Memorial Day

Cranberry County Magazine wishes you the best on Memorial Day.

Cold, Hard GPS Reality Hits Cape Cod

Cape Cod in general and Bourne in particular are somewhat used to Los Angeles-style traffic plodding through a 2500 person village on a 55 degree rainy/raw day. Memorial Day Weekend 2017 did not disappoint.

If you go back an article or two and dig up our "much like how an Eskimo has 200 words for snow, Bourne residents recognize 200 forms of traffic"tangent, you'd want to score tonight's entertainment at the rotaries as "people coming down to ready their rental properties for the 11 AM arrival of the first Summer People of 2017."

Facebook began to fill up with horror stories by 1 PM, and they were getting very ugly by 3 PM. "I can't get out of my driveway on Cypress Street" was one that got my notice. "45 minutes to clear Main Street" also was worrisome. Pictures from Duxbury, Wareham, Marion and Plymouth showed that it was jamming up everywhere.

"So it begins," as they say during the first Cape Cod traffic jam of every year. It's the high cost of doing business. The business benefits all, but the brunt of the burden is borne by Bourne. Bourne is the home of the two Canal bridges, also known as "the only ways to drive off of the Cape."

But the highways were not the only jammed roads. Normally safe side roads like Bournedale and Puritan began to fill up. Soon enough, bumper-to-bumper traffic was dominating side streets that normally get village traffic.

How did it come to this?

For much of the post-bridges history in Bourne, the only way to Cape Cod from due west was to crawl through Wareham and Buzzards Bay to the bridges. The locals knew this, and lined the roads with clam shacks, mini-golf and antique stores designed to feed off the tourists. It's why Wareham, which in Plymouth County and exists miles from the Canal, is known as the Gateway to Cape Cod.

This changed in 1987, when Route 25 picked up an extra 7 miles east of Wareham. You could take the highway right to the bridge, and the banshee screamed for the Buzzards Bay tourist industry.

Wareham got a reprieve when Wal-Mart dropped a store there (which has since moved west),and survives now via fast food and a very tenuous Stop & Shop anchor.

"Well," they said back in 1988, "business will suffer, and we will have to transform ourselves into a bedroom suburb. At least the traffic in town will ease up."

Nope.

In 1960, the US Navy put up a global positioning satellite to track their warships. It was improved upon and eventually made available for civilian use by Ronald Reagan. Navigation devices became available for phones.

Route 25 didn't make the Cape traffic go away, it just made it go away from Buzzards Bay. People were getting into gridlock on an empty highway with no Bourne businesses to feed off them. Wareham and Buzzards Bay then became the shortcut of choice for people used to the old route.

Things start getting odd when the GPS came about. It put local side streets into the game plans of people who aren't locals. That's another bad omen to see popping up on Facebook, the "tourists jamming roads they shouldn't know" event.

"Bournedale Road" isn't a townie secret anymore. People of the Griswold archetype from somewhere like Utah might be aware of it.

It wasn't like that in 1968, but they didn't have GPS technology on the streets then, either.

Not everything was negative yesterday. I did see a new business model emerging, the prey-on-passing-traffic gig revisited.

Granted, one must adjust to the new realities, and put their businesses where the people are. That's how they did it in 1987, and it's how they're doing it 30 years later.

It's the same basic business strategy as old Bourne, and not far at all (just 75 years or so) from a kid opening a lemonade stand. I shouldn't have been shocked, as it made perfect sense.

As I rode down Head Of The Bay Road in Bourne yesterday, I saw an odd sign...

I should add that it took about 45 minutes to go from Hideaway Village to the Belmont Circle rotary. Most of that was spent in bumper-to-bumper traffic, crawling 10 yards a minute.

I still took awful pictures... lol.

I expected to see kids at the bottom of this signage, which ran three signs or so as we inched down Head Of The Bay Road.

I didn't see kids, and instead saw someone who might have grandkids.

Some old guy (with a circular driveway, nonetheless) set up a table and umbrerlla, got out a hot dog steamer and a cooler, and went into the hot dog stand business.

Sorry for the rotten shot, but "Look... dude has a hot dog stand!" isn't a good enough rubbernecking excuse to avoid an asskicking by whoever was behind me.

