Archives: Duxbury Beach Storm Photos

We've been shifting our photo storage sites around, and have been unearthing various Duxbury Beach storm photos. We'll be sharing them out now and then until we exhaust the supply.

Photographers include Sheila Spellman, Joe Deady, Deborah Deady, Sara Flynn, Pauline Flynn and Samantha Spellman. The girl who owns/used to own the Fairview may also be in the mix.

Almost all of these shot were taken from Ocean Road North on Duxbury Beach.

Almost all of them, you see... this one is on Gurnet Road, approaching Duxbury Beach Park. The Powder Point Bridge is that lack line on the horizon.

Someone who has never seen this picture just rebuilt this cottage into a $1 million house.

Tearing out the storm-damaged back wall on Ocean Road North. 

Heading down the road a bit, to the Brant Rock Esplanade.

A lot of these were published on some Cape Cod rag that we used to write for, and they had less-then-manly photo dimension specifics. When we blow them up so you can actually see them, they get a bit blurry. We apologize, and the fault is ours rather than that of the shutterbugs.

More to come...

The Battle Of Marshfield

As we approach April 19th, it is easy to view the American Revolution as a US vs. England thing... even if most of the Americans still thought of themselves as English (Paul Revere never shouted "The British are coming!" during his ride, entirely because of this phenomena. Paul actually was shouting the less poetic "The regulars are out!") when the fighting started.

The US/England thing is easy to understand now, a few hundred years after the fact. What is less-known is that there existed considerable static between towns during the pre-revolt period.

The basic cause of this discord was the issue that would launch the Revolution. Some people thought that the colonies should break free from the crown, while others thought that we should remain in the kingdom. As that famous American we know as Mel Gibson once said, "an elected legislature can trample your rights just as easily as a king can." 

Others disagreed with Mel, and there was thick tension in the air throughout the 1760s and 1770s. If you voiced the wrong political opinion at the wrong tavern, you might be chased from the town by a mob.

Here are a few examples of what would happen to you if you failed to say "Screw The Crown" quickly enough in pre-war New England. Its a lot of reading, but it should prove entertaining.

- "At Taunton also, about 40 Miles from Boston, the Mob attacked the House of Daniel Leonard, Esqr.,3 one of his Majesty’s Justices of the Peace; & a Barrister at Law. They fired Bullets into the House & obliged him to fly from it to save his Life."

- "Peter Oliver Esqr., a Justice of the Peace at Middleborough, was obliged by the Mob to sign an Obligation not to execute his Office under the new Acts. At the same Place, a Mr. Silas Wood... was dragged by a Mob of 2 or 300 Men about a Mile to a River in Order to drown him, but, one of his Children hanging around him with Cries & Tears, he was induced to recant, though, even then, very reluctantly."

- "The Mob at Concord, about 20 Miles from Boston, abused a Deputy Sheriff of Middlesex, they making him pass through a Lane of them, sometimes walking backwards & sometimes forward, Cap in Hand, & they beating him."

- "All the Plymouth Protestors against Riots, as also all the military Officers, were compelled by a Mob of 2000 Men collected from that County & the County of Barnstable to recant & resign their military Commissions. Although the Justices of the Peace were then sitting in the Town of Plymouth, yet the Mob ransacked the House of a Mr. Foster, a Justice of the Court of Common Pleas, a Man of 70 Years of Age, which obliged him to fly into the Woods to secrete himself, where he was lost for some Time and was very near to the losing of his Life."

- "A Jesse Dunbar, of Halifax in the County of Plymouth, (was) ordered it into a Cart, & then put ... into the Belly of the (slaughtered) Ox and carted him 4 Miles, with a Mob around him, when they made him pay a Dollar after taking three other Cattle & a Horse from him. They then delivered him to another Mob, who carted him 4 Miles further & forced another Dollar from him. The second Mob delivered him to a third Mob, who abused him by throwing Dirt at him, as also throwing the Offals [innards] in his Face & endeavoring to cover him with it, to the endangering his Life, & after other Abuses, & carrying him 4 Miles further, made him pay another Sum of Money. They urged the Councilor’s Lady, at whose House they stopped, to take the Ox; but she being a Lady of a firm Mind refused; upon which they tipped the Cart up & the Ox down into the Highway, & left it to take Care of it self. And in the Month of February following, this same Dunbar was selling Provisions at Plymouth when the Mob seized him, tied him to his Horse’s Tail, & in that Manner drove him through Dirt & mire out of the Town."

