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.

Bringing The Sebring To The Seaside

After a frustrating search I have found a car to love! A 1998 Chrysler Sebring convertible, white with tan leather seats, power drivers side of course, and tan top. The stereo is a factory installed Infinity am/fm/cassette/cd player, amplifier and 6 speakers. It cranks. Great for top down highway cruising. What wind noise? I like the outside temp indicator with digital compass and trip computer displaying instant and average miles per gallon fuel consumption.

Originally I set a budget of $1500 and soon realised it was much too low. So I upped it to 2 grand. It was still kind of iffy to the vehicles available for the money. Most needed small things, like an transmission or engine. Then I happened on a green Sebring convertible in Plymouth, MA. If  the seller is in America's home time town must be trustworthy, right? Wrong. After showing up at the dealer to view the vehicle shown on his website I was informed that it was "being detailed". Ok, I can wait the 3 days. This time I called and was told the car would be back in 2 days. The next call I was told in a day and half. I decided to wait 2 days and when I called I was told it came in Friday night and was sold Saturday morning. So much for promises to call.

I then viewed a white Sebring in Randolph and went to see a white one Braintree, MA. The car in Braintree had been moved to Whitman I was told after being assured over the phone it was "there all day". I found the car in Whitman and I was as disappointed as I was in the one Randolph. I came home and the next day found a new listing for a white one in Warwick, RI. Emails were exchanged and finally I had found a man of his word. The deal was made and I got the car. Yay!

I have been driving through the back roads of Westport and Dartmouth, Swansea and Dighton, Marion and Buzzards Bay. Along the way I have been discovering road side art. I find them amazing pieces of Americana. For nearly 20 years I have had an idea for a magazine dedicated to the enjoyment of driving. I'd hoped to appeal to drivers of cars, motorcycles and trucks. Articles of a particular route traveled, say Routes 6 and 6A along Cape Cod were my target. Descriptions of sights along the way, areas to avoid and maybe a restaurant review too. I had an idea of a running topic of say, the best Hot Dogs or Quahogs found along the way. Originally I imagined a monthly distributed in a format such as the Neighborhood News. With the advancements in the web a webzine now makes more sense. My title for the publication was Mass Touring.

Now that I have a great vehicle for the 'research' and a new enough computer to make it a reality I just might. The Sebring fits the bill perfectly. 

She's a beauty. Only needs a swaying Hula Girl on the dash. I'd like to keep 'Ronald', the red Jeep and make it road worthy in time. But today the sun is shining and I hear the road calling. I don't have a destination but that doesn't matter when the top is down.

You Ain't Nothing But A Hound Dog/Jailhouse Rock

Let's see, how long is the statute of limitations good for? Well anyways, one of my favorite stories of adventure and bad decisions takes place in the summer of '77. I was 16 years old. I had spent a couple of weeks in Illinois at my sisters Carol’s house. My niece Sherry, who was also 16 drove a cranberry 1969 Mach 1 with a 390 cubic inch motor. The roads out there were pretty flat and straight compared to New England and we spent a few nights running that Mustang pretty hard down those roads along the corn fields.

When I got back home it was the same old dull summer days stuck without a car and it seemed there wasn't much to do here. I needed a new Carter Thermo Quad carb for my 1972 Dodge Challenger and lacked the cash to get it so I was pretty much Island bound. One night we all got some beers and I had a 6 pack of 16 oz Haffenraffer malt liquor. Everyone else had gone home around 11 o'clock and I was sitting there by myself on top of one of the boulders that were behind home base at the old ball field. Somewhere in the middle of the 5th beer I decided I was going back to Illinois, right then! Since my car was down I took my Dad's '63 Impala 4 door with the 6 cylinder. I left a note at my friend Stacey's house, it was cryptically written in crayon on a piece of a brown paper bag, that's all I could find in the Chevy. The note said that I was going to Illinois by myself Long with the note was 3 cigarettes. Her mother found the note in the morning and gave it to her.

