Brant Rock Jose Surf

When people who like watching big surf see a North wind blowing, they start thinking Brant Rock. The Rock has more northerly bearing than most neighborhood beaches, and they really take their lumps on the back end of a nor'easter... or a near-miss hurricane.

Generally, Scituate gets it worse with East winds, Duxbury holds the crown with NE winds and Brant Rock gets her worst damage with North winds.

Sometimes I get out of the car, sometimes I shoot between cycles of the wiper blades 

This is about two hours before high tide on Thursday, so things got worse.

Brant Rock gets her name from Brant Geese, which used to rest on those rocks back in map-drawing time. A few local areas are named for wildlife. Gurnet Point got her name because someone influential thought that it looked like a place in England where he used to catch Gurnett Fish.

This is where all the splashover water comes from which eventually washes downhill and floods the Esplanade 

Marsh Vegas aint no joke when Poseidon has been angered by the ways of men.

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.

... and maybe hung from this tree.

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.

The non-battleground from this non-battle.

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. It looked a bit like a smaller version of 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 up into the Metro West area 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, Middleboro,  Carver 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 that they wished to oust from Marshfield. Other estimates give him 1000 men.

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.

Escape route...

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 busy 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."

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.

Even the house is crooked... or the photographer.

• 
  

Right Whales Moving Into Cape Cod Bay

Massachusetts has rites of Spring, just like Iowa, Arkansas and Colorado do. Some of our rites involve whales coming for a visit at a certain time of year, just like they don't in Iowa.

North Atlantic Right Whales are entering our waters as we speak. They come in after plankton, using some primordial algorithm to know when the water temperature is just right to chow down on the microscopic organisms.

Right Whales are as rare as it gets, and are especially rare for both large whales and marine mammals in particular. There are only 500 left in the world. At the moment, 71 of those have been recorded as being in Cape Cod Bay as of Wednesday.

A mother and her calf were spotted in the Cape Cod Canal Tuesday, and another mom/baby were seen in Cape Cod Bay about halfway between Provincetown and Marshfield. Experts expect many more in the upcoming weeks.

 The whales cruise the surface, filtering tons of plankton into their tummies. They often work very close to shore, and are visible to beachwalkers. Set up on a cliff (Manomet, Cedarville, Scituate, Saquish) if you can, height always helps when spotting. It involves more "getting lucky" than me getting laid, but even a bad day staring at the ocean is better than most good days.

It goes without saying that you shouldn't hassle these whales. They are very rare. Boats are required by law to keep a few hundred yards between them and any righty. A collision between a whale and a boat could take an endangered species off of the charts.

It's also good sense for the mariner. Look at how things ended for Captain Ahab, Quint, Joshua, Samuel L. Jackson... you don't want to mess with anything that can fit you in their mouth.

Should Route 3A Have A Nickname?

Granted, there are more important issues on the table. Syria and Iraq look messy. The Trumpcare rollout has been slightly less than smooth. North Korea is advancing their nuclear technology. There are many problems in the world more important than naming Route 3A something cool.

However, those problems require complex solutions, ones that will most likely not be figured out by a wandering stoner journalist lining up his next road trip. However, I'm just the man to bring this issue to your attention and maybe float a few names out there to sort of jump-start the process. I'm not smart enough for a brainstorm, but I do generate an impressive squall line now and then. That's good enough to name a highway.

One thing that Bourne, Wareham and Sandwich do well is name highways. Sandwich has the Old King's Highway (Route 6A), Bourne has the Scenic Highway (mainland Route 6, between the bridges) and ?ham has the Cranberry Highway. You could also throw in the Mid-Cape Highway and the Grand Old Army of The Republic Highway, but we're getting ahead of ourselves.

Running a road along the Canal and giving it a catchy name didn't get the Muslims and the Jews to stop bickering or anything, but it adds some character to the area, makes it easier for traffic reports and helps the tourists along.

Meanwhile, the 50 mile stretch of road between Bourne and Quincy- Route 3A- has no nickname at all. Wikipedia says it is known as the "Cape Way" highway, but that sort of doesn't really work either functionally (these days), as no one goes to the Cape that way anymore, and stylistically (ever). "Cape Way" blows like the mighty north wind.

Every year at around St. Patrick's Day time, we run whatever Irish-themed articles we have kicking in the archives. "Check Your Irish" is a good one, as is "The Irish Riviera."