It's not like you can call the cops on the guy for running a shadowy roadside stand business in a non-zoned area, because by the time that the cops get through the traffic, this guy may have gone to his Reward and the business will be in the hands of his grandkids. The kids can just flee into the forest, as kids do.

Opening a beer stand on Head Of The Bay Road may have been prescient. "BONG HITS... $5" might have turned a profit as well.

In 1977, they set up on Main Street to get at the road-trippers. In the GPS era, that shifted the onus onto the side streets.

I made it to the rotary eventually.

The Cape Cod Times recently ran an article that gave away the shortcuts locals use in several Cape Cod towns.

Dude must have been a washashore, because I can tell you from experience that locals frown on that. Skipping Route 28 by using County Road is something that a Cape Codder earns, and it makes them angry to see someone from Ohio with the same shortcut in mind.

You don't want to be doing 45 minutes in the traffic on Head Of The Bay Road before you get to the 30 minute rotary-negotiating nightmare in Belmont Circle. Someone will get killed, eventually.

I spent some time at the Trowbridge Tavern after the grueling commute, and I can tell you that the bridge (and the roads leading up to it) still had bumper-to-bumper traffic at 10 PM. You were still doing bumper to bumper briefly at 1 AM just off the Sagamore Bridge.

And so it begins...

Minor Coastal Flooding Possible Tonight Through Monday

(Editor's Note: Coastal Flooding is possible through Monday)

...COASTAL FLOOD ADVISORY IN EFFECT FROM 10 PM THIS EVENING TO 3 AM EDT
FRIDAY...

THE NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE IN TAUNTON HAS ISSUED A COASTAL FLOOD ADVISORY...
WHICH IS IN EFFECT FROM 10 PM THIS EVENING TO 3 AM EDT FRIDAY.

* LOCATION...MASSACHUSETTS EAST COAST INCLUDING NANTUCKET.

* TIDAL DEPARTURE...THREE QUARTERS TO A FOOT.

* TIMING...LATE EVENING HIGH TIDE GENERALLY BETWEEN 1100 PM AND 1 AM.

* COASTAL FLOOD IMPACTS...WIDESPREAD MINOR COASTAL FLOODING WILL OCCUR TONIGHT.
SPLASHOVER AND BEACH EROSION AT TYPICALLY PRONE FLOOD SPOTS. SHORELINE ROADS
MAY BE IMPACTED. BIGGEST CONCERN IS ACROSS ESSEX COUNTY WHICH WILL SEE THE
HIGHEST SURGE VALUES.

PRECAUTIONARY/PREPAREDNESS ACTIONS...

A COASTAL FLOOD ADVISORY IS ISSUED FOR MINOR COASTAL FLOODING OF THE MOST
VULNERABLE SHORE ROADS AND/OR BASEMENTS DUE TO THE HEIGHT OF STORM TIDE OR WAVE
SPLASHOVER. THE MAJORITY OF ROADS REMAIN PASSABLE WITH ONLY ISOLATED CLOSURES.
THERE IS NO SIGNIFICANT THREAT TO LIFE...AND IMPACT ON PROPERTY IS MINIMAL.

TIME OF HIGH TOTAL TIDES ARE APPROXIMATE TO THE NEAREST HOUR.


BOSTON HARBOR
MLLW CATEGORIES - MINOR 12.5 FT, MODERATE 15.0 FT, MAJOR 16.0 FT
MHHW CATEGORIES - MINOR 2.4 FT, MODERATE 4.9 FT, MAJOR 5.9 FT

TOTAL TOTAL DEPARTURE
DAY/TIME TIDE TIDE FROM NORM WAVES FLOOD
FT MLLW FT MHHW FT FT IMPACT
-------- --------- --------- --------- ------- --------
25/11 AM 11.4/11.9 1.3/ 1.8 0.6/ 1.1 2 NONE
26/12 AM 12.7/13.2 2.6/ 3.1 0.6/ 1.1 1-2 MINOR
26/12 PM 11.1/11.6 1.0/ 1.5 0.2/ 0.7 1-2 NONE
27/01 AM 12.2/12.7 2.1/ 2.6 -0.2/ 0.3 3 MINOR
27/01 PM 10.8/11.3 0.7/ 1.1 -0.2/ 0.3 1 NONE
28/01 AM 12.0/12.5 1.9/ 2.3 -0.2/ 0.2 1 NONE


