The Centre Does Not Hold: Rotaries In Massachusetts

Buzzards Bay, Massachusetts

What is a rotary? What is a roundabout? What's the difference between them?

Basically, all of them are intersections that direct both turning and through traffic onto a circular, one-way road. Yes, I pasted that from Wikipedia.

The basic ideas behind rotaries are:
- simplifying the driver's visual environment
- allowing visual engagement
- encouraging deference to pedestrians
- reducing driver confusion
- allowing U-turns within the normal flow of traffic
- lowering idling and braking episodes, leading to less pollution and lower engine/brake wear
- lessening the need to brake, thus lessening the need to accelerate, thus saving fuel and lowering emissions
- lowering traffic noise associated with other intersections where cars have to stop fully
- eliminating perpendicular, T-bone crashes
- lessening gridlock associated with stoplight-style intersections.

Cape Cod, Massachusetts

Rotaries have been around longer than cars have, and had their start in Europe. At least one was operational in England in 1786, presumably for horses. Why, that there Arc de Triomphe in France is built with a roundabout. Older roundabouts have different entry and operational methods than modern ones... but since they're in Europe, we can just skip right over that, right?

Half of the world's roundabouts are in France, while the UK has the most as a proportion to roads. France, which is about the size of Texas, has 30,000 roundabouts. If the Nazis believed in yielding to rotary traffic, WWII might still be ongoing. Rotaries became popular in America, and many were built as Great Depression busy work.

I'm not sure what we have on Cape Cod. The definitions get sort of touchy. For starters, "rotary," "roundabout," "traffic circle" and "road circle" are all listed as synonyms in American dictionaries.  Massachusetts people all use the wrong term, as our "rotaries" require people to yield to the traffic in the circle, thus making them, technically, "roundabouts."

However, our roundabouts often have an interior lane, which makes them rotaries.

A rotary by any other name still acts like a roundabout. It's like most things in life.... what is SUPPOSED to happen isn't always what DOES happen.

Buzzards Bay, MA

Rotaries and roundabouts were adopted fom the European model into the United States in large numbers in the early-mid 20th Century. By the mid 20th, they were also being removed in large numbers. Those presentations where they tell you that rotaries are safer and more efficient often match up poorly with the reality of wild collisions and LA-style traffic jams in small towns.

Pretty soon, only Massachusetts had roundabouts remaining in any great number. Wikipedia has two lists of notable American rotaries... one for America, and one for Massachusetts.

Sullivan Square in Charlestown? That's a roundabout. Same goes with Neponset Circle in Dorchester, Old Colony Rotary in Southie, the 18/28/44 rotary with the Friendly's in Middleboro... you get the picture.

Harvard Square, which you think would be square, has a roundabout. Hall's Corner in Duxbury is a roundabout, even though I'm pretty sure that circles don't have corners. I smoked a lot of dat cheeaba in high school, and there's a chance that I was staring at leg when someone was teaching me the geology or whatever it was that you need to know  when thinking about stuff like that.

Maybe all of those stories about crazy Boston drivers are wrong, and we are the only drivers in America skilled enough to handle rotaries.

Yeah, I don't believe that either.

Duxbury, MA

Maybe we're too overcrowded and/or cheap to replace rotaries. It can be done, but said rotary has to offend a powerful man like Mitt Romney. Mitt had or has a Cape place, and wasted a lot of time that he could have been using to vulture-capitalize some poor business stuck in the traffic that preceded the Sagamore Rotary going onto Cape Cod.

Rotaries almost always laugh last in these situations, unless the Mitt Romney in question became Governor of Massachusetts. Buh-bye Sagamore Rotary, hello Sagamore Flyover, total cost = $50 million.

But worry you not... the Bourne Bridge has TWO rotaries, so everything balances.

Sagamore was jammed before the Flyover, and Sagamore is jammed after the Flyover. Bourne, which carries half of the traffic Sagamore does, suffers less. In 1991, when Hurricane Bob stormed at Cape Cod, there were 20 mile backups at the Sagamore Rotary. I've also seen traffic backed up from Sagamore to at least Exit 6 on Route 6 at 11 PM during typical Sunday night summer fleeing.

Rotaries were a great idea on Cape Cod back when we were 20,000 farmers and fishermen. Our population is 200,000 now, and it doubles on summer weekends. Buzzards Bay, which has 3000 souls or so on any given day, has megalopolis-level traffic twice a weekend for June, July, August and parts of September. People who live in Boston or Brooklyn dread driving through here.

Buzzards Bay, MA

There are Rules to the roundabout, which are on the books somewhere and can be accessed online. These come from government agencies, and work just fine.... in theory.

There are also Methods to a roundabout. These are taught to you by motorheads, well-sited gas station attendants and other locals. We'll get to those in a moment.

Here are the official rules, from the Massachusetts RMV:

Rotary Traffic Rules

Traffic travels counter-clockwise in a rotary. Always yield the right-of-way to vehicles already
in the rotary (unless told differently by signs or police officers) and to pedestrians. Use your
turn signals in the same way as any other intersection. Travel through the rotary and, when
you are ready to exit, use your right turn signal.

Choosing a Lane
If the rotary has a single lane, you must enter from the right lane of the road you are
coming from. You must exit onto the right lane of the road you intend to travel on.
If the rotary has multiple lanes, look for signs to help you choose the proper lane. If there
are no signs, you should do the following:

• For a quarter-turn, or to continue straight ahead, enter the rotary from the right lane.
Stay in that lane, and exit onto the right lane.

• For a three-quarter-turn, or a U-turn, enter the rotary from the left lane. Travel through
the middle or inner lane. Exit onto the right lane. If coming from a road with a single
lane, you should stay in the right lane for the entire turn.

In a multiple-lane rotary, there may be traffic on both sides of your vehicle. Do not attempt
to move out of your lane until it is safe to do so. If you miss your exit, don’t get upset.
Check the traffic around you. If it is safe to do so, go around again and position your vehicle
to properly and safely exit the rotary.

Do not stop in the rotary.

Bourne/Wareham line, MA

In reality... well, let's talk to a few experts, shall we?

Our experts in this case are:

1) A desk clerk at a rotary hotel. He is here because he, more than perhaps anyone on Cape Cod, must explain rotaries to people from out of state.

2) A police officer from Duxbury, a town full of old people which has (relatively) recently put a roundabout up at an intersection that had been a normal cross intersection since Myles Standish rode over it.

3) A guy who has been pumping gas at a Cape Cod rotary for 20 years, with a clear view of all the mayhem and a clear mind with which to remember crash stories.

4) A math teacher who is good with numbers and formulae.

5) A few expert drivers in niche fields, i.e. trucker, biker, chronic speeder, guy who drives in a demolition derby now and then...