So I was off with my dog Presley, no he wasn't a hound dog, part German Shepard and pit bull but he didn’t look like either. The gas tank was low so I filled it up at a station at the highway on ramp and since I spend my last bucks on the beer I drove off without paying. I only made it about 15 miles down the highway when some state troopers spooked me and thinking they were after me for stealing gas I started for the back roads. Only about 1200 miles to go! Well I soon got lost with it being dark, not knowing the area and me being drunk. I was going down a road when a stop sign appeared and I stopped kind of late and slid a little on some sand at the intersection. There happened to be a local police car going by and he yelled something simple to me.

Keep in mind this was shortly after me seeing Dirty Mary, Crazy Larry and Vanishing Point! Well that was all I needed and off I went! Where I was going wasn't clear but I wound that ole Chevy up and found out it only did 65 mph! What the hell? Damn that old boat didn't turn like my Dodge either. Talk about under steer and body roll! Presley could have told you about that as he was being thrown all around the car's interior. I soon realized through the malt liquor haze that there was no way I was going to out run these guys so I made some turns and suddenly ended up on a dead end road that was literally boxed in with chain link fence.

Nowhere to run to, baby
Nowhere to hide
Got nowhere to run to, baby
Nowhere to hide
by Martha and the Vandellas wasn’t playing on that old AM radio, but it should have been. I didn't try to run, I was feeling pretty stupid about then, or maybe it was fear. Fear mainly what my Dad was gonna do when he got ahold of me.

The cops got me out and made me lay on the trunk of the car while they searched me for weapons like a machine gun or a bazooka. They were also trying to figure what the hell I was trying to get away from. When I started spouting off how I would of got away if I had my Challenger and all they would of seen were taillights because the top end on that car...
Ow!!! Suddenly I found out those big black flashlights could shed light in more ways than one. Yes, I did see the light now. They were twinkling all over inside my head. The lump forming on the back of my noggin must have held a rear projection tv that was showing the opening credits from Star Wars because I could see alot of stars. As Ron "Tater Salad" White from Blue Collar Comedy say, "I had the right to remain silent, but I didn't have the means."

So away we all went to the Swansea police station for the night. One of the eagle-eyed cops noticed my leather belt had pot leaves tooled into it and it it didn't take long before he noticed my belt buckle was made from a pot pipe. In the morning I was arraigned and released to my parents, minus my belt buckle. Judge Stack, who was presiding over the bench in Taunton District court happened to live at the end of Cottonwood street. The one and same judge who’s front yard I had previously ripped up with my dirt bike one day. Talk about stupidity AND bad luck!

We were about half way home riding in thick silence and I blurted out "What about Presley?" My Mom asked "What do you mean?" I explained he was with me when I got arrested and he got arrested too, I guess, because when they took me to court in the morning he was in the next cell sitting on a bed of straw and looking pretty much ashamed for both of us. Well that ended the silence, let me tell you. They brought me home with STRICT instructions not to leave my room while they went to bail out Presley.

My bed was feeling pretty good at that time anyways, what with the hangover and the "life's lesson" throbbing on the back of my head. I managed to get out of the house a couple of days later, but had to be home by dark though! Quite a deal I thought from the original grounded for life. I got to tell the story to Stacey and my friends. Since I was about the only one with a dirt bike on the island I already had a reputation as being a little south of sane. Think about it, blood red Challenger, Hodaka Wombat (that's a 125 cc dirt bike, they had the stainless steel tanks), not the guy parents wanted their daughter hanging out with. Since I wasn’t allowed to leave the yard for a couple of days my friends thought I had made it to Illinois.

Myself, Presley and Luke Skywalker were talked about quite a bit among the kids that summer. The dog had a rep now, too. I don't know how my parents didn't make me sell the Challenger after pulling that stunt. I had to go to a defensive driver class for a few weeks and got the whole record sealed. My niece thought the whole thing was pretty funny and Stacey's Mom always looked at me real funny after.

