Baltimore

When you think of vacations, the first thing that comes to your mind isn't Baltimore Maryland. Actually Baltimore is probably very low on your list of vacationing spots; especially due to the rioting events that had occurred earlier this year. But with a tight budget and friends to visit, Baltimore became my vacation destination. I rolled into town like Brother Mouzone.

Just for the record - I did not witness any murders and there was no rioting in the streets. I actually enjoyed the scenery and the diverse culture there. Baltimore was a bit of a culture shock. It was a culture shock in a different way than you'd expect. There were people selling water bottles at stop lights and j-walker galore. Oh and who needs 3 strip clubs on the same block? You guessed it - good old Baltimore.

Baltimore has an amazing Inner Harbor, with lots of activities for the whole family.

Did you know that Babe Ruth and,Edgar Allan Poe lived in Baltimore? Unfortunately we didn't visit Poe's House/Museum or Babe Ruth's Museum - I hear they're worth a visit if you are in town. Baltimore is also the hometown of the Star Spangled Banner song.

What's a vacation to Baltimore without visiting the USS Constellation Museum?

I had the opportunity to visit the National Aquarium on the inner harbor and it was nothing short of spectacular. The Aquarium does the whole touristy thing by taking your picture with your family in front of a green screen and then tries to sell you packets of over-priced unflattering photos of you. I was able to view my picture online, it was rough to look at. And no I am not sharing it with the world to see. 

  But here's a picture of a shark from the Aquarium.

One of my favorite places to visit was the Ripley's Believe it or Not Odditorium, even though it is not a Baltimore-only place.

A man with a large third leg is always a plus, although somewhat cancelled out by the woman with two mouths.

Maryland is a big part of Old Bay (McCormick) Seasoning history. So you can only imagine the surplus of Old Bay Seasoning in Baltimore. They have kiosks at the airport and whole stores devoted to McCormick Seasoning. 

Here are some links to places I didn't have the chance to visit but are on my list for next time:

Fort McHenry

Oriole Park at Camden Yards

American Visionary Art Museum

Port Discovery

The Maryland Zoo: Baltimore

B&O Railroad Museum

The Washington Monument

...and many many more amazing places.

Shark Week: How To Not Get Eaten By A Shark

I don't know about you, but it is the opinion of this column that the worst way to die naturally would be a shark attack. I use "naturally" differently than you might, but you get the idea. You are seized out of nowhere, dragged beneath the sea and torn to pieces by a torpedo with teeth. 

It probably wouldn't happen, but your decapitated head may retain consciousness just long enough as it floats away from the rest of you that you could watch yourself being eaten. It would be the fish paying you back for all of those fish sticks you ate as a kid.

From what I can see of how this magazine makes money (don't ask me how, Jessica does most of the thinking here), I can't afford to have anyone reading this website die. Even with money off the table, I don't want to see anyone get eaten.

So, it's on me to help keep you off the menu. Before I do so, I want to stress just how rare a shark attack is. We've had about 10 or so in Massachusetts since the white man came, three of which were fatal. If you throw in the rest of New England, you get those numbers up to 5 or 6 deaths out of 20 attacks. I think North Carolina has had that many this week, and even their numbers add up to "shark attacks are very rare."

The USA as a whole has had 1976 shark attacks in about the last 115 years or so. That number includes Carolina, Hawaii, Florida and California, who get the majority of our attacks. New England is a minor player in this field, and the field in question is called Anomaly Park.

While I don't have the numbers handy, I'd say that about there were 40-52 times when someone won the Megabucks last year. We had one shark attack in that same year. So, it is 50 times more likely that you'll drop a dollar at the 7-11 and someone will hand you back $1.5 million than it is that a shark will attack you. Adam Lanza killed more New Englanders in 10 minutes than every Yankee shark ever, as did Al Qaeda.

However, any gambler will tell you that there is no sure thing. If the chance- however small- of a shark attack exists, it just makes sense to try to lower your odds. You don't have to be at 0% if some sucker near you is only at 20%, especially if he's a fatty (we'll get to that in a minute) or has an open wound.

It's a lot like the smarter guy said to the dumber guy when they were about to flee from an attacking bear. "I don't have to run faster than the bear, I just have to run faster than You."

We'll mix in tips from experts and officials with some of my own observations and inclinations. I don't have any expert training, other than my research on historical shark attacks for a previous article. 

Never Swim With Seals, And Do Nothing At All Seal-Like

One thing that our last two shark attacks had in common was that the victims were messing around near seals. Sharks eat seals, as eating seals is the whole reason they're hanging around Cape Cod Bay.

There wasn't that much time between when Americans first began recreating by the sea and when we had our first fatal modern shark attack. One of the reasons we haven't had one since 1936 is that we had a bounty on seals. Fishermen hate seals, who compete for the same fish. Up until 1962, you could kill seals and get cheddar for it.... not too shabby, as long as you aren't a seal. 

There was 40,000 bounties paid in Maine and Massachusetts between 1888 and 1962, when Massachusetts stopped paying bounties. Maine stopped in 1945.  Experts say that 70-130K seals were killed once you factor in data fraud, boat strikes, and so forth. That's a lot of shark food exiting the ecosystem.