SCITUATE
MLLW CATEGORIES - MINOR 11.5 FT, MODERATE 14.0 FT, MAJOR 16.0 FT
MHHW CATEGORIES - MINOR 1.8 FT, MODERATE 4.3 FT, MAJOR 6.3 FT

TOTAL TOTAL DEPARTURE
DAY/TIME TIDE TIDE FROM NORM WAVES FLOOD
FT MLLW FT MHHW FT FT IMPACT
-------- --------- --------- --------- ------- --------
25/12 PM 10.5/11.0 0.8/ 1.3 0.6/ 1.1 3-4 NONE
26/12 AM 11.9/12.4 2.2/ 2.7 0.6/ 1.1 5-6 MINOR
26/12 PM 10.3/10.8 0.6/ 1.1 0.2/ 0.7 5 NONE
27/01 AM 11.5/12.0 1.8/ 2.2 -0.2/ 0.3 4 NONE
27/01 PM 10.0/10.5 0.2/ 0.8 -0.2/ 0.3 2 NONE
28/01 AM 11.4/11.9 1.7/ 2.2 -0.2/ 0.2 1-2 NONE

SANDWICH / DENNIS
MLLW CATEGORIES - MINOR 13.0 FT, MODERATE 14.0 FT, MAJOR 15.5 FT
MHHW CATEGORIES - MINOR 2.7 FT, MODERATE 3.7 FT, MAJOR 5.2 FT

TOTAL TOTAL DEPARTURE
DAY/TIME TIDE TIDE FROM NORM WAVES FLOOD
FT MLLW FT MHHW FT FT IMPACT
-------- --------- --------- --------- ------- --------
25/11 AM 10.9/11.4 0.6/ 1.1 0.6/ 1.1 2-3 NONE
26/12 AM 12.4/12.9 2.1/ 2.6 0.6/ 1.1 2 NONE
26/12 PM 11.0/11.5 0.7/ 1.1 0.5/ 1.0 2-3 NONE
27/01 AM 12.2/12.7 1.9/ 2.3 0.2/ 0.7 3-4 NONE
27/01 PM 10.7/11.2 0.4/ 0.9 0.1/ 0.6 1 NONE

PROVINCETOWN HARBOR
MLLW CATEGORIES - MINOR 12.5 FT, MODERATE 13.5 FT, MAJOR 15.0 FT
MHHW CATEGORIES - MINOR 2.4 FT, MODERATE 3.4 FT, MAJOR 4.9 FT

TOTAL TOTAL DEPARTURE
DAY/TIME TIDE TIDE FROM NORM WAVES FLOOD
FT MLLW FT MHHW FT FT IMPACT
-------- --------- --------- --------- ------- --------
25/12 PM 11.4/11.9 1.3/ 1.8 0.2/ 0.8 2-4 NONE
26/12 AM 12.9/13.4 2.7/ 3.2 0.5/ 1.0 1 MINOR
26/12 PM 11.5/12.0 1.4/ 1.9 0.4/ 0.9 1 NONE
27/01 AM 12.6/13.1 2.5/ 3.0 0.1/ 0.6 1 MINOR
27/01 PM 11.2/11.7 1.1/ 1.6 0.1/ 0.6 2 NONE

CHATHAM - EAST COAST
MLLW CATEGORIES - MINOR 9.5 FT, MODERATE 12.0 FT, MAJOR 13.0 FT
MHHW CATEGORIES - MINOR 1.8 FT, MODERATE 4.3 FT, MAJOR 5.3 FT

TOTAL TOTAL DEPARTURE
DAY/TIME TIDE TIDE FROM NORM WAVES FLOOD
FT MLLW FT MHHW FT FT IMPACT
-------- --------- --------- --------- ------- --------
25/12 PM 6.2/ 6.7 -1.6/-1.1 0.6/ 1.1 4-5 NONE
26/01 AM 7.4/ 7.9 -0.3/ 0.2 0.6/ 1.1 4-5 NONE
26/01 PM 6.0/ 6.5 -1.8/-1.3 0.2/ 0.8 4-5 NONE
27/01 AM 7.0/ 7.5 -0.8/-0.2 0.1/ 0.6 5-6 NONE
27/02 PM 5.7/ 6.2 -2.0/-1.5 0.1/ 0.6 2-3 NONE

