Massachusetts Marvels

by Dennis Goza
August 2003

As summer came to a halt in 2003, we made several excursions into Massachusetts for performances, visiting friends and/ or sightseeing. Although we first performed in the state in 1993 (in the middle of an extremely New Englandish winter), we didn't return, and begin exploring the territory, until a couple of years ago. But it very quickly became one of my favorite states in which to "pahk my cah." The scenery is stunning (especially when it's decked in fall palettes), the people we've dealt with have been wonderful, and the historical and cultural riches are superabundant.

We returned to Salem, and again spent a few days camped out on Winter Island. Zephyr and I again went swimming at the beach (Kimberly was again too chicken) and the water didn't seem nearly as icy as last time. We're always hesitant to leave our campground once we settle in for our stay, but it was of course mandatory to spend at least one day in town, since there are so many historical attractions. The trouble was deciding what to see in just one day. I'd been hoping to visit the House Of The Seven Gables, but we decided to put that off until another time, after we'd all read the book (I'm the only one who'd read it, but that was many, many moons ago.) so we'd get more out of it.

So instead we toured the New England Pirate Museum. Yep, while the colonists were wasting their time and rope persecuting their neighbors whose behavior was "suspicious", the real miscreants were prowling the waters just offshore, wreaking murder, mayhem and pillage practically under their noses (Well, maybe the time frames of piracy and witch hunts didn't mesh exactly, but I nonetheless thought it was an interesting point to make that the colonists were so obsessed with eradicating nonconformity that they were blind to overt villainy.) And you didn't have to search the bodies of the buccaneers for "devil's marks" ; their nastiness usually was stamped on them in bold tattoos.

This is one of numerous such facilities in Salem that feature life-size figures recreating historical characters in a museum setting. The economy in this town, it often seems, depends on animatronics as much as on tourism. After you've been through a few of these exhibits, they start to feel a bit kitschy, but overall, I suppose they provide most tourists with historical insight that they'd never obtain otherwise.

One of the things one learns at this particular museum is that pirates were a very motley crew. A few of them really did fit the mold of the Errol Flynn type swashbuckling gentleman---although there were a few swashbuckling ladies on the high and low seas as well. Most of them, however, probably came closer to the type portrayed by Johnny Depp: not particularly villainous, but definitely coarse, cunning, opportunistic, and more than a little unsanitary.

And then there were the REALLY nasty characters who gave the whole lot of them a bad name. The lowest of the low, perhaps, was named, appropriately, Ned Low. He not only was a vicious murderer, but he also had a rather diabolical sense of humor about his job. He was known, for instance to slice off the noses and ears of his victims before killing them, cook the body parts, and force the victims to eat their own flesh. At least he had the consideration to add salt and pepper first. But the authorities finally caught up with him and he met his own gruesome end. (And the corpses of executed buccaneers often were put on display, as a warning to others, until they reached a rather advanced state of decay. Lovely times to live in, eh?)

The most interesting thing about the museum to me was the display of pirate flags. Contrary to what many folks seem to believe, there was no brigand code stating that everyone had to fly the same skull-and-crossbones jack on their vessels. Every ship's captain had license to design his own, or have someone else design it. And while bones did predominate in the designs, and black and white were the colors of choice, there was a great deal of imaginative variation.

There's also an interesting little exhibit on the Whydah, a sunken pirate ship that was recovered in 1984.

After rounding up a bite to eat, we headed to Witch Village to attend a "spell-casting", which we had wanted to experience on our initial trip to Salem last year. It seemed like the ultimate tourist activity for the official City Of Witches; but what we attended was more performance than ceremony, a special presentation by a member of the local wiccan community to give us Muggles a taste of what spell-casting is really like. It was an all-purpose incantation, designed not to bring money or true love or good health or peace in the Mid-east or a loss of a couple of pounds around the midriff, but general success and well-being. Or something like that. And while the faux candlelight, canned music and machine-generated fog may not have been terribly traditional, I have to admit that, by golly, I did walk out of there feeling a bit uplifted.

Needless to say, we had to round out our exploration of Salem with a return to The Dairy Witch for some excellent ice cream.

The next point of interest was Gloucester, where we finally did something we'd been talking about for years: we went whale-watching. It took us, however, three attempts to get rolling. The first day that we went into town, we arrived to learn that the trips for the day had been cancelled because of choppy seas. The wind didn't really seem very strong to us; we hate to think how choppy the seas would have been if there'd been a gale force gust. The second day, we thought it prudent to telephone before showing up, and were informed that again there was nothing doing. But on the third morning, we called and were told the show was on, so we scurried on down there before they changed their minds.