One thing you'll learn if you read either article (or read both, I need the money) is that the area between Quincy and Bourne is stuffed with Irish-Americans. That, and the seasonal/coastal nature of the area, garnered the "Irish Riviera" nickname for the area.

Many inland towns have high Irish populations, but the big unbroken run of 33+% Irish goes from Weymouth to Plymouth.

If you stare at a map long enough, you'll also notice that Route 3A runs right through the same area. While 3A itself is inland some and doesn't host the actual Riviera, it connects to every piece of it through a sort of river/tributary system.

If you weigh the factors of 1) no effective Route 3A nickname and 2) the green wave of Irish-Americans in that Plymouth-Weymouth stretch, a solution comes to mind. Give it an Irish-themed nickname.

There are many sorts of nicknames, some official, some not. At least one pol who I asked said I'd have to go to MassDOT. That's if we want to go official. If we just want to introduce a nickname or three into the public domain and see if one of them catches on, all we have to do is write an article and post it a bit.

Let's kick a few around, shall we?

- "St. Patrick's Highway" has a nice ring to it, but it may violate the concept of keeping the church and state apart. That's probably my only official-sounding one.

- "Paddy Road" sounds like an Irish Mob movie, but it is also very catchy.

- "Mick Street" and the Happy Meal-sounding "McStreet" might offend someone, but it won't be someone Irish. The Irish, who were compared with dogs for a lot of US history, are incapable of taking offense. Don't believe me? Approach any college and say "You should be more like the Notre Dame Fighting Irish. How about the Bridgewater State University Crafty Jews?" You're not going to get a callback, player. Meanwhile, Irish-Americans who have never been near Indiana root for Notre Dame. If you think Christianity has anything to do with that, suggest that the bartender at your local sports bar stop what he is doing and hunt through the channels for the Oral Roberts University game.

- I am reluctant to put quote marks around O'Boulevard, because it already has a half of one in it.

- "The Green Mile" has ominous connotations from the movie that will be gone in a generation or two. It will also fit perfectly into those "Massachusetts Roads Make No Sense" memes, along the lines of "The Green Mile is 50 miles long." This nickname also lets us experiment with painting those yellow lines in the road green, which is just the thing to do in resort areas with a hard-drinking population base.

- "Shamrock Lane" sounds like a stripper, but it is also very catchy and relatively inoffensive to people who aren't a bit too familiar with Stripper Naming. The movie with the giant monster (Cloverfield or John Goodman, take your pick) sort of ruined any "Clover Road" possibilities.

- "The Guinness Bypass" would be ugly the first time someone de-barked a Route 3A tree.

- "The Capital Highway" would be a simple power grab. Ireland stopped being the place with the most Irish one potato famine ago. America now has the most people of Irish descent, by a large margin. In America, Massachusetts is known as the most Irish state.  In Massachusetts, the South Shore is recognized as the most Irish part of the most Irish state. Why shouldn't the South Shore thus have Capital status? Ireland can put the Capitol wherever they wish, but we can make a great claim to the Capital status. We should make a reality of that claim by naming Route 3A in such a mindset.

- "The Leprebahn" is a mishmash spelling of the little Irish pixie and the Autobahn in Germany where you can drive 200 mph if your car (and skills) will support it. We could paint the stripes between the lanes Gold, like the pot o' gold that the leprechaun guards. To save money, we can just declare that we painted them gold, leave them as the present yellow that they are, and hope that it either A) fools the tourists or B) amuses the locals. Stacey, an editor here, is arguing strenuously for a spelling of "Leprechahn."

- "The Edge" is not only a cool name for a road, but it is U2 related. U2 is an Irish rock band that the kids are listening to these days, or 1986 or whatever. That in itself doesn't merit a road, but could the actual real Edge guy be persuaded to record a quick ditty in exchange for having a highway named after him? I float this possibility only because Route 3A doesn't have her own song, like Route 128 does with that Roadrunner song by the Modern Lovers... although someone once told me that Roadrunner somehow references Cohasset (Editor's Note: Christine Frka, a former Frank Zappa groupie, lived and died at the Cohasset house of Modern Lovers founder Johnathan Richman,,, h/t to Nathaniel Palmer) . The Edge could hand us that title with ten minutes work.

- "Beating A Dead Horse Street" comes to mind when it's time to end this article.

Defending Marsh Vegas

I'm a big fan of linguistics, regional dialects, only-used-here terms... stuff like that. I've been reading up on it this morning. This page, a Glossary Of Boston Slang, will spawn a few articles. One of them will be called some form of "local terms that I was unaware of, but which rule," once I type it up and everything.