CHATHAM - SOUTH COAST
MLLW CATEGORIES - MINOR 9.0 FT, MODERATE 10.5 FT, MAJOR 11.5 FT
MHHW CATEGORIES - MINOR 4.5 FT, MODERATE 6.0 FT, MAJOR 7.0 FT

TOTAL TOTAL DEPARTURE
DAY/TIME TIDE TIDE FROM NORM WAVES FLOOD
FT MLLW FT MHHW FT FT IMPACT
-------- --------- --------- --------- ------- --------
25/12 PM 4.0/ 4.5 -0.6/-0.1 0.2/ 0.8 2-3 NONE
26/01 AM 5.1/ 5.6 0.6/ 1.1 0.5/ 1.0 1 NONE
26/02 PM 3.7/ 4.2 -0.8/-0.2 0.1/ 0.6 1-2 NONE
27/02 AM 4.7/ 5.2 0.2/ 0.7 0.0/ 0.5 2 NONE
27/02 PM 3.9/ 4.4 -0.7/-0.2 0.1/ 0.6 1-2 NONE

BUZZARDS BAY - WOODS HOLE
MLLW CATEGORIES - MINOR 5.5 FT, MODERATE 7.0 FT, MAJOR 8.5 FT
MHHW CATEGORIES - MINOR 3.5 FT, MODERATE 5.0 FT, MAJOR 6.5 FT

TOTAL TOTAL DEPARTURE
DAY/TIME TIDE TIDE FROM NORM WAVES FLOOD
FT MLLW FT MHHW FT FT IMPACT
-------- --------- --------- --------- ------- --------
25/08 AM 2.8/ 3.4 0.9/ 1.4 0.2/ 0.7 1-2 NONE
25/09 PM 3.7/ 4.2 1.8/ 2.2 0.5/ 1.0 1 NONE
26/09 AM 3.1/ 3.6 1.1/ 1.6 0.2/ 0.8 1 NONE
26/10 PM 3.4/ 3.9 1.4/ 1.9 0.1/ 0.6 1 NONE
27/10 AM 3.2/ 3.7 1.2/ 1.7 0.4/ 0.9 1 NONE
27/11 PM 3.2/ 3.7 1.2/ 1.7 0.0/ 0.5 1 NONE

WINGS NECK
MLLW CATEGORIES - MINOR 6.5 FT, MODERATE 9.0 FT, MAJOR 11.5 FT
MHHW CATEGORIES - MINOR 2.2 FT, MODERATE 4.7 FT, MAJOR 7.2 FT

TOTAL TOTAL DEPARTURE
DAY/TIME TIDE TIDE FROM NORM WAVES FLOOD
FT MLLW FT MHHW FT FT IMPACT
-------- --------- --------- --------- ------- --------
25/08 AM 4.9/ 5.4 0.6/ 1.1 0.2/ 0.7 1-2 NONE
25/09 PM 6.2/ 6.7 1.9/ 2.3 0.7/ 1.1 1 NONE
26/09 AM 5.0/ 5.5 0.7/ 1.1 0.2/ 0.8 1 NONE
26/09 PM 5.6/ 6.1 1.3/ 1.8 0.1/ 0.6 1 NONE
27/10 AM 5.1/ 5.6 0.8/ 1.3 0.4/ 0.9 1 NONE
27/10 PM 5.5/ 6.0 1.2/ 1.7 0.1/ 0.6 1 NONE

NANTUCKET HARBOR
MLLW CATEGORIES - MINOR 5.0 FT, MODERATE 6.5 FT, MAJOR 8.0 FT
MHHW CATEGORIES - MINOR 1.4 FT, MODERATE 2.9 FT, MAJOR 4.4 FT

