Billie and I used to live in Boston and first started coming to the Cape in the days when you had to worry about your car's radiator overheating while you were stuck in traffic on Route 3. Once we got onto the Cape, we headed to Wellfleet and points east, preferring the beauty and pace of the Old King's Highway to the Orleans-or-Bust desperation of the Mid-Cape Highway. Before we washed ashore in Southport in 2009, we knew virtually nothing about areas south of Route 6. My only memory of Mashpee was the day I got stuck in mid-summer traffic trying to get through the Mashpee Rotary. I vowed never to go there again. Little did I know.

My driving experience is much broader now, having driven in most of the major cities in the US and even in countries where I had to drive on the "wrong" side of the road. Relatively speaking, the Mashpee Rotary is a piece of cake. Not so Boston, where last Wednesday I spent two-and-a-half hours in (mostly) stop and (very little) go traffic getting from downtown to Peabody, just 12 miles north. And then on Thursday, I got to enjoy the ambiance of the Big Dig tunnel for about 45 minutes while I traveled less than a mile.

My reason for being in Boston last week was to do something that was on my "bucket list"--ride a Duck Boat!
It was the quintessential tourist experience and great fun;
I enjoyed it as much or more than my grandson did. And I now have a new appreciation for Southport resident Forrest Pirovano, who captained one of those vessels for ten years
in the persona of a Viking. You have to admire someone who can maneuver in Boston traffic, observe most red lights, maintain an adopted identity, tell corny jokes, present a history lecture on the city--and still not run over pedestrians or bump into other vehicles on land or water.

   

David Kapp, Editor 

____________________________________________ 

Toby Dunn enjoys his life on Cuttyhunk Island, where he gets to run free, attend school with his friend Nancy, and keep her company through the long winters.

Nancy Dunn was born in Walpole, Massachusetts and attended school there until her family moved to the Cape and she finished up at Dennis-Yarmouth Regional High School. She wanted to be a teacher by the time she was eight or nine years old and had a little schoolroom set up in her bedroom where she taught her five siblings and friends. After graduation, she enrolled in a teacher education program at Bridgewater State College.

"It was natural to start at Bridgewater," she says, "but I was too young, socially immature and wasn't doing the work, so I took time off. I traveled cross-country by way of Florida and Texas and moved to Hawaii. I took computer courses at the University of Hawaii and ran a private day care business but I was homesick. After a year I came home. I waitressed, taught kids at the CYO to play basketball, and taught handicapped kids to ice skate. I took more courses at UMass/Amherst and Boston. I was always teaching and learning something!"

Nancy worked in the commercial real estate leasing business in Boston for a few years before finding a great position at Children's Hospital in Boston. There, she taught physicians and nurses how to use computers and transformed the Genetics Lab's 1988
card catalog into an automated database. At night, she put on a fun science show for the hospital TV station, which kids could attend or watch from their rooms. A flexible schedule and tuition reimbursement allowed her to take courses at Wheelock College and at Emmanuel College, from which she graduated in 1994 with her BS in elementary education. She married, built a house, and left the hospital to do her student teaching in Mansfield in a multi-age classroom, grades 1 and 2.  

Three of the Dunn siblings celebrating their mother Ellen Dunn, a Southport resident, on Mothers Day. (left to right) Theresa, Nancy, Ellen and Rob.

"My first teaching job was at Sacred Heart School in Kingston. The school had a good reputation and drew students widely as there was nothing comparable in the area back then. The commute was difficult and the pay poor, but I taught 3rd grade and gained valuable experience. Later, I found a permanent position teaching 2nd grade in Norton for almost a decade. I loved the community, principal and faculty, and made lots of good friends."

Nancy left Norton in 2005 after her father died and her 20-year marriage had ended. She decided to finish her Master's degree in science education at Lesley University. She took the remaining courses--graduate level physics and engineering--on-line and moved to Maryland for a year. But she missed living near the ocean. So, with a new relationship and a sense of adventure, she headed south to live on Pine Island, Florida-"a beautiful, rural island, full of palm plantations and mangoes."

"My new position, teaching middle school science at a new charter school in Cape Coral was wonderful!" she says. "I had a great guitar-playing principal, involved parents, the latest technology, and full autonomy to create new projects. I started a school organic garden where our harvest was used in the cafeteria and our hydroponic herbs were used by the high school's culinary program. I built a partnership with the women engineering faculty at Florida Gulf Coast University and started a Girls' Engineering Club to introduce my students to the field. The salary was definitely lower than in Massachusetts, but there was lower stress and the freedom to teach creatively. I still have great friends there."   