Rather than to attempt to impose any order on this, I feel it would be best to hit you in a sort of stream-of-consciousness manner. I'm going to end the article with this, as little I can say will top the wisdom you can gain from these quotes from the experts.

******************************

Hyannis, MA

"The problem is layered, but simple. Massachusetts is the only state with extensive rotary use. Cape Cod is a tourist area, and attracts out-of-state people. They all meet in the rotary.

People are pulling into that rotary who have no idea what a rotary is, or even what a ROUNDABOUT AHEAD sign means. They are meeting up there with the only people in America who truly understand how to drive in rotaries... the locals.

The locals know that the only rule in the rotary is Make Your Own Law. Yes, the people who know rotaries the best have a tendency to work them aggressively, which goes poorly with the more tentative approach used by the tourists."

***************************************
"The best way to work a rotary is by viewing it like stealing second in a baseball game. Take a slight lead, pick your spot, and explode into the gap. Drive THROUGH the target, just like sliding into the base. Never stop once you commit.

 If you are driving a big rig, you want to work more along the lines of how goal-line offenses are run in the NFL. Lower your head, power straight through, and count on Physics. "

***************************************
"Once you are in the rotary... never surrender the outer lane. If someone crashes into you trying to get to Rte 28 from an inner lane, it's their fault."

***************************************
"Drivers will always yield to things that can crush them."

**************************************
"Massachusetts drivers blast into the rotary without stopping. New Yorkers do the same, but they do so without looking. Connecticut drivers are sort of an amalgamation of the worst traits of both. Everyone else in the country is worse, save for people from NASCAR states, who sort of get the idea... unless it snows."

**************************************************
"We had an old guy from Nebraska who coudn't get into the rotary, abandoned his car at the merge, sought me out and asked me, in a Nebraska/old guy manner, 'WTF?' I ended up pulling out into the rotary length-wise, blocking traffic so that he could get onto 28 South. I don't know what happened to him after that."

*****************************************************
"I saw a guy drive around the rotary 4 times, pull into my station, and ask which exit the f***ing tunnel was off."

*******************************************************

"We had a lady turn left into one, but I managed to block the lane and get her to stop before she killed someone."

******************************
"Don't set out to wreck somebody, but don't be afraid to."

******************************************
"It is better to Cause the impact than to be impacted upon. Ideally, your rear end will be hitting his driver-side door.
**************************************

"If you cause an accident and have to flee for some reason, you can do a U-turn off the Bourne Bridge by taking one of the non-28 exits and looping under the Bourne Bridge. People will be pointing the cops west while you're appearing (and then disappearing) on the east."

******************************************************
"Yóu can stomp the gas pedal to the floor for about 4 seconds and not be technically speeding in most non-modified cars, as long as you use the 28 exit off the rotary instead of the Trowbridge Road one."

*******************************************************
"Using turn signals in a rotary is akin to aiding the enemy in times of war."

***********************************************************
"People entering a rotary are vulnerable to being T-boned on the driver-side door. You should remember this, plan for it, and take advantage of it whenever possible."

********************************************************************
"If you have a large set, you can skip the rotary by cutting through the State Police barracks. They love it, especially when you do wheelies."

*************************************************
"If you really have to throw your coffee at another car in the rotary, make note of what lane you are in. If you're in the outer lane throwing at a car in the inner lane, you have to lead him a bit or you'll soak someone innocent driving behind the targeted vehicle. If you're in the inner lane, you have to actually throw across your own windshield."

************************************************
"Never complain to a Massachusetts cop that they don't have rotaries where you live. It encourages contempt."

********************************

"Old people who don't get to this side of town much tend to just plow right through the roundabout when coming up Rte 14. Some are even aware that they are refusing to yield at a roundabout, and say that they can do so because they were here before the roundabout was. It's nice to see someone putting the 'grandfather' back into 'grandfather clause.'" 

Bourne, MA

*************************************

"Europeans, who you'd think would be better at roundabouts, instead are shocked to see one in America, especially if they have visited a few states and assume no that America has no roundabouts. Instinct takes over, and the English ones are very prone to taking a left into it. I see it happen about once a summer."

************************************

"If you think the police are going to pull you over for something, get into the rotary and refuse to exit. The cop will think you're a tourist, and may even run interference for you just to get you out of his territory."

**********************************************************
"Only drive over the island as a last resort. Re-entry will be hazardous and you'll be operating from a disadvantage."

*******************************************************
"The guy with the Missouri plates is going to drive broadside across the 28 South rotary exit without leaving the rotary, as sure as the sun will set tonight."

********************************************************
"Rotary clubs tend to meet in square rooms."

********************************************************
"I just want it on the Internet somewhere that they should have put the tugboat in Buzzards Bay into the middle of the Belmont Circle rotary. Since they already screwed up that, they should seek to acquire another tugboat.

If your rotary doesn't have something cool and distinctive in the middle of it, your rotary sucks."

*********************************************************
"A large truck is perfectly within the law using both lanes of the rotary, and they are also allowed to use the shoulder with impunity."

********************************************************
"Very few fistfights break out at rotaries, as it is difficult to pull over in one. You can also be edged out of the rotary by a near-miss. You might have to turn around in Pocasset to catch and fight someone who pissed you off at the Buzzards Bay rotary."

**************************************************************
"Almost all skidding in rotaries during snow events involve the back end sliping out and veering to the right. This can be capitalized upon to make fast exits. Remember to turn into the skid, it will align you properly."

***************************************************************
"If you cause an accident, never stop in the rotary. Direct the other driver into a safe area, allow him to enter first... then once he commits, stay in the rotary and flee at high speeds. Even if he gets back out fast, he'll never catch you."

********************************************************
"If you have the outer lane, you can give the other driver the finger more efficiently. If you throw the bird out the window from the inner lane, the other guy won't see it, and the only ones who will be impressed are those CAPE COD bushes."

*************************************************************************
"If they ever run a NASCAR race across Cape Cod, the rotaries would be the best part. We might need a 3rd and 4th generation of Earnhardts, especially if it snows"

**************************************************************************
"If you are going really, really fast (slightly above 761 mph), you can stay in the rotary, honk your horn, and catch up to the sound. If you want to give yourself the finger and see yourself doing it, you have to go into the rotary at like 671 million mph."

Bourne, MA

Movies with rotaries include:

European Vacation,

The Great Escape,

The Dukes Of Hazzard,

Ronin,

and just about anything with James Bond, Bridget Jones or that Transporter dude.

Nauset Regional High School Hires Former NFL Coach

So, you've lost 12 of 12 Thanksgiving football games to your hated rival, Dennis-Yarmouth. You've had a field goal attempt knocked down by a seagull before... sure, it was just during practice, but c'mon.

