Pizza Wars: Monument Beach Pizza

Bourne Pizza Wars: Monument Beach Pizza

Representing the M-O-B 

(Editor's Note: Monument Beach Pizza is under new management, although he strove to keep things basically the same. I don't know if he looks like slim Kevin Smith or not.)

This column is forever in search of the best pizza on Bourne. It is a never-ending quest, as Bourne covers a lot of ground, and different regions of the town swear by different pizza shops. The Bourne Pizza wars are fought on battlefields both on the map and in the tummy. The battle you read of today was fought at Monument Beach Pizza.

We feel that the local House Of Pizza restaurants are reflective of the community. Leave the sushi joints to the inland yuppies. People like that get nothing but a beating in Monument Beach.

Man must eat, and more = merrier. Go down to Hyannis if you want a piece of tofu on a lettuce leaf served by some emo college kid. Go down to the Em Oh Be if you have a rumbly in your tumbly, and order your food from some local who looks like a more-in-shape Kevin Smith.

"Kevin" gets props early in the article, because he scored some points for his employer early in the meal. There were a couple of autistic kids in the MOB when we were there, and he happily allowed one of them to whale away on the cash register a bit. It made the kid happy, even though Kevin's register may have had $387284776013666.99 in sales that day.

This column has long felt that every local kid should work a summer pumping gas, hustling pizzas around, or anything that gets you in touch with a broad cross-section of the public. Kevin passed his test that day, and that was even before he had to process two nosy reporters snooping around and bothering the other customers.

Some restaurant critics prefer to keep a low profile, and stealthily investigate an eatery Phantom Gourmet style. Not me. I like places to be hustling when I dine there, and few things get a crew busting it more than a reporter snooping around.... especially if the owner happens to be managing that shift. I walk in snapping pictures, asking questions, interrogating the other customers, openly discussing the menu, checklisting the kitchen, and whatever else I have to do. I like people to get to steppin'.

MOB (all of the employees and regular customers refer to the place as "the M-O-B" or "Mo Beach Pizza") has been under her current ownership for about 4 years. At various times in the building's history, it was a post office, a general store, a fish market, and a few other things which I'd have in this article if I wrote it the day I went there. The owner insisted upon keeping the building the way it was, a wise decision IMHO.

It looks very much like an old-time general store when you walk in, which is always good for some points with me. You don't want a pizza place where the guy spends too much time decorating. You want a place that looks like a first generation Italian-American allowed his wife in for one half hour only to tidy up and direct the painters.

The crowd there was us, a crew of mechanics, and some COMCAST worker guy.

There are some obligatory old-tyme photos of the building from back in the day, and I have the impression that President Cleveland probably did some shopping in whatever store was in that building back when Bourne was the site of the summer White House.

The menu is of the New England Sub Shop mode, and I think that 80% of the people who go into a sub shop already know what they want anyhow. They did have some unique choices among the specialty pizzas- we saw "Salt Works," which was bacon and dill pickles, and something called the Ronk Steak Pizza that featured au jus sauce.

In the end, we got a Linguica Pizza and Onion Rings. Linguica is an important pizza topping, kinda distinct to Swamp Yankee Massachusetts... a sort of Portuguese Pepperoni. It is popular in the Northeast, on the West Coast (linguica pizza is called Portuguese Sausage Pizza once you go where there are no Portuguese), Hawaii and Japan. Hawaiians call it Portagee Sausage, and McDonald's serves it with their breakfast menu there. 

Onion rings are more world wide, but we tend to get them a lot because my boyfriend is all into them. No one knows who invented the onion ring (recipes in print for fried onions go back at least to 1802), but A+W popularized them nationwide in the 1960s. They enjoy particular popularity in a swath of New England that runs from Maine through Rhode Island. 

That's a fairly solid New England supper we ordered. I tend to stay away from seafood at sub shops, as I go elsewhere for seafood.

There's a fat slice.

Mo Beach Pizza uses diced linguica, and while I'm not into culinary CSI, I'm pretty sure that they prepared the linguica in-house. While your reporters are from Fairhaven and Duxbury and thus have some bias, we think linguica is probably the best topping.

Linguica as a pizza topping runs the gamut from a sort of ground Alpo-looking topping you see on pizzas sold in places with no Brazilian neighborhoods, to the Mo Beach diced version above, to a strange looking disc you see in places that order it in bulk, to long canoe slices that I actually like best.

This pizza was about 14" (we forgot the tape measure, but I have developed a pretty good eye for these things by now), Greek (pan) style. I'm told that the New York-style style thinner crust pizza goes about 16". You need to use a knife and fork to eat it, always a positive in mine eyes.

I'm only 5'3" or so, but my boyfriend is over 240 pounds. We finished half of it, although we had appetizers first. We had further reporting to do that day, and couldn't afford to have the lay-on-the-floor-after feast that we may have indulged in at home. It is also important to save pizza so we can report on how it tastes cold. We're that hardcore.