This is a true story and I've told it many times over the years. There's a version where I did donuts around the police station flagpole to initiate the chase, but that never really happened. I think that version came after 5 more Haffenraffers one night.

Presley died in 1988 after becoming very well known and liked in the neighborhood and sharing many adventures with me. Another judge eventually opened my sealed court record, but that's another story for another day.

Peace.

Froggy Went A Courtin, He Did Ride, Uhuh.

A couple of weekends ago Sid and Stacy called and asked me if I would like to go for a walk. Unfortunately my prescription for the anti-inflammatory Celebrex can no longer be filled unless I pay for it myself. So I declined. I'm sure that I will pay for it when my pain level reaches the $170 per month mark. When that happens only time will tell.

The walk destination was a location on the north end of Fir street known to me as 'The Paintball Field.' The name was introduced to me by my nephew Justin when he and his friends cleared some brush and dragged in some pallets and barrels as well as constructing some small huts to shoot from. I had called the area 'The Indian Ground' for reasons I can not prove but believed Wampanoags camped there.

Mackenzie, Sid and Stacy's youngest daughter, and one of her friends has been trying to resurrect some of the bunkers there and her parents wanted to see how it was progressing. I decided I could drive to the end of Fir street and walk down the short path with no problems. When I arrived Sid and Stacy led me to a small pond where frogs were croaking. This may not seem exciting to people who live near a lake or pond but I found it great, and I think Sid and Stacy did too. As w e approached the water it was pretty quiet, but once you stand still the frogs start croaking their mating songs. The sound rose to an amazing level that made me smile. I don't know why, but it was cool. I have never seen frogs on the island and I suspect that what we heard was actually toads but it's still nice to know that things are beginning to grow and thrive after the Winter.

I couldn't help being reminded of a spot that my family would stop for a picnic lunch in Connecticut named Frog Rock. Somewhere we have picture of me and my sister with my Dad dressed in Easter clothes standing in front of Frog Rock. Gotta dig that one out someday.

If you get a chance I suggest taking Sid and Stacy's walk. Head to the north end of Fir street to Cherrystone road and a few feet from there on the east side of the street you'll see a lightly worn trail. For some reson the path arcs to the left and you will probably see some uneven ground, just head toward the rocks and listen. I know of another curiosity on the Island for you. I call it the Three Sided Pen. It's down Bass Creek Path which is very wet. I brought an archaeologist down there to see what he thought. I thought it may have been a cemetery. There are carefully constructed stone walls more than 3 feet high. Small features indicate whoever built it knew there stuff. There are flat stones in many places placed on the top of the walls as cap stones. Along the bottom you can find small stones used to leave gaps in the wall, as if to add height with using less material. On the south side of the pen there is no wall. The ground is amazingly stone free. Leading me to believe it was for gardening or farming. Three large stones, about as big as watermelons are perfectly aligned in a north-south manner. I thought these were grave markers. Sticking a trowel in the ground near them revealed a very big boulder just under the surface of the soil. Apparently the rocks were markers so that anyone tilling the soil would avoid the unseen boulder. Another curiosity of the site is that it has the only old stone walls constructed on the island that run perfectly north-south and east-west.

If you wish to try to find the Three Sided Pen head down Bass Creek Path at the corner of Fir st and Mist Bay road (formerly Cove rd). After about 5 minutes of walking you will arrive at a more open area. As you reach there stop and look for 3 scrawny pines on the south side of the path. Just after them you may see a barely discernable deer run. Follow that south for about 2 minutes and the walls will appear in front of you almost magically. Now if you think that these directions are vague, my nephew Justin gave them to me and I found it. I gave them to Karl Pederson and he found it. When I went down there with the archaeologist he pointed out to me that we passed the three scrawny pines. So its not as vague as you might believe. Try and let me know how you fare.