- "In November 1774, David Dunbar of Halifax aforesaid, being an Ensign in the Militia, a Mob headed by some of the Select Men of the Town, demand[ed] his Colors [flags] of him. He refused, saying, that if his commanding Officer demanded them he should obey, otherwise he would not part with them: upon which they broke into his House by Force & dragged him out. They had prepared a sharp Rail to set him upon;12 & in resisting them they seized him (by his private parts) & fixed him upon the Rail, & was held on it by his Legs & Arms, & tossed up with Violence & greatly bruised so that he did not recover for some Time. They beat him, & after abusing him about two Hours he was obliged, in Order to save his Life, to give up his Colors."

- "A Parish Clerk was taken out of his Bed in a Cold Night & beat against his Hearth by Men who held him by his Arms & Legs. He was then laid across his Horse without his Clothes & drove to a considerable Distance in that naked Condition. His Nephew Dr. Abner Beebe, a Physician, complained of the bad Usage of his Uncle & spoke very freely in Favor of [the royal] Government, for which he was assaulted by a Mob, stripped naked, & hot Pitch was poured upon him, which blistered his Skin. He was then carried to an Hog Sty & rubbed over with Hog’s Dung. They threw the Hog’s Dung in his Face & rammed some of it down his Throat;"

- In Freetown, they used to paint Loyalists yellow, as "the Mob found that paint is cheaper than Tar and Feathers."

- "Patriots from Duxbury did kidnap Marshfield Loyalists Paul White, Dr. Stockbridge and Elisha Ford, and carted them to the "Liberty Pole" in Duxbury. There they were "forced to sign recantations" of their Tory sentiments, likely in response to mob violence."

By 1768, the crown deemed it necessary to send 4000 troops to pacify Boston, which was also getting ugly. Other than the potential for a Lexington-style suburban incursion by British troops, the countryside was (mostly) left on her own.

You know how it went from there. In 1770, the redcoats fired on the colonists, in what is known as the Boston Massacre. In 1773, the Boston Tea Party went down. In 1775, on April 19th, warfare broke out at Lexington/Concord.

As you can still see in modern occupational wars like Iraq or Afghanistan, the occupiers tend to stick to the cities. You have airports and docks to move supplies in, and cities usually sit astride rivers and highways that other trade flows through. The countryside tends to belong to the rebels.

This was the case in Massachusetts. Remember, the Revolution didn't start until the redcoats marched far enough out into the countryside to find farmers crazy enough to pick a fight with the world's best light infantry. While they may not use exactly those terms, every schoolkid in America can tell you the basics of Lexington/Concord.

What they can't tell you about (unless they read this column, of course) is the Battle of Marshfield. There's a good reason for this... there was no Battle Of Marshfield.

Brant Rock, MA

However, history is often drawn by tricks of fate, coincidence, miscalculations and itchy trigger fingers. An itchy trigger finger set off the Boston Massacre, started the Revolution, and was still happening when the National Guard went hippy-hunting at Kent State almost 200 years after the redcoats landed in Boston Harbor. If Marshfield in 1775 had been visited by ol' Mr. Finger, our history lessons would have been very different.

While an apt high school kid could tell you that Boston was occupied by the redcoats before the Revolution, they might not know that Marshfield also bore this status. Marsh Vegas, as it was then not known as, was a Loyalist hotbed. People in Vegas had no problem at all with the crown, at least the ones with the money and influence. They preferred change through diplomacy over revolt.

Even noting the fact that Marshfield patriots in 1773 had their own Marshfield Tea Party (on Tea Rock Hill), Marshfield was the most Loyalist town in New England.

This put them at odds with the neighboring towns. Duxbury and Plymouth were hotbeds of Patriot activity, and you saw with the Dunbar brothers how Halifax handled Loyalists. Not wishing to be mashed in Hog Dung, the loyalists in Marshfield sent a letter to General Gage, who was in charge of Boston. They demanded protection, and Gage complied, sending 100 men and 300 muskets on two schooners (the Dianna and the Britannia) down to Marsh Vegas in 1775. They were under the command of future Parliament member Captain Nesbit Balfour.

These redcoats disembarked at the mouth of the North River and marched 6 miles to the Nathaniel Ray Thomas estate. He was only the second most famous occupant, which is why you know it today as the Daniel Webster House. You can see a picture of it here, or you can drive down Washington Street in Duxbury to see a similar house in person. It looked like the mansion from Django Unchained.

The redcoats set up their barracks on the grounds of the estate, and proceeded to piss off the locals. They would go to taverns or private homes in Duxbury and Plymouth. They behaved well enough, but they would have been hated in Duxbury even if they walked across water to get there. There is at least one story of a mob chasing a British officer into a Plymouth store, and not letting him out until he surrendered (and they broke) his sword.

Naturally, the entertainment in Boston served to get the locals' moxie up. Duxbury had already hosted Stamp Act protests, burned a dozen Englishmen in effigy and kidnapped Loyalists for Liberty Pole parties. The presence of 100 redcoats a town over was, as they liked to say then, intolerable.