TOTAL TOTAL DEPARTURE
DAY/TIME TIDE TIDE FROM NORM WAVES FLOOD
FT MLLW FT MHHW FT FT IMPACT
-------- --------- --------- --------- ------- --------
25/01 PM 3.7/ 4.2 0.2/ 0.7 0.7/ 1.1 2-3 NONE
26/01 AM 4.5/ 5.0 0.9/ 1.4 0.5/ 1.0 1-2 NONE
26/01 PM 3.2/ 3.7 -0.5/ 0.0 0.1/ 0.6 2 NONE
27/02 AM 4.0/ 4.5 0.4/ 0.9 0.0/ 0.5 2-3 NONE
27/02 PM 3.1/ 3.6 -0.6/-0.1 0.0/ 0.5 2 NONE

NANTUCKET EAST COAST - EROSION IMPACTS

TOTAL TOTAL DEPARTURE
DAY/TIME TIDE TIDE FROM NORM WAVES FLOOD
FT MLLW FT MHHW FT FT IMPACT
-------- --------- --------- --------- ------- --------
25/12 PM 4.2/ 4.7 0.2/ 0.7 0.7/ 1.1 4 NONE
26/01 AM 5.0/ 5.5 0.9/ 1.4 0.6/ 1.1 4 NONE
26/01 PM 3.9/ 4.4 -0.2/ 0.2 0.2/ 0.7 4-5 NONE
27/01 AM 4.7/ 5.2 0.6/ 1.1 0.2/ 0.7 5 NONE
27/02 PM 3.7/ 4.2 -0.3/ 0.2 0.1/ 0.6 3 NONE

NANTUCKET - MADAKET AREA EROSION IMPACTS

TOTAL TOTAL DEPARTURE
DAY/TIME TIDE TIDE FROM NORM WAVES FLOOD
FT MLLW FT MHHW FT FT IMPACT
-------- --------- --------- --------- ------- --------
25/12 PM 2.8/ 3.4 1.5/ 2.0 0.4/ 0.9 4 NONE
26/12 AM 3.2/ 3.7 1.9/ 2.3 0.4/ 0.9 4-5 NONE
26/01 PM 2.5/ 3.0 1.1/ 1.6 0.0/ 0.5 6 NONE
27/01 AM 3.0/ 3.5 1.6/ 2.0 0.0/ 0.5 5-6 NONE
27/02 PM 2.6/ 3.1 1.2/ 1.7 0.1/ 0.6 2-3 NONE

Micahel Tougias Speaking In Acushnet

Hear the true story behind the movie The Finest Hours when author Michael Tougias speaks at Acushnet Public Library at 6 p.m. Weds., May 24.

His multimedia program uses vintage photos of the rescues of two 400-foot tanker ships that split in half in the same storm off of Cape Cod in February 1952, and he discusses the actions of the heroic crewmen who saved many lives.

The program is free, open to the public, and a book signing follows.

For more information, see his site.

Much love to Alison O'Leary for the heads up.

Thank you!

You Know You're From Bourne If (Traffic Edition)...

1) You have names for traffic. 
This is much like a true version of the "Eskimoes-have-200-words-for-snow" myth. Bourne residents are fully aware of at least 200 different styles of traffic, maybe more... I'm a washashore, and I learn a new one every day.
Why, just in the last few dozen months, I have been stuck in:
- Morning commute traffic
- Afternoon drive traffic
- Bridge traffic
- Bridge work traffic
- Rotary traffic
- Trying to even get to the rotary traffic pre-traffic
- Between bridges traffic, which occurs on the Scenic Highway and Sandwich Road
- Holiday lane-closure traffic (the Mother's Day Massacre was one of these)
- Labor Day traffic
- Memorial Day traffic
- Fireworks traffic
- Parade traffic
- Canaliversary traffic
- First snow of winter traffic
- Bicycle race traffic
- Road race traffic
- Scallop Festival traffic
- Cottage-turnover traffic
- Slowly weaving around fallen tree traffic
- Blizzard traffic
- Accident-up-ahead traffic
- First time a tourist ever saw a rotary traffic
- Funeral traffic
- School bus traffic
- School bus fire accidents

Well, you get the point.

2) Each of those styles of traffic mean different things to you.
Cottage-turnover traffic lasts from 11-3 PM, Saturday only. Fireworks traffic will clear up in a half-an-hour, first-snow traffic will clear up with the onset of the second snow event. Parade traffic closes Buzzards Bay. Sunday evening summer traffic closes Sagamore. Rotary Virgin traffic often leads directly into Accident Up Ahead traffic. Bicycle race traffic isn't that bad, but you can kill 4 athletes in the time it takes you to look down to light a Newport.
I'm just listing those in case you thought I was kidding with #2. An old-timer could probably expand my list fifty-fold.

