We all scream for ice cream!

When did it become OK to charge $3.50 for one scoop of ice cream? On the warm summer evenings in my youth, just a few years ago, my Dad would take the family to Rakestraws ice cream plant in my hometown, where one scoop was a mere five cents.At that price, we tried to see how many scoops could be piled onto a single cone before things started to slip slide away.  

These days, taking a family of six out for multiple scoops in waffle cones can require a visit to the bank for a home equity loan. I guess the silver lining to this fiscal inflation is that we'll eat less of that yummy but physically inflating confection.

Delicious homemade ice cream is widely available on Cape Cod in the summer, but pretty much disappears from Columbus Day to the following April. Why? Are we really expected to survive on Edy's and Turkey Hill through the dismal winter months? Is this why everyone goes to Florida in the winter?  

To search for homemade ice cream? I think the entrepreneur who opened a first class, year-round, homemade ice cream store on Cape Cod could make a fortune. I would even stop complaining about having to pay $3.50 for a scoop.

As you can probably tell, I've done a lot of research on this topic, and these are the places where I happily plunk down

my money for a scoop of homemade ice cream:

• "The Smuggler"(Route 6A, Dennis) Handy to Cape
  Cod Cinema and Dennis Playhouse.
• "Four Seas" (Main Street, Centerville) Funky, old time charm and long lines.
• Somerset (Route 28A, North Falmouth) My favorite,
  nice outdoor seating, try cocoanut almond joy.
• If you're traveling along Route 130 in Sandwich and
  need a fix, Sweet Caroline's can provide one. Best outdoor ambiance.
  ____________________________________________ 

   

  WANTED:
  Storytellers, Essayists, Interviewers, Poets, Etc.  

   

  Southport Village Voices welcomes new writers. A monthly commitment is not necessary; an occasional contribution is appreciated. We're looking for residents who would enjoy doing  interviews with Southport residents or writing about travel - near or far - or telling stories or writing essays - personal or otherwise - or poetry or memoirs. Let your imagination be your guide. If you want to contribute but don't want to do the writing, let me know and I'll arrange for someone to talk with you and do the writing.

   

  David Kapp

  davidkapp@comcast.net

  508-539-1224 

Joe didn't spend all of his young years in the lab or library; in high school and college he played trumpet and had a band - The Joe Wells Melody Masters. (He's the guy in the front row with a trumpet.) "I'm very much into music," he says, "especially 1930s and 40s Big Band music. We played all sorts of gigs, sometimes with just a four-piece group and other times with as many as 16 pieces."

Labs (later Draper Labs), for Westinghouse for 14 years, and for the US Army Research Lab at the Watertown Arsenal and at Aberdeen (MD) Proving Grounds. "I retired in 2002 and have been flunking retirement ever since," Joe confesses. "I took a position with the US Office of Naval Research Global (ONRG) in London, (see below), finished four years there, came back to Southport in June 2013 and flunked retirement again, as I am consulting once more."

Since her retirement, Ann has volunteered, first as a foster family caring for animals until permanent homes are found for them, and second as a courier for the National Marrow Donor Program (NMDP), transporting stem cells from donor to recipient. "I trained at Johns Hopkins to collect the cells and to ensure that all procedures and paperwork are in order but now I'm mainly a human mule," Ann says. "The program schedules transportation and lodging for me so that I can deliver the cells to the appropriate place within 24 hours of collection. The donor has been receiving injections to increase blood cell production for ten days while all of the recipient's blood-making cells are being destroyed through chemotherapy; the recipient will die if the stem cells are not transfused within 24 hours."  

Ann Wells with a young member of her foster family

Ann performs this service as an honor to her late brother, Scoop, who, some 20 years ago, was the first unrelated bone marrow donor processed by the American Red Cross in Dedham. She's traveled all over the US and internationally but avoids trips to countries that may not be safe. "The travel is stressful and exacting because of the time constraints that the deteriorating cells impose," she says. "Everything is confidential; I don't meet or know either donor or recipient. On 9/11, when all planes were grounded in the US, only one plane was allowed to complete its planned flight; it carried a NMDP stem cell courier."

There is a nice perk to this job for someone who likes to travel. Ann gets frequent offers to make deliveries and must do at least four trips a year to remain active. After completing her mission, she can stay as long as she likes at her own expense; the program pays her way home when she is ready. She must retire at 70.