You didn't see a lot of South Shore people at Lexington. Paul Revere went west, not south. By the time that word of Lexington/Concord got to Duxbury, they would not have had time to get up to Boston for the battle. We did send some men up to Lexington/Concord, but most of the South Shore got off no shots at the redcoats fleeing Concord.

They didn't need to march to get at the regulars... they had 100 of them right there on the South Shore, sleeping on the lawn of a Marshfield mansion.

The South Shore towns had militia, and they had been training for this moment. They dropped everything on April 19th and gathered at what is now known as the John Alden House in Duxbury, under the command of  Colonel Theophilus Cotton.

No one knows what went on in the John Alden house that night, nor on the day of the 20th, when a council of war was held. What we do know is that Cotton, of Plymouth, failed to attack. He may have hoped that the British would leave on their own, or he may have feared a rabble-vs-regulars fight, or he may have been waiting for more people.

He got more people quickly enough. Companies arrived from Rochester and Plympton to join the Duxbury, Plymouth and Kingston patriots. Fishermen from various local harbors, always fixin' for a fight, threw themselves into the mix. Colonel Cotton soon had five hundred men, five times the number of the British they wished to oust from Marshfield.

They marched to within a mile of the British regiment, not without some argument.  The cautious Cotton still refused to attack. A company from Kingston (led by Capt. Peleg Wadsworth), perhaps seeking to atone for their now-unfortunate town name, advanced without orders to within firing range of the British camp. Ish was about to get hectic.

However, there were no British to kill. The British garrison, who would have surrendered if fired upon, had instead run like a scalded dog.

The schooner Hope, along with two smaller sloops (the sloops had been "prest" into service, and were two of the first AmRev prizes taken by the Brisih Navy) arrived at the mouth of the Cut River in Green Harbor. They gathered up the soldiers and whatever Loyalists they could find and fled for Boston. The citizens of Marshfield alerted the British to the arrival of the ships by firing guns from Signal Hill. These were the only shots fired in the Battle Of Marshfield.

Then, the ass-kicking began. The South Shore is interesting, if not unique, in that our violence goes down after the troops leave.

Marshfield had 1200 people at the time, and only a few of them could get on those ships. Everyone else was left to fend for themselves, as the British Army and Navy were at this point bottled up in Boston.

Marshfield, a Tory town without the necessary Tory army to keep it safe, exploded in an orgy of assaults, tar-n-featherings, jailings, property confiscation, business boycotts and exile. Whoever could afford a boat ride to Nova Scotia fled. Everyone else stayed, and suffered abuse for it.

"Our fate now decreed, and we are left to mourn out our days in wretchedness. No other resources but to submit to the tyranny of exulting enemies or settle a new country," said Sarah Winslow of Marshfield not too long after the British surrender at Yorktown. Her father said, "I was the butt of the licentious, and had received every species of insult and abuse, which the utmost rancour and malice could invent."

People were more cheerful in Patriot towns. "Returning to Duxbury fro' Brant Rock, Lt. Colonel Alden paused, and to the Delight of the assembeld militia, doth dropped Trou and thusly disparaged the grounds of the traitorous Winslow house by dropping a most malodorous and sizable Steamer near the well of the property," one Revolutionary diary didn't, but should have, said.

Those who did get away weren't always welcomed back. A ship from Nova Scotia, loaded with returning Marshfield Tories, was refused permission to disembark in the Neponset River by the town of Milton. The Tories eventually were let off at the North River, where they were promptly arrested.

Marshfield, much like someone tied to the Liberty Pole or being made to run a Gauntlet, finally caved in. Three months after the British Army was chased from Brant Rock, a town meeting resulted in Marshfield agreeing to support the Revolution. They sent their men off to fight, just like other towns.

Marshfield, for a long time, had more subdued celebrations of July 4th than neighboring towns did. Some years, they didn't celebrate the holiday at all. This sort of got played out in the 1950s and especially 1970s, as the demographics of the town were wildly altered by urban immigration. The incoming Bostonians loved July 4th, and by the time of my childhood, the Vegas coastline represented as hard as anyone.

Duxbury and the surrounding towns contributed mightily to the cause. Taking the 300 British muskets they found at the Thomas estate, they marched to Boston and joined up with George Washington. Duxbury men were involved in fortifying Dorchester Heights, which forced the British out of Boston. Unlike just about everyone involved in the Siege of Boston, the Duxbury men had already seen the British Navy flee before them once by the time the Limey Poofters sailed away from Boston.

Duxbury men served with George Washington at Valley Forge, and fought with him at Germantown and Monmouth. Washington was known to favor the fishermen of coastal Massachusetts as rowers. Duxbury men also manned a fort built out on the Gurnet. It saw no action in the Revolution, but they got to let off a few shots during the War of 1812.