The region suffered a huge decline in seal activity,and they only really started turning up in large numbers on Cape Cod around the turn of this century. It, in turn, took the sharks about a decade to figure it out.

Humans are pretty easy pickings for a shark if he wanted to have some People Food for a change. We can barely move at all in the water. Even a crippled, drunken, lazy shark could swim circles around Michael Phelps. Other than the slow-motion punch of an underwater boxer, we have no natural defenses against the shark. We're a free lunch, at least from June through September in these parts.

The fact that we have so few attacks means that sharks aren't interested in us as a food source. Neither of our recent human-attacking sharks was killed in the attack... they just went away on their own. They had no interest in continuing the meal.

So, you can really lower your chances of attack by not swimming or boating near the shark's primary food source. Seals are fun, cute, and can even be friendly. They also do tricks, like the one where they disappear faster than you can if a shark comes into the area. Don't be the guy left standing when sharks and seals play Duck Duck Goose. 

If seals are around, we can not stress strongly enough that you should make like a TV show and be St. Elsewhere.

Never Swim Near Fishing Boats (Or Fishing Men)

Sharks also have a tendency to follow fishing boats. I suppose they are after table scraps or something, who knows? 

Two of the regions's fatal shark attacks involved people swimming to or from a fishing boat. Two others involved sharks swamping smaller boats and devouring the occupant.

Sharks are attracted to several things associated with fishing. Fish, naturally, leads off the list. Injured fish writhing in pain on a fishing hook are also on the list, as an injured fish means an easy meal to a shark. Fishing can be bloody, and blood in the water is like doing a rain dance for a shark. Smarter sharks may know that a fishing boat will throw away smaller fish, who then become almost like delivery food at that point.

Don't Go Over Your Head

Almost all of New England's shark attacks involved the shark hitting someone in deeper (10 feet or more) water. Massachusetts doesn't have a shallow-water shark attack fatality on her books, and most of the non-fatal attacks involved fishing boats or surfcasting.

Sharks like to come up under their prey for the Hit. None of our shark attack victims had any idea there was a shark around until it attacked them. Only one attack I read of had the shark coming at the victim in a manner where witnesses reported seeing a dorsal fin before the strike.

As we just saw with the recent Chatham stranding/rescue of a Great White, they do go close to shore. However, the very rare shark attack becomes very, very rare if you stay in the shallows.

Shark Repellent

If you can get Bat Shark Repellent like Batman has, do so. He's smart, and his repellent probably works.

Scientists began work on shark repellents after WWII, when shipwrecks like that of the USS Indianapolis saw hundreds of people eaten by sharks. They've been working at it ever since, and generally can't come up with anything that is 100% efficient. They've tried electricity, chemicals and even magnetism.

It may or may not amuse you to know that Coppertone was one of the big investors in shark repellent research. Your sun tan lotion may have been doing double duty if someone hit the right chemical signature in the repellent lab. SP-40 may have had a more Sharkish meaning to it had they stuck it out.

They did find one thing that repels almost all sharks all the time... dead sharks. Fishermen and scientists both agree that sharks don't like to be around dead sharks. Glandular secretions from dead sharks are the current focus of shark repellent research.

Of course, that was in a 1994 article I found. I assume that someone from Coppertone pointed out that A) you can't swim around with a dead shark, and B) "Honey, would you rub the lotion with the decaying shark liver oil into my shoulders?" sort of takes the fun out of sun-tan-lotion application.

Swim With People Who Are Fatter Than You

Sharks around New England aren't sick, lost, old or demented. They are exactly where they are supposed to be and where they have always been. However, one attacking a human is generally making a mistake.

The mistake is thinking that the human is a seal/tuna/sea lion/sea turtle or whatever else it eats. It's unavoidable, and the shark- to his credit- usually breaks off the attack once he realizes his mistake.

For a fish with such a ravenous reputation, sharks don't eat that much. They expend a lot of energy attacking, and risk significant injury. They want the most bang for their buck when it comes to Epic Meal Time.

That means smoking a Fatty.

Fat people swim slower, and look more like seals than thinner people. They have more flesh, which makes them less crunchy (sharks don't do crunchy if they can avoid it) to the shark, as well as more filling.

I actually asked Dr. Gregory Skomal about this. He did admit that it made perfect sense, but that no research had been done on the subject.

This is a steroid-powered version of the Don't Ever Swim Alone rule. Sharks will pick off soloists if they can. However, given a choice, they will always Super-size their meals. Remember this, use it to your advantage, and waste little pity on the run-stopper.

Avoid Guido-like Bejewelment

I'm not sure if there is a noun for what I'm trying to say there, hence the odd sub-title. I had no way to tie Only Built 4 Cuban Linx to anything sharky.

Things like necklaces and bracelets shine sort of funny in the water, and will look like fish scales to a shark in the wrong conditions. Fish are right at the top of the shark's menu, and he may come closer to see if you are worth biting. You want to avoid being in this calculation if at all possible.

Experts say only the filthy,polluted waters of Boston Harbor prevent more shark attacks from happening at Revere Beach, which has a lot of guidos running around. Boston Harbor had an attack in colonial days,and a Boston kid was the meal in 1936.

