it's demise. They have been historically stolen as mementos of a Summer vacation here or by college students renting a house here. I do believe that at one time, many years ago the West Island sign had been removed by residents wishing to keep the Island a secret. "Sssshhhhh!"

Well that's my take on the new true blue signs. Maybe I'll find out if the town is selling the old green ones. I  would like a 'Dogwood st' or a 'Nakata ave' sign. Buying one should be easier than trying to steal one.