You're pretty much the last football team in America before the Big Puddle... and after you cross that puddle, when they talk about football, they mean soccer. Your coach just quit to be the assistant principal. Due to your remote location, a 2 hour bus drive to some games isn't out of the question.

You play so far away from the city that your black players listen to The Cure and stuff. Maybe only Gloucester High has a better chance of having an important player miss a game because of a fishing injury. Actual actuaries actually have calculated that there is a .000000019% chance that one of your players will be eaten by a shark.

Your arch-rival D-Y is generally a very solid program. Nearby, you have Barnstable High, a perennial state powerhouse. You aren't too far from football factories like Duxbury, Brockton and Mansfield. Itty-bitty Upper Cape Tech has a Super Bowl championship. You don't.

What do you do to reverse that?

You hire a former NFL coach to run your high school team, of course.

Nauset Regional High School just hired Mike Sherman to coach the football team. Mike is the former coach of the Green Bay Packers, and of Texas A&M. Two of Mike's QBs were Brett Favre and Johnny Manziel (who he recruited, but never coached). He also brought us Von Miller, Ryan Tannehill, Johnathan Ogden and several other pros. He coached with UCLA, Pitt, Tulane, the Houston Texans and the Miami Dolphins.

His last game as head coach was in front of 90,000 people. That's everyone in Eastham, times 25. As opposed to playing at iconic Lambeau Field, Sherman will now work at Nauset, which is the only team in America located in a national park. It's also one of the few schools where the teachers all pause mid-lecture because a lighthouse foghorn is going off.

The Green Bay Packers have as many Super Bowls as any franchise. Sherman has their second best winning % ever, trailing only... oh, Vince Lombardi. Pro and college teams can't hire him quickly enough.

How does Nauset get him?

Simple. Cape Cod and the Islands are where football coaches go to get away from it all. Patriots coaching legend Bill Belichick has a place on Nantucket. Cleveland/Jets coach Eric Mangini had and might still have a place in Brewster. Mike Sherman has a place in Dennis. John Hannah and Mosi Tatupu coached high schools in the EMass area. While he doesn't coach, Bob Kraft has a house in Mashpee that no one is allowed by law to harvest oysters around. He might get bored in retirement some day, and decide to tinker with the local high school team.

I think that, after a season or even a career cooped up in film rooms and practice bubbles, coaches only feel free at the beach... so they head off to Cape Cod. All that open space, the limitless sea spreading out before them... yeah, I can see how it works.

In this particular case, Sherman and Mrs. Sherman had tired of moving constantly after new jobs, and wished to retire. They had been vacationing on the Cape for decades (he's a Northboro/Northborough native), so they settled in Dennis. Coaches tend to be Type A, so a few months of striper fishing soon wasn't enough action for MS. He had that itch to get back on the sidelines, working.

There may also be a bit of charm to the prospect of not coaching millionaires. There will be no mistake at all made about knowing who the Boss is at NRHS. Brett Favre is 1000 miles away. As a former small-school high school coach, I can tell you that he may even end up having to buy the team Burger King out of his own pocket if they get a big win.

Nauset Regional High School had been taking a football beating for many moons. They brought in a new coach- Keith "Grand" Kenyon- who installed a single-wing offense similar to what Knute Rockne used to run. They made the playoffs a couple of times, but they did nothing that would let them laugh off the chance to hire a legitimate NFL head coach. Sherman plans to run a modern, pro-style spread offense, btw.

A good coach can make all the difference at the high school level. Duxbury was a soccer town before they hired a prominent assistant from the dynastic Everett High School program. They have enjoyed great success ever since. As nice as Everett and Duxbury are, they can't hold a candle to the Green Bay Packers.

So, as well as Duxbury's coach has done, I think the Green Dragons may need an upgrade. Duxbury is a rich town with a couple of Aerosmith offspring in the high school, they should be able to scratch up enough paper to hire Coach Saban away from Alabama. While we're at it, we should get Werner Herzog to direct our school plays... if he's not dead, of course.

Of course, I live in Bourne these days. We lack Duxbury's bank power, and I have no idea how we'd attract a pro coach to our little high school. Maybe we have to make it like High Plains Drifter, where the coach gets "a free hand in this town." Shoot, we might have to give him a virgin a month.

We'll see how Sherman does against local coaching. Sure, he has that fancy NFL pedigree, but I'm pretty sure that the local Pop Warner system isn't going to hand him the next Brett Favre. In the end, once you shake off all the bells and whistles, you're basically handing a ball to some kid, pointing him towards the goal line and daring the 11 guys on the other team to stop him.

We've suggested having a Cape school hire a pro coach living here as a snowbird before, when Eric Mangini became available. We just didn't think anyone would take us seriously.

Now, Nauset is changing the game. How will the other towns adjust?

Hotcakes! Fire At The IHOP!

from "You Know You're From Bourne..." Facebook  page

Traffic was snarled at the Bourne Bridge as a fire of unknown origin did a number on the building.

As of 8 PM, the fire department was still at the scene in force, and had a ladder up against the hole in the second floor window you see the fire shooting out of from the picture above.

It is an odd scene, as the word around town is that Dunkin' Donuts closed on the property today. They won't get a drive-thru, and may put a conference room in the restaurant somehow.

This reporter can neither confirm nor deny the rumors that a Honey Dew Donuts guy, or even one of the more shiftier Marylou's girls, was seen fleeing from the scene.

Now, I realize that I just wrote a rather angry article about this potential Dunkin's and the effect it would have on the rotary.... but I wasn't really shooting for Inspiration of Arson. I just wanted a Cracker Barrel, to be honest.

I drove through the rotary rather easily at 8 PM, but there is a lot of rubbernecking going on. Expect minor delays through the rest of the evening.

I'm not sure if the building is a total loss, but it doesn't look good. I have no idea how the fire started, but I'm well-located and will try to keep an ear to the ground.

Someone Has To Stop The Bourne Rotary Dunkin' Donuts!

It's not often that I write an article with zero (0) certainty that what I'm actually writing about is true, but today is one of those days.

Bourne locals were saddened to see the iconic IHOP restaurant closing at the rotary on the Cape side of the Bourne Bridge. You have to drive to Plymouth to get a Rooty Tooty Big And Fruity now. You lose an easy place for tourists to find, eliminating the "Park at the IHOP, and I'll meet you there" directions-giving option.

But the smarter locals also looked at the closing of IHOP and wondered what sort of Traffic Nightmare would be going in place of the IHOP. These concerns spiked recently, as it appears that some work is being performed on the property.

Once you think on it a bit, only a few businesses would even WANT that spot. I'm sure that "everyone coming or going to Cape Cod drives by this spot" makes for an expensive rent, and "hope that potential customers can negotiate the death-weave they would need to perform to get out of the rotary and into your business" makes for a poor business model when combined with the price of that high visibility.