3) You understand that time is different in Bourne.
If you ask a guy from Bourne and a guy from Bridgewater to meet you at some point that is equidistant from each town, the Bridgewater guy will be able to offer a good ETA immediately, while a seasoned observer will notice that the Bourne resident will pause, look away, and do a brief calculation before answering.
This is a brief day of week/time of day/time of year/force of traffic calculation that Bourne residents perform for even simple trips to the store. Like light with the black holes in space, no trip outside of the house can escape the force exerted by that rubric.
Everyone in Bourne is aware of what sort of traffic is happening, and how it will impact their commutes. No decision, however minor, is made by the Bourne resident without rolling through the rubric.
There even exists a Bourne Paradox.
It goes like this. Somehow, in 2012 (exactly at the time that the poles were supposed to shift), the Bourne and Sagamore Bridges passed a point where the combined time lost in traffic by everyone who ever crossed the Bourne Bridge and the Sagamore Bridge became numerically greater than the time that man as a species has existed.
The fact that multiple people travel in cars is how the numbers end up working out. They say it's what Einstein killed himself over, and I think it proves or disproves either God, math, time, or both.

4) You have lost a job because of traffic.
You may not have that one in particular on your list, but you have some outrageous equivalent example in your quiver.
Your list of examples may have "Been offered sex, but have turned it down because it would take too long to get there," or "Blew off my own Mom on Mother's Day nine miles from her house," "Mended a broken bone at home by myself because the MapQuest said 640 minutes to Tobey Hospital," or "Walked across the bridge to pick up a pizza that I had originally called to have delivered" or something of that nature.
Bourne people rarely marry residents of other towns. When they do, it is almost always with someone from an adjacent border region. No one else understands them, and especially no one else understands their perpetual traffic-caused lateness.
It leads to some inbreeding on the Cape side of Bourne, but the mainland Bourne bought itself 50 years of genetic purity with the nearby Ponds of Plymouth development.

5) You're one of the people who keep the Cape Cod Tunnel myth alive.
It's bad karma to mess with tourists. We need their money, and we ourselves may be the lost tourist in some other far-away town where it is natural to resent tourist traffic some day.
However, Bourne is also the community which suffers the most for the rest of Cape Cod to fatten itself on Tourist, and we must be obliged an instance or two of weakness.
I usually do it once, early in the summer, and I'm good for July-through-Halloween.
"Yup, you'll see the tunnel entrance, just before the Sagamore Bridge. It takes you straight to Ripton."

6) You believe that Bournedale could be renamed "Shortcut" with no loss of effective description.
As near as I can tell- and I think I live in Bournedale- the whole village is Bournedale Road's three or four side streets, Weldon Park, Canalside Apartments, a few rich-famiy Canal houses and a whole lot of forest.
Other than two clam shacks, a horse farm and what I believe is a Butterfly store, there is no commerce there. It exists, to me anyhow, 100% as a means of getting to Wareham or Plymouth without using the rotaries.
Even the Wampanoags used Bournedale primarily as a shortcut, although- with the exception of Aptucxet- that's actually true for the whole town.

7) You nod in agreement with at least two of these local culinary observations:
- You send people to a shack when they ask where to get good seafood
- You just got a supermarket like 2 years ago, and it's already laying people off.
- The pizza parlors actually laugh in your face (over the phone) if you ask them to deliver across the bridges on Friday night, Saturday afternoon, or Sunday evening.
- Burger King failed on your central business district, and the two McDonald's in town rely on captive audiences.
- 500 yards from where BK failed, the guy selling Thai food out of a shack does well enough that he has now expanded the franchise into Wareham.
- You can eat out of a lighthouse 50 feet off the Bourne rotary.
- Need a 3 AM omelette in a village of 2500? We have that covered.
- You can buy t-shirts, post cards, key chains, bumper stickers, fried clams and a banana split in one trip to one cash register, and it's in a shack.
- Five miles of Cranberry Highway (with nearby Bourne Village, Plymouth and Wareham ones thrown in to keep it honest) supports seven Dunkin' Donuts franchises, including two within 70 yards of each other.
- Bourne and her immediate neighbors also support three Marylou's, a Starbucks, a Honey Dew, and incidental coffee giants like IHOP, McDonald's, Cumberland Farms, and Leo's. Even I don't want to know how many D+D's are in Monument Beach, Pocasset, Cataumet and so forth.
- About 100 square yards of the Belmont Circle Rotary supports a Starbuck's, a Honey Dew, and two Dunkin's.