It is interesting to ponder how the Brits would have reacted if Capt. Wadsworth had decided to charge the overmatched regulars. We know how the immediate battle would have worked, as Captain Balfour told us himself. The Brits would have surrendered with the first Rebel shot.

There's a difference between 100 soldiers and the entire Royal Navy, however. As we saw during the Battle of Wareham in 1812. the British would sail a squadron into town and burn every ship in the harbor for piracy. How wold they react after the loss of a whole garrison, especially if the battle which lost them turned into a massacre? Probably not well.

Duxbury did not embrace shipbuilding until after the Revolution, but they did need their harbor, and had nothing beyond a crude fort to keep the British from sailing in to set the whole town ablaze. Duxbury was a backwater, perhaps not meriting an invasion, but Plymouth was a high-profile revenge target.

Taking Plymouth would effectively cut off Cape Cod and the South Shore from contributing to the war effort, and would have the Brits very well positioned for a march on Rhode Island. The South Shore would have almost certainly got some Grey's Raid kind of action.. Never drink Earl Grey tea, it's associated with the son of the Grey's Raid captain who attacked Fairhaven, New Bedford and Martha's Vineyard.

The Battle of Marshfield may have indeed proved to be a Phyrric Phirryc Pyrrhic costly victory, and the whole war effort may have been jeopardized by the desire of some Plymouth County farmers to seize a contested Marsh Vegas front yard.

However, all of that never happened. Colonel Cotton, viewed by many as a wussy, was actually a fine leader. He went all Sun-Tzu on the English, not moving to attack until victory was assured. He cleared out one of the two English-occupied towns in Massachusetts, and he did so without wasting an ounce of gunpowder.

Colonel Cotton is actually twice-famous, as he led a group of patriots in 1774 who tried to move Plymouth Rock to a better viewing area. He split the Rock while doing so, and you can still see the split today. That's a story or another day.

So, as you do something 'Murica today to commemorate the Patriot actions in Boston, Lexington and Concord, lay back and twist one in honor of the 500 South Shore bad-asses who chased the British away.

Old Glory flying on Duxbury Beach, facing Marshfield.

"Ranch House Revisited" at The Jetty

While rumors regarding the sale of the former Ranch House building proved to be unfounded, the South Shore's nastiest bar ever still manages to exert some Authority on local nightlife.

The Jetty, a newer place located at 278 Ocean Street on the Brant Rock esplanade, has a unique and awesome marketing idea. They're celebrating the former Marshfield den of sin, with a week of Ranch House-themed entertainment. The Ranch House was described by Stephen Bowden in this very column as "sort of like the C&W bar from The Blues Brothers meets the Double Deuce from Roadhouse, except that the Double Deuce was nicer."

Starting April 11th, the Jetty will run a week of bands that former Ranchers will know and love. You can see them on the posterboard shown above, but a little bird tells me that they are in the process of booking additional acts to fill out the week.

The Jetty, owned by Richard Vaughn, has a bit of hardcore history herself. It is housed in the building which hosted the notorious Breakers bar back in the proverbial day. However, the Ranch House was the hardcore icon. Vaughn, who has to be at least somewhat local, recognizes and respects the local history.

Here are some of the acts coming to The Jetty, starting on April 11th.

Hypercane is a South Shore band with 15 years in the game. A four-piece outfit, they do a lot of cover songs. I'm a bit deaf and have never been good with music (US Grant was in the same boat, and once remarked that he had two favorite songs... "One is Yankee Doodle, and the other isn't"), but I did hear them covering Unchained by Van Halen in their promo video. They'll be playing at The Jetty on April 13th.

Raw Deal is a Stoughton-based band which I pray is named after the Ahhhhnold movie. You know, the one where his wife (not Mrs. Shriver) throws a cake at him, and he chastises her with "You should not drink andt bake." The band is based around the Kane brothers, and will be on stage at The Jetty on April 14th.

Mark Morris And The Cat Tunes (aka "Catunes") are Southie's greatest band... which is funny because Whitey Bulger, for all we know, may have waited until the Cat Tunes were rehearsing to murder people, as the din of the band would cover up the gunshots and screaming. I worked at a gas station in Sagamore once, and it was robbed one night while Italian Soup (a wedding band based around the Gallo family, who own half of the Cape side of the Canal land) was rehearsing next door. There may be a Nine Lives cat food joke in the Morris/Cat band name. They'll do a show on April 15th at The Jetty... and who doesn't need a drink on April 15th?

The Fat City Band has been a South Shore giant since the 1970s. While someone else actually owned the building and the property and all that, these guys owned the Ranch House. Anyone growing up in the area in the 1980s or 1990s most likely saw TFCB in action at some point. They have the Saturday night show at The Jetty, on April 16th.