Only the heavy hitters can afford to laugh off those concerns, with "heavy hitters" meaning "businesses that never fail, no matter what."

In Canada, that equals "hockey gear manufacturer." In Texas, that means "gun dealer." In somewhere like Yemen, it might be where you put the Qu'a'a'ran store or something. In Massachusetts, it means either "package store" or "Dunkin' Donuts."

Massachusetts people, Massholes that we are, go sort of crazy for Dunkin' Donuts coffee. Some people will drink no other coffee. A popular internet meme during our blizzardy winter showed someone walking through a Jack London-style whiteout, with the caption saying "Wonder if Dunkin' is open?" Opening a franchise in California put lines of transplanted Easterners around the corner.

It is one of the few businesses in this rotten economy where demand exceeds supply. Allow me a moment to illustrate. It's about 5 miles as the crow flies from the Sagamore to the middle of the Cranberry Highway in East Wareham. This stretch runs through the edges of Sagamore Beach (population 2977), desolate Bournedale (I don't know B-dale's population, but it is much less than 3500), Bourne village (pop. 1800), a tiny edge of Wareham ( use Onset's 1500 population figure for part of Onset/part of East Wareham) and Buzzards Bay (nearly 4000). I'm including southern Cedarville, and excluding Cape-side Sandwich and Pocasset-area Bourne.

It is a useful way to go from the 25 East area to the 3 North area, but it stopped being a major route to Cape Cod with certain highway alterations in recent decades. The population doubles in the summer, or it gets cut in half in the winter, depending on how you view the glass of water. Aside from commuting and canal-walking, there is no reason at all from anyone who isn't from Bournedale or Buzzards Bay to go to Bournedale or Buzzards Bay. We're a backwater, sharing a "we're a nowhere that the roads to everywhere go through" status with places like Afghanistan and Gettysburg.

It is a strip where a Burger King failed, and which hasn't been able to support a supermarket for 20-30 pre-Market Basket years. We're a college town that can't support a nightclub. IHOP just died there. Main Street in Buzzards Bay is really not that far away from being a ghost town.

This is amazing, because the area suffers from Los Angeles-style gridlock.

This stretch I mentioned still supports 6 and as many as 7 Dunkin' Donuts, depending on how you score MacArthur, Sandwich, Cedarville and East Wareham. The lines of traffic pouring in and out of these places snarl the roads around them, and even kills someone in Wareham now and then. This area also supports a Starbuck's, a Honey Dew, and 2-3 Marylou's. Whatever fault you may ascribe to Yankees, Swamp Yankees, Massholes, Hoodsies or Cape Coddas, even a hater would have to admit that we are a hard-working lot who essentially need to swim in coffee.

There is a huge Dunkin void in the Cape-side Bourne Bridge area. Whoever fills it will become a millionaire, pretty much with a snap of the fingers. This hypothetical franchisee will also create a few baker's dozens of low-wage, go-nowhere jobs. You'll be able to get coffee more quickly... maybe. The town will get some guaranteed tax income.

Those are all the good points.

The bad point, and it's a big point, is that a Dunkin's would snarl up traffic. Not only would it jam up a road, it would jam up an already busy road. What's worse, Dunkin's prime business hours would fall during the prime traffic hours at the rotary.

Here are a few scenarios I envision:

- People turning out of the rotary and heading up the bridge will be slamming into people exiting the Dunkin'.

- Many people, including (to some extent) Randy Hunt and Wendy Northcross, feel that the big problem with the Sagamore traffic is that god-awful on-ramp just before the Christmas Tree Shop. It kills any chance of traffic fluidity on Route 6, Route 6A, Route 130, and any/all side roads during peak traffic periods. A Dunkin, sited closer to the Bourne Bridge and with not one but two curb-cutting exits, would be worse.

- Given the right ratio of big car/little car and sited properly, you could have a big diesel semi truck knock one of those little smart cars into the Canal, maybe rolling it through a house first. You can put some nuns and/or orphans into the smaller car if you need more gravitas with your worst-case scenarios.

- I spy superhero state troopers and EMT types being T-boned as they respond to emergency situations by some guy who is shoving a Gronk Sandwich into his face as he blindly force-merges into bridge traffic.

- Wampanoag babies suddenly experience an uptick in gridlock-related names, and schools start signing up kids named "Waits In Traffic" and "Curses At Fords."

- I'm recycling some old material here, but Bourne residents have a different perception of ETA than other residents of the same basic part of the state have. If you ask someone from Carver and someone from Bourne to go to some equidistant point between the two towns, the Carver man can immediately give an ETA, while the Bourne guy will have to pause, factor in traffic, and then give his answer. This DD scenario would make that worse.

- Some old woman at this time next year will die and go to her eternal reward just after her kids blow her off on Mother's Day from 9 miles away because of rotary traffic.

- Depending on who you believe, a flyover will eventually go in here. Some people say that's why the IHOP declined on renewing their lease. A massive construction project with a bustling coffee shop jammed in there wouldn't get complicated or anything.

- Along the lines of the myth that Eskimoes have over 200 words for snow, Bourne residents would have to learn yet another traffic term... "Winter-morning coffee run rotary traffic" is what I am working with now. I don't think anyone else in the USA would have that particular problem.

- Bourne town officials have suggested that the state buy the site and tear it down.

- Wicked Local Bourne alleges that at least one "well-known coffee franchise" has put out feelers on the site.

- While I think they lost in the end, the Sorrenti Brothers (or something like that) lost out on a settlement when a flyover cut their gas station off from the former Sagamore rotary. However, they were very close to getting a multi-million dollar payout. Would a decade of Dunkin be worth that financial risk?

- If you are going to wedge a business in there, does it really have to be a high-volume, quick-hitter? At least each customer at the IHOP sat there for 45 minutes. People are in and out of Dunkin Donuts, and thus in and out of bridge and rotary traffic, every 30 seconds or so.

- How many people would make money off this? The town makes some tax money, maybe gets another teacher or a firefighter. The franchisee will make money hand over fist. The coffee jockeys will make a starvation wage, and may have to be imported from New Bedford. Does that scratch cancel out the lost revenue we'd get from a major uptick in traffic gridlock at one of the only two ways off of the Cape?

- Road rage incidents before people get their coffee are worse than their opposite numbers. Road rage incidents where someone actually got their coffee, but had it spill into their lap after an accident before they could drink any of it... those, my friend, always turn bloody, even if the two people in the accident are Jesus and Martin Luther King.

- Would a needless DD in the Bourne Rotary be the end of the DD in the struggling Buzzards Bay rotary? Will some millionaire getting an extra million be worth landing yet another deathblow on the Buzz?