8) Despite living here, you may be 100% ignorant of at least two of these should-be-simple town facts:
-What the Monument that Monument Beach is named after is.
- How we got the Bourne name.
- That we used to be Sandwich.
- That we have had a President living in town before, and he wasn't a Kennedy or an Obama.
- The current President was in town last week. He'll be in and out a few more times this summer.
- You mistake at least one village as being part of another town, or part of another town as being yours. Usual suspects are Sagamore Beach, Onset, Scusset Beach, Forestdale, and Cataumet.
- That we have a college/academy type thing.
- That a Buzzards Bay (village) and a Buzzards Bay (body of water) exist concurrently.
- That Bourne is the only town to touch both Buzzards Bay and Cape Cod Bay.
- That the Cape Cod Canal is man-made.
- Bourne is the place where we detect and first respond to the launch of a SLBM against the northeastern United States.
- That the Canal doesn't empty completely at low tide.
- That big loop Route 25 does before the bridge? Somebody's farm.
- That the idea of removing the Sagamore Rotary really got momentum only after Mitt Romney got caught in traffic.
- That almost 50,000 veterans are buried just off of Route 28.
- That there is a marked stone in town that may disprove the Columbus-discovered-America theory.

9) You believe that you are the state's rotary experts.
To borrow a Biggie Smalls lyric, "Number nine should have been number one to me."
Where other people take a left, you do a 270 degree near-circle in and out of two lanes through a maze of drivers with a bevy of different driving styles who don't want to let you in and really don't want to let you out.
There probably are rules to driving in a rotary, but- since no one uses rotaries but us- no one knows them. The people who should know them- we residents of Bourne- know that "Rule One" is actually "Disregard Rule One," and that rotaries are best handled by the same methods that goal-line offenses are run with in the NFL.
The actual key to understanding rotary difficulties is to know that rotaries are where Massachusetts drivers and New York drivers- the two worst in the USA, for entirely different reasons- figuratively and literally collide, while going in a circular maze. All other knowledge can be reverse-engineered from that fact.
A certain aggression is necessary when driving anywhere in the Northeast, especially in New England, extra-especially on Cape Cod, extra-double-secret-especially in Bourne, and especially-infinity in a rotary. I have an axe handle under my front seat, and I'm a soccer mom.

10) You tell me. Use the COMMENTS feature.

Beach Wi-Fi And Charging Stations

We stumbled across these in Westport, at Horseneck Beach.

You can lock on to their WiFi signal while you're at the beach. This is important, because you can waste a lot of data on a beach day. Also, it allows you to buy a cheap phone for beach use. No need for any phone cards, nor any need to have an overachieving wave hit your fancy new I-phone or whatever the kids are using these days.

You can also charge up your phone. I should have memorized this process better, but you use your credit card, lock your phone in the little charging station, and come back for it after X amount of recharge time.

Rather than wasting a power line that will almost certainly get destroyed by a nor'easter, they power it by what looks like a removable solar panel. They were confident enough in her sturdiness to have it out in late-April/early-May. While the solar-based charger power may be weak on cloudy/rainy days, I'd imagine that demand for beach WiFi would also be low on those days.

I don't do my beaching in Westport (although I will in the future, Horseneck Beach is charming), so I haven't field-tested this Bad Larry. I have no idea if the signal reaches very far, Energetic beaches could actually trot them out to where the people are and remove them when the seas are threatening. Horseneck Beach has them up by the snack bar.

It seems like a good idea to me. Charlie Baker has his name on it, so maybe it is exclusive to State beach reservations or some such stuff. Larger beaches may want more than one, to spread them out some and avoid massing the phone phreaks in one spot. 

I have no idea what one of these costs (Editor's Note: $96,500 bought a dozen of them), but it might be a nice investment for a town with a beach. 