Quick preview: I was unaware that a triple decker house was known as an "Irish Battleship." I also had no idea that "Slampig" was one word, or that Framingham was known as "Dirtyham."

Nothing against Framingham- I've never had a bad date out of that town- but I needed a segue into town nicknames, and people from places like Gettysburg or Amityville will tell you that sometimes bad things happen to good towns.

One thing that jumped out at me during my research was that other towns use the "Vegas" moniker that people from the South Shore like to drop on Marshfield. While I type it now and then, I don't think that I have ever spoken the word "Marshfield" to anyone local. "Marsh Vegas" rules too hard. It is highly prevalent, as is the lazier "Vegas."

We could argue all day about why Marshfield is known as "Marsh Vegas." Some people point to the Irish Riviera nicknaming pattern, some point to a parody (sleepy town named for Las Vegas), some point to former gambling houses, some point to legalized horse betting, some point out that "Las Vegas" means "the meadows," which Marshfield is covered in, some point to the overabundance of commercial signs as one drives down Route 139... no one knows why it is called "Marsh Vegas," but everyone knows that it is called "Marsh Vegas."

Suburbanites like myself tend to forget that, while the South Shore may seem like the whole world to some people, it really is just a little slice of a little section of a little state. Still, I was very shocked to see that there were contenders arising for the Vegas title.

Lexington, Massachusetts, Wakefield, Massachusetts and Nashua, New Hampshire all turn up in the Boston Slang Glossary, laying claim to the Vegas title. Lex Vegas and Nash Vegas do have a ring to them, and Wakefield has the additional nom de guerre of "The Dirty Dirty Wake Vegas."

I have heard "Dirty Dirty" used in rap music by rapper guys speaking about the "Dirty Dirty South," and that's where the term is owned. Locally, I have heard it used for the South Coast region of Massachusetts. It makes more sense with "the Dirty Dirty South Coast" just from the hip-hop genesis of the word, but "Lex Vegas" makes more sense than "Marsh Vegas" and I still intend to advocate for Lexington to drop the nickname.

In fact, they should all drop the term "Vegas.". Marshfield deserves it, Marshfield rocks it harder, and many locals would not know what someone was talking about if they said "Marshfield."

Do I have the right to make this claim? Am I right to make this claim?

"Lex Vegas" yields 41 million results on Google. Many of them are from other states, however. Lexingtons in both Kentucky and Virginia have more prominent usage of "Lex Vegas" than Massachusetts does. That's a red flag right there, player.

"Wake Vegas" loses on Google because Katy Perry did a song called "Waking In Las Vegas," and that's pretty much all she wrote for the Internet presence of "Wake Vegas." I have no intention of hopping through 100 pages of search results looking for a nickname etymology which I plan to disregard anyhow. Eff them.

"Nash Vegas" is even uglier. For one, Nashville, Tennessee stakes a pretty solid claim to the title. To make it more Google-awful, a prominent professional wrestler named Kevin Nash once had a stage name of "Vinnie Vegas," and it kills any Google presence New Hampshire may have hoped for with the nickname.

A search of Google for "Marsh Vegas" yields numerous results, exclusively for Marshfield. There's an Urban Dictionary entry, a Facebook page, and a zillion social media references.

It just fits Marshfield better. They are the only ones who truly own their nickname. Massachusetts deserves better than a second-best Lex Vegas and New England deserves better than a third-best Nash Vegas.

Therefore, I call on Massachusetts Governor Charlie Baker to do the right thing and issue an official proclamation proclaiming Marshfield as the only true Vegas, and dismissing the claims to the term by Lexington, Nashua and Wakefield. Anyone caught referencing Lex Vegas will be dragged down to Green Hahbah and keelhauled.

Keelhauling, which is the practice of tying a criminal to the keel of the ship and dragging him under it, was a vicious practice. Those who didn't drown were dragged along a wall of barnacles, to the extent that decapitation happened now and then. It was outlawed in 1853, but it could be brought back in special circumstances.

Special circumstances like someone failing to recognize Marsh Vegas, for instance...

We've done whole articles on town nicknmes.... check it out....

Local Town Nicknames

Sara Curtis in Virginia won't be saying "Lex Vegas" any time soon...

January 2017 Nor'easter Pictures, Videos

A powerful nor'easter hit Massachusetts this week. We missed last night's tide, but we got all up in this morning's offerings.

