(I thought you might like to reminisce with me as Summer goes away. The following was the high point of my 10-year-old Summer experience in New England.)
CLAMBAKE
This is a recollection of a trip to Mattapoisett, Massachusetts for a clambake on a nice sandy beach.
The trip took place on a warm Summer day in the 1940's. (A Saturday when my mother was not helping the "War Effort" with her job at the Cornell-Dubilier factory, making important electronic items.) We didn't think about it at the time but Cornell-Dubilier was dumping their waste material into the Acushnet River, where we kids swam.
(I often wondered why sores and scratches healed up super fast in those days ... Cornell-Dubilier chemicals?)
My mother made sure that we were wearing bathing suits under our street clothes, and packed a tote bag with non-perishable goods for the clambake that was to be held at the waterside in Mattapoisett.
My mother and I started our trip early in the morning. We had no automobile so we walked the five long blocks to downtown New Bedford, Massachusetts and the bus station. We could have taken a local bus for that five blocks, but money was tight and we were young and the walk was not difficult.
We walked down Ash Street and at Union Street we passed the jail where Lizzie Borden was held during her trial for allegedly chopping up her father and step-mother.
Three Union Street blocks later we passed the court house where her trial was held. (I have copies of the court procedures as written in the local press. There was International coverage as well. My great grandfather, Weston Vaughan recognized a good opportunity for advertising and peppered newspapers with information about his funeral business.)
Turning onto Purchase Street, we walked to the bus terminal, where we sleepily waited on a splintery bench until there were enough customers to make a bus ride to Fairhaven profitable.
Fairhaven is a small town across the mile-wide Acushnet River. People used to take a ferry across the river, but now there was a bridge with a draw which made the trip across much quicker ... unless a boat with a tall mast wanted to get upriver ... then, the ship had precedence and automobiles and buses had to wait until the draw closed.
So, sitting now in the newly commissioned New Bedford-Fairhaven bus, we had to wait for that damnable draw to close.
After the draw closed, our bus began its ride through attractive Fairhaven. The first building we passed was Fairhaven High School where some of my cousins graduated. This was one of several beautiful edifices provided to the town by native son, Henry Huttleston Rogers (1840-1909), who was a famous industrialist and financier, and who made a bundle of money at Standard Oil.
He was a great friend of Mark Twain, who visited him often at his Fairhaven home.
The bus drove past the Fairhaven Unitarian Memorial Church, also donated by Mr. Rogers in memory of his mother, and built in "neo-gothic style by Boston architect, Charles Brigham.
I always thought that this beautiful building looked like a castle without a moat.
The bus also passed other Rogers' gifts ... the Fairhaven Town Hall and the Millicent Library, which was donated in memory of Millicent Gifford Rogers, the donor's daughter who died young. I believe that Mark Twain gave the dedicatory speech.
As the bus neared the end of its Fairhaven line, it passed another famous Huttleston donation, The Tabitha Inn. Built as an Elizabethan-style hotel, it was named after Rogers' great grandmother. When I saw it, the building was housing Coast Guard men in World War II.
We also passed the Delano House. Philippe de Lanoy arrived in the Plymouth Colony in 1621 and founded a dynasty which included Lieutenant Jonathan Delano, ancestor of Presidents Franklin Delano Roosevelt and Ulysses S. Grant.
OK ... we came to the end of the bus line. Now we had to wait for the little bus that served a bit of Mattapoisett, not quite where we wanted to be, but one quarter of a mile away. Unfortunately, this meant we had to trudge uphill the rest of the way.
Halfway on the right side we passed a gas station, which I think had 10 cents a gallon gasoline. In one of my Mattapoisett visits, I had made friends with the proprietor's son and I had been granted access to a room over the garage, where the boy had lots of toys that my family could never afford.
A little farther on the left side was the Quaker Meeting House where I spent some time waiting for the "spirit" to enter someone's heart and cause them to give testimony. (Woe to any boy "nodding off," because that might trigger a knock on the head from an elder.)
Finally we reached our destination, the tiny house that my Aunt Ella and Uncle Tom lived with their four children, my cousins.
I loved that little house, chamber pot and all. The smell from the outhouse was overwhelming if you got too close, but the smell of the honeysuckle flowers and the country air was refreshing.
Ella and Tom lived on one end of Mattapoisett, right at Aucoot Road where a large metal tube poured out wonderfully tasting water all day long.
After Ella and Tom got all of the clambake ingredients together, including our donations, we started down Aucoot Road, heading to the beach.
This was another quarter mile walk, but it was on level ground, under trees, and filled with fun.
At the beach, Tom dug a pit, filled it with available seaweed and set it on fire. Some of the ingredients were ears of corn, potatoes, lobster, fish, and some other things. All tasty, especially with the sip of beer that I managed to sneak. What a glorious smell!
An hour after eating, the kids were allowed to wade into the salty Atlantic ocean water. (Did I tell you that the beach was wave-ridden and the sand was smooth ... hardly any rocks and quite a few shells to collect.)
We were not allowed to get into the water in August because of the fear of polio.
There were other dangers as well.
01. We had to avoid the sharp pointy tails of horseshoe crabs.
02. We had to avoid the Portuguese Man O' War jelly fish that were hard to see.
03. We had to try to avoid the sharp sea shells that washed in with the waves.
04. We were always on the look-out for sand sharks. Although not as dangerous as other sharks, they could bite you if provoked.
05. We had to be on constant alert to make sure we didn't find ourselves enmeshed in the tarry substance created when German submarines torpedoed and sank allied shipping.
(Gasoline products mixed with sand and salt water produced tarry beaches that took years to clean up.)
In spite of all that, we all had fun in the cool ocean water and played lots of games.
My mother was a wonderful woman and a great "showoff." She and my Aunt Mary would do cartwheels and other stunts that kept us laughing.
When the sky started to darken, my Uncle Tom left for home, where he cranked up his old Plymouth and drove us all home after a glorious day.
I love these old memories.
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Go and bake some more clams!