Places that have these presently:

Artesani Playground and Wading Pool - Boston
Constitution Beach - Boston
Southwest Corridor Park - Boston
Castle Island - South Boston
Murphy Rink - South Boston
Nickerson State Park - Brewster
Lynch Family Skate Park - Cambridge
Nantasket Beach Reservation - Hull
Nahant Beach Reservation - Nahant
Wollaston Beach - Quincy
Salisbury Beach Reservation - Salisbury

Horseneck Beach Reservation - Westport

The Battle Off Fairhaven

The first naval skirmish in the American Revolution went down off Fairhaven on May 14th, 1775.

A seagull and an offshore lighthouse photo-bomb my shot of the battlefield.

I'm using these two boats going at each other to illustrate the story, but these two actually honked and waved to each other rather than board and kill each other.

After the Battle of Lexington/Concord, the British seized two ships (a transport and a sloop) from their Patriot owners. They rigged the sloop up for battle, put 11 men on it, and sent it off to Dartmouth to capture the boat of a smuggler named Jesse Barlow. Barlow got his goods ashore, but the Brits seized his ship.

I'm a landlubber myself, but I know enough fishermen to say that the one unforgivable sin among them is "f*cking with their boat." Stealing one is even worse. The patriots quickly put together a 30 man crew, armed a ship (the Success, a Dartmouth whaling sloop) and set off in pursuit of the "royal pirates."

They caught up to the two boats off of Martha's Vineyard. They took the transport without much difficulty. The sloop took off on the run, but they were overtaken and boarded off of Fairhaven. The patriots forced the Brits below deck after a brief squabble, and- just like that- the Americans won the first naval skirmish of the war. They won it against the world's best Navy, too. The POWs were offloaded in Fairhaven and sent inland to Taunton.

Mother's Day Nor'easter Looking Likely

A nor'easter will approach Massachusetts from the south over the weekend, setting the stage for strong winds and heavy rains.

As you can see here, Massachusetts is looking like a contender for an inch or two of rain. Winds are presently forecast to be gusting in the 20s, but that does look like a strong storm. Coastal flooding is not expected to be bad, as the tides are astronomically low.

We'll be back if the forecast gets worse and I can use some headline like 

MOTHERS DAY MONSTAHHHHHH!!!

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Harboring: Marion

We continue our spring harbor tour with a visit to Marion.

Marion was more active than most harbors we've visited so far this year.

Remind me to not wear my magnet suit when I set to sea with this guy.

A boat-sinking rockpile.

My man getting ready to put in some work.

My last boat (the Lusitania Jr... it sunk) was small enough that if I laid down flat on it, my feet would be in the water. That's probably not a problem for the owner of this boat, unless his last name is Bunyan or Kong.

I've handed a credit card to an assertive woman or two for the ol' "Twenty Minute Tie Up," but Marion Harbor most likely has something different in mind,

Any good captain knows that a cabin only really needs two walls.

I dated a Laura Abbot once, but she tired of me in two hours. When I say "once," I mean "one single time," not "once upon a time over a long period."

They were leaking until he threw on the shingles, you see...

Tabor Academy has a fine sailing team, I'm guessing.

Ideally, you send the kid to Tabor and let them train on those little bots in the picture before... then, when she or he is proficient, you turn them loose on this one. "Proficient" means "after Dad dies" in many Massachusetts families.

I had bad light or something, this looked redder when I was shooting at it.

"You know the dot, I know the dot... I see it a lot."

If the Pilgrims landed in Marion instead of Plymouth, John Alden could have rock-hopped to shore. The concept of Plymouth Rock would be radically different, and "Marion Rock" sounds like a black comic's mother.

If you push someone off the dock in Marion, you have until they swim over and scale those ladders to run away. Fishermen go up them like cats, mind you...

You can drop my whole house into this boat.

Not a lot of junk boats in the water just yet...

You can make a pretty good guess on the historic flood levels by looking at how high the Harbormaster jacked his shack up.

Many of the first boats were powered by steamshovels.

Est. 1927, wrecked 1938, re-established 1939.

Rope anchor...

As a guy who parked his '77 Nova next to a few Porsches at Duxbury High School, I can sympathize with the owner of the blue boat.

Tabor Uber Alles