Be Local

Just as "Swim with fat people" is probably my advice and not the official advice offered by experts, this one also springs exclusively from my research.

Here's a list of who was bitten in Massachusetts shark attacks... guy from England here courting a woman, a guy from Swampscott, a Boston kid, a Nahant local, a bunch of tourists chartering a boat, a NYC guy, a pair of Truro rental guys and two Plymouth girls... and it didn't bite the Plymouth girls, just their kayak.

You see the pattern. 

It's not just a Cape Cod thing, where there are masses of tourists. The last fatal attacks were in Mattapoisett, Scituate, and Boston. Sharks seem to go out of their way to avoid locals, even passing on the two Plymouth girls (who were cute, I might add... I don't have records of the charisma of the other victims, but it may or may not be important) after knocking them both into the water.

Maybe we have Spider Sense from living near the water, and we can subconsciously read the signs of imminent danger. Maybe "exotic" people taste better. Maybe tourists lack tans that locals have, and stand out more in the water. Who knows?

What I do know is that sharks seem to favor out-of-towners.

The Other White Meat

I so wanted to find a racial trend I could exploit for laughs here, but I was amazed to find that sharks- at least our sharks here in New England- attack pretty much along the demographic averages regarding skin color. We've had about 20 attacks in our post-colonial history, and maybe 2 were on black people.

The number might be one, I'm not 100% sure of a Connecticut attack. Even with just one Black Attack, you have to crunch the numbers with the knowledge that white people beach out more than blacks do, at least around here. "Like I need a tan," my black roomie used to tell me.

I think the sharks have bitten at least one Jew. He may have been feasted upon by a shark who wished for a kosher meal. He was taken on the Sabbath, I believe.

Anyhow, your race or your God won't save you if Ol' Toothy thinks you look tasty. To my knowledge, he doesn't give a damn about such things. We all look alike to apex predators.

Swim During The Day

Sharks attack with power and speed,but they hunt via stealth. They also don't really sleep, to my knowledge. 

While they hunt all day, they are more active and more successful at night. The shadows work in their favor, and they work against the prey. 

What weak and pitiful defenses you have in the water vanish at night. Even if it swims around you with his fin out of the water, you won't see him coming.  They started Jaws the way they did for a reason.

In Conclusion,,,,

Follow these rules, and you'll have mad bread to break up. 

If not, 17 feet on the wake up....

Shark Week: Ol' Toothy, The Kayak Eatin' Shark Of Manomet And Duxbury

The South Shore was rocked last summer when a Great White Shark made an appearance off of Duxbury Beach, and then the whole world was rocked when, like a day or two later, he attacked a kayak off of Manomet.

I'm assuming it's a He, for no good reason at all. Boats are girls, sharks are boys. That's how I work.

Shark attacks aren't supposed to happen here in Cranberry County. That is Cape Cod we see on the news with sharks just offshore, The Discovery Channel had no interest in Duxbury, and Manomet is lucky to get on TV during Pilgrim/Thanksgiving shows.

Why the disrespect?

For one, we don't have the Outer Cape's seal population. We have seals, a whole bunch of them, but Chatham is Seal City. We're just a suburb. Sharks go where the seal meat is plentiful, and there is plenty more of it out in Monomoy.

Two, our shark may have been a rogue. I don't mean a Communist or a child molester, just a big fish who should have been off Cape Cod instead of the South Shore. At least, that's what the TV tells us.

Also, I suppose a version of Mayor Vaughn's barracuda speech applies here. If you say "Manomet," it means something to everyone on the South Shore and nothing to anyone else. If you say "Cape Cod," you have the nation's attention.

As you can see, Cape Cod Bay was awash with the blood of the non-believers.... OK, just kidding, that's a cranberry bog.

Are we in the media somewhat responsible for the public being shocked when a porker turned up near the Manomet Lobster Pound?  Mayhap we are, child, mayhap we are....

I say "we," but I mean "they." Dr. Gregory Skomal, the shark expert with all the shark tags you see on TV, can vouch for me. I was pestering him about sharks on the South Shore long before the entertainment went down off Plymouth, even about Duxbury in particular. I was so far ahead of the curve, I got scoliosis from it.

Still, there was a WTF reaction locally when the shark arrived off Plymouth. People couldn't deal. We, the media, the people who gave you the bread-n-milk panics when an inch of snow falls, had left the public hanging. You didn't know something you should have known, and it was something lethal.

Remember, it wasn't that long ago that you had trouble catching striper off of these beaches. We went from 0 to 60 rather quickly when Ol' Toothy had himself a bite of that girl's kayak last summer. Suddenly, we had mad shark respeck! It's also quite a jolt to the ecosystem.

In one week, what may quite possibly have been one single fish changed the game on the Irish Riviera. We had a new apex predator (our previous champ was either the coyote or the horsefly, and the meanest thing in our waters were bluefish), and he was an A Lister. He also had a taste for People Food.

One thing that didn't change was the disrespect. Dr. Skomal never left Chatham, even though we had the shark who was into the Other White Meat. If one fish deserved a tag last summer, it was Ol' Toothy. He never got one.

