Don't tell the summer people lest they become the autumn people, but September and October are the best months to be on Cape Cod. And this has been the very best autumn in

a long time--warm sunny days, clear cool nights and no humidity (actually, a little rain would be a good thing). Don't get me wrong; I like the summer people--in the summer. They're the reason for lots of enjoyable events and are essential to the economy. But like guests at a party, they're fun while the party lasts; it's nice to have the place to ourselves after they go home.

I moved to Southport from Connecticut, where sugar maples put on a brilliant display every fall. Cape Cod doesn't have a lot of those colorful trees; we have a lot of oaks and pines and mostly a less flamboyant variety of maple. Our fall foliage show is muted in contrast to other areas of New England. This year, however, we've been presented with a vibrant palette of deep reds, purples, oranges, yellows and bronzes, interspersed with the rich green of the pines. It's a visual feast. Better get out there and take a drive this weekend because it won't last much longer. Thanksgiving is coming up, a good time to count our blessings and to be aware of the privilege we have of living in a very beautiful and special place.

 ____________________________________________ 

Bob Hutchinson was almost 71 years old when he died on July 21, 2013.  "He was a happy man, fun, and with a great sense of humor," according to Debbie, his wife of 45 years. "He had a deep compassionate side that wasn't always apparent to outsiders." You couldn't miss Bob; he was a big man-in every sense of the word. There was little doubt as to where he stood on any issue. A fellow Marine described him as having "energetic opinions." Bob was fervently patriotic and served as a member of the committee that raised funds to create the Southport Veterans Memorial by the Village Center in 2012.  

It was just a month after Bob's discharge from the service that Debbie Hall, then a social worker for the County of Westchester, New York, noticed a good-looking young man waiting for a ride in the parking lot outside her office. It was Bob's first day at work for the county as an intern in a yearlong program in budgeting, personnel and negotiations. His ride was late, so Debbie offered to transport him; he accepted and was transported--in more ways than one. They married in September 1968.

Bob went on to a career in public service, beginning as an assistant town manager in Stratford, Connecticut, and then as town manager in Plainville, Connecticut for five years and in Lexington, Massachusetts for ten years. He then went to work for the State of Massachusetts, holding administrative positions and heading up state agencies under governors Dukakis, Weld and Cellucci.

Bob and Debbie raised a daughter and two sons, who have presented them with eight grandchildren. He retired in 2002 and they moved to Southport the following year. He volunteered with Meals on Wheels and served on the Mashpee Finance Committee, as well as Southport's Finance Committee and Advisory Council. He enjoyed tennis and swimming and was a voracious reader. At Bob's funeral, his daughter described him as a man of "uncompromising integrity" and his son recalled his "great presence." Both of those qualities are sorely missed not only by his family but also by his many friends at Southport.

Tony Petruzzi, US Air Corps 

Tony was born in 1918 and graduated from high school in 1936. Two weeks before graduation, he started to work full time in a box factory, and he never stopped working. He acquired a truck and began a hauling business. Once, during Prohibition, he was hired to transport a load of "sugar" and was alarmed to learn that the FBI was interested in this shipment. The Feds were tracking bootleggers, and his cargo turned out to be whiskey, not sugar! Tony was called as a witness against the bootleggers.

Prohibition ended in 1933 and Tony's Dad transformed his grocery store into the Jack O'Lantern Café; his Mom made "the best pizza" for 50 cents, and after he turned 21 Tony tended bar. The cafe was closed on Sundays, so on Sunday, December 7, 1941, the Petruzzi family was at home when the attack on Pearl Harbor was announced over the radio.

Tony enlisted in the Air Corps on January 2, 1942 and was sent to Airplane Mechanics School (AMS) at Chanute Field in Rantoul, Illinois. Half way through the training, he was in the infirmary with a severe case of mumps when the rest of his class was suddenly packed up and sent overseas. As a consequence, it was his good fortune to complete his training and to fulfill his nearly four years of military service in the United States. After graduation from AMS, he was sent to Allison Aircraft in Indianapolis for specialized training in liquid-cooled airplane engines and then deployed to Westover Field in Massachusetts, where he was chief of the crew working on B17s and B24s. One of his final assignments was at Bradley Field, Connecticut, preparing airplanes for storage. He was discharged at Westover on December 7, 1945.

