Despite the GPS lady who rides with us in our car and tells us where to go, most of us still carry a few paper maps as back-up and have a printed atlas or two in the house. But think about the number of mental maps that occupy space in your head. Can you picture the streets of the place where you grew up? The place where you first kissed your spouse? The hospital where your first child was born? The corridors of the last place you worked? Your address in a village where all the buildings are similar?

I just returned from a week in Barcelona, a city I'd read about and always wanted to visit. Until recently, however, I'd never located it on a map and had no clear idea where in Spain it was.Now, a map of that vibrant beautiful city is stored in my mental atlas, along with maps of the places I've lived and visited or where important events in my life occurred. Think about the maps in your head and be amazed by the memories they conjure up.  These lines from a poem by Alexander McCall Smith say it better than I can.

Although they are useful sources

Of information we cannot do without,

Regular maps have few surprises ...

Such maps abound; more precious, though

Are the unpublished maps we make ourselves,

Of our city, our place, our daily world, our life;

Those maps of our private world

We use every day; here I was happy, in that place

I left my coat behind after a party,

That is where I met my love; I cried there once,

I was heartsore; but felt better round the corner

Once I saw the hills of Fife across the Firth,

Things of that sort, our personal memories,

 ____________________________________________ 

Leander George Othon was born in Brockton, Massachusetts in 1937 and educated there until he went off to college. How he got to Dartmouth College, and later to Southport is quite a story.

"My Dad came to America from Greece. He had an establishment with 20 pool tables and 12 duck pin alleys above the Center Theater on Brockton's Main Street. He had a program for 16-year-old kids who had city-issued, signed, parental consent certificates to learn pool. One English teacher called it the 'Academy,' and the name stuck. Dad was amused by this and would say, 'They have confused me with another philosopher,' but the fact was that his patrons often sought out his advice. Dad tried to teach me the finer points of pool, but I was focused on golf and never played pool very well."

When Lee was 12, he walked a mile to caddy and play golf at Brockton's municipal D.W. Field Golf Club. But caddying paid better at the private Thorny Lea Golf Club so, after gaining some stature and confidence, he hitchhiked six miles to get there. Lee couldn't have imagined the consequences of this decision. Some of the best players in the state were there and he came under their influence and tutelage. His game improved; soon he was shooting consistently in the mid-70s!

"I started caddying for a contingent of Dartmouth College alumni. Their loyalty and enthusiasm for the school was contagious. Except for their descriptions, all I knew about Dartmouth was seeing the movie Winter Carnival. Soon my blood had turned from red to Dartmouth green. In my senior year at Brockton High my homeroom teacher, another Dartmouth alum, encouraged me and guided me through the application process. I was accepted and still have close ties there.           

Shown here with his father in 1956, Lee was able to attend Darthmough College with the aid of a Francis Ouimet Caddy Scholarship. He's repaid that gift many times over by serving on the Ouimet Scholarship Executive Board since 1992, helping to raise funds for other college-bound young men and women.

"Through caddying at Thorny Lea, I learned of the Francis Ouimet Caddy Scholarship, applied for it and received it. I could never have afforded to go to Dartmouth otherwise. I have had a long association with the Ouimet program and have served on its board since 1992. It is for young men and women who have had at least two years of work in service to golf: caddying, pro shop, greens crew, and so forth.   

The Ouimet Scholar will have his unmet financial needs filled at any accredited school in the country. In 1949, the first group of 13 scholars received $4600. In 2012, more than 300 scholars shared over $1.5 million. I played golf in high school and also on the Dartmouth team for one or two years but dropped it when I found my ability to keep up with my organic and physical chemistry labs was suffering."

After graduating from Dartmouth, Lee joined an Army Reserve unit and the next year went to NYU College of Dentistry in Manhattan. Graduating in June 1965, he started his internship on July 1 and married his wife Doreen on August 15. Doreen was one of six nurses at the Dr. Sydney Farber Clinic for Research in Pediatric Oncology, now the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, whose principal charity is the well-known Jimmy Fund.