Even though he tried to eat some of my readers, I like Ol' Toothy. My amity (groan) for this fish is irrational. I like to think that he is the only shark who used Cape Cod Bay. He, for lack of a better term, is a local, a native. One of us.

In 1637, old Plimoth got a bit too crowded for one Myles Standish, so he walked a few Myles through the primeval forest and founded Duxbury. Sure, everyone who was anyone was in Plimoth... which is why Myles went to Duxbury. I like to think that Ol' Toothy was on that sort of trip with Chatham. He went out to the country.

This is why I wanted a tag in Ol' Toothy. I looked in his eyes and saw a Local. Maybe he's a snowbird, maybe he isn't... but what's to stop him from coming back?

I don't know if he came through the Cape Cod Canal or if he looped around Provincetown. What I do know is that sharks don't get enough credit for their brains.

Think about it. They live in water. It all looks the same. Sharks have invented no GPS systems. Yet, the sharks know enough to head south for the winter, and to return to where the seals are in the summer. I know homeless people who aren't that sharp.

Ol' Toothy knows all that, but he knows something else, too. He knows how to get around Provincetown, or through the Canal. Rather than maybe fighting for territory on a crowded beach in Chatham, he has all of the South Shore to himself. The seals haven't diffused here from Chatham in great numbers yet, but there are more than enough to feed a forward-thinking shark devoted to a more leisurely existence than the one to be had in the rat race off Monomoy.

If the seals are in short supply, there is always a kayak to tip over. God shall provide....

Yup, my gut tells me that we haven't seen the last of Ol' Toothy.

Taylor Swift In Wareham??

Driving down the Cranberry Highway today, while viewing the normal clutter of signs and billboards, one name caught my eye.

TAYLOR SWIFT

Cartland, an East Wareham amusement park (I'm stretching the term here, it's mini-golf and batting cages) has a sign up today that says "WELCOME TAYLOR SWIFT."

Everyone loves Swiftie, the impossibly cute songbird of kid-pop fame. She is one of the most famous people on the planet. Forbes has her net worth listed in the zillions. What the heck would she be doing in friggin' East Wareham?

I called Cartland. I expected some lame answer, something along the lines of "We're playing Taylor Swift music all day Saturday." What I got was my favorite answer, the one that lets me exercise my skills a bit.

"No comment."

Hmmmm... that leaves a lot to the imagination, no? Here's what I can come up with.

- Taylor is filming a video, and- for artistic reasons- she needs a shabby mini-golf course in a small town.

- Taylor is filming a video at, naturally, Swifts Beach in Wareham. Perhaps she intends to buy the whole of Swifts Beach, it's what I'd do if I were her.

- Taylor took a vow of poverty, and is now shacked up at the Silver Lake Motel with some Cape Verdean dude named Manny.

- Taylor has a place in Rhodey, and made a Rhode Trip into ?ham.

- Taylor, who bought a house in Hyannis Port while she was dating Konnor Kennedy (I may have spelled that wrong), is now in town to sign papers to rid herself of that house.

- Taylor is dating that Kennedy whelp again, and is basing herself in an area where all the roads lead. The Hell's Angels used Bourne for that very reason for several years, and the "all roads lead here" explanation is essentially why Gettysburg was fought where it was fought.

- Taylor, who has a show in Montreal tonight, wanted to play mini-golf in Wareham for reasons that only Taylor Swift knows.

- This paper can neither confirm nor deny the rampant rumors that Taylor Swift was seen having dinner with Duxbury philanthropist Stephen "Hoss" Bowden. Bowden owns property in nearby Buzzards Bay.

- John Henry, who has enough money to date her, has a place in Onset. No, not the steel-drivin' man John Henry, the Red Sox owner John Henry. While we're cherry-picking rich-and-or-cool celebrities, Bob Kraft has a place in Mashpee, Joe Perry lives in Duxbury, Bobby Orr lives in Sandwich, Meghan Trainor lives on Nantucket, Bill Belichick summers on Nantucket, Jay Miller lives in Cataumet, and Ben Affleck is in nearby Boston (and is freshly single). Marky Mark? Matt Damon? Rocky Marciano III? Quint? Crikey, it could be anyone!

- Wareham has been very friendly with the movie industry lately, with Adam Sandler and Steve Carell having filmed movies in a nearby water park.

- Taylor is a Dawson's Creek fan, and is trying to find locations to represent the show's fictional Massachusetts seashore town of "Capeside" for a Dawson's Creek movie. I actually don't know if she acts or not, I'm sort of culturally illiterate.

- Taylor is dating the next A-ROD, who is currently an unknown playing for the Bourne Braves or the Wareham Gatemen. Pop stars have a nose for that kind of thing.

- It's not THAT particular Taylor Swift who is coming to Cartland, as the park instead found someone with that name and is letting them mini-golf for free as a publicity stunt. Cartland is, after all, the home of the Beach Bucket Sundae.

- Swift has a show in Foxboro on July 25th, and is in town doing prep work. She wanted to mini-golf, and her staff was ordered to find mini-golf. Not being locals, they chose a Wareham course instead of something closer to Foxboro.