- Would the State Police be forced to close the rotary Dunkin Donuts during evacuation situations like hurricanes or Pilgrim nuclear incidents?

- Just imagine the average driver exiting that DD at the foot of the bridge. Think of the delays, the nudging-the-nose-outs, the skidding stops, the oblivious or aggressive driver interaction. Disregard the good drivers for a moment, and focus on the average driver. Then, as George Carlin said, remember that half of the drivers are even stupider than he or she is.

- Remember... right now, the Bourne Bridge is the faster bridge, although's Sagamore's problem is more volume (Sagamore does a 67/33 share of the traffic with the Bourne Bridge) than design.

- At least one person on my Facebook has intimated that calling it "IHOP" instead of "Big Boy's" is sort of like wearing a YOUNGBLOOD t-shirt. Older folks still call it "Howard Johnson's" now and then.

- I plan to get a good viewing spot and wait for someone to do a sudden, high-speed, blind cross over two rotary lanes where they then cut off the two IHOP exits as a sort of Fool's Coda. Just offhand, sitting at my desk, I get the sense that either a near-miss or a fatality may strengthen my faith in God, Evolution, Either, Neither, or Both.

- As we have said before, people who study Higher Math speak of a strange phenomena called the Bourne Paradox. It essentially, if you'll forgive my difficulty with the details, means that a point occurred in history where the amount of travel-time lost in Bourne traffic surpassed the amount of time Man has existed as a species. It pretty much disproves Math, and maybe God. The math works when you consider that multiple people commute in many cars, but the working math also dispels Math. It's what Einstein killed himself over.

Now, whoever owns this property has the right to rent it to whoever the heck they want to rent it to, even the Taliban or the KKK. Who are we to tell him otherwise?

It's tough to fault a guy who will give us a patrolman-sized tax payoff every year, who will employ a few dozen low-skill workers in a fairly secure job with 24/7/365 shifts, who will feed our hungry commuters, and who will hand us our morning coffee every day.

I suppose that my own political philosophy forces me to be willing to suffer a bit rather than have the government telling businesses who they can rent to. However, you can almost paint it as a public safety issue. I'm torn on it, to an extent.

If I can sneak in and out of there during off hours and get one of those little croissants with the bacon and cheese... at that exact moment, this reporter would be For this project.

However, the rest of the time, it will be a traffic nightmare of the highest order, imposed upon an area that was pretty close to already being a traffic nightmare of the highest order. Bourne has been begging for help with traffic for decades, and we instead get nothing but Mo Traffic.

We're about to take a traffic gut-punch, there's nothing we can do about it, and it will hit us all day, every day, as long as it stands. I think maybe 30 people benefit from it.

I suppose the area needs a high end business that maybe one person goes to now and then and spends a bunch of money. Maybe something with a high-end window-shopping appeal, like a Ferrari dealership. Everything else is a bad idea... and that also goes for you, Ronald McDonald.

Mainland Bourne should strongly consider that they may have to secede, name themselves "Gridlock," start suing somebody over the traffic, and blow those bridges down like the Big Bad Bourne Wolf. You know in your red, white and blue heart that George Washington wouldn't have taken this sh*t.

Minor, Regular-Type Snow Tonight, And How The Rest Of The Winter Should Go

Ocean Bluff, MA

The blizzard's moving in
Looks like you're wrong again
When cabin fever hits
It sends us into fits
Of innkeeper's disease
And screaming in the trees
The blizzard never ends
The blizzard buries them...

People who aren't as into the weather as I am often ask me the same series of questions. "Will there be school?" "Is it going to rain on my race/parade/party/wedding/graduation?" "Is the hurricane going to hit us?" You know the deal, or can at least imagine a good % of it.

Lately, I get another question, one I usually only get during sex and conversations.

Sagamore, MA

"When is it going to end?"

They're referring to Winter, or at least this perpetual state of snowfall and Siberian cold that we seem to be in. I don't have the actual numbers, but I think we had 9000 inches of snow this last month. We had our coldest month on record, and our snowiest.

My little area of Cape Cod, which isn't known for excessive snowfall, had 12+" of snow three Mondays in a row, with two storms over 2 feet and one storm pushing 3 feet. We broke the streak not by a cessation in snowfall, but by the next snowstorm hitting on a Saturday.

Here are some odd things I've done, heard or said in the last month:

- "I felt good, really good. I had no idea why. Then I realized that I head been working out almost 8 hours daily with the shovel, and had been doing so for 3 weeks."

- "We'll be happy to shovel your car out, Ma'am, we just have to find it.".... sweeps arm in a manner that shows I am searching an area roughly 50'x50'....... "I think it's over here somewhere."

- Walked 150 yards and back to get some medicine for a lady... took me 25 minutes.

- "I can't tell where the snowbank ends and the 43 room hotel wall begins."

- "You can come down to the cottage whenever you want.... just if you come at high tide, you'll be killed."

Sandwich, MA

- Bought not one but two iced coffees from Marylou's when the temperature outside was -8.

- "No, not that Monday blizzard, the other one.... no, not the Groundhog one."

- (guy from Miami, seeing snow in person for the first time, and he got a blizzard)..... "On TV, it looks more fun. Do people actually go out and skate in this?" I eventually gave this man a sled, and he gleefully threw himself around a tavern parking lot. He was in his 20s, and was up North for a military funeral.

- "Does the Army come and take all the snow away?" OK, that's an old one, from the April Fool's blizzard.

- I knew an Indian woman would start jabbering at me if I used the main entrance and got rock salt everywhere, so I walked up a snowbank and entered my room through a 2nd floor porch. I had to shovel my way in, but the accent of a Calcutta woman raised in England and living in America and who now has to mop up after you for the tenth time is pretty much a high-pitched yip yip yip yip yip yip yip yip yip. I had been outside smoking after 18 hours of shovel work, so the extra effort was worthwhile.

Bourne, MA

We're getting some more snow tonight, but a mere 2-5 inches is nothing at all by this point. I actually look forward to the snowbanks getting a fresh coat of powder

The snow will start at 10 PM or so, and should be done around when you start the morning commute. It will be more of a coastal affair, and they are looking at 2-5". Inland locations (central and western MA) will get a coating to 2".

Merely a flurry.

Then, we get a streak of highs in the 20s and lows around 10. You'll be frigid for the rest of the week, but at least the heavens won't be pouring powder on your head.

We then have one more round of bad weather (March 3rd looks to have accumulating snowfall, and the period bookending it looks to have minor and nuisance snowfall), and then things get drastically better. 