"I took a position as intern, then as resident in oral and maxillofacial surgery at the Yale Medical Center/Yale New Haven Hospital, and was paid, in total for two years, $2500. Doreen was offered a position in the Yale Medical School Private Practice Offices of six leading ob-gyn researchers at Yale. The job couldn't have been better for her. She was fascinated by the work, and her paycheck kept us afloat for two wonderful years in New Haven.

"Back in Boston, I took two years of grad work at Boston City Hospital and Tufts University to complete the requirements for board certification, and Doreen returned to the Farber Clinic as their head nurse. Finishing my exams, I signed up with a group practice that had a satellite office in Hanover, Massachusetts. I worked there for 11 years, bought out the group interest and stayed there in private practice until 2005 when I retired after 37 years in practice.

"I'm a real golf junkie from June through September each year, returning from our place in Florida to New England to do my work on the Ouimet Scholarship Board of Directors. I also have served for 20 years as a 'rules official' on the Massachusetts Golf Association (MGA) and for nine years on its executive committee. My schedule includes officiating in tournaments, fund raising for the Ouimet Scholarship Fund and work with the New England Golf Association. Trips to oversee tournaments may take three to four days. This year will be my swan song as official-in-charge at tournaments for the MGA. We are hosting the Massachusetts Mid-Amateur Championship at Marshfield, my home course for 45 years. It means going to the course perhaps five or six times with others to see that the course is set up properly, selecting hole locations, making assignments for officials and arranging meals, etc.

"I'm especially dedicated to my work with the Ouimet Scholarship and will continue to fund raise but will retire from the executive board. The best fun is to give out the money: about $1.5 million last year and probably $2 million this year. All of the money goes to the scholars.

"Some of this money is raised at a our annual spring banquet, which began as a dinner for caddies at the Harvard Club in Boston. These days, we invite a famous golf figure to speak and then to name one of our more than 50 permanently endowed scholarships. Our first speaker, Arnold Palmer, named his scholarship after his father Deacon Palmer. President George Herbert Walker Bush chose to honor his father, who had been president of the U.S. Golf Association and a personal friend of Francis Ouimet. In 2013 the banquet raised in excess of $300,000. Other funds come from our golf marathon and private donations.  

A Ouimet bag tag commemorates the 100th anniversary of 20-year-old amateur Francis Ouimet's victory over the two best professional golf players in the world at the U.S. Open in 1913. That event is credited with having sparked the first golf boom in America.

"But most of the scholarship money is generated by the yearly purchase of golf bag tags by members of the 340 golf clubs in Massachusetts; we can generate $20-25,000 from some of the wealthier clubs during the marathon event. This source will be especially big this year since the U.S. Amateur Championship was played at the Country Club in Brookline, marking the 100th anniversary of the 1913 U.S. National Open Championship Tournament at Brookline. On that occasion, Francis Ouimet, a 20-year-old amateur, scored an improbable and historic win to ignite the first real golf boom in the United States.

"Doreen and I have had a place in Florida since 1987 and we now live there seven months a year. We played golf together, but health issues have reduced the amount of time we can play. Doreen became involved with crafts, genealogy and a host of other things. She loves to grow flowers and on our old homestead in Hanover had 12-13 acres of woods and fields to plant them. We sold that place and moved to Southport in 2004."

At Southport, Lee was a member of the Golf Club Board as well as its president. In 2006, he helped to set up the Southport course with Woody Young, Jr. and this year to re-set it with the help of Woody, Russ Miller, Karen Venezia and Jeanne Harris.

"It is important to set up the course properly with appropriate boundary markers so that our scores can be used in the MGA's handicapping system. However, since our course is a difficult one, and we have many beginners and seniors, some careful adjustment is made in the rules and boundaries. We don't use out of bounds (except all lawns), but maximize the use of lateral hazard lines to promote pace of play. Lateral hazards are permitted where there is occasional standing water. We will have a new two-page sheet explaining our rules this year, which will make it easier to learn and understand them."