In 2010, Nancy's mother Ellen Dunn was facing surgery and needing help, so Nancy returned to the Cape and moved in with her. "My neighbors packed my house and taught me to drive a 36' long moving truck/car carrier, and I set off on my journey, accompanied by my dog and cat. I like adventures but there were heavy rainstorms and narrow hilly roads. Once, when I couldn't maneuver my rig in a truck stop, a friendly truck driver got on my running board and with one hand on the wheel, got me out of that easily! I still laugh when I picture myself climbing up onto the car carrier with my cat and dog and sleeping in the back of the SUV! We made the 1700-mile trek in 39 hours, safe but very weary."   

Nancy had become an ACA-certified kayak guide while in Florida and went to work for Cape Cod Kayak, teaching kids and guiding tours. "I was in great shape then!" She substitute taught grades PreK-12 in Mashpee, enrolled in a post-grad environmental technology program in coastal zone management at Cape Cod Community College, and found a position at Waquoit Bay National Estuarine Research Reserve as director of the summer science school in the Education Department. She loved outdoor education and teaching science in the salt marsh but needed to make a better salary, so she started sending out resumes to public schools again last summer.

"I believe in the power of positive thinking and creating your own reality," she says, "so I focused my full attention on what I ideally wanted in my next teaching position: a house by the water, to teach in a coastal community, to earn a decent salary, to be able to take my dog Toby to school with me, to be able to grow professionally, to be within driving distance from my mother, to be able to use my creativity and to have autonomy."  

Twenty to thirty people live on Cuttyhunk Island, part of the Elizabeth Islands chain, during the shoulder seasons, but only about 15 stay through the winter when all supplies are ferried over from  New Bedford twice a week. Social life revolves around potluck suppers, walks on the beach and visiting with neighbors.

Many towns were laying off teachers in 2012 and most openings had 400+ applicants. Nancy focused on her list, reading it over before bed each night. "Then I saw a position on Cuttyhunk Island," she says, "and knew right away it was perfect and it was mine! Yes, there were 122 applicants, but all of my teaching and learning experiences had led me to this. The superintendent in Rehoboth interviewed ten teachers and invited five of us to meet on the island with the school committee. At first, I didn't even know where it was, or that you had to take a ferry from New Bedford to get there, but I did my research and prepared very well. One applicant missed the ferry and then there were four!"   

Cuttyhunk's historic 1873 one-room schoolhouse is the only one of its kind still in use as a school in Massachusetts.

Cuttyhunk, part of the Elizabeth Islands chain that runs southwest of Woods Hole, is a community within the Town of Gosnold. Nancy is now the teacher-and the principal--in a historic 1873 one-room schoolhouse, multi-grade (PreK-8). She lives on the beach with a peaceful view of Vineyard Sound, Aquinnah/Gay Head cliffs and the lighthouse on Martha's Vineyard--all included with the position. Toby comes to school with her, which the students love, and she's not far from her mother at Southport, where she is a part-time resident on many weekends, most school holidays and summers. The job has everything she had on her ideal list, and a lot more!

Nancy has two students, siblings, a girl in 2nd and a boy in 3rd grade. They ring the school bell when they arrive and leave, and walk home for lunch--no bus. They had school every day, even during Hurricane Sandy and blizzards. It's a very different environment to live in. The tiny market (where everyone has an account in a handwritten ledger) closes from November to April, then all food is picked up by a resident who goes to the mainland on the ferry, which runs just twice a week in the winter. Mail comes on the ferry twice a week. There are 20 to 30 people in Cuttyhunk during the shoulder seasons but only 15 in winter. There is a town hall, a library, a church shared by various denominations in the summer, and the school--all unlocked, as are houses. Golf carts are parked with keys in the ignition. Social life revolves around visiting, beach walks, and potluck dinners. A fair amount of wine arrives on the ferry.  

Nancy's students Gwen (2nd grade) & Carter (3rd grade) are sister and brother. Their school day is reminiscent of earlier times, when the school bell was rung at the beginning and end of the day and kids walked home for lunch. But thanks to generous federal support, they also enjoy the latest learning technology. Having Toby at school every day is a bonus.

"It is isolated and remote," Nancy says, "but I have Toby and was so busy teaching and preparing that I rarely felt lonely. I have made wonderful new friends there, have a MacBook Pro and wireless access and I did buy a large flat-screen TV at Christmas! I also love to read, do yoga and meditate."  