They had very good onion rings, which is important in our judging. There were only about 10 or so (my co-author sneeched one before I could snap a picture... I had to arm myself with a fork and directly threaten him in order to get the whole-pizza shot we're ending the article with), but each of them were thick and battered with love... which looks awful in print, but pay that no mind.

These are the best onion rings in town, although we still have a dozen pizza places to try before I actually hand out a trophy.

Our fellow diners worked the menu pretty well for us, although we didn't put the camera on them or anything. Ideally, we let others eat in peace during the Pizza Wars.

The cable guy had chicken wings, and he was a regular to the point where the waitress just walked up to him and said "Chicken wings?" He looked like a very happy man, as he had a plate full of clucker wings working. I almost went over to mooch one off him, (I would have traded 2 onion rings for one), but we couldn't get ourselves kicked out or anything.

The greasers had a variety of subs, and they also appeared to be pleased with their choices. You can always tell when the food is good if a group of men becomes silent shortly after the food is served, especially if the TV has ESPN on. Usually at least one guy is running his lip, but these guys were mowing silently

We were there at an off hour, but they had a pretty good run of business. The delivery girl (more points) had to go out at least once during our time there, and we weren't there that long. 

Here are a few other things I noticed during my time at Mo Beach Pizza:

- Considerable time, science, and expense went into some mundane elements of the store. You'll notice, in the pictures of the slices, that they use technology to keep the crust from getting too greasy.  This involves a sort of ribbed (sorry, the only other descriptive term that comes to mind is "bumpy") pizza tray and even a ribbed pad in the delivery boxes. They elevate the pizza some, keeping the grease from seeping into the crust while concurrently leeching grease from the bottom of the crust.

Whoever invented that should probably own Obama's Nobel prize, no offense meant to the C-I-C.

- "Mo" and "Monumental" work their way into the menu language now and then.

- The onion rings had their own sauce, known as Boom Boom Sauce.

- Boom Boom Sauce is actually a brand made by Ken's (the salad dressing people), and it is a spicier version of the usual New England onion ring sauce. The owner told me that it has sort of branched out into other menu items, as customers frequently request it on chicken, steak, and, in one case, pastrami.

- I won't out myself or my boyfriend, but one of us liked the pizza better when it was cold.

- The owner figured out we were media fairly quickly, and he let himself be questioned willingly enough. He seemed like a nice enough guy, and it is fun to get a shop owner speaking at length about his craft.

- Mo Beach's main competitors are Prime Time Pizza "up on the highway," and Graziella's, which is over on Barlow's Landing. MBP does have a nice section of the village to themselves, though. They are about 50 feet off of Shore Road.

- Speaking of addresses, Mo Beach Pizza is located at 18 Beach Street, in Monument Beach, which is one of the Bourne villages. Hit them up on the phone at 508-759-3210. They also have a Facebook page.

Examining Wave Attenuation Devices

We're talking Wave Attenuation Devices with Fred Dorr today.

Remember, I'm a sportswriter by trade. My entire expertise on the matter we're discussing today boils down to:

1) I grew up on a beach

2) The house was on a seawall

3) I therefore have a base knowledge of waves-crashing-off-walls

4) Even with no scientific/academic training, I have more experience watching waves hit walls than many people who are authorities on the matter.

It's all downhill from there. My science is awful. I taught Science one year, and the highlight there was when I let the kids handle liquid mercury. I had to throw out and then acquire new versions of 10 school desks.

I mention all this because I'm interviewing someone who works in a field that may spark some interest among coastal residents. This is why I am, from this point on, stealing text wholesale from his website.

Also, I conducted the interview via email. It saves me from taping phone calls like a divorcing couple, and it lets Mr. Dorr speak directly to you, in a sense.

This is also why I am not challenging any of his answers. I'm just showing you some new technology, and you can decide if it will work on Duxbury/Humarock/First Cliff/Horse Neck/Scusset Beach for yourselves.

What is a WAD?

A WAD (Wave Attenuation Device) is a three sided, hollow, concrete pyramid with holes on all three sides and one on the flat top.

WADs do not come in any one size. They are designed according to the conditions at a shoreline site. If, as in the case of Scituate, "they " wanted to deploy WADs at Minot beach, Peggotty, and Humarock, then quite likely there would be three different designs and perhaps three different sizes.

The design and size depend on the conditions at the deployment site. These conditions include ocean bottom, tide heights, astronomical tide heights, storm surges, weather direction, wind speed, storm intensities/frequencies and other factors.

Scituate

The Science of a WAD:

WADs do two things.

First they knock a high wave down to virtually smooth water.