We mostly worked Duxbury Beach, but we did manage to snap-shot Green Harbor. The tide, normally a 9 foot nothing, got big ups from the storm surge.

I was using a thirty dollar Wal-Mart phone camera and a badly battered laptop, while shooting in the teeth of a nor'easter. The laptop served as the video host, and you will probably be able to tell that I usually have someone else do the filming.

This wasn't a bad storm, maybe a B minus. No structural damage that I could see, although some beach erosion surely went down by the dunes.

I grew up on this beach, and watched a lot of gulls in my time. The smarter ones hunker down somewhere leeward, but sometimes one of them gets bored enough or hungry enough and works the surf. Joe Deady II on the camera for this one.

My old front yard, just after the porch there. It was great fun and easy work repairing that law every spring. We used to have a cobblestone patio, too... cobblestones that my father either bought or "acquired" from some road in Boston. They were very fun to re-arrange every time the ocean did something like this, and I'm a masochist.

The main problem residents here will have is that the ocean splashed a few million gallons of salt water over the wall and onto a great many lawns. You can see it happening between the stairs.

My 35 mph photography is improving, but it is a slow process.

The legendary public stairs of Duxbury Beach, home to much 1980s teen debauchery.

I had to get off of Ocean Road North before it lived up to the name. That took me through this puddle of seawater. I was pretty much that U-Boat Commander joke from the Tom Cruise pimp movie.

Joe Deady made it outside before I did, but I made up for it later with intensity.

Libby Carr gets into the mix with a bit of second story work over some Hummock Lane flooding. Hummock Lane is named after "Rouse's Hummock," which is what Cable Hill was called either A) before they put the trans-Atlantic cable in, B) when Rouse lived there, C) both, or D) neither.

The guy who owns the house with the flooded lawn worked at a golf course when I lived there. No matter what sort of maelstrom befell Duxbury Beach that winter, you could drop a 30 foot putt on it by summer. My yard, by contrast, looked like what grows over a shallow grave after a while if the killer is particularly good at choosing spots that the cops don't look in.

This is what Duxbury's Great Salt Marsh looks like with a spring full moon tide. Unfortunately, this was a mid-cycle 9 foot tide. Any water you can see in this picture is storm surge. I'm at the beach, shooting towards Duxbury Proper.

This is when I decided that moving my car from the driveway of the house I was shooting at would be a good idea.

As bad as this may look, A) it didn't get any, uhm, badder, and B) this is getting off very, very easily. as a full moon tide when this storm hit would have probably wrecked some homes.

You never ever let Ol' Glory get slapped around by a nor'easter. A wind sock would have made my job easier, but that's not this guy's problem.

They say that a waves don't get  more than 5 feet off this beach in all but extreme conditions, and we were in that neighborhood today. They had a rough tide the night before, and were very lucky that those waves weren't rolling into houses on a full moon tide.

You can tell that I shot this one instead of Joe... because it's blurry as heck. The surf covers up for a lot of my errors.

"I'z unda yoor howz.... shootin' at yer ocean."

I got up on the seawall for a few, but it was camera suicide until the tide eased back some.

Even the porch was a rough go.

I got in where I fit in.

Hummock Lane, with Cable Hill/Rouse's Hummock in the background. A newly located Cape Cod Bay, now a street pool, is in the foreground.

RAIN TOTALS AT NOON

North Weymouth, 3.5"
Sandwich 3.24"
East Mashpee 2.75"
Falmouth 2.52"
Duxbury 2.0"

...'been raining since, too.

Rain is actually what washes the salt water out of the lawns, if you're lucky. It's all sand once you go down far enough, and sand drains well.

You can almost see Green Harbor in the background. Green Hahbahhhh... obscured by the mists of the storm.

WIND GUSTS

Wellfleet 59 mph
Minot 40 mph
Cuttyhunk 44 mph
Plum Island 62 mph

Duxbury Beach, summer 1978, after the Blizzard. The house I was doing most of my shooting from is a much larger version of the 4th house from the right. I grew up in #2 from the right.

We made our way south for the tail end of the storm, and got some Sagamore work in.

We got to Saggy well after high tide, so don't think that we don't represent hard down this way.

Sagamore benefits greatly from the presence of Cape Cod, which keeps it from the heaviest of the storm surf.

You could still get knocked off a rock two hours after high tide. Bourne representin'...

We went to the White Cliffs in Cedarville (Plymouth), but the party was pretty much over by then.