Clutch Grabwell And The Lead Foot Horns (they may just be Clutch Grabwell now, it's tough to tell) finish off the week's fun with a Sunday night show. Clutch and the boys are a Worcester band, I believe, maybe Lowell. They were a constant at the Ranch House, and they play at The Jetty on April 17th.

Some bands we would like to see if The Jetty tries this idea again in the summer...

Jim Plunkett

The Injurys

The Steamers

The Fools

Duke And The Drivers

Feel Thing

Cats Ass

D'Spayre

Southbound

Madcow

Entropy

Draw The Line

Crystal Ship

Conrad And The Pickups

The Rude Dogs

Stiff Nipple

The Speed Lizzards

The Well-Endowed Gentlemen

Slant Six

The PsychoRelics

Bluestime

Who did we miss? That's not a band name, it's a question for you to answer in the Comments.

Coastal Flooding In Green Harbor And Duxbury Beach

Waves breaking on houses, Ocean Road North, Duxbury...

We went off-Cape to see what sort of action that the South Shore was getting from Momma Ocean. A blizzard had just blown through town, and we were getting reports of wild surf on Duxbury Beach. We were on our way up the moment we got Logo on the bus (2 hour delay). We made it just in time for high tide.

Surf photography is often easier if you go the day after the storm. The storm is usually just offshore a bit, and it is slow-rolling waves back to the coast. Unlike waves on the day of the blizzard, you can go outside and shoot waves without getting soaked by rain or blown around by the wind.

The Great Salt Marsh, Duxbury

The plan was to go to Duxbury Beach, hook up with some friends, and watch the storm from their house. That plan came to a stop when we were unable to get down Gurnet Road.

Duxbury Beach often floods backwards, as in "via the marsh." This happens before high tide, which brings the waves and their splashover water into the mix as well.

We made it through the first puddle easily enough, but we saw an SUV struggling with the next puddle. We called "No Mas" like Roberto Duran.

We tried the Bay Street/Bay Avenue turn where Marshfield meets Duxbury Beach, that wasn't happening, either.

We were in a Dodge Stratus, and she sits about 4 inches from the ground. She is not built for plowing through street flooding, especially where it's 11 AM in Duxbury and we have to get a kid off the bus at 3:30 PM in Buzzards Bay. It's tough to keep that schedule with a dead car.

We took pictures of the flooded roads, and they came out so well that we decided to double up on flooded-marsh pictures.

We finally made it to the beach around where the Green Harbor General Store is. We didn't make it by much, as the bridge by the Green Harbor Lobster Pound was almost washed over... as you can tell.

We were running the risk of getting trapped, but I liked our chances of escaping.

This was my favorite jump-off bridge as a kid, although I think I'd break both legs if I even stepped off of it now.

I parked down where that SUV is in the upper right, and this gave me access to the Burke's Beach section of town for my camera work.

Burke's benefits from having a jetty, which keeps the water off the houses.

OK, it does so when it's above water.

Small print, kills you every time.

The risk was worth it, because I ended up being behind the waves that were breaking on the houses along Green Harbor and Duxbury's seawall. You can do that due to the wave-blocking presence of Brant Rock, and due to the curvature of the seawall.

I only got my feet wet, and that was because I let my attention wander.

This is bad, but not as bad as it looks. The spray is the water hitting the seawall. This throws up spray, which catches the wind and gives me cool shots.

Brant Rock got it as badly as Green Harbor did, if not worse. BR, remember, is the part of town that got beaten down last winter.

I would have headed over, but I didn't want to go through the Esplanade splashover puddle... which, the last time I checked, encompasses all of the BR business district.

These are good-sized waves for the Duxbury Beach/Green Harbor region.

I saw at least one scientist paper claiming that the maximum height that waves can reach on this strip goes around 5 feet, but I saw much bigger waves during the Halloween Gale and the Blizzard of 78.

My camera actually has color and everything, it just was a grey day.

These shots are mostly Green Harbor, but some Duxbury Beach can be seen on the left end of any given pic.

Not these ones below, I zoomed in on Vegas. Duxbury starts about where the giant break in the seawall is.. you know, the one you can't see in these pics.

"The impact will blow trees back and crack statues."

Thanks to our host for the day, Green Harbor!

.

Opening Day Blues: The Peril Of Driving In The First Snow Of The Season

We have had a couple of minor winter weather events recently, officially kicking off the Snow season. With this snowfall came a slew of fender-bending fun. Monday's evening commute was a doozy on the South Shore, as ocean-effect snow came down hard.

This snow was the catalyst behind dozens of car crashes. If you surfed Facebook on Monday afternoon, you saw the horror stories coming in.

"Kingston to Green Harbor, 60 minutes."

"Tried getting off the highway onto Route 53.... bad idea. Parking lot."

"Four concurrent accidents between Exit 11 and Exit 10 in Duxbury."

"Route 44: 10 Miles, 45 Minutes."