Duxbury, MA

I use the resources I have to keep a month and a half ahead of the weather. Anything beyond a week is guess work, but it is educated guess work. It's not 100%, as no 45 day forecast saw any of our blizzards- or even a period of frequent snowfall- until they were a short time away. Even the TV stations missed the first blizzard until about 30 hours before.

However, Accuweather is a voice of authority, and they see some promise for us in this next 45 day period. 

The best part? After tomorrow, you may not see temperatures below 10 degrees for 9-10 months. That's not enough for you? We should see temperatures in the mid 50s a week from a day after tomorrow. Granted, it will snow that morning, but the afternoon should rule.

March 6th is that special day, and dare I say a very New England day. We'll start with a mere coating of snow, winds will go past 65 mph, and we'll hit the mid 50s. After that day, only 4 days of the next 40 will see high temperatures not reach the 40s. We'll have 10 days in the 50s. There is no snow at all forecast in this period.

Duxbury, MA

After that, it will be:

April.

Spring.

Highs in the 40s and 50s.

There's some minor snow called for on April 7th, and that may be this winter's last slap at us. The latest I've seen heavy snow was April 28th, but that was in Worcester.

You can handle that, right?

Sharks In Cape Cod Bay

Duxbury Beach, MA

Cranberry County Magazine was in the house last week when Dr. Gregory Skomal spoke at the Duxbury Performing Arts Center, or whatever they call the auditorium in a Duxbury High School that used to be so familiar to me.

He was there thanks to the efforts of Jack Kent at Bayside Marine, via the Atlantic White Shark Conservancy. There were around 100 people in the crowd, which isn't bad on a snowy Thursday night.

Dr.Skomal isn't one of those doctors who can take out your appendix, psychoanalyze your childhood, or implant larger breasts onto you. Nope, he's a shark guy, the big fish in the Massachusetts shark study business.

If you saw reports of Great White Sharks being tagged off of Chatham for the last few summers, Dr. Skomal was the man with the harpoon. He tags the sharks with a variety of tracers, and records their movements. His research allows us to get somewhat of a grip on what I reluctantly call the Shark Problem.

It's not really a problem. "Sharks coming back to Massachusetts" is a sign that our ecosystem is healthy. It's just that this healthy ecosystem has what they call an apex predator at one end of it. This apex predator can appear out of nowhere and tear a swimmer in half. That's stretching "healthy" a bit. However, 10000% of all shark attacks on man happen in the environment of the shark, where the human is the intruder and sort of gets what he has coming to him.

But the key to understanding these things is to study them, and Dr. Skomal is in the business of learning about sharks. When he goes to Duxbury and speaks for 2 hours, he is then in the business of teaching us about sharks.

I didn't videotape or anything, so I'll just go through some highlights of his speech, as well as some of the fascinatin'-and-fun fish facts I unearthed prepping this article:

Scituate, MA

- We've been chasing Dr. Skomal for an interview for 2 years, back from when we were with Cape Cod TODAY. He wasn't being shady, we'd just always ask him during his peak activity periods. He promised us, in an email, that he'd get back to us in the winter, and he was as good as his word. I got ten minutes alone with him, even after I started asking my stupid questions. I did buy a hat, so I didn't totally waste his time.

- I barely resisted the urge to cut off one of his answers with "Love to prove that, wouldn't ya? Get your name in the National Geographic."

- Sharks are here for one reason. They eat seals. After that, it becomes, as we say, pure algebra... sharks eat seals, seals live on Cape Cod, so therefore....

- Seals are not the exclusive food of sharks. Many of the tagged sharks end up in the middle of the ocean, where no seals are found. They're eating something out there, and it most likely isn't Seal Jerky that they carry on long trips.

- There is no way to know exactly how many GWS can be found on Cape Cod. Dr. Skomal tagged 68 this summer, 43 of them males.

- From what I gather, Dr. Skomal gets shark sightings from the air, then closes in on the GWS aboard a fishing boat, and applies the tags with a modified harpoon.

- He uses 3 different types of tags, and even as I type this, I'm not sure if I remember all of them. My notes got messed up during the blizzard, and I hadn't saved them. He uses a tag that is read by a bouy, he uses one that is read like GPS by a satellite, and he uses another one that pops off the shark and contains his info.

- He also will put a camera on the sharks, and even has a torpedo-looking thing that will follow a tagged shark. He needs some Discovery Channel money for this project, however. At least one shark tried to eat it.

- The tagged sharks get names. Mary Lee, Weezie, a KIA soldier who I don't want to disrespect by mauling his name without my notes, Katharine, and so forth.

- You can name one yourself for $1000. The money goes to support research. It would suck to lose a relative to a shark attack, and then find out that the shark in question was named "Nomar," "Da'Quan," "Hugh G. Rection," or "Big Toothy."

- No, "Mary Lee" wasn't named for the Quint limerick from Jaws. I asked, and it was named after someone's Mom. Same goes for Weezie, who I thought might have been named by a fan of The Jeffersons.

Ocean Bluff, MA

- A tagged shark performed neither the Truro attack a few years ago, nor the Manomet attack last summer. Dr. Skomal said nothing that made me think he'd avoid letting that information out if a tagged shark ate a Cape Codder.

- Sharks are not unusual in Cape Cod Bay. You can see that a monster was caught off Duxbury (in February, nonetheless) in the 1930s. One of the three fatal shark attacks on Massachusetts people happened off Scituate, and one of the remaining two went down even further north, in Boston Harbor. The last fatal shark attack was off of Mattapoisett in the 1930s.

- Rhode Island and Connecticut have each had one fatal attack I could find anything about. The first white guy (I assume many Native Americans were devoured at some point, but they don't put that history anywhere that Google could find) to get a Sharkin' in the times of our forefathers was actually swimming in the East River when "the devil appeared, in the form of a fish" to bring the pain.

- New Jersey has had as many shark deaths in a month as Massachusetts has in her White Guy history.

- Sharks don't mature until their 20s and 30s, and they can live 70 years.

- Expect to get more GWS sightings in Cape Cod Bay. The seal population on Cape Cod is exploding, and the seals diffuse into the neighboring waters. Where the seals go, the sharks follow. Duxbury has long supported a small seal population, and it is expected to grow as Cape Cod's seals spread out.

- A shark off of Duxbury Beach isn't sick, lost, too old to hunt normally, or even out of his element. It's exactly where he belongs, and he's doing exactly what he is supposed to be doing.

Mattapoisett, MA

- If we look at Chatham as the big city for Massachusetts sharks, Duxbury would serve pretty much the same suburban purpose to sharks that it does to humans.... a less populated location, good scenery, tasty seafood, and the occasional kayaker.