"Ann and I have gypsy tendencies," Joe says. "We love to travel." About five years ago he accepted a two-year position in London with ONRG. "It was life changing," Ann says, "I had spent most of my life in Massachusetts. In London, among many cultures and peoples but without a car, we went everywhere by public transportation. We spent about half of our time on the road. Sometimes, we would come home, pick up a different pre-packed suitcase and go back to Heathrow. Joe's workday was long. He would come home from work and then people from the US would start to call. After all, it was noon in the States. I tried to do as much administrative work as possible for him."  

Joe's four-year stint with the the Office of Naval Research Global in London required frequent travel to all parts of the world. It was "exhilarating and mind-expanding," but eventually the couple decided, "There's no place like home."

The experience was "mind expanding, sometimes exhilarating"; they met so many interesting people, from so many different cultures, so they signed on for  two more years. "But after just one more year we learned that Dorothy was right," Joe says. "There's no place like home. I had to travel. It was exhausting and less convenient than in the States. Small things wear on you: steps are not regulated for height; downtown London's pavers are uneven and difficult to walk on. You are getting older. Your joints hurt. Then the US Congress rolled out 'sequestration.' Trips that once were approved by word of mouth now required reams of paperwork and approval at various administrative levels.

"Mostly, our travel worked out all right," Joe says, "but sometimes trips became a nightmare. Our worst trip took us out from Heathrow and then back because of mechanical problems - after ten hours in the air! Back at Heathrow, 400 passengers were trying to re-book their trips with just two agents, at about 20 minutes per passenger. After four hours we went home and wrote off the trip."

In the London ONRG, Joe was the associate director of materials science and engineering. There were some 20-plus other associate directors with other specialties and similar operations in other capitals around the world. "Our work was not classified," Joe says. "We were technology scouts, going to universities, corporate labs, anyplace where there might be cutting edge science in our fields," he explained. "Upon finding worthwhile work in progress we had a number of options: We could partially fund their work, fund visits to labs in the States with which they might interact collaboratively, or support conferences and workshops. In general we acted as educated technology talent scouts and stimulators of interaction."      

Joe & Ann Wells met on a Windjammer cruise over a cribbage board.

Ann and Joe have been married for 24 years, a second marriage for both. Ann recalls how they met on a Windjammer sailboat cruise to Maine. "There were about 25 passengers in a small vessel with tiny cabins and lights too weak for reading. Entertainment consisted of cards, music and talk. I met Joe and his son Shane and somehow the topic of cribbage came up. It turned out we were both avid players and had even brought our own boards. About a week later Joe called me, we dated for a year and then eloped." With a teenage son already part of their family, they decided not to take on the responsibility of having young children. Ann's older brother died suddenly at 54 and Joe's older brother died of cancer at 51. They believe that life is short and they had a lot of things they wanted to do. Their motto: Plan for the future but live for today. They were living in Maryland when they came across Southport and it has been the perfect choice for them.

"We still enjoy traveling," Joe says, "We just finished a cruise to Singapore, Thailand, Viet Nam, Australia, New Zealand and various Pacific islands. We wintered this year in Florida and finished with a month in Hawaii. I'm not ready to take on another two-year assignment again, but if the right six-month opportunity came up that might just be OK." Ready to flunk retirement again? Conditionally.

Hello morning!

How ya doing, shower?

Screw you oatmeal

you cloying SOB!

I deserve better today

maybe a glazed stick.

Remember when they were called

honey dipped crullers

and made fresh every hour?

What if I walk to Dunkin Donuts,

would that negate the guilt?

To hell with guilt!

Morning is my time,

it is my blank canvas

and I paint what I want

and how I want it.

I am the artist of my agenda.

Maybe I'll go all the way

and make it a Moonakis day

with lemon poppy seed pancakes.

Take that, humdrum oatmeal!

You don't own me.

You can't take me down

to your uninspiring level,

not today!

My palette is vivid,

iridescently bright.

I'm hot!

I'm painting in living color!