- South Coast... it's now, it's happening!

Either way.... if you want to see Taylor Swift in person and maybe carry her off in a sack like Borat... you could do a lot worse than to hang around Cartland and see if a limosuine pulls up. Don't say that we didn't warn you.

Bourne On The 4th Of July Retrospective

Nothing says "Happy July 4th" better than donning an Uncle Sam suit and walking down Main Street waving Old Glory.

The Cape Cod Whale Trail represented hard on the streets of the Bay.

You get a lot of music at the Bourne On The 4th Of July parade, but it tends to be like a minute of a song from 10 different bands.

No, they weren't all playing the same song, which- to be fair- would be quite a feat.

Why even own a hot car if you aren't going to crawl down Main Street in it during a parade while the suckers are steady hatin,' wishing they had your ride? It's like the old movie said... "You can't get laid IN that car.... but you get laid."

Not only did Bourne have a parade, we had an across-the-bay view of the Onset fireworks... without the Onset. We watched from the Massachusetts Maritime Academy.

The Bourne FD, steady rollin'....

The Boy Scouts and the Cub Scouts were handing out candy to parade viewers. Be Prepared... to give me some candy. I went home with a ton, and I'm 46. It's for my kid.... honest!

I kind of forget, but I think this is the Episcopal Church bear.

Terrorists rarely mess with July 4th parades, because July 4th parades often have the Armed Forces in them.

If your parade doesn't have Kilt People, your parade is wiggedy-wiggedy whack.

Any and every time I go to the park, I always check in with Stan Gibbs. Once I do, the rest of my time along the Canal will go off without incident.

Once the muay-thai people see you taking their picture, you want to use it, and make no jokes while using it.

Besides, if you're nice, Batman has martial artists give you candy. Note the still-life effect on the kid's throwing hand. He was throwing them like shuriken, with 100% accuracy. Nice shot, Jessica...

The DPW trots out the big pieces for the parade.

Everyone's favorite float, the Pirate Ship. The ship has cannon which can actually be fired. Keep in mind, explosions where people are lining the streets bring out screams of "Holy Tsarnaev!"

I usually only get this view of a sirens-on police truck when I am hiding under a car after a short pursuit.

The Canal Fest was also a big hit, making some money for the National Marine Life Center. There were lots of fun rides for the kids.

We now pause for a word from our sponsors...

See you next July 4th!

The Dying Of The Light

Duxbury Beach, MA

July 4th is a special day in America. On that date in 1776, our Founding Fathers signed a Declaration of Independence from their English colonial masters. This declaration led to a lengthy Revolution which chased those Limey Poofters back to their silly little island, and it led to the birth of the United States of America.

One thing those Founding Fathers did right was that whole America thing. They did it so well, we're still celebrating. This is Independence Day #239 (ed. note: This is a 2015 article), and we should get a few more in before the Chinese call in their markers.

Until that day comes, we shall celebrate July 4th. The basic plan for celebrating our national birthday was laid down in 1776, by John Adams.

" I am apt to believe that it will be celebrated by succeeding generations as the great anniversary festival. It ought to be commemorated as the day of deliverance, by solemn acts of devotion to God Almighty. It ought to be solemnized with pomp and parade, with shows, games, sports, guns, bells, bonfires, and illuminations, from one end of this continent to the other, from this time forward forever more."

The last sentence of that statement is still the basic blueprint we follow today. If you have a bonfire, watch some TV, play some horseshoes, catch a baseball game, hit the gun range, attend Mass, and then go to a fireworks show.... John Adams called that shot 238 years ago, most likely right off the top of his head, too.

Today, we are going to focus on that Bonfire aspect. If you went on Family Feud and Steve Harvey asked you to name ways we celebrate July 4th, "Fireworks" would be #1, "Parades" would be #2... and after that, although it's a close race with "Cookouts," #3 would be "Bonfires."

Bonfires precede America, and actually go back to Caveman times. The English we chased away do a Guy Fawkes fire, and that tradition came to America with the settlers. George Washington himself denounced the practice, calling it a "ridiculous and childish custom." They got away from George's admonitions by just shifting the fires to July 4th.

Now, you may wonder how this tradition was allowed. London, Chicago, San Francisco, Lisbon and many other cities had been destroyed by fire. You are forgetting how hardcore Americans are. In 1903, there were 400 deaths and 4000 injuries nationwide relating to July 4th celebrations, most from children shooting firearms off. It was bad enough that doctors at the time regularly offered a diagnosis of "patriotic tetanus" for early July injuries and deaths. Your second leading cause of Patriotic Tetanus were injuries inflicted by Remember-the-Maine era recreational gunpowder fireworks.

Compared to missing limbs and children with guns, the idea of pushing the local rowdies onto an isolated beach with no combustible vegetation for a bonfire seemed like a pretty good idea. Fireworks were prohibited in most states, and fireworks shows became the realm of the municipality... or the realm of the guy willing to drive to New Hampshire and maybe smuggle back a little somethin-somethin'.