"I loafed for a week and then bought a truck and went back into the hauling business," he says. He married his long-time girlfriend Margaret Montefort on Columbus Day 1946 and they set up housekeeping in Everett, eventually having two daughters and moving to Stoneham. Tony made a career of his trucking business, working for First National Stores from 1946-1955 and for International Paper from 1955 to 1973. His daughters live near Boston and he now has two grandchildren and three great grandchildren.

Tony and Margaret moved to Popponesset in 1973 and he took a job with the Popponesset/New Seabury Corporation. They moved to Southport in 2002 and, sadly, Margaret died shortly thereafter. These days Tony is heavily booked with Southport activities, among them gin rummy, poker, cribbage, bocce, men's coffee, and working as a volunteer on Saturdays at the St. Vincent de Paul Thrift Shop. He is unnecessarily modest about his wartime service, acknowledging that he was lucky never to have been in battle. The fact remains, however, that he gave nearly four years of his life to the war effort. Without men like him, the B24s and B17s that were essential to winning the war would never have flown. And so we honor him.  

Eliot Sklar, US Navy

Growing up in the late 1930s and early 1940s in the Jewish community of Mattapan, Eliot Sklar was keenly aware of the anti-Semitism sweeping Nazi Germany. The destruction of Kristallnacht, the "Night of Broken Glass," in November 1938, was a watershed event from which other atrocities flowed. Reports of Jews being rounded up and murdered in Germany and the occupied countries appeared regularly on Fox MovieTone News. Rumors of death camps were rife.  

Eliot Sklar (front row, left) with shipmates on the USS Hambleton

"I was a skinny, naïve, 17-year-old freshman at Northeastern University in January 1943," Eliot says, "when sadness and anger and hatred of the Nazis drove me to drop out and enlist in the U.S. Navy." After basic training in upstate New York, he soon was posted to a Navy destroyer, the youngest man on the USS Hambleton DD455. From then on, Eliot found himself in active combat in both the Atlantic and the Pacific campaigns until his discharge at the end of World War II.

In June and July of 1944, Eliot participated in three invasions of the coast of France: the Normandy Invasion, the Battle of Cherbourg and the Invasion of Southern France. During his two years on the USS Hambleton, the ship was responsible for shooting down ten enemy aircraft and aiding in the destruction of 15 German U-Boats and more than ten E-Boats. "We were chasing U-Boats and E-Boats and shooting at planes from Day One," he says. "We lost a lot of men."

Eliot attributes the success of his ship to smart officers and a good crew but mostly, he says "We were extremely lucky. It was unbelievable to survive every day." As a reward for its success, the USS Hambleton was one of the few ships selected to lead the Navy Fleet in a victory lap in Tokyo Bay following the surrender of Japan in August 1945. "That was amazing simply because I was alive. I never thought I would see the end of the war," he says. Eliot brought home a unique personal treasure from the war: a diary in which he made brief notes about his war experiences.

Discharged in November 1945, Eliot found himself a changed person. Having witnessed so much death and destruction and unspeakable horror during the war had shaken his values. "I thought about all the men that had died, who had drowned or had been burned in the water," he says. He returned briefly to college but couldn't stay. "I was emotionally scarred," he says, "I needed help." But there was no help for emotionally damaged veterans in those days.

Eliot was "humbled, honored and surprised" by this very special honor. Ironically, however, he also has been emotionally disturbed by the reawakening of thoughts about his war experiences, especially at Okinawa where his ship was on battle duty for 84 days in succession. On the advice of his son, a clinical psychologist, Eliot sought help for sleeplessness and other symptoms of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. He is now being treated successfully by a VA psychiatrist who works specifically with older veterans who experience PTSD, typically triggered by some major event late in life. We thank Eliot for his service and congratulate him on his most recent honor.   

Walter & Dorothy Stone, US Army & US Navy Waves

Walter and Dodie Stone, are among Southport's "Pioneers," residents who bought homes here in 1998/1999. They've lived here for 15 years and are unique in our community as the only married couple to have served in the military during World War II--Walter in the Army and Dodie as a Navy Wave.