• I know I said I wouldn't do this again, but lately people have been asking me the meaning of non compos mendes. For those of you whose native tongue is not Latin,'Non compos mentis' translates to 'an unsound mind.'
  I changed the last word to accommodate myself.
• Why do we need speed bumps in the summer when apparently they're not necessary in the winter?AND - why do we even call them speed bumps when they're actually slow down bumps?   
• Speaking of road surfaces, my favorite stretch of Leisure Green between Portside and the golf course has reached the point where it's more like a bad case of  acne than a roadway.  
• What household appliance is most taken for granted? That's easy; it's the flush toilet.One would think the inventor's name would be right up there with Edison, Bell, Marconi and the like. Unfortunately, we don't revere the name Thomas Crapper.  
• Having been brought up on West 174th Street in Manhattan, I really wasn't in touch with nature, as are those who grow up in the suburbs or rural communities.I couldn't tell a cardinal's from a robin's tune, but I knew the difference in the sound of a bus and a garbage truck.I could tell when a subway train was coming from the rush of wind coming out of the tunnel and I woke to the sound of car owners moving their cars from one side of the street to the other so the street cleaning trucks could navigate safely.   My loss. Nature's sounds are so much more beautiful, soothing and  peaceful.  
• Speaking of the subway, Duke Ellington's famous "A Train" was MY train as well. It stopped at 175th Street and it went through Harlem, then downtown and connected to anywhere in the city.  
• More nostalgia: I noticed the term 'DH' in a box score the other day. It means Designated Hitter, but it didn't always. We guys who are old enough remember when it meant Double Header, a magical Sunday at Yankee Stadium or the Polo Grounds (yeah, yeah, yeah, Fenway too). For a buck or less you could get into the ballpark and watch two major league teams play two games and, if you really got lucky, extra innings. For another buck or so you could eat enough hot dogs to ruin your appetite for dinner and you'd have to lie to your mom why.  
• I'm not a doctor, a clinician nor a social worker, but I do have the accumulated wisdom of having lived a long time.I see absolutely no good coming from the new marijuana  laws.If marijuana truly relieves the pain of certain diseases, then let it be formulated into a tablet or a syrup that patients can take like any other medication. If it truly relieves pain, let it be dispensed through regular pharmaceutical outlets. All I see as a result of the new laws is a few well connected people getting very rich (or richer).  
• Do this. Please do this: When a local TV news show promotes one of its network's shows as if it were actual news (e.g.,Channel 7 promoting one of the singers on a show called The Voice), change channels. See how good it will make you feel.  
• FINAL THOUGHT There was a cane in the lost and found box at the weight room this week. This leads to a few questions. Was that just a convenient way for someone to dispose of an unwanted cane? OR...if the person who left it needs it, how could he have left without it? Also, that box is always full of caps, jackets, sweaters, toys and whatnot. Have we all become so affluent that we can now afford to just abandon our possessions all over the place?  

Thanks to the generosity of Southport residents, five Mashpee High School seniors have received $1000 scholarships to help with their college expenses. Art Wagman, chair of the Southport Scholarship Committee, presented the awards to the students at the MHS annual awards program on May 22. Recipients are (l. to r.): Andrew Hellwig, Morgen Morris, Anika Beig, Samantha Norris and Carl MacDonald.

ANIKA BIEG will enter the freshman class at Saint Michaels College in September. She wants to pursue a career in either biology or business, perhaps a combination of both. She is interested in renewable energy sources and saving endangered birds. She coordinated the Environment Club at MHS and her senior project focused on making Mashpee High School environmentally friendly. Anika takes an active role in the community. 

ANDREW HELLWIG loves classical music and playing the saxophone. He attributes this interest to being exposed to music as an infant. He arranges his own music and is a member of the Blue Falcon Jazz Band. (Attendees at the Pastabilities dinner on May 23 had the pleasure of hearing Andrew perform with the band.) Andrew thanks his study of martial arts for his confidence in front of an audience. He will attend the University of Rhode Island.    

CARL MACDONALD plans to pursue a career in engineering at UMASS/Amherst. His application essay discussed the ways salt and sand is used to melt ice on our roadways. Carl restored a l992 Camaro for his senior project and can usually be found tinkering with all things mechanical. One of his teachers says of Carl, "In my 33 years of teaching, I have seen few students with his drive and curiosity."

MORGEN MORRIS intends to major in social work and counseling at Wheelock College.  Morgen was on the basketball, field hockey and baseball teams at Mashpee High School. For her senior project, she created a memorial basketball tournament to honor her father, who instilled a love of sports in his daughter and wanted her to be "the first to go to college."

The New York, New Haven and Hartford Railroad track crossed Matfield Street at the bottom of a small hill, right next to the old Anderson place. It was about a half mile from my home and, in the 1940s, a train pulled by a lusty steam locomotive was always exciting to neighborhood youngsters. There were several trains during the course of the day. Passenger trains from Cape Cod carried people dressed very formally, travel not taken lightly in those times. Freight trains pulling coal cars, flat cars often with wrapped machinery or mysteriously shaped items, bricks from the Stiles & Hart brickyard in Bridgewater and tank cars carrying who knew what thundered through Matfield Crossing.  