Some towns even took over the running of the bonfires, or banned them altogether. Boston took over the bonfires in 1915, and other towns followed suit. This gave the towns authority over July FOURTH fires, a distinction we'll discuss in a moment.

Gradually, the practice of bonfires faded away, especially in the west and mid-west parts of the country, which were tinderboxy after the Dust Bowl droughts. However, one section of the country, and you can probably guess who it is, held on tightly to the tradition. New Englanders are good like that. John Adams didn't invent those celebrations we quoted him on before. He just described the typical New England celebration.

Salem, known for her witches and hunts, is also known as the town who got the most into it. Cathedral-sized bonfires were regularly assembled on Gallows Hill, as the leftover wooden trash of both the shipbuilding era and the industrial era was regularly stacked and ignited. You can see a ten story bonfire on Gallows Hill right here.

However, Salem's fires were on an inland hill, so- as large as they are- they don't really count. We're talking about beach fires, and July 3rd.

New England's coastal residents resisted the town's claims on bonfires. They didn't beat cops or secede from the towns, although that wasn't very far away in some situations. They just took over a different night. It makes pretty good sense. If the town is having an official fire on the 4th, why not have one on the 3rd? Sh*t, you have the 4th off, and you need that down time after the 3rd. Gradually, the date of New England citizen fires shifted almost entirely to July 3rd.

I grew up on Duxbury Beach, which has a tradition of bonfires stretching back to her very inhabitation by white folk. You can get stories from the Old School about bonfires 100 feet high in celebration of VE and VJ Day. I can kick it from the 70s (this is Steve, by the way... Jessica, who is from Fairhaven, is visiting family in Florida this week), and our fires were giant and annual. They even did some good.

Beach communities suffer from nor'easters. Nor'easters aren't as bad as hurricanes, but hurricanes don't hit 2 or 3 times a winter. Nor'easters tear down decks, carry away stairs, smash up wooden lobster pots, expel driftwood, and generally clutter up the beach. Beach communities also "suffer" from gentrification, where yuppies buy up old people's summer cottages and build larger, year-round homes.

Much like the people of Salem, Duxbury Beach folk would feast upon the bounty of a bygone era. All of that wood was gathered up, de-nailed, and stacked in a sort of tipi-like structure. We built tipis instinctively, with not a Wampanoag among us. We didn't even have a Hindu-style Indian. By doing so, we cleared the neighborhood of clutter.

I was in charge of bonfire construction by the time I was 10, although by the time I was 10, I was nearly 6 feet tall and was frequently mistaken for a youthful-looking and somewhat slow adult. By the time I was able to drive, I would take a truck around the neighborhood, gathering wood. I would frequently have all of the neighborhood's children following me and helping as best they could. The tallest piece of wood became the center beam of the tipi, and everything else was stacked. I then soaked it in gas (even at 10 years old, I was in charge of this... remember, this was the 1970s) and ignited it by firing a Roman Candle into it from 20 feet away.

I later learned that I was not trusted with this responsibility because of the strength of my character, but rather because I was too young to be tried as an adult.

The town barely interfered. A cop- usually the late, great "Dirty" Harry Levine, who was a teacher in town during the winter- would wander over as the huge pile of wood began to appear on the beach. He made a point of loudly appreciating that we had a crew removing nails from the wood. He also would state that bonfires were illegal, the charge would be Disorderly Conduct, and that he would arrest us in an instant if he saw us lighting it. Harry also had 6 miles of beach to patrol, and you could easily track his location if you gave a kid some binoculars. Once he was X miles away at low tide, we had X minutes to assemble and ignite the conflagration.

Throw in a wealthy neighborhood (the typical ritual was that every house kicked in a $100, and someone went to New Hampshire... although my Dad was a Dorchester kid, and got his fireworks the Old School way, in Chinatown), and placid Duxbury Beach for one night would resemble Fallujah. The wood supply was enough that a mile stretch of Duxbury Beach and Green Harbor might have a dozen 25 foot fires, and copious fireworks explosions completed the illusion.

Duxbury Beach on the 3rd of July is probably my favorite place on Earth. I'll be there tonight, good Lord willing. The Lord is going to weigh heavily in tonight's celebration, as a dry neighborhood of wooden houses and crisp vegetation will host a series of drunk-powered fires (the passing of the Baby Boom emptied the neighborhood of children, and we tend to have smaller fires in larger quantity) as a stiff wind blows the sparks at the houses. Only the grace of God will keep the sparks off of the roofs, although the sea breeze goes away if you wait until dark to light the fire.

The funny part of the drunks-building-bonfires dynamic is that there has never been a fire related to the July 4th celebrations. Duxbury (the town) had their own fires for a while, and nearly torched the elementary school once in the late 1980s. Yes, a bunch of children and drunkards have never neared causing damage with their fires, while the town's DPW and fire department nearly burned down a the school and the library.

Other towns are not as fun as Duxbury.  Marshfield nixes fires, although it's a big town with a lot of beach and the locals still blaze one up now and then. Hull, Cohasset, and Kingston also disallow them. Quincy is in the papers this morning, as the fire chief is weighing the possible outcomes of drunken Hough's Neck fires in high winds near a densely packed urban area. 