Walter was a junior at Northeastern University when his education was interrupted by his "invitation" to join the Army on March 15, 1941. But he had been in Boston long enough to meet Dorothy "Dodie" Mosher, a young woman who was enrolled at Lasell College in Newton. They had two dates before he was put on a train and sent off to Macon, Georgia and assigned to the Intelligence Section, 169^th Infantry.

The picture that Walter paints of the early war effort is one of an army trying to get organized. He was shipped around to Louisiana, North Carolina and Mississippi before being sent to Officers Candidate School in Fort Belvoir, Virginia, headquarters of the Army's Engineering School. On graduation, he was assigned to a new engineering regiment, the 177^th, composed of one officer and four sergeants; when a second officer joined the regiment two weeks later, Walter became the senior officer by virtue of his seniority. The regiment was moved to Fort Dix, New Jersey, where its ranks were swelled with inexperienced recruits, and then transferred to Fort Lewis, Washington.

Next stop: Seward, Alaska, October 1942. "We got off the ship during a beautiful snow storm and were placed on a train to Anchorage where we had no place to stay. We stood in the snow for about two hours until we were trucked into woods and told, 'You'll find your tents in there.'" With four months experience under his belt, now 2^nd Lieutenant Walter Stone was company commander. When a senior officer called one day and ordered him to have 100 carpenters available at 8:00 am the following day, Walter was in a quandary; none of his 250 men were carpenters. But by the next morning, 100 of them were.

In January 1943, American forces occupied the barren volcanic Aleutian island of Amchitka, just 35 miles from the Japanese-occupied island of Kiska, with the intention of preparing it as a base for the invasion of Japan. Two months later, Walter's company was sent to the island to build airstrips and other infrastructure. Over the next 22 months there were about 1500 men on the island, including Seabees, the Air Corps and the Army. "The good thing about it was that no one was shooting at me and I didn't have to shoot at anyone," Walter says.

Meanwhile, back on the East Coast, Dodie Mosher had graduated from Lasell and was working in New York City when she decided to join the Navy Waves. "Good girls don't join the Navy," her Dad told her. But she set out to prove him wrong. After investigating her background and clearing her for top secret work, the Navy trained her as a cryptologist and told her to call herself an "electrician" should anybody ask what she did. She was working in Washington DC and Walter was back at Fort Belvoir in Virginia when they met up again. They had two more dates for a total of four and on the fourth Walter asked Dodie what she wanted to do with her life. She replied that she "wanted to be a good wife and a good mother." Walter had found the woman he wanted to marry.

The young couple was married in the Washington DC Navy Chapel in 1945 and raised a family of five children, who have since presented them with 15 grandchildren; they now have 18 great grandchildren. Dodie had her hands full with five children and Walter went on to a distinguished career in engineering and construction, working for Turner Construction and Macomber Builders. He was construction manager for the Faneuil Hall project in Boston and project manager for both the Falmouth and Hyannis Hospitals among many other major projects.

Walter and Dodie had a vacation cottage at Popponesset as early as 1952 and later built a home there and moved to the Cape permanently in 1972. Walter retired in 1984 and took a part-time job mowing the greens at the New Seabury golf course. Eventually, his deteriorating vision prevented him from seeing the lines on the course and he gave that up at age 80. These days, their family, good conversation with old friends, and recorded books for Walter keep this lively couple occupied and content. We're fortunate to have them as part of our community and grateful for their service.

LOOK!

 READ THIS!

 IT'S IMPORTANT!

I'm writing this before the Board of Governors ballots have been distributed.

WHEN YOU GET YOUR BALLOT, VOTE RIGHT AWAY. DON'T "FILE" IT. 

Here's why: If we don't get a quorum vote, the election won't be valid and Southport will end up in receivership. That means the court will likely place the management of Southport into the hands of a law firm and we might never see self-government. It's important that everyone appreciates how much is riding on this election. I think it's fair to say that the results of this election will have a more DIRECT impact on you than any national or regional election you are likely to participate in.

More On Transition Think about your strengths and how they can be used at Southport.