Row, Row, Row Your Boat

Hey, it's raining. Alot. Cats and dogs. It's raining, it's pouring, the old man is snoring. And no, it's not raining men, thank God.

Our back yard is a pool. It has rained so much our 60 gallon fish pond has floated away. Really. I had pumped out the pond to clean out the leaves and these creepy little worms that thrive in there. They look like a drowned worm, but THEY ARE ALIVE! When the heavy rains came the water infiltrated between the pond's plastic liner and the soil. Displacement. Instant bouyancy. It's still in it's place, it's justn floating above the ground level and listing to starboard.

There rainwater flows from the backyard to the back of the house, channels itself to the north and finds the driveway. Along the section before the drive is a fine sediment. Clay I think. During the foundry builds I dropped quite a bit of the clay and sand mixture. Raindrops pummel the sand as the clay floats away and catches on any impedimets along it's path. The reddish mud looks out of place.

The driveway collects into a makeshift pond at the edge of the street where the road grader has left a ridge. I go out and use the heel of my boot to open up a tiny canal, but the sticks that have fallen during the winter storms create minature beaver dams that bind up the whole works.

I remember as a kid I loved this kind of weather. We played in the mud and water working the rivulets like a 10 year old civil engineer. Creating dams from toothpick sized sticks and pebbles we would watch as the water pressure eventually broke through our construction projects. The idea was to make it last long, but not too long.

I have heard diesel engines straining somewhere on Fir street. Today, since I was already wet anyways, I walked into a backyard on Ebony street and saw the source of the commotion. A tractor trailer pumper was at the sewerage treatment plant and apparently pumping. I have heard this off and on for over a month. When I saw Beth Davis, the publisher of the Neighborhood News, she said it was "just maintainance." I'm sceptical. Warren Zevon said it all with, "Dad, send lawyers, guns and money. The shit has hit the fan."

They Said Come Dancing...My Sister Always Did.

I was driving (on the Neck) when a song by the 'Kinks' came on the radio. 'Come Dancing' was a hit for them in 1983. As I was listening to the lyrics I was reminded of West Island. I'm sure some people would think that i can make a relation between any subject and West Island, but I think this one hit the mark.



Back in the 1960's I remember the Community House at the top of the Hill on Causeway road looking a little different that it does today. First of all there was a telephone booth at the front of the building. Younger readers may have heard of, but never seen one. They were glass and aluminum and just large enough to take temporary in refuge during a rain storm. Of course there were times when we tried to fit as many people as we could in one.

The entry was different then too. There was no vestibule as there is now, there was an alcove we called the 'Way'. That was a good spot to huddle into during a windy or rainy day or just when we couldn't decide what to do next. As for the inside of the building, sparse is the word that comes to mind. There were bare rafters above and a bare concrete floor below. On certain nights when nothing was going on teenagers were permitted to use the hall for playing records and dancing. Everybody would grab their LP's and 45's and head up to the Hill and get together.

I was only about 8 or 9 but since the only was my sister could get out of the house on a school night was to drag me along. And so I went. Since I was less that 4 feet tall then, Roberta Snook, the tallest girl there would pick me up in her arms and dance with me. For the boys of the day one of the definitions of being 'cool' was to be able to play 'Wipeout' , with or with out a drum set. Pencils and hands were good enough, if you were good enough. Check that out here. I can't remember what the girls were doing to be cool, I was too busy trying to emulate the big guys, Dave Viera, Kevin Gilchrist and Sparky Barnett to name a few. My sister once manged to somehow talk my parents into having a party at my parents house featuring a live band! Quite a memorable event, indeed. Must have been her birthday. I do remember getting on the drum kit the next morning trying my hand at the skins. That may have been why there was never another live band at one of my sisters parties.

In later years I remember Kevin Gilchrist playing his folk guitar in front of the store and at least once an extension cord was run out for electric guitars.

Very laid back and fun days. Hmmm, now where did I put that box of pencils?