Plymouth still has fires, as Manomet bonfires go back to the 1800s, and White Horse Beach can claim a 1777 starting date. Plymouth tried a ban in the 1980s, and police were pelted with rocks and fireworks by locals who didn't get a say in the decision to ban. Civil disobedience acts like building a pallet structure and not igniting it as an homage to bygone days began to spring up.Scituate made the papers when they put the Whammy on bonfires, and Humarock almost seceded from the town over it after police roughed up a 70 year old man in a confrontation.

I never made it to the Cape for the 3rd as a kid, and thus am publishing South Shore stories in a Cape Cod paper with not a single idea of how Cape Cod gets down on the 3rd. I suppose I can call some police departments, and maybe I will, but I don't like to draw attention to myself.

OK, I called Bourne PD, got a befuddled dispatcher, and she said no fires, no permit for fires, and she wasn't sure if any neighborhoods frequently violate the law. I'd guess that Scusset Beach might try something. Monument Beach, Pocasset, Cataumet and Mashnee are also fine spots for a little civil disobedience.

I called Sandwich, and it went straight to voice mail. Same with Falmouth. Brewster had an operator who transferred me to a Captain (while on hold, BPD plays rock music over the phone to me), and I went straight to his voice mail. I wasn't going to call 911 over it, so you'll just have to take your chances, people.

Duxbury, in theory, allows a bonfire with a $25 permit. I don't live there now, and I'm not sure who builds the fires on Duxbury Beach these days. Maybe I'll get to see the cops beat down some 2015 version of me. I'll get a few laughs out of it, but I'll also feel a bit winsome, as I'll be watching a centuries-old tradition die in front of me.

"Rage, rage against the dying of the light."

Shark Week: What If....? A Cape Cod Shark Attack Fatality

Plymouth, MA

(This is a reprint of a 2011 article we wrote, prior to the Truro and Manomet shark attacks.. beaches were closed after those interactions, but the attacks were not fatal, and the beaches were opened shortly thereafter)

Nature is inexorable. She goes where she wants, does what she pleases, and there generally isn't much you can do about it. Nothing I've ever read leads me to believe that Nature likes humans that much, and the dislike she holds is a sweeping, generalized one.

Nature abhors a vacuum, and she doesn't like those resource-squandering humans getting too comfortable on Cape Cod. So, for reasons we'll never know, she steers some seals our way. The seals love Cape Cod. The water's not-too-warm, there are plenty of bass swimming around for supper, and the beaches have lots of desolate spots for them to wiggle out of the water and catch some rays. 99% of the locals love the seals, who look sort of like pudgy dogs and can be trained to do tricks. Seals, Cape Cod... what's not to like?

Ah, yes... the vacuum. Simple algebra. Seals like Cape Cod, sharks like seals, so Therefore...

Up until a few years ago, Cape Cod wasn't known for her sharks. Just about every show on Shark Week is based in 3 or 4 places: Australia, Florida, California, and South Africa. Cape Cod was never a player in this field. Sure, we have Monster Shark tournaments, but you have to go offshore to get those. Prior to 2005 or so, the most dangerous Great White you'd see in New England was that cheesy rock band with the bitchin' pyrotechnics.

Although Cape Cod never made this list of the 10 Most Dangerous Shark Beaches, they do mention "us" in the first sentence of the article. That's because a 1970s book/movie decided to base itself in a village named Amity that, when they ended up filming it, looked a lot like Martha's Vineyard. Never you mind that the book's Amity was actually off Long Island, and that the book was inspired by a series of shark attacks in 1916 New Jersey.

Even balancing the Jaws fantasy against a popular and informative Shark Week series would leave the impression that a big shark operating just offshore in New England would be a rare thing, and that- if it did show up here- we'd hunt it down, kill it, and eat it. We're the land of Quint, Brody, Captain Ahab, and the Gorton's Motherf***ing Fisherman. I bet Emeril has a recipe for Great White. Problem solved.

In reality, the Great Whites are here. They're literally right offshore. They can and will f*ck you up mightily, even with an exploratory bite. There are probably several dozen just offshore at this moment who are almost the size of the Jaws shark. However, we're not doing anything about it. Quint just stares at his phone in real life Amity, as it's illegal to hunt for a Great White even if someone tries to hire him.

Chatham is our main shark beach, although seals come ashore all over the Massachusetts coast. The great majority of our Great White Shark sightings come off of Monomoy, where most of the seals hang out. It's all good, and all natural.

Unfortunately, that all natural event happens in an area where hundreds of thousands of tourists come from all around to use the beaches. Eventually, someone who looks like a seal in poor light is going to swim by the wrong Great White Shark, and a death will occur.

Sagamore Beach, MA

What happens then?

Make no mistake... Chatham will close the beaches. They close them now, if a shark is even seen offshore. Things are different than in an Amity where you can bully the police chief, and where the town coroner may also own a seasonal business. The newspapers won't call it a boating accident. We'll actually be quite rabid about reporting it. It would be the hottest Cape story since Hurricane Bob came ashore, and would most likely surpass it.