Once we arrived, we had to wait about an hour after the scheduled departure time, because a busload of high school students coming down from New Hampshire were stuck in traffic. So our projected 4-hour cruise turned out to be only 3 hours. But we certainly didn't complain, because what it lacked in duration it made up for in frequency of sightings. I don't know what the average number of whales is that one normally views on such an outing, but we ended up spotting dozens of them---or else it was the same handful of them getting a laugh on us by following us around and resurfacing over and over again. In any case, since I went with the expectation that I'd be lucky to observe three or four of the critters, I considered myself very blessed to see three or four every few minutes instead.

As we pulled out of the harbor, it occurred to me that I was in fact taking my first voyage out to sea. We only went out about 18 miles from shore, but it was still the only time I'd been any farther out of a bay than the time I sailed just past the Golden Gate. We stopped when we reached an area where the water was about 600 feet at its deepest point. But in certain places the ocean floor formed steep uprisings, on which were rich deposits of plant life that whales just love to dine upon. And dine they do, every day throughout more than half the year---they only take off for more tropical latitudes during the winter months.

And we didn't have to wait long; almost immediately, we heard an announcement that a couple of the blubbery faux fish could be seen about 100 yards off to port. Or was it starboard. Anyway, they were over THAT-A-WAY somewhere. And suddenly the weight of the vessel shifted as 100 or so teenagers rushed over to grab a vantage point on the rail, with the rest of us close behind, craning our necks for a peek.

Watching a couple of these behemoths in tandem thrashing their tails above the surface and then re-submerging in what appeared to be a choreographed sequence, I readily could see how stories about sea serpents and other fantastical marine creatures might have originated. Take two or three whales surfacing together, so that their bodies might appear to be segments of one continuous body. Add some willowy mist and deceptive lighting. Bring in a sailor whose brain is addled by fatigue, sensory deprivation, and maybe a nip or two of the ole grog. Voila! The suggestible imagination fills in the details, including many that never could have been there.

We learned that it was possible to tell when a whale was in your vicinity, because you can see the fluke prints-- i.e., a series of circles on the surface, each about 10 feet in diameter (I'd guess) that track the beast's progress. Sometimes you catch a glimpse of a turquoise streak just below the surface, and then you know one of Monstro's cousins is about to slip up for air. At one point we were able to see a whale in its entirety, as it glided along just a couple of feet below the surface, parallel to our boat, and nearly as long as our boat. That one sight was, as far as I'm concerned, worth taking the trek for.

We spotted several varieties of whale on our little jaunt, including the Sei Whale (say "say" ), which, we gathered was quite rare. Indeed, one of our tour guides stated that in her 10 years of conducting trips virtually every day during season, this was only the THIRD time she had noted Sei Whales. We had picked a serendipitous time indeed. And the guides were extremely excited about this rare opportunity.

These folks seem to have a genuine love for their job, and for the marine life forms about which their work revolves. These whales are their babies, and they take extreme care to respect the well-being of their gargantuan charges. This was apparent when the boat stopped at one point near some balloons that had landed in the water. Balloons, after all, can be mistaken for food by the whales, and trying to swallow them can cause some serious indigestion. So as the pilot steered our craft as close to the balloons as possible, a crew member diligently attempted to fish them out with a pole. After several minutes, the balloons eluded him and he had to abandon the task, but the effort was intensely sincere.

The love for the creatures also was apparent when the young lady mentioned that Iceland recently had lifted its ban on whaling, and thus some of these elegant mammoth marine mammals might end up as blubber if they happened to stray into Icelandic waters at some time in the future---which is entirely possible. And this prospect clearly filled her with consternation.

One of my biggest concerns about going on this expedition in the first place was the remote chance that our boat might collide with one of the whales. And when, after we were underway, I heard it stated that such collisions do occur on rare occasions, and are generally fatal, I was about ready to panic. But then I realized that they didn't mean fatal to humans---the damage to the boat or its occupants in such incidents is minimal. But the whales pay for the carelessness with their lives. And it wasn't hard to figure out that this crew, with their enormous respect for the big guys, were taking every possible precaution to prevent this from happening, so I relaxed and enjoyed the tour.

A sojourn in Massachusetts wouldn't be complete without spending some time in the Big Beanpot itself: the city of Boston. Since we drove into town with three kids, we of course had to take in some educational attractions. Our first stop was the Old State House---which perhaps should be called the Commonwealth House. It's been in operation since 1798, and some of the furniture from the early days is still on display here, although it's no longer in use.

Touring the House Of Representatives, one notes right away that Massachusetts is one place that still seems not to have heard of the oxymoronic "Conservative Revolution". The names and party affiliations of delegates are listed on the wall; and there was only a pitiful handful of Republicans down at the bottom of one column, overwhelmed by an army of Democrats.