There's no end to the possibilities. By early next year we'll be managing our own community and all the things you've wished you could be part of will be available to you. 

• Do you like to write? We could use a communications committee.
• Good with numbers? There's the Finance Committee.
•  Like to argue? Maybe you can form a debating club.
• If you have experience in human resources, maybe you can help create a
  non-profit-for-Southport-only employment agency. Many residents are strong,
  active and interested in part time jobs. This might be a great outlet for your talents.

Dontcha Just Love It when a politician under fire or a CEO whose company is dipsy-doodling decides to retire so that he "can spend more time with his family?"

Recently In The News The President and his family now have a new dog. It's a female and they've named her Sunny. They claim she was born in Michigan, but I hear Donald Trump wants to see her birth certificate.

Old Friends My college roommate and his wife had our semi-annual lunch with Bette and me a couple of weeks ago. The following dialog took place:

• Dave:  "How close are you to your playing weight?
• Me:  "I'm right on it."
• Dave:  "Yeah, but it's all in different places."

Ever Feel Like Riding Your Bike Around The Cape? Consider this: narrow roads, poorly lighted roads, roads with no shoulders, roads full of drunk drivers, roads full of drivers texting. Yeah, it's pretty hard to understand why so many bikes get beat up by cars.

Mistaken Identity Whenever I see that bright yellow Stanley Steemer truck tooling around Southport, I think it's a school bus that took a wrong turn.

Another Rant About Local News I was watching a 30-minute news show the other night, which contained a weather tease ("Will this weather continue? I'll be back to let you know in a few minutes."), then a weather segment that went on and on and on, and finally at the end of the show, a weather summary ("Hang in there, our weather is sure to change."). And these "meteorological marvels" get it wrong as often as they get it right!

Final Thought If you're looking for a good time (no, I'm not going to write a phone number on a men's room wall) attend Mashpee's Oktoberfest next year. This annual event takes place on the green in front of the library and it has something for everyone; food, drink, entertainment, and lots more. Put it in your book for next October. You'll be glad you did.

It started with the 14 karat pinkie ring,

uniquely chevron styled.

It must have slipped from my finger

when I pulled off my glove. 

I knew exactly where I lost it,

all the good that did me. 

My retracing sonar told me

it was outside my newly framed townhouse

now buried beneath my paver walkway. 

I was new to winter outerwear

just moving up from Florida. 

Then there was the 14 karat diamond ring,

also a pinkie. 

Same thing, gloves. 

I should have learned my lesson but nope.

That one I left on some store floor

at Wrentham Fashion Mall.

New England winters have a way

of pulling rings from half-frozen fingers.

But I have found my share of baubles too.

I can't tell if I'm ahead or behind at this point. 

No one ever turns in jewelry, 

it's the law, the shiny karma of gold.

The universe taketh away

and the universe giveth back.

Enjoy it while you have it

and have that safety clasp checked.  

In August my sister Susan and I embarked upon an 18-day tour that included stops in St. Petersburg, Russia and Lapland as well as a five-day cruise through the Norwegian fjords. 

The Church of the Spilt Blood, with its colorful onion domes, is one of the few examples of genuine Russian architecture in  St. Petersburg. It is built on the spot where Emperor Alexander II was assassinated.

St. Petersburg, Russia's second largest city, was founded by Peter the Great in 1703. It lies at the mouth of the Neva River where it empties into the Baltic Sea. Sometimes referred to as the "Venice of the North," St. Petersburg is a planned city whose layout and construction was supervised by Peter himself. It consists of 42 islands, numerous rivers and canals and more than 300 bridges, many of which are works of wrought iron art. Peter wanted to build a European city, not a Russian one; thus, the city's architecture reflects Dutch, French and Italian influences. Its stately pastel palaces and gilded churches are meant to dispel the long winter gloom.  

The Czars had deep pockets and spared no expense when building their residences. Peter's lavish winter palace on the Neva now is part of the Hermitage Museum, the second largest museum in the world. His summer palace has 116 waterfalls on its spectacularly beautiful grounds. One room in Catherine the Great's 400-room palace is paneled in semi-precious amber. During World War II, the German Army besieged Leningrad (as the city was called at that time) and it suffered heavy bomb damage; Catherine's palace was burned to the ground. When I was in St. Petersburg 14 years ago, I saw a beautiful city in disrepair. Even the grounds at Catherine's summer palace were unkempt. Now the city is mostly well maintained and the palaces are beautifully restored. I asked our guide why so much has been spent on restoration projects when it could have been used for other things and she said because the palaces attract tourists and their money.  