The second thing they do is to remove energy from an ocean swell. They do this much the same way that the aerator on your sink faucet does. If you didn't have that aerator on the faucet the water would come out in a big blast. The aerator only allows the water in the pipe to get to your sink via very small holes. Therefore each of the water streams contains very little energy.

On the ocean side of a WAD array, the turbulent oceanic swells have picked up some sand and carry it in suspension through the WADs.

However, because the WADs reduce the energy of the wave, the sand falls out of suspension and settles on an eroded beach. If there is sand available in the near ocean, if we have a few nor'easter and if we had an array of WADs, we could over a short period of time (1-3 years) have a new dry high tide beach.


Seafood Farming?

In the background are fish havens they resemble WADs except they do not have a flat top or a hole in it.

They are mass produced in three sizes.

They are deployed in small arrays; circles, squares, triangles, etc. They attract fish and promote organic marine growth.

From what I have read they are very effective in increasing a fisherman's catch.

Q)  What makes the WADs better than a conventional Massachusetts seawall (like the Duxbury Beach one in the picture above)?

That's a short question that has a long answer.
1.  Waves under cut the sandy edge  (TOE) of a seawall
2.  WADs knock down high/tall waves to calm water.  When I asked Scott Bartkowski if WADs could knock down a 20 foot wave his reply was we have killed 29 foot waves.
3.  If there is sand available in the near shore up to 300-500 feet then during storms that sand, with the help of WADs, will migrate to the eroded beach and replenish it.
4.  When a beach gets fully replenished, the waves will not reach the seawall.  If a wave cannot reach a seawall there can be no damage to shoreline structures.

Sandwich, MA

Q) How do the WADs not get filled up with sand and stone? Would they be more, less or equally effective when filled or partially-filled with sand and stone?

In the course of doing their work the WADs do not get filled up instead they break the wave energy down into little pieces so to speak and the sand actually moves through the WADs.  If one snap shot were taken of the entire process then you would say that the WADs were filled up with sand.  Go to WADs Work 4 Beaches on face book and look at the video I have posted you will see what I mean.
When a beach is fully replenished then the municipality should get a barge and a crane go out into the sea and move the WADs farther out  and make a larger beach.


What sort of impact-force testing did you do on the WADs, i.e. waves picking up Ottoman-sized boulders (see "Bert's, Plymouth") and throwing them off WADs?

1. When Living Shoreline Solutions does their scientific investigation, they look at what's on the ocean floor, ferocity of storms. storm surge, astronomical tide effect, beach slope and a myriad of other parameters. They design four applicable WADs for a specific beach that will do the job of attenuating "its" waves.   If there are rocks on the ocean floor then the thickness of the wall of the hollow WAD is increased.  Understand that the concrete used is marine grade and reinforced with fiberglass shreds.  As regards to the event at Bert's   I guess my only answer to that is Poo happens.

Ocean Bluff/Brant Rock

Would fish swim into the holes during high tides, get trapped there when the tide went out, and then stink like stank on a hot summer day?  Can you put fish-filters over the holes and not diminish the effectiveness of the WAD?   

There is no need for keep the fish out of the WADs.  The WADS are hollow.  Fish can swim in and out of WADs.  In the gulf coast  LSS makes a series of Fish Havens for commercial fishermen.  They have reported significant increase in their harvest due to the effectiveness of WADS.  WADs are also used to promote oyster growth.


Do you put these WADs where conventional seawalls stand in relation to the high tides, or do they go offshore some?

Duxbury Beach

Generally the WADs are put in the water perhaps fifty to 100 feet beyond the low tide line.  Exactly where depends on a number of factors that are determined by LSS's scientific investigation and the needs of the client.


Is it possible to perform patchwork repairs on WADs somehow?

I am not sure I know what you mean by patchwork repairs.  If you mean to repair a WAD that has been damaged.  I do not know the answer because there have not been any cases of WAD failure in seventeen years.  Caution must be used because the primary market for WADs is in the south and the Caribbean, where there are no rocks.  If you mean can short (25-100 feet) arrays of WADs be put in place.  The answer is yes but the  overall project must contain several arrays because of a cost/profit problem.


This might be silliest question you've ever been asked in this field, but could a town order WADs in different colors if they so desired?

No it is not the silliest but it comes close.  There have been WADs built with rocks imbedded on the top to simulate a nearby breakwater.  I suppose if someone wanted a puse colored WAD array that could be done--at a price of course.

Green Harbor

Do you take any barnacle-prevention measures?  

WADs have three purposes--Attenuate waves, replenish beaches, and provide marine habitat.  I guess that means that if barnacles are going to grow on a WAD the people will have to deal with it.


Do WADs work if the water level gets higher than them?