Both Lee and Doreen enjoy their months at Southport but traveling back and forth between New England and Florida is becoming more arduous; full time in Florida may be in their future. If so it will be our loss.

TRANSPORTATION How would theatergoers get to Niblo's Garden in the first place?

Horse-drawn omnibuses were made more efficient by pulling them on rails.

What was public transportation like in 1866? Steam powered elevated railways didn't exist; they were first demonstrated in New York in 1867. Subways, which require electrical power stations, weren't operational in New York until 1904. And of course today's ubiquitous taxis were nowhere to be found; internal combustion engines didn't show up until late in the 19^th century. So in 1866, you might have come to Niblo's in an omnibus, a horse-drawn, multi-passenger carriage made more efficient by being pulled along on railroad tracks. Later, those omnibuses were steam-powered.

ELEVATORS Once you reached Niblo's Garden, you would want to find your seat quickly and easily. Let's imagine you're on crutches, recovering from a bad fall. Your seats are on the second balcony. Where's the elevator? It's not likely that Niblo's had one. Elisha Otis introduced the safety elevator in 1852 and one was installed in a New York building in 1857, but Niblo's Garden opened in 1849; it's doubtful that an elevator was installed until the theater was rebuilt in 1872 following a devastating fire. Maybe someone would help you up the stairs.

CONDITIONS Let's assume you are attending a matinee on a stiflingly hot afternoon. The show is SRO--3200 people gathered in one place for five-and-a-half hours. It's probably getting a little close. Please turn on the air conditioning! Sorry, although ice-making machines were available in 1866 on a limited basis, the first practical air conditioner, which controlled both air temperature and humidity, was not invented until 1902. Let's hope you brought a fan.

LIGHTING The show is about to begin. Just how would the stage be lighted? Gas lighting replaced candles as the lighting standard by the mid 19th century and was surely in use at Niblo's. Gas lighting, however, had its drawbacks and was most likely the cause of the burning down of several hundred theaters in the 19^th century. By 1866, other theatrical lighting methods were also in use. Burning lime produces a bright white light that was used to illuminate stages; hence the term, "in the limelight." Electricity made its theatrical debut in 1846 when the rays of an electric arc were used for back lighting to represent the sun. By 1866, electric arc spotlights were also popular, but general illumination with electricity didn't show up until 1879, after Edison had invented the first practical incandescent bulb.

SOUND AMPLIFICATION So, your hearing isn't what it used to be? Let's hope the actors and singers have healthy lungs. There was no practical method to amplify sound until after the invention of the telephone in 1876. Performers needed to project! Ear trumpets were a hearing aid but their effectiveness depended on the size of the trumpet and their use was limited. Not much help in a crowded theater.   

An 1880s pop corn machine

INTERMISSION It's between acts. You want a snack? Well, it wouldn't be popcorn; the first public sales of that snack followed the invention of the popcorn machine in 1885. And you wouldn't be drinking Coca-Cola, which first appeared in 1886 as a patent medicine to be added to soda water with cocaine and caffeine as its main ingredients. When Niblo's Garden opened in 1834, coffee, ice cream, lemonade and other refreshments were served. By 1866, beer was almost certainly available, served warm on tap, and "penny candy" was popular, but candy bars had yet to arrive from England, where they were invented.

And what about your bathroom break? We don't know what sort of accommodations were made for the 3200 patrons at Niblo's Garden. But we do know that the first flush toilet to effectively dispose of waste and control odors did not appear until the 1890s; municipal water and sewage systems came along about the same time. So in 1866 perhaps the best advice would have been to take care of such matters before leaving home--and don't drink too much beer.