We wrote yesterday about how Southerners have difficulties driving in snow. A warm city like Atlanta can be shoved into zombie-apocalypse chaos by 2 inches of snow. For one day every year, so can Massachusetts.

While it snowed for a good, long time yesterday, in the end, we only got 2-4". That's nothing. Last year, we were getting 2-4 inches an hour for about 6 weeks. While I don't have the numbers for Massachusetts handy, I'd bet that it took 20 inches of February snow to get the highway anarchy that we had Monday night with our 2 inches.

I did poke around those Internets to see if I could find anything official-looking to validate my suspicions. An article from a 2004 Pennsylvania newspaper cites a study of 1.4 million fatal accidents showed that a substantially larger percentage of fatal accidents went down on the first day of snowfall in a season.

First snowfalls are especially deadly for elderly drivers, who seem to be mixing "difficulties adjusting to winter conditions" with "this was the event where Grammy really began to show her age" and adding a touch of "Grandpa needs to upgrade from his 1976 Coupe De Ville."

A more recent article concerning an Iowa State Patrol study showed that in 2014, there were 700 accidents in November. Most of these were attributed to snowfall. In December, which in theory is deeper in the winter and subsequently snowier, the number of accidents drops to 359.

Wisconsin, which is snowier than Massachusetts, agrees with my theory enough that at least one newspaper there titled an article "People Need To Re-Learn How To Drive."

Its the same set of mistakes in any snowy community. People drive too fast, they ride the other car's bumper, and they respond poorly to snow-related hazards. In non-wintry communities, you can add "lack of snow-removal equipment" to the mix.

People who get year-after-year snow have a tendency to adjust as the winter sets in, which the Iowa study shows. They ease up on the gas pedal, they avoid dangerous or busy roads, they remember to leave earlier, they get snow tires, and they perform a zillion other calibrations to their driving style.

We are actually at a high point in snow-driving proficiency among people in Southeastern Massachusetts. Last winter was one of our worst ever. Many towns shattered their winter snowfall record totals. You may live a long time before you see a winter like that one.

This means that almost every driver on the local roads, with the exception of snowbirds and kids who just got their license this year, has some experience driving in the worst winter conditions that Massachusetts can dish out. Teenagers right now have the same Worst Winter Ever perspective as a 70 year old man. That should make for a lengthy period of slightly better local driving.

Except during the first snowfall, of course. We all fall to pieces then.

The Ranch House In Marshfield Sold?

People who grew up on the South Shore have long known that her time had passed... but it still hurts to see her go.

There are rumors that The Ranch House in Marshfield, which has been closed for most (closed in 2004) of this current century, has been sold. They were asking a mere $365K, reduced from $373K. It is zoned for Residential use now, so get ready for a McMansion or some condos.

Before that happens, they're going to have to put the wrecking ball to a local hardcore icon.

It makes sense. The derelict old building was a fire waiting to happen. I'm sure that some homeless have squatted in it. It's a vine-covered eyesore. If you get close, it smells like 1970s white trash vomit. Whatever rodents are running around your Canal Street yard probably winter in there. Out-of-town drunks still make the Hajj, only to find disappointment. It should have come down long ago.

That doesn't mean that we won't miss it.

There are bars and clubs all over the South Shore, but none of them were in The Ranch House's league as a den of debauchery. Set between a beach neighborhood and a marsh on Canal Street, it was at least a regional capital of the Irish Riviera.

You couldn't ask for an uglier locale. It looked like someone made it for a Patrick Swayze bouncer movie. The actual bar in the film Road House was miles ahead of the Green Harbor landmark as far as aesthetics go, and that movie was supposed to be about a dive.

To keep it Hollywood for people who may never have been inside... it's pretty much exactly like the bar that the Blues Brothers had to sing Rawhide in... except that bar was classier.

You parked on a dirt lot, wherever you could fit. If you had 4WD, you could park in the marsh. Once inside, you sat at the sort of tables that you see in the backyards of poor rural families. I think that they may have bought their chairs from a high school closing, and they were the perfect size/weight to hit someone with. The exposed rafters had the authenticity that you just don't get when a yuppie restaurant has exposed rafters- you were supposed to swing from these beams.

photos from Molisse Real Estate ("Selling the entire South Shore") ad for the property

She was, once you dotted the Is and crossed the Ts, a concert venue. Some of the greats trotted across that humble stage. Aerosmith played there when they were nobodies. I'm pretty sure that The Cars earned their stripes there. At least some of the J. Geils Band played there, if not the whole bunch of them at the same time. The Fools played there both before and after scoring a big hit.