Peter the Great's Summer Palace was one of his many attempts to equal or outshine the grand palaces of French royalty.

While the city's mood is considerably brighter than Moscow's, life for ordinary citizens in Russia is still hard. Asked about living conditions for the so-called middle class, our guide summed it up this way, "The United States has Barack Obama, Stevie Wonder and Johnny Cash; Russia has Vladimir Putin, no wonder and no cash." After four days in St. Petersburg, we flew to Helsinki, the capital of Finland, where we toured that city and took a boat ride among the islands near the harbor. It was a relaxing day and a half after our heavily scheduled sightseeing in Russia. 

Lapland is inhabited by the Sami. This man, our restaurant host, tried to teach us how to lasso a reindeer but with no success.

Then we were off to Lapland, above the Arctic Circle, a region that stretches across the remote northern reaches of Finland, Norway, Sweden and Russia. About ten percent of the indigenous Sami people still herd the reindeer that roam freely but whose ears are notched with their owners' marks. More than once our bus jerked to a stop to avoid hitting reindeer that were either crossing the road or strolling down it. Other inhabitants make their living by fishing, fur trapping, handicraft, and working in the tourist industry. Increasingly, young people are moving to the cities for jobs; as a result, their native culture, language and history are slowly being eroded. One evening we ate at a restaurant owned by a Sami family who wore their traditional dress for the evening. We fed lichen to a few penned reindeer before we ate their relatives for dinner!

A two-hour bus ride took us from Finland into Norway, to the small town of Kirkenes, located on the Arctic Ocean just ten miles west of Russia. There, we boarded a Hurigruten Lines coastal ferry, the Nordnorge, for a five-day cruise through the fjords to Bergen. The company has been running this route for 120 years, delivering supplies and mail to remote villages and towns, mostly above the Arctic Circle, that are tucked into the coves along side the fjords. One ferry, like ours, travels south along the serrated western coast of Norway from Kirkenes every day and another travels north from Bergen, each stopping at 34 ports of call on their one-way journey. Thus, every village can expect this lifeline to the outside world twice a day. I loved standing on the dock and watching the crew load and unload everything from toilet paper to automobiles!

Hurigruten ships carry two types of passengers: Tourists come for the scenery. (Lonely Planet calls this voyage "the best scenic boat journey in the world.") For others, the ferry is strictly utilitarian, carrying them between ports with their cars or bicycles as needed. Our ship was comfortable, but had small cabins and no television, swimming pool or nightly shows. Magnificent scenery was our entertainment. The common areas were well appointed and the dining room served excellent meals. Breakfast and lunch were buffet-style, but the dinner menu offered only one entrée.

Artists are attracted to Norway's fjords for their beauty and the quality of the light.

The scenery... Sheer cliffs rise vertically from the water's edge, and slender waterfalls wash the sides of the cliffs. A few tiny villages, usually one or two streets deep, dot the landscape. Some peaks were still snow covered, even in August. As we traveled south, crossing the Arctic Circle, the terrain leveled out a bit. Now and then we saw farms and the towns became larger and more developed. There were many optional side trips, some as simple as a hurried 15 or 30 minute walk through the austere towns with their brightly painted houses. The villagers are mainly fishermen who catch cod and dry them on outdoor racks to get salt fish, as their ancestors did for centuries.

On our first full day aboard ship, Susan and I awoke at 5:00 am for a bus trip to the North Cape, the northernmost point in Europe. Standing at the edge of a cliff, we gazed at the Arctic Ocean swirling 1000 feet below before we retreated to the visitor center for a hearty breakfast. Then we traveled along the coast and caught up with our ship three ports later at Hammerfest, the northernmost town in the world. That evening we docked in Tromso, a university town, where we attended a midnight classical music concert in a beautiful A-frame Arctic cathedral. Stained glass covered the entire front wall of the church and the acoustics were perfect. Another beautiful side trip was a tour of the Lofoten Islands, a group of nine islands frequented by artists and renowned for the quality of the light. While I took a bus trip, Susan opted to ride an Icelandic pony along the beach. 