SOCIETAL STANDARDS "You Naughty Naughty Men" was a song written for "The Black Crook." Consider one of the verses: "When you want a kiss or favor, you put on your best behavior and your looks of kindness savor, oh you naughty, naughty men. Of love you set us dreaming and when with hope we're teeming, we find you are but scheming, you naughty, naughty men."  

"New England Indian Whaling Histories," an excellent exhibit now on display at the Mashpee Wampanoag Tribal Museum on Route 130, chronicles the many deep-water whaling voyages undertaken by Mashpee Wampanoags. Twenty members of the local  Pocknett family were whalers from 1809 to 1884; two were boatsteerers and one died at sea.
     The exhibit is in place until November 1; museum hours are Wednesday to Saturday,

10 am to 4 pm.  

Long before Pilgrims arrived in New England, the Wampanoags had extended their practice of "shore whaling" (harvesting whales that washed on shore) to chasing Right Whales that swam close to the shore, using dugout canoes to pursue and kill the animals. Wampanoags who settled along the coast and practiced hunting convinced white observers that Indian traditions of trapping, hunting and slaughtering game prepared native men to become highly proficient whalers. Employment opportunities on land were racially restricted, so whaling became important for Mashpee men. It was one of the few paid jobs where they could perform work that was similar to their traditional occupation as hunters.

In 1725 legislation allowed Indian whalemen to be bound to indentures for up to two years. An indebted Indian was required to work for his master and also to purchase supplies from him before and during the voyage. Thus, an indentured Indian was stripped of most of his potential earnings before he even set foot on the ship. The practice of Indian indenturing nearly ended Solomon Briant's tenure as Mashpee's Native American minister from the 1720s until he died in 1775. Briant apparently could not support his family on his minister's salary, so he signed on to a whaling voyage for twelve months to Greenland. When Briant returned home he had to hide

in a cave to avoid his creditors. In 1728, merchant John Otis bound Mashpee Wampanoag Gershom Barnabas to perform three years of whaling labor and gained rights to the labor of his two children, as well.  

In 1758 Gideon Hawley, who succeeded Briant as Mashpee's white minister, observed, "An Indian having gotten into debt obliges himself to go whaling till he pays. Because of the risk involved, some Indians signed over their children who were bound to serve in case they should die or go further in debt. Children of Mashpee whalers sometimes spent their youth working on vessels or in white kitchens when their fathers could not meet the demands of their contracts."

Throughout the long history of American whaling Native Americans were much in demand as ordinary seamen as well as highly skilled boatsteerers and harpooners, the two most important assignments in a 20' whaleboat chasing a 60-ton whale. In 1809 Tristram Folger, captain of the Nantucket whale ship Mary Ann, offered a "lay

of 1/70" to Nathan and Elijah Pocknett who had performed well on previous voyages with him. A "lay" represented a share of the profits from the voyage, which meant that the entire crew shared a portion of its success or failure. Veteran native whalemen like the Pocknett brothers could bargain for higher lays and probably earned a decent living from the industry.

Competition for crewmen increased as the number of whaling ships increased, and there were times when the captain and mate were the only white men in a crew of 30.  Unfortunately, some captains sailing home with less whale oil than expected would abandon a few crewmen in ports along the way to decrease the number of lays that had to be paid. To insure that this would not happen to him a sailor might sell his lay before starting the voyage, which also was a guarantee his family would have some income during his absence. Before he left home in 1807 to sail on the Essex, Joseph Gardner's mother sold one-half of his lay for $55. 

Team Southport Did It Again!