How long Chatham keeps the beaches closed is up to debate. I spent a fine summer afternoon Googling shark attacks and beach closures. San Diego County is a lot like Massachusetts insofar as being an area that seals (and their Great White friends) have recently started hanging around at. After a triathlete was munched by a porker, beaches in the immediate area were closed for 3 days. Beaches beyond that were open, but banned swimming. A bit beyond that, they would just have lifeguards do a face-to-face, we-told-you-so-and-make-sure-your-lawyer-remembers-this warning with anyone they saw entering the water.

A similar event and result went down in Central California after another fatal attack.... 72 hours of beach closings. Hawaii, Florida, South Carolina, New Jersey, and Virginia... ditto.

Translate that to a guy getting chowed off Chatham. Chatham, Harwich, Eastham and Orleans immediately close the beaches.  Hyannis and Yarmouth open the beaches, but allow no swimming. West of that, you can enter at your own risk. North facing beaches may not even ask people to leave the water when the Chatham attack hits the radios.

Beach closings are nothing new. We do it for Piping Plovers, Red Tide, Lightning, and Riptides. People die swimming a lot here, although those are usually more of the Drowning variety than a seized-by-a-leviathan type. As for the length of time a beach is closed, I sort of keep getting back to "72 hours is just about enough time for him to get hungry again" when I think about it.

Our last fatal shark attack was in 1936. A boy swimming off Holly Woods Beach (it's also known as Hollywood Beach, and it's that little number one in the lower left hand corner) in Mattapoisett was grabbed by the leg and pulled under by a 6-10 foot shark. It ripped a 5 pound chunk of meat out of his leg, and the boy died during an amputation in a New Bedford hospital. Colorings of the shark reported by witnesses spoke of a smaller Great White.

Beaches on either shore of Buzzards Bay emptied, although I don't know if they were closed (Editor's Note: They were.). Many articles pointed out that swimming ceased to exist as a recreational activity after this attack. However, time passed, no new attacks went down, and most people forgot about it.

We don't get a lot of fatal shark attacks in Massachusetts. Before the Hollywood attack, our last fatal one near shore (I'm sure a lot of shipwrecked sailors ended up in the belly of the beast, but offshore doesn't count!) was off Scituate in 1830. A Great White jumped into a dory and sank it, devouring the poor fisherman who was rowing it in the process. Prior to that, we had a 1730 attack, where a man was knocked from his boat and devoured by a shark in Boston Harbor.

Swimming was not as big a recreational activity back then, so the chances of a human getting snapped up in Massachusetts surf was very slim before this century, and is still very slim now.

Hyannis, MA

Interest in sharks was high after the 1936 attack, and many were spotted off Chatham and the Islands. They were here then, albeit in smaller numbers. The sharks are also here all year- an 18 foot Great White was caught 5 miles off Duxbury in February, 1938. They are just here in greater numbers now, and they are also here during the present height of the information age.

A fatal shark attack off Chatham today would be a catastrophe. Instead of a boy being snatched off an obscure backwater beach and ending up in a few local papers, imagine a woman devoured 50 yards offshore by a Leviathan while hundreds of people upload the carnage onto YouTube. Imagine it going Viral. Picture every network leading off with the story. Envision the "Where shall we go this summer vacation" discussions afterwards.

We'd be Shark City. Tourism would collapse. Once you chop "Swimming" off the to-do list while visiting Cape Cod in the summer, the appeal of "clam shacks" and "mini golf" would be greatly diminished. Like Quint said, we'd be on the welfare all winter.

There would be some benefits. Shark tourism is nothing to sneeze at. A munching in our waters would sell a lot of t-shirts, send out a lot of charter boats (I should add here that fishing for Great White Sharks was made illegal in 1997), and would get Woods Hole a lot of research grant money. Swimming pool installers would be able to pretty much name their price. These gains would be small when compared to the losses we'd suffer in tourism and real estate values, however.

I actually want to lure a Great White Shark into Buttermilk Bay, trap him there... and then set up a tourist industry by starving him to the point where he'll swim up and do the Funky Chicken for my tourist boat when I drive out on the water and throw some dead seagulls overboard. This may be illegal, and it definitely is illogical... but I have the basic plan in my head if the opportunity ever offers itself. Lemons/lemonade, as my Mother was fond of saying.

I think that property tax assesments would be slow to drop after a fatal shark attack, while real estate prices would plummet. You may be able to rent the Kennedy Compound for $500 a week in August. We would also be easy pickings for rival, nearby tourism spots. "Come To The New Hampshire Lakes: You Stand Very Little Chance Of Being Devoured By A Monster Shark Here!" It's catchy, although it might be tough to work a jingle around it.

Either way, the Bite would be felt by hotels, cottage renters, restaurants, gas stations, grocery stores, fishermen, and anyone else who needs those summer dollars. In one bite, we could be transformed from a happening summer resort to a sleepy backwater set of welfare villages.

There's not much that we can do about it, aside from slaughtering the seals and hiring Quint. It's frightening... because, aside from a monster hurricane or a meltdown at the Pilgrim Nuclear Power Plant in Plymouth, I can't imagine a worse scenario for Cape Cod's economy than a YouTube video of a fatal local shark attack.

Duxbury Beach, MA