- Duxbury has recently (the last ten years or so) been host to a large Sand Tiger Shark population. The STS is a frightening shark, a toothy fellow who can grow to 9 feet long. They are docile, and any attacks on humans are rare. They are usually associated with fishing or feeding. The STS has a mouth that is too small to cause a human fatality, but it could take some fingers off your hand.

- Old-timers say the ST sharks weren't around Duxbury until recently, although I had heard tales of sharks in the back marshes as a child. Sand Tiger Sharks are frequently caught off of the Powder Point Bridge.

- I had a dogfish wash into my cellar after the Halloween Gale of 1991.

- The titular shark character from the Jaws franchise is probably the most well-known fictional New Englander. Really, who else is in his league? Captain Ahab? Hester Prynne? The Pina Colada Song protagonist? Carrie? Spenser For Hire? Sam Malone? OK, maybe Sam Malone, but I'm still betting on Ol' Toothy.

- The shark from the Jaws novel was actually terrorizing a fictional Long Island community, but the movie made him a New Englander. Doesn't quite make up for Babe Ruth, but it's a start.

- Dr. Hooper was off the mark with his Territoriality theory, although the sharks as a species are now territorial to Cape Cod and eventually Duxbury. True territoriality would involve an individual shark driving away the other sharks, which I guess doesn't happen. Sharks have to move to breathe, and that movement sort of trumps the desire to hang around in one place.

- There are two kinds of shark attacks. One is Exploratory, where the human is some tasty looking but exotic menu item for a shark that he has a little nibble of. Granted, that little nibble might tear off your leg, but it also generally voids the human as a food source. The Truro attack on a boogie boarder was one of these types.

- The other attack has a name which I forgot, but it is basically when the shark is All In on the attack, and hits at full speed with a wide-open-mouth CHOMP. The Plymouth attack, which left dental records on a pretty solid kayak that even the OJ prosecution could get a conviction with, was one of these.

- Professionals like Dr. Skomal refer to attacks on humans as "interactions."

- The chances of a shark attacking you are less than you being hit by lightning or winning the Powerball. Even an increased shark presence in Cape Cod Bay won't raise those odds much.

- If you want to lower your chances, there are a few rational things you can do:

One, do nothing at all seal-like, and don't even go near seals.

Two, try to not go too deep in the water, as sharks like to strike from below. Neither of our recent attack victims (nor any of the historical ones I read about) had any idea a shark was around until it bit them.

Three, don't swim at dawn, dusk, or dark. This is when sharks hunt the most.

Four, don't swim near surfcasters or boats fishing close to shore.

 "Five" could very well be "Swim with people who are fatter than you." I couldn't pin Dr. Skomal down with this one, but he didn't deny it outright. A good way to view it would be "It makes perfect sense, but the limited data doesn't support a trend in that direction."

Mattapoisett, MA

- Wondering about racial bias in shark attacks? New England and New York have had 6 fatal shark attacks I found records of, and two non-lethal ones. At least one (a Connecticut one) and maybe another (the Rhode Island one) involved black people, and I seem to remember the Truro victim having a name similar to my lawyer's, if you catch my drift.

- Call the ratio of attacks on blacks as 1.5 attacks out of 6, which I think is 25%. This is disproportionate to the US black racial ratio of 15%, and even more so when factoring in that white people probably go to the beach in greater numbers. I have no records of fishermen who suffered shark bites, although that would probably up the Portagee numbers in the equation, perhaps substantially.

- Two attacks (Connecticut and Mattapoisett) were on children swimming out to meet a boat. Two other attacks (Scituate and Boston) involved a shark deliberately swamping a small boat to dislodge the people in it. Two attacks (Manomet and Truro) were on people using either kayaks or boogie boards.

Caught off the Gurnet

- The New York attack was in a river, while the Rhode Island one was a bit offshore. Scituate and Boston were far (5 miles in the Scituate case) offshore. Truro was 400 yards offshore, while Manomet was maybe 100 yards offshore.

- The Connecticut one and the Mattapoisett one were about the same as Manomet, with the Buzzards Bay attack being described as "a baseball throw from the end of the pier (the pier in the picture above)." The 1930s Duxbury shark I mentioned earlier was caught 4 or 5 miles offshore.

- Dr. Skomal is interested in doing research on sharks in Cape Cod Bay. He'd have loved to have gotten a tag in that Manomet shark. Duxbury residents shouldn't feel neglected, as Dr. Skomal said that the sudden (?) presence of Great White Sharks along South Shore beaches is an important factor in the studies of the region as a whole.

- Any kid who loves Shark Week (which, at last count was all of them) views Dr. Skomal as a rock star. He gave out several autographs to kids, many of whom looked star-struck.

- For all of those times you see reports about how American kids are fat, stupid X-Boxers, know that I saw kids under 5 feet tall asking Dr. Skomal about how sharks regulate the pressure of deep-sea dives, whether Duxbury ever had Megladon (if you ask Dr.Skomal about Megladons, he immediately says "Next Question," even to a 12 year old), and detailed logistical questions about patrolling South Shore beaches with drone cameras.

- The children asked these intelligent questions right after I finished my Weezie Jefferson question, in case you were wondering about Generation X vs the Millenials.

- Sharks will almost certainly merge with technology to change the nature of lifeguarding. Gone or lessened in importance will be some kid on a beach chair, New lifeguards may be fanned out 100 yards on small boats, equipped with fishfinders, radios, and a siren. Drones would also be invaluable, although any idea we came up with was far from foolproof.

- Closing beaches after a shark attack would be near-ineffective, as seals don't obey beach closures.

Duxbury Beach, MA

- Duxbury, with her long and uninhabited coastline, will be a prime spot for increased seal activity. This also means that they will see increased Monster Shark activity. Duxbury Beach is long and straight, exactly the sort of beach that is difficult to protect with shark netting.

- Dr. Skomal called Bullship on several of my get-rich-quick schemes that involved Great White Sharks. It would be very difficult to trap one in a bay as a tourist attraction. They get stuck in bays and ponds now and then, but it's impossible to know when they would do so. Once you had one, it would be difficult to feed it. You'd have to catch several seals a month, which is illegal. Even my own twisted research couldn't find out how many homeless people it would take to feed a shark. The shark wouldn't get enough fish to eat in, say, Buttermilk Bay.

- I also found out that, even if we trapped the shark and got him dependent on us for food, it would be unlikely that we could get him to perform tricks for us. I could find no records about a shark ever having been taught tricks.

- I did ask Dr. Skomal if he had ever met a friendly, seems-to-enjoy-being-around-people Great White Shark. He had never met one, although some sharks do associate boats with food. No, soft-bite attacks on humans are not a case of the shark saying "Hello" with a bit too much enthusiasm.

- I had a sense that he would get offended by my questions about catching a GWS from shore with a chain attached to a Jeep, so I left that one unasked. I can interview a fisherman some day to get that story written for a different article.