 Karen Venezia, Team Southport Captain; photo: Don Dygert 

Party People  

LADIES COCKTAIL PARTY ORGANIZERS (August 23)  L to R: Daphne Thompson, Gail Monson, Norine Piscatelli, Janice Colvin, Adrienne Guptill Photo: Margy DeBonville

Southport Tennis Season

THE PLAYERS Front Row l-r Dan Gould, Jan Miller, Bobbi King, Jeannette Simon, Linda Boduch, Judy Bergh Row 2 l-r John Scibilia, Ellen Bolton, Ed Bergh, Robin Burke, Fay Gitnik Row 3 l-r Dom Romano, Alan Gladstone, Bix Shoemaker, George Laliberte, Evelyn Laliberte, Sheila Romano Back Row l-r Ken MacLean, Andy Weisman, Steve Gitnik, Marilyn Beardsley, Elinor Saltz

RESULTS OF THE 2013 TOURNAMENTS 

 

Women's Doubles Round Robin: Bobbi King, Champion

Finalists: Ellen Bolton, Fay Gitnik, Barbara Brink, Sheila Romano

 

Men's Doubles Round Robin: George Laliberte, Champion
Finalists: Bix Shoemaker, Dan Gould, John Brazier, Alan Gladstone, Ken MacLean

 

Mixed Doubles Round Robin: George Laliberte & Marilyn Beardsley, Champions

Runners Up: Alan Gladstone & Judy Bergh

Finalists (men): Ed Bergh, Steve Gitnik, Bix Shoemaker, Dan Gould

Finalists (women): Bobbi King, Linda Boduch, Evelyn Laliberte, Jan Miller  

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  

     

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.  

Frank Lord, a native of Newton, Massachusetts, earned his BA degree at Brown University and his MEd at Boston University. His experience in the US Navy counseling troubled young sailors led to a 38-year career as a school guidance counselor, primarily in Wellesley and Duxbury. Following retirement, he and his wife Betsy helped to build over 250 homes with Habitat for Humanity. After moving to Southport, Frank's interest in education and local history motivated him to spearhead the relocation of Mashpee's One Room Schoolhouse, for which he received the 2009 Mashpee Chamber of Commerce Distinguished Service Award-as "The Schoolmaster." He serves on the Mashpee Historical Commission; the Community Preservation Act Committee; the Board of Trustees, Tales of Cape Cod; and is President, Mashpee One Room Schoolhouse Preservation Council, Inc.     

Bob Mendes began his career as an advertising copywriter at Doyle Dane Bernbach in New York before becoming senior vice president of marketing for a west coast department store chain. He left that position to start Pacific Sports, a sports and general marketing agency. There he developed "The Reading Team," a children's literacy program sponsored by the National Football League and the American Library Association, which used NFL players as literacy role models. Bob is the author of "A Twentieth Century Odyssey, the Bob Mathias Story." After retiring, he served as executive director of the Glendora (CA) Chamber of Commerce. When grandson Adam was born, Bob and Bette moved to Cape Cod, where they recently celebrated their 45th wedding anniversary. Neither retires well. He's had a number of part-time jobs, has written two more books, and volunteers; Bette serves on committees at Southport and at the Falmouth Jewish Congregation. Their son Steve is a pediatrician and lives in Marion with his wife Sarah and their children, and a second son, Jeff, practices law in Indianapolis.

Janet Miller, a Massachusetts native, earned a degree in dental hygiene in 1966 and a degree in human services from Lesley College in 1992. She and her childhood sweetheart Rick, an engineer at General Electric for 38 years, retired and moved to Southport in 2005. After years of art classes and dabbling in watercolor, Jan began painting more seriously and selling her artwork. She is a member of the Falmouth Art Guild and the Venice Art Center of Florida. She also designs button necklaces and is teaching this art form on the Cape and in Florida. She is the proud grandmother of five and a very happy member of the Southport "family."

Ernest Ruber and his wife of 55 years, Natalie, came to Southport in 2002 and enjoyed their life together here until her death in early 2011. Ernie retired from Northeastern University where he was Professor of Biology and Ecology. He designed and recently revised the interpretive nature trail at Southport and has written many nature/science articles for Southport Village Voices. He reports for Southport News on pool tournaments, in which he usually plays and frequently wins. Ernie has two adult children and a grandchild.

 

 

 SPECIAL THANKS TO

Lee Othon for his interview and pictures,  

Dick & Pat Smith for their interview,