Cuttyhunk receives substantial federal support, which allowed Nancy to take her students on many extended field trips. She teaches the entire state-required curriculum and does a lot of outdoor environmental projects. A music teacher comes weekly; the kids quickly picked up multiple instruments and they go off-island to sing in choirs. They learn how to cook, engineer and design things, do field studies, draw and paint, speak Spanish, play tennis, kayak, do yoga, and perform on holidays for their supportive community. Poets, authors, artists, scientists and historians live on the island and like to be involved with the kids. The students get a very full education except for the limited student interaction in the winters.   

"It's good to get back to Southport and to be with my mother for the summer," Nancy says. "But I think I'm on Cuttyhunk for a reason. It's the perfect position for me and it's been very rewarding. I've signed a contract for next year!"

For more information, go to: cuttyhunkislandschoolhouse.blogspot.com

• OK, but this is the last time. I've explained the meaning of NON COMPOS MENDES twice, but people keep asking me about it. For those few who are not fluent in Latin, Compos Mentis is a Latin term meaning sound of mind.  Non Compos Mentis means, of course, just the opposite. I merely changed Mentis to Mendes and now I'm beginning to wonder if it was worth the time.
     
• This is not original wisdom on my part, but it's an amalgam of things I've been reading and thinking about. It has to do with our government and the people who inhabit it (so skip to the next paragraph if you don't want to hear about it). It seems that most of our recent Presidents and members of Congress--both houses--spend the lion's share of their term preparing to get re-elected, which consists of raising money and beholding themselves to special interest groups. That situation could
  be thwarted by taking the following steps:

1) Change the term of Representatives to six years and limit them to two terms.

2) Change the term of Senators to ten years and limit them to one term.

3) Change the President's time in office to one six-year term.

Is this a perfect solution? Of course not, but maybe it, or something like it is an
idea to consider.  

• I have a couple of inconsequential questions.

• I've admired Warren Buffett for a long time, but never so much as when I read in
  the newspaper that he has contributed two BILLION dollars (that's $2,000,000,000) to charity, saying, "Five hundred million dollars is enough for me to live on."
   

• July 17, just finished reading in the newspaper that gas prices are going up.
  Uh, do the papers think they really have to tell us that? Do they think we haven't noticed?
   

• We all know that pens are used for writing, but did you ever read a pen? Most of
  the pens we own are freebies from a doctor, a pharmaceutical firm, a hotel, a bank or other enterprise. They all carry logos and some tell a story. I can often tell where someone has been and what medications he takes by reading his pens. And speaking of pens in banks, have you ever noticed that banks keep their pens
  chained down and their vault doors wide open? Hmmmm.
   

• Do you ever think about those magnificent sand sculptures we see here on the
  Cape every summer? I don't mean the sculptures themselves, but rather the sculptors who construct them. I don't understand how a person with that degree
  of talent can create such an extraordinary piece of art--in sand--knowing that their work is very temporary and probably won't last the week. If I were the sculptor,
  I'd probably be looking for a noose to hang myself.

The year was 1866 and New York City was booming a year after the end of the Civil War, but William Wheatly had a problem. He was the manager of Niblo's Garden, a theater on Broadway with the best equipped stage in the city and 3200 seats to be filled. Wheatly owned the production rights to a dull melodrama that he tried to sweeten with various existing songs and production values with little success.

Then the New York Academy of Music burned down and impresarios Henry Jarrett and Harry Palmer had a problem. They had contracted with a Paris ballet company to perform there. The company had just arrived in the city complete with a ship full of elaborate sets and now had no stage for their production. Jarrett and Palmer proposed a merger with Wheatly and thus "The Black Crook" show was born.

A scene from The Black Crook, reputed to be the first Broadway musical.

 The Black Crook opened at Niblo's Garden on September 12, 1866. It ran for, by today's standards, an exhausting five and a half hours, but the audience saw things they had never seen before and were spellbound. State-of-the-art special effects included a "transformation scene," which converted a rocky grotto into a fairyland throne room in full view of the audience. The plot and most of the songs were forgettable but at least one scene was not. In an age when an exposed ankle was considered racy, imagine 100 fleshy ballerinas in skin colored tights singing "The March of the Amazons" (a song written especially for the show) while prancing about in a moonlit grotto.

In an age when 150 performances was considered a hit, the original production ran for 464 performances and generated revenues in excess of a record-breaking one million dollars. It was revived in 1870 and 1871 on Broadway and many times after that and toured for years, making millions more. A silent movie version of the show was produced in 1916.  

Scantily clad dancers (by 1866 standards) made The Black Crook controversial and helped to ensure the financial success of the show.