A railroad crossing tender waiting for the train

Lying in bed on early mornings and sometimes late in the evening, I could clearly hear the trains whistle as they passed through the crossing. You could

set your clock by those trains. I pictured Mr. Snell carrying out his duties as crossing tender in all kinds of weather. He worked varying shifts during the day and night, along with other less remembered relief tenders.  

This was a long time before automated signals. Mr. Snell warned pedestrians and the growing number of village automobiles of oncoming trains by standing in the center of the road holding a yellow and black RR Crossing sign on a short pole. At night he would swing a large red kerosene lantern as well. In rough weather he wore a long yellow slicker and black boots. Passengers boarded only if Mr. Snell flagged the train down, and that became increasingly rare as the number of post-war automobiles increased. There was always a lot of waving to and by passengers and train crew. Everybody waved at the train.

At the corner of the roadway and the railroad track stood the tender's shack, about eight feet square with a much smaller addition for storage. It had a door facing the street and windows on three sides to give the occupant full visibility of the roadway in front and the track in both directions. There was a coal stove in one corner for heat in cold or damp weather and also to keep the old gray enamel coffee pot hot. Outside, on the side facing the track, was a slant-topped bin for coal. The building was painted reddish brown and was capped with a black roof, a slightly canted metal stovepipe protruding from it.

The inside was coated with decades of smoke, soot and road dust and gave off an aroma mixed with all of the above plus burned tobacco juice from the old stove, wet dog (even in dry weather), as well as goat. Little shelves held old tobacco tins, coffee cans, a few old bottles and miscellaneous hardware, some of which looked like it had fallen off passing trains or cars that bounced over the rough crossing. This was where the tender took shelter in bad weather, waiting for the next train to come through. It was a grand place for small boys to stop their bikes and watch a train or two and say hello to Mr. Snell and his little mutt. In winter it was a great place to warm cold hands and talk about trains, cars and dogs. There was no outhouse for these workers, but Mr. Snell could walk up the hill to his house when necessary. For others, the woods were nearby.

Swamp and woodland filled the area behind the tender's shack. Across the track and some wetland was Mr. Snell's house -- a bungalow with a lovely foundation of small stones, sidewalls of weathered cedar shingles, and a windowed porch across the front. A sloping roof on each side protected the building with a generous overhang. It appeared frozen in time, as dark, unchanging curtains hung limply in the closed windows.  

Mr. Snell's wife had passed away years before I knew him. After that, he and his dog moved permanently into a small basement apartment that opened onto the rear of his property through a glass-enclosed porch. His apartment was dusty, smoky and neat, just right for a man and his old dog. He kept two or more goats in a little barn nearby and, on request, would sell some milk. The goats could frequently be seen grazing in the field next to his house. On occasion, one or two neighborhood kids would visit Mr. Snell to pass the time of day and talk about trains. I remember that he was exceedingly polite and would watch and listen to us with what I now recognize as quiet amusement.

Mr. Snell owned a post-war Americar coupe automobile with a rumble seat in which he would occasionally transport one of his goats. He was a disabled veteran of World War I and walked with a pronounced limp, usually with a cane or stick of some sort. It's hard to judge now, but he was probably in his early 60s when I was growing up. He smoked a pipe and the aroma of tobacco and that of the goats that he kept clung to his person, his house and the crossing tender's shack. This was never offensive, just an accepted part of the man and his life. Arthur Snell was a quiet, private, honest and comfortable man. He was the crossing tender, a trusted and important person in the village, respected by adults and children alike and still remembered as such more than half a century later.  

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.

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.

 

 

Roy Smith grew up in East and West Bridgewater, MA. He served in the US Coast Guard on the weather cutter USCGC Castle Rock and the icebreaker USCGC Eastwind, on voyages from the Arctic to the Antarctic. In his thirty-year career at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution he was initially a sea-going chemistry tech and later an administrator in the Geology and Geophysics Department. After retiring from WHOI, he was general manager of McLane Research Laboratories in Falmouth. Roy met his wife Cynthia at WHOI, where she worked summers while on teaching break. They moved to Southport two years ago and consider the choice one of their best. Since retirement both have volunteered at the Falmouth Service Center. Roy has charitable woodworking projects underway at all times and Cynthia is involved with various charities on the Upper Cape. They have two sons, Jason, an engineer at WHOI, and Aaron, a sculptor, and two beautiful granddaughters.

   

SPECIAL THANKS TO

Joe & Ann Wells for their interview and photographs,

Nancy Cohen & Billie Kapp for the information about scholarship winners,

Bonnie & Al Towle for the Branson picture and information,  

         and to my proofreader Billie Kapp.