Punch (the) Drunk

Last week I happened to be driving on Belleville avenue in New Bedford. As I passed by the bottom of Beetle street I glanced over at R&B Liquors on the corner. I noticed the entryway window was cracked.

I worked there for a time, although I didn't want to. You see I had been laid off from Poyant's Signs and my unemployment benefits were about to run out. I let this fact slip to my landlord. He mentioned that he and his father had just bought a liquor store and asked if I wanted to work there. It's hard for me to say no to a job when my landlord knows I will soon have no income. So I became part of the R&B Liquors workforce.

At that time I was about 3 years into a period of sobriety. If it had been a few years earlier I would have had my dream job.

The neighborhood there is one of the toughest in the city. I witnessed a drive by shooting, during a snow storm of about 8" deep. There was a cast of customers that would have made a good comic strip. The drunks, hookers, gangbangers and homeless people made each day unique.

One drunk, named Billy Vodka was found frozen to death on the steps of a church a block away. It took two weeks for the police to find a living relative. Then there was Stinky Rat Piss, named for an obvious reason. He finally got a small room and started to bathe. The twin prostitutes Bonnie and her sister (I forgot the sisters name) were actually very nice people. Then there was Loose Bruce, he supposedly got the first part of his name because he would have seizures and just before they would occur he would get "loose," like he was about to faint. He never bothered anyone though.

One of the owners friends was named Mario. A twenty something whose parents were from Portugal. Mario had webbed feet, and would get called 'Aflac.'

At the store there were backroom deals going on nightly. Cocaine in the back room, crack in the cooler and weed at the counter. Football gaming tickets were delivered by one of New Bedford's boys in blue. I only worked days. Eventually the state police stopped in and gave a verbal warning to those involved.

I would often see customers crack open a pint of vodka (Kimnoff Vodka, I called it Kill Me Off) and drop it in the barrel near the door. Some guys actually chugged a whole pint in seconds.

One memorable slow morning a very drunk customer came in and just asked to use the bathroom. Since drunks tend to either miss the toilet or throw up I refused his request. He asked, "What the hell am supposed to do?"

"Go behind the factory I," told him. He said he would pee around the back of the building. As long as he was leaving I was happy. Until I noticed him standing in the entry, facing the wall looking down. I couldn't believe someone would actually do that!

I ran (well, moved as fast as I could) to the door and opened it. Before I could think I used my open hand to smack him on the side of the head. I didn't realise how hard I hit him until his head hit the glass entry wall. He was so drunk and surprised he fell over backward and rolled in a backward somersault all the way across the side walk and ended sitting upright on his butt with his back resting against his wife's Plymouth Volare front tire.

I felt a sliver of guilt about what I had done, but it was a small sliver. At the same time the guy was doing his reverse somersault a regular customer had just gotten out of his van parked across the street.

The drunk sat on the sidewalk trying to get up but had to pull himself up using the fender of the car for support. And of course he started spouting off.

"Hit me again," he said. "Go ahead hit me again!" I was unsure weather to whack him once more for good measure, but I remembered the old saying, "Never hit a man when he's drunk."

So I kept walking towards him to prevent him from getting a running lunge at me. Once more he taunted, "Hit me again!" I said, "Buddy I don't think you get the idea of a fight. I already hit you once, now it's your turn to hit me." Just at that moment the guy's wife got out of the car and pleaded,"Don't hit him." It sounded like she felt she had enough to do with him in his state of stupor and wasn''t interested in blood or black eyes.

So she poured him back into the car and drove off. The customer from across the street was laughing out loud saying,"All I saw was a guy come rolling out of the doorway and land on his ass, and the look on your face told the whole story." We had a laugh about it and he left with his purchase. It was a few minutes later that I noticed that the glass in the entry was cracked. Then I realised that I must have whacked him pretty good.

Whenever I drive by and see that still broken glass I can't help smiling about punching the drunk.