So why was "The Black Crook" such a hit? It is considered to be the first piece of musical theater that conforms to the modern notion of a "book musical." It allows America to claim the invention of the modern musical, where popular songs and dances are performed as part of a unifying story. An 1860 production, "The Seven Sisters", had many of the same attributes and ran for 253 performances but is lost to history.

The Civil War changed the world of musical theater between 1860 and 1866 in at least two significant ways. Many women left the home during the war to work in hospitals and businesses and now felt liberated enough to attend the theater, increasing the market for outside entertainment considerably. In addition, expansion of the railroads to support the delivery of war supplies made it practical and profitable to tour with large, expensive productions.   

Perhaps a key reason for the success of "The Black Crook" was the controversy it caused. A little notoriety always sells tickets. Many considered the show to be the work of the devil. Considering that it was conceived in fire, it may be hard to prove otherwise.

For more information, go to en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Black_Crook.

Carol & Tom Fredian

Through a complex set of happy circumstances, Tom and Carol Fredian found themselves checking out the lifestyle at Southport. At the time, they were living in New Hampshire in the home they had purchased from Carol's aunt and uncle. The house had been a vacation retreat for the Fredian family for many years, and their children didn't want to say good-bye to it. At first they hadn't intended to live there full time, but when Tom discovered that he could telecommute from there, they made their move from Massachusetts to New Hampshire.

Carol lost both of her parents last year. After her father died, the Fredians spent two months with Carol's mother in Lancaster, Pennsylvania before she, too, passed away. These events prompted Tom and Carol to begin thinking about their own long-term plans. How they came to be at Southport is a testament to the effectiveness of Southport's marketing.

The Fredians had lived for years in Newton and Needham and awoke each morning to the cheerful voices of Loren and Wally on WROR. After Tom acquired a streaming radio, they also were able to hear their old friends while in New Hampshire. And what did they hear?  You guessed it, Loren and Wally were extolling the virtues of Southport! After listening to them repeatedly, Tom thought it might be worthwhile to learn more, so he sent for some literature from Southport. Shortly thereafter, the Fredians made their annual trip to the Cape with friends. They decided to make a side trip to Southport and decided that day to purchase a home here.

But that, of course, tells the progress of the journey without explaining how it began. So, stepping back a bit, Tom and Carol met while working for DuPont in Newark, Delaware. Carol had grown up in Newark while Tom grew up in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. He attended Carnegie Mellon, earning a degree in chemical engineering, and spent ten years working for DuPont with assignments in New Jersey, Texas, and finally Newark. He had the opportunity to explore various divisions within the company and gravitated toward computers. His work with experts in the field led to a job offer from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. At MIT, Tom develops software for their fusion energy project, which is used worldwide. This has afforded him the opportunity to travel worldwide and he just recently returned from China. He continues to work full time and does so entirely from home, whether here or in New Hampshire. He claims he only has to be present on campus for departmental parties.

Carol, too, has an interesting career history. After moving to Boston, Carol worked for a publishing firm, a biotech company and, for seven years was executive assistant to Malcolm Rogers, director of the Boston Museum of Fine Arts. Now retired, and before buying in Southport, she enjoyed volunteering for Hospice, the local senior center, and was a member of the Littleton, NH Conservation Commission. Once she settles down she looks forward to doing more volunteer work locally.

Are you Too Old to Rock 'n Roll

but Too Young To Die?

Is it Better to Burn Out

than Fade Away?  

Who can say?

I thought I'd die

when Paul sang

I Wanna Hold Your Hand,

though I was too young

to understand,

when at last I reached that age

I turned my ears to Jimmy Page

and things quickly changed;

suddenly, I was a Free Bird

who couldn't be caged.

Rock is just a flash in the pan

my mother often said,

"those pretty boys with their long hair

will soon end up dead."

"Nah, you're just square,"

came my sharp reply,

but how could she have known

so many were doomed to die?

And so the Wind Cries

Jimi, Janis, Jim, and John

and many others too;

gone

like Dust in the Wind.

Maybe it's fate?

Wasn't it Jimi who sang,

"I'll Meet You in the Next World

Now Don't be Late?"  

If There's a Rock 'n Roll Heaven

You know There's Gotta be a Hell of a Band     ,              

So Keep on Truck'n

and Rock'n in the Free World,

stay on this Magical Mystery Tour

wherever it takes you,

after all, it's about freedom

and My G - G Generation,

but no thanks Roger,

I Don't Want to Die Before I Get Old,

I'd rather Rock Around The Clock

and never stop.