The Bergen Waterfront by Night

We disembarked in Bergen, a pretty town whose waterfront area is a UNESCO World Heritage Site. German merchants established a Hanseatic trading post here in the  

mid-1300s and controlled Bergen's trade for the next four centuries. The economic arrangements were beneficial to both parties: Norway exported dried cod from its northern fishing villages and imported grain from Europe. At the height of its prosperity, more than 1000 Germans lived and traded in Bergen. Colorfully painted buildings line the waterfront and lean over narrow alleyways that hide enclaves of picturesque buildings. Bryggen, the old wharf area of town, is filled with buildings that once were counting houses and warehouses. Now it is a tourist's delight, with gift shops and restaurants and a fish market at the foot of the harbor. We spent a day here, shopping and soaking up the atmosphere.  

I wanted to take this troll home with me but thought it would be disloyal to the leprechauns that I prefer.

Then it was time to head to Oslo, but our journey was no ordinary trip. The excursion "Norway in a Nutshell" is designed to show off Norway's natural beauty. It began with a two-hour boat ride through an arm of the Sognefjord Fjord, Norway's longest, deepest and most scenic fjord. Then we boarded a vintage train that climbed almost 3000 feet in 55 minutes and chugged through more spectacular scenery. Finally we transferred to a regular passenger train for the 300-mile, seven-hour ride through the mountains to Oslo on the east coast of Norway. After dinner and a short walking tour of the historical center of Oslo, we returned to our hotel to pack for our flight home the following morning. Another destination crossed off my bucket list!

Lydia Biersteker grew up in Somerville, Massachusetts. She met her husband Dale on the beach at Falmouth Heights in 1969, while he was stationed at Fort Devens. After Dale retired in 2005 from his executive position with the USPS, they moved to Vero Beach, Florida but decided that they preferred New England. They moved to Southport in July 2011. Dale plays golf, and Lydia likes gardening, walking, writing poetry and short prose, exploring genealogy, and lunching with friends. Together, they enjoy dining, exploring wineries and brew pubs, walking the trails of Cape Cod, traveling and playing with their grandkids, who live with their son in Newburyport.

Karlyn Curran moved to Southport from New Jersey in 2003. She has a daughter, son-in-law and three grandchildren in Falmouth and two sons, their wives and two granddaughters near Hanover NH. After her husband passed away and she retired from her teaching career, she moved to New England to be closer to her children. She loves Southport and Cape Cod. Even more than that, she loves being a "hands-on" grandma. She caught the travel bug from her husband and this has resulted in a chronic condition. She recently started a Travel Committee for Southport residents.

  

Joy Evans and her late husband Bob moved to Southport from Sandwich. She has 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. She divides her time between Southport and a second home in Southwest Florida, where she also writes for that association's 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. At Southport, he is the editor of Southport News and Southport Village Voices. Billie enjoyed a career as an educator and social sciences consultant. At Southport, she is the secretary/treasurer of the Scholarship Committee and coordinates the Brown Bag Lunch program. Both are members of the Welcome Committee for New Residents. The Kapps are frequent visitors to Hawaii where their son, daughter, grandson and other family members live.   

Andy Jablon and his wife Tracy live in downtown Boston. He owns a television production company in Watertown that provides crews for the major TV networks who shoot stories in New England. As producer, Andy interviews all sorts of interesting people on a regular basis. Tracy works at a cancer pharmaceutical company in Cambridge. They ride their bikes along the Charles River to work each day in almost all kinds of weather. You can spot them riding around Southport on 35-year-old fold-up Raleigh three-speeds.    

 SPECIAL THANKS TO

our interviewees for their stories and photos:  

Farrell Gallaway, Ron & Kathy Hutcheson, Debbie Hutchinson,

Tony Petruzzi, Walter and Dodie Stone and Eliot Sklar;

to Art & Margy DeBonville, Rich Carlson,

Andy Jablon and the Sklar family for photographs