- I have a pretty good smoking habit, while my old friend Beth is a tri-athlete. About 3 summers ago, she passed me on the Might Die Suddenly scale, 100% because of the GWS presence in the area. I fully expect a triathalon attack in the future, and would be amazed if Duxbury were chosen as the site of a triathalon next summer.

- Most sharks are snowbirds, in that they summer up here before returning to the SE USA coast for winter. Some sharks hang around well into the winter.

- Props to Dr. Skomal, Bayside Marine, and the Atlantic White Shark Conservancy.

Plymouth, MA

Another Blizzard? Why Not?

Bourne, MA

"Every normal man must be tempted, at times, to spit on his hands, hoist the black flag, and begin slitting throats."

- H.L. Mencken.

I hear ya, H.... we all love a little sugar on our cereal, but this is getting rucking fidiculous. We can't seem to begin or end a week without a major snow event, and this weekend.... oh, we'll get to that in a minute.

We'll be getting a bit of snow today, maybe 2-4" over SE Massachusetts. I'd bet on the 2" more than the 4". That barely makes a blip on the radar, with what we have coming this weekend. It really gets friggin' ponderous after a while.

We're not Canada, or Alaska, or Wisconsin, or even upstate New York. We get snow, but it's that pleasant Currier & Ives snow, the kind you go caroling in and build talking snowmen in. This is some straight-up Siberia we'e getting, and it sucks so hard that you are physically pulled towards the snowbank.

You start to wonder if Pat Robertson might have been on to something, and that we may right now be getting Smited by the good lord for some sin I can't quite put my finger on. Maybe it's gay marriage, maybe it's Governor Baker, and a great part of me feels that God is making us pay for the Snow Bowl/Tuck Rule game against the Oakland Raiders. We have offended ye, oh Lord, and the payback is Powder.

You could sort of see it coming. This is shaping up as a bad, bad, bad winter. Blizzards are a part of bad winters. You add the extra bad when we get a second blizzard, and throw in the third bad if the second blizzard happens before you clean up the first one. It gets even worse if it snows between those events, including two huge storms.

The Groundhog Storm and last Monday's storm, which dumped 2 feet over a wide area, barely crack the headlines. The Groundhog Storm was lucky enough to fall on a holiday, but I'm actually referring to a fairly historical storm from this week as "last Monday's storm." I can't see Sebastian Junger naming a book that.

Brant Rock, MA

Here are a few things to ponder about this Snowathon we've been having:

- One of the reasons that the Blizzard of '78 was so bad (and, concurrently, why no one talks about the 1969 storm that dropped .8" less than the '78 gale) is that the Blizz fell shortly (17 days) after we got nearly two feet of snow.

That snow had nowhere to go but on top of the old snow, which hadn't melted much. This led to those mammoth snow piles you recall if you lived through '78.

We have the same scenario now, just with more snow already on the ground. This storm isn't forecast to be a 2 footer, but any additional snow is trouble.

- You may not see 100% of your supermarket's parking lot until May. We had drifts last into June in the interior a few years ago.

- As you know, a blizzard is when you have three hours of blowing snow, 35+ mph winds, and markedly-reduced visibility. We should have that, no problem.

Sagamore, MA

- We wouldn't need much snow to have a blizzard, provided it is blowing around a lot. This will be important to keep in mind on Cape Cod, where a smaller amount of snow will still bring blizzard conditions with the wind she'll be seeing.

- Buffalo once had a blizzard just from a windstorm billowing up already-fallen snow that was resting on frozen Lake Erie. With our snowpack, that could happen with this storm even if we got no snow from it... but don't you worry, we'll get lots of snow.

- Beaches had tons of rocks and sand wash up against the seawalls. That will make for a ramp that will amp up an otherwise modest storm tide. This tide will slam into very vulnerable coastal locations who A) have nowhere for the floodwater to go, and B) have already taken a blizzardy beating a few weeks ago.

- We're some time away, but I think that the worst of the storm may high-tide us with the north wind. That would be good news for places like Chatham or Plymouth, and bad news for places like Scituate or Sandwich.

- A big issue will be the track of the storm. American forecast models show an Alberta Clipper plowing through New York and moving over Cape Cod on Saturday night and Sunday. The European models show it coming at us through Pennsylvania and tracking east just under Nantucket.

The American model speaks of heavy snow for coastal Massachusetts, about the same area that got slammed in the last storm. SE Mass would be spared the heavy hit, and the trouble would run from Boston north into Maine. The European model is more indicative of a SE Massachusetts inclusion in the epicenter.

It's the difference between 4-8" of snow and more than a foot of it.

- Cranberry County has taken a beating this year. We're not as bad as Worcester (we never are) or even as bad as MetroWest, but we bore the brunt of the last storm (Cohasset had 26.5" of snow), and stand a good chance of getting socked again.

Bridgewater, MA

Duxbury, for instance, got 2 feet from the blizzard. They got 6 more inches 3 days later, and then got 18" or so from the Groundhog storm. They got about 6 inches between that storm and last Monday, when they got almost 2 more feet. They have a very good chance of adding another foot or two this weekend.

- Duxbury is the same physical size as Boston, and has much more open area that needs plowing. Boston has 700,000 residents and countless businesses paying taxes to support clearing out Boston, while Duxbury has 13,000 or so.

- Truro, for instance, probably has a whole town to plow with the same amount of people you might find in two Boston housing projects that take up a supermarket's footprint on a map.

- Winds will be gusting up over 60 mph for much of the storm. That will snap power lines. Forecast low temperatures for relatively-temperate Bourne will be two degrees above zero. It should be fun with no heat and lights.

- Those winds and temperatures will make it very, very dangerous to be outside. If your car breaks down and you're a mile from help, you may die trying to get to it.

- If it helps ease the strain any, you can't call off school during school vacation, so we won't be adding June days to the school year for this storm. There is, somewhere, one family in Massachusetts who will be staring at the TV Monday, wondering why there are no school cancellations, and I wish I could be a guest in their kitchen that morning.

- Boy, I'd hate to live near a river when all of this snow starts melting in the spring.

- I haven't heard a peep from any local forecasters regarding a changeover to rain for anyone, even Cape Cod. That would be one of the things that could change with a wobble in the forecast track.

- Want me to mention that we weather geeks are already monitoring the possibility of another snow event, about a week from yesterday or so? Didn't think so!

- Please check out the GoFundMe page for Officer Jared MacDonald of the Bourne PD.

- Photo credits: Tristan, Jessica, Abby and Michelle.

We'll be back with an update as the storm nears. Remember, the storm's track could wobble a bit, and we would get off the hook . That doesn't seem likely, but I like to throw a disclaimer into these things.