I wanna Feel the Earth Move Under My Feet

and keep Dancing in the Streets

Move'n to the Groove'n,

so come on, Shake Your Booty,

That's My Solution.

We baby boomers are no

Flash and the Pan,

to name another band;

rock is not fleeting,

so feel the funk down in your soul

It's the Heart of Rock 'n Roll,

And It's Still Beating. 

France Honors Southport Resident Eliot Sklar

Eliot Sklar displays a picture of the USS Hambleton, the destroyer on which he served in World War II.

In the summer of 1944, as the youngest man aboard the USS Hambleton DD455, Eliot Sklar participated in three invasions of France, including Normandy, Cherbourg and Southern France. This fall, in early October, the Government of France will honor his service in helping to liberate France from the Nazis by naming him a Chevalier of the Legion of Honor at a ceremony in Cambridge.

Growing up in the late 1930s and early 1940s in the Jewish community of Mattapan, Eliot was keenly aware of the antisemitism sweeping Nazi Germany. Reports of Jews being rounded up and murdered in Germany and the occupied countries appeared regularly on Fox Movie-Tone News. Rumors of death camps were rife.

"I was a skinny, naive, 18-year-old freshman at Northeastern University in 1943," Eliot says, "when sadness and anger and hatred of the Nazis finally drove me to drop out and enlist in the U.S. Navy." After basic training, Eliot was posted to a destroyer, the USS Hambleton, and found himself in active combat in both the Atlantic and the Pacific until the time of his discharge in November 1945.

 Southport Artists Exhibit Work at Senior Center

Mary McCormick with her painting, "Sailor's Delight."

Three Southport residents- Diana Ghize, Mary McCormick and Joe Tinlin- are among the artists whose work is currently on display at the Mashpee Senior Center through September 18.  

They are part of a group of dedicated painters who meet each Wednesday at the Senior Center, toting canvasses and paints, sketch pads and drawing pencils

to work in a collegial setting on their individual projects. Experience has  

Joe Tinlin and his portrait of Admiral David Farragut

shown that artists benefit greatly from working in groups--it improves individual skills and fosters creativity.

One group of Senior Center painters meets on Wednesday mornings and a second group meets on Wednesday afternoons. Each person works in the medium of his or her choice, portraying subjects of their own choosing. The

Diana Ghize with "Ships," her painting on wood.

painters are fortunate to have professional artist/instructor Barry Jones-Henry there to encourage and advise them.  

Some of the artists have participated for many years and their skills have grown commensurately. Others are newcomers, just beginning to explore the pleasures of painting and immersing themselves in the materials and techniques of their chosen medium. But everyone agrees that the "open studio" concept--working on individual projects in a group setting--is a rewarding experience.

Sandy Bernstein is a freelance writer and web designer. Her poetry, articles, and fiction have appeared in such publications as The Writer Magazine, Writers' Journal, Poetic Voices, Flashquake Magazine, Mind Fire, and many other print and web publications. She is a long time member of the Stoneham Writers Group. Currently she is working on a novel, an excerpt appears on her website www.sandybernstein.net. 

If you have a Kindle, you can access her short story "Creepies"on Amazon for $.99.

www.amazon.com/dp/B00BKMXDDS 

Joy Evans and her husband Bob moved to Southport from Sandwich six years ago. They have three daughters and two grandchildren. Joy retired from her position as a college administrator in 1995 on the same day that Bob retired as director of promotion services for the Gillette Company. They divide their time between Southport and Southwest Florida, where Joy writes for a monthly newsletter.  

 

 

 

   

David Kapp, with his wife Billie, moved from Connecticut to Southport in 2009. David retired from a career as a university library administrator, after working in the libraries at Brandeis, Harvard and the University of Connecticut. He was a building consultant for the planning of a number of major university libraries and was, for many years, the editor of Connecticut Libraries. Billie enjoyed a career as an educator and social sciences consultant. The Kapps are frequent visitors to Hawaii where their son, daughter, grandson and other family members live.  

Jonathan Leavitt grew up in Scarsdale, NY. He earned his undergraduate degree in electrical engineering at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute and a master's degree in the same field from the University of Pennsylvania. He worked at Sprague Electric, Epsco, Di/An controls, MIT Instrumentation/Draper Labs, and GTE, mostly as a development engineer. The highlight of his career was logic design contribution to an experiment that was carried to the moon on Apollo 17. Married for 42 years to the late Arlene (Samiof), he has three married children and six grandchildren. He has been associated with Southport part-time since 2003, full time since 2008.   

 SPECIAL THANKS TO

Nancy Dunn for her interview and photographs,