You also had regional superpowers like Clutch Grabwell, Jim Plunkett or the Fat City Band playing there. You had cover bands galore, including Crystal Ship of Bitchin' Camaro fame. You had bands that never crossed the goal line, like the The Steamers, The Well Endowed Gentlemen, Silent Underground, Itchy Fish, Feel Thing and Exit 11. First ballot Rock and Roll Hall Of Famer Joe Perry of Aerosmith and little-known Hannes Schneider of the Injurys (I asked them, it's supposed to be spelled wrong) plugged their guitars into the same outlet.

A thousand other local bands tried and failed there. Your friend who can play the guitar a bit may have secured a slot there in his youth, only to find that their drawing power was limited to family and very close friends.

This focus on live music gave The Ranch House a different crowd than the dozen gin mills nearby.

Rather than a gathering of locals (although they were well-represented), TRH usually had a good crop of road trip people who were there because they liked the band. For a guy who struck out with the whole South Shore, the new girls this diversity provided probably prevented an alienated loner-style mass shooting at some point in my 20s the late 1980s.

You also had people- sometimes bikers- who came just because of TRH's reputation as a rowdy bar. The rowdy bar part worked for the locals. If your houseparty got the wrong crowd and it was time to move it to the bar... but if you didn't want to ruin your good name at the local bar that you frequent... that's why God gave us the Ranch House.

Beyond that, it becomes a hazy collage of drunken memories:

- I know a guy who got knocked out at the Ranch House, another guy who got his jaw broken, a third guy who tried to pepper spray some behemoth and the spray failed, catching him an extra-effort whupping. I know a guy who got a bottle broken over his head. I know a girl who slapped another girl unconscious there, and a bystander girl who got hit with a pool cue during a fight she wasn't in.

- I want to make sure to tip a glass to Mary, the waitress with the inexhaustible supply of miniskirts. She had a sister who worked there, forget her name, may have been Elaine some form of Teresa.

- Close to when the business sold, I saw Steven Tyler pay a visit to owner Dorothy Hudson there during a show with a full house. Some drunk walked up to him and said, "Hey, you're Steven Tyler," and Tyler went "No sh*t?"

- There's a rumor about a 70s era bouncer who threw a guy up the chimney.

- You could hear music and even distinguish song lyrics from Ranch House bands in Duxbury Beach neighborhoods. I may post this in a few Duxbury groups to see if the noise made it across the marsh into Duxbury Proper in the right weather conditions.

- It is very possible that Joe Perry, who at times lives a half mile across an open marsh from TRH, could sit on his back porch and listen to local Axemen trying to play Aerosmith covers on the Ranch House stage.

- A house on Ocean Road North in Duxbury once brought the bar home for an afterparty, even the band and their instruments.

- The loss of The Ranch House, coupled with the residentializing of Paddock's Package Store, means the end of Canal Street as a business district. It also killed two of my favorite spots with a range from about age 5 to 32.

- The Green Harbor General Store and the Brant Rock Market gained Paddock's beer/snacks customers. The local rowdies from TRH bled into the other local pubs.

- If your formerly low-key tavern deteriorated into rowdiness during the late Bush II era, that's most likely what happened to it.

They don't make 'em like The Ranch House anymore.

Marsh Vegas still has some rowdy bars, but it ain't what it once was.

Brian's Place is a Mama Mia's franchise now. The various bars that occupy the spot at the Green Harbor Marina are edging towards Yuppiedom. The Ocean Cafe, once the ugliest building that I ever enjoyed eating in, is now a lovely place that people call Haddad's. The Venus II got a facelift.

Marshfield- especially the Irish Riviera part- will never be a really delicate place. But it is changing...

Just one "Anyone have any Ranch House pics I can use?" post on Facebook brought up at least one Duxbury Wannabe comment regarding the nature of the neighborhood. Someone else called it "Duxbury Delusion Syndrome."

Coastal property- even if it is a few streets back- never loses that much value. Not everyone can hang onto the family cottage, nor can they turn down the money they can make selling it to some rich family.

The next thing you know, the people who own the rowdy hard-rock bar see the future coming, lack the desire to transition into something Yuppie, and decide to sell the property.

There were nibbles in 2004, but it's hard to build when you abut wetlands, have a reputation as the go-to rowdy bar on the South Shore that will take a generation to erase, and will immediately require a tear-down (it's essentially a giant doghouse) and re-build. I loved The Ranch House, but I wouldn't have dreamed of eating in that building, even bagged potato chips.

Most people have higher tastes than me, and that pretty much punched the ticket for The Ranch House.

It sucks when a relic from your past has to go away, and no one stays young forever. The live music scene is lessened for it, and you'll have to drive a bit to see a band in any sort of building that isn't better suited to a breakfast buffet. Most people will forget soon enough.

But not all...

It will be funny if whoever builds there throws up a large structure, and has to continually answer the door and tell people that The Ranch House no longer exists.

We probably aren't too far from a day where people will have to stop the car and think about exactly where The Ranch House used to be. There was once a time when there would have been no question about it.