Despite a reputation for retrograde policies and bluenose attitudes dating back to Puritan days (the expression "banned in Boston" has become a permanent fixture of the popular lexicon, probably more for its alliterative mnemonic appeal than its pertinence), the state has been, for at least a century and a half, in the vanguard of progressivism. Back in 1858, for instance, Judge Edward Greely Loring was REMOVED FROM OFFICE for ruling that an escaped slave must be returned to his master. (His trial took place in what is now the Senate Chamber, but formerly was occupied by the House Of Representatives for about a century.)

And you also notice the fish. Specifically, the cod. It's mounted on a plaque just above your head as you walk into the chamber. I don't know if the expression "holy mackerel" originated here, but these lawmakers take their "holy cod" rather seriously. Ever since a local merchant many generations ago presented the taxidermist trophy to the legislature as a token of the fishing industry's contribution to the area's economy, it has been the governing body's official good luck emblem. Back in 1933, a group of students from that notorious gadfly brigade Harvard Lampoon "cod-napped" the prize, and the House would not carry on with its business until it was returned safe and sound.

Another very interesting fact we learned is that the legislature seriously considers ideas for new bills that are submitted by schoolchildren. This seems to me an excellent way not only to get young people involved in civics but also to actually obtain some constructive laws. When I compare the notions that kids have about how the country should be run to some of the policies concocted by representatives in state and national capitals, I can't help concluding that kids tend to be more in tune to what the world needs than most adults do---or at least those adults who often run the show. But I digress, which heaven knows I've never done before.

The next stop on our itinerary was supposed to be The USS Constitution, aka Old Ironsides, which is docked in Boston Harbor and open to tours. But it's open to tours only if you're able to find parking anywhere in this galaxy, which we were unable to do on this particular day. So we just settled for a drive-by sighting, and went on to the next alternative. We also passed by a museum dedicated to the Boston Tea Party, which still has not reopened after being closed for renovation.

We settled on a return to the Museum Of Science, which we'd all visited last year. In fact, since I'd been to so many science museums, including this one, I decided to abandon the rest of the party and take a walking tour of the streets of Boston.

The museum was not far from Charles Street, which reminded me somewhat of modern-day Haight Street in San Francisco, with its casual blend of bohemians, yuppies and scruffies, and its trendy shops designed to snag tourists. One big difference, however, was that streets seemed rather narrower, and there was an abundance of brick. Brick buildings, brick streets, brick everything. In fact, I've noticed that the entire city is a mason's paradise, and I don't remember seeing any other city whose brick content is comparable.

Then I returned to the museum and prepared for a long night. You see, we had a particular reason for coming here at this time. There is an observatory on the roof, and Mars had just about reached its closest point to Earth on this day, and we'd been hoping for a good opportunity to examine it before it started making its gradual retreat. Well, the Museum Of Science happens to have an observatory on the roof, and on this night they were keeping it open for viewings of the Red Planet, long after the museum had closed.

So we all made our way to the upper level of the parking garage to get in line. And quite a line it was, even though we were getting there at what we thought was an early hour. We were in the queue for about an hour and a half in the chilly autumn air of New England, waiting our turn to glance through the telescope for only a few seconds. But we didn't mind, because we knew it would be at least 50,000 years before we had this chance again, and our eyesight might be failing a bit by then. Besides, it was a starry night over the Boston skyline, and the kids kept everyone thoroughly entertained.

And the brief glimpse of Mars itself was, I think, well worth the wait. The view wasn't really distinctive; essentially it was just a yellowish ball in the sky, with a polar icecap barely detectable up North, and an extremely faint hourglass marking down the middle. They were details so ghostly as to make you almost think you'd imagined them, details such as probably would not be captured by even the most powerful camera. But there she was. Years from now, we won't remember the lengthy wait in the cold-just that once-in-a-lifetime sight of Mars grandstanding.

The last time it came this close, there was no civilization, nor even any humanity as we know it. Maybe there won't be the next time, either. Most likely, the city will be entirely vanished, as will the arbitrary boundaries that designate what is now Massachusetts. The tea will be long gone form the harbor, Bunker Hill may be flat, the twisted addiction to coercive conformity that produces blue laws and witch-hunts will be (one hopes) long purged from the human psyche, and hundreds more petty dictators who tried to remake the world in their own image will be nothing but dust. Maybe even Bill Buckner's error will be forgotten.

As Mars, a planet named for a very destructive god, recedes back into its usual heavenly path, we are reminded that the next 500 centuries may pass more quickly than we expect. But for now, there are brick streets and elegant monuments in this fabulous place called Boston.