You know that I'm stealing that Wagon Wheel. Dibs!

Leftovers From Our Foliage, Cranberry And Halloween Travels

I think that the people on the right turn before Edaville Railroad have had just about enough of TomTom's flaws.

The first article Jessica and I did together was us mistakenly thinking that Edaville was closed and abandoned, like the Lakeville Speedway or something.

A phone call from a detective proved that we were incorrect.

It all worked itself out. We were harmless. "Respectable citizens. Multiple felons, perhaps, but certainly not dangerous."

This fellow came up on me while I was shooting a pic of the cool barn he lives in. The barn made the article, but the horse had to wait for us to get to the Leftovers article.

We do a lot of trespassing, although we generally have no reason to trespass on the property of people whom the Ultimate Warrior referred to as "normals."

You kind of have to earn our presence on your property, and 99% of our small trespass violations involve us getting a pic of something that the homeowner was most likely showing off anyhow.

We're generally well-received, and we have a good sense of when Jessica should talk to the person and be sweet/nice, and when I should act crazy and try to crack them up... or, in some cases, scare them away.

We have developed an effective Mojo, and can generally move about now without any bother.

That's Green Harbor, in Marshfield.

I say that because there appears to be a Green Harbor Resort in West Yarmouth, as well.

I'm not sure if the Yarmouth one is named after a Green Harbor out there.

Either way, the Green Harbor in Marshfield is named after William Green, who opened a commercial fishing enterprise there in 1627.

Yarmouth, however is more likely better-known worldwide. A lot of tourists from a lot of different states have trampled through the Resort. Is it enough that more people associate the name "Green Harbor" with Yarmouth than with Marshfield?

I'd love to see a feud, but it probably won't go down that way. My vote is with Marsh Vegas.

Since we're trying to start fights, why not throw a good one up in the mix?

Is Wareham part of Cape Cod?

We'll let both sides speak.

No: Mainland side of the Canal, more thug-life than any Cape town (including Barnstable), and did I mention that they are on the wrong side of the Canal? Bourne's membership in the Cape Cod Club is sometimes questioned, and Wareham is west of Bourne.

Yes: They have that Gateway sign, they have a Cape League team, they have a sizable summer community, they bear the Cape's traffic and they market heavily to sell that Cape vibe.

Many years ago, Wareham was on the team. You got off the highway in Wareham, and crawled through the tourist traps and clam shacks to the Cape. Wareham, with miles of coast and lakefront space, claimed many tourist dollars on their own.

Duxbury and Marion have Summer People population, but they don't weigh as heavily on the affairs of the town as they do in Wareham... and Cape Cod.

I think that, prior to to the highway being extended to the bridge, Wareham was Cape Cod. Now, I'm not so sure.

We've still got some foliage runs left in us

I think that Cape Cod's foliage peaks in November, perhaps even mid-November in some places. We're driving out there either Thursday or Friday to see where the local color is.

We have a larger article coming up about a Foliage Project, but I need to talk to someone who owns a tree farm.

It'll be cool, trust me.

Ironically, the Kingston Water Department is in this building.

Shooting foliage on cloudy days is tough, but if the wind is calm, you can go All In on shooting houses reflecting in water.

Lemons, Lemonde, babe...

I really love the Monponsett Inn's swan benches, but they're bolted down.

Maybe I should make a Turkey Bench...

Good luck this month, Gobbler...

Turkeys that you see around here in December are usually cocky and uppity.

You would be too, if you'd just dodged the cemetery. It catches up to all of us eventually, however.

Leftover spooky graveyard pic... check.

I may have included it in the Halloween article series, I'm not sure.

Speaking of Halloween...

A friend (Jaime Bedford) posted this on FB, I stole it, and I plan to tell her about the publication of it ex post facto. She's a home slice, she should be OK.

This was a house on Duxbury Beach. This picture was taken the day after the Perfect Storm/Halloween Gale stopped beating up the neighborhood in 1991.

It is famous locally for a cool legend. The owner came down before the storm and had a glass of beer. He or she (not sure which Bedford it was, Jaime is a new Bedford) left that glass- unfinished- on the table you can barely see through the door.

Th storm lifted the house up and washed it back about a first down or so from where the photographer was standing. 10 foot storm waves battered it back and forth, hither and yon.

The glass did not spill.

For an added bonus story.... I was standing about where the men in that photo were standing when the Bedfords came down to see how their cottage fared in the Gale. Power and phone lines were down, so they may have not known exactly how bad it was, or even known that the house had been wrecked. Sh*t like that happened before the Internet, kids.

I was perfectly positioned to see their First Impressions. Their expressions were horror meets awe. Iraqis probably had the same look during the WMD War. My house was wrecked, too... I had the same look.

Let's end on a happier note.