Extraordinary question.  A swell is essentially rotating water much like a basket ball rolling across a gym floor.  If the bottom of a swell collides with the ocean bottom the swell turns into a breaker.  When a wave breaks it begins to lose its kinetic energy.   Wave height is measured from the bottom of the trough to the top of the swell

Kingston

If an array of WADs is in 12 feet of water and a swell of 13 feet comes by, the bottom of the swell will hit the top of the WAD causing the swell to begin to break.  If the ocean bottom on the beach side of the WAD is less than 13 feet then the swell will really break and lose all its energy.

In the process of losing its energy any sand that was in suspension will be deposited on the beach.  That is like trying to stir a glass of iced tea with five teaspoons of sugar in it.   As long as the tea is being stirred the sugar will stay in suspension.  But, when the stirring is stopped the excess sugar will settle to the bottom of the glass.   That is how a beach is replenished.


What sort of aquaculture can someone perform with a WAD? 

 I know that oysters grow very well on WADs,  I have seen pictures of fish in and around WADs.  In fact two hours after a WAD array was deployed at Negril Jamaica on a barren ocean bottom there were fish "sniffing" around looking for a good place to stay for the night!  I suspect that WADs would make a good hidey place for lobsters


How large of a wave would be required to move a WAD?

The actual answer is no body knows.  In the seventeen years that WADs have been deployed all over the world not one has ever been moved from the place it was deployed.  That is because of its design.  Hollow: water goes through a WAD.  A WAD has slanted sides.  A WAD is a three sided pyramid.  So the water goes up, and through WAD, and can't push it around.

Nantasket Beach

How tall do you make the tallest of your WADs?

All WADs are site specific.  For instance in Scituate, my town.  If the town were to WAD North Scituate Beach, Peggotty and Humarock there would likely be three different designs.  So far WADs have been as short as four feet and as tall as 12 feet.  They have weighed as little as 450 lbs to as much as 21,000 lbs.  I asked Ping Wang PHD University of South Florida who has done some Attenuation testing for Living Shorelines, the following question, "Could a WAD be designed to replenish a beach and at the same time prevent any shoreline damage regardless of the height of the waves.  His very short answer was "YES".


Is one mile of conventional Massachusetts seawall more or less expensive than the same distance of WADs?

Brant Rock/Ocean Bluff

Another fabulous question.  Scituate is or will be building a seawall 700 feet long.  It is expected to cost about $4,000,000 That works out to about $5700 per linear foot.  I have to stop for a moment here.  A seawall is necessary to keep calm high water from flooding the local area.  The concerns of sea level rise can be accommodated with a seawall.  But an array of WADS attenuate the waves.  On the ocean side there might be 12 foot waves.  On the shore side of the WAD deployment the waves might be 6 inches high  The current cost of a double row deployment of WADs is approximately $1,000 per linear foot.  I think that equates to an 80% saving.



Is it possible to buy WADs for personal use like forming a semi-circle in front of your house?

s soon as you said the word "possible" the answer is yes.  BUT you would have to ship them from Florida.  You would not have a choice in shape, because they do not manufacture them in a factory and then ship them from a stock pile.  Living Shoreline Solutions designs a site specific WAD, fabricates the concrete molds in Florida then ships the forms to the site.  Once here local labor assembles the forms and a local concrete company provides the concrete.  Then someone either has to hire a barge with a crane or a very big front end loader to deploy the finished product..  In addition the state owns the water, you would have to get their permission.  From what I understand that takes at least a year.

 I have enclosed two files, which are pictures that I plan to use in the article. One picture is of a seawall in Duxbury, which is what I have in mind when I say "conventional Massachusetts seawall." The other is of the White Cliffs Country Club in the Cedarville section of Plymouth. What could WADs do to stop erosion of those sand cliffs?

I have not yet seen your pix but I know that when it comes to cliff erosion, although WADS have not been used in that particular situation.  I have to add here that no WADs have ever been deployed in the waters of Massachusetts.  I have about 20 years left on this good earth and I intend to use every one of them to get WADs into Massachusetts waters.

Back to your query.  Put WADS in the water the scientifically prescribed distance from the toe of the cliff and if there is sand in the near shore then that sand will be transported to the space between the WADs and the toe of the cliff over some reasonable short period of time.  Perhaps 1-3 years.  In that time the beach level will rise above the height of the WADs and the waves will not reach the toe of the cliff.  If the waves cannot reach the shoreline there can be no further erosion except by the rain.

Again go to WADs Work 4 Beaches in face book look at the five videos for proof that they work.

Roger Goodell Banned From Cape Cod!

Roger Goodell has been on the hot seat lately. Whether it's players punching out women on camera, where-do-I-live-again concussion issues or coaches issuing bounties on players, the NFL commissioner has a lot on his plate.

Recently, Goodell brought about controversy via his decision to punish both the New England Patriots and Tom Brady over some spurious accusations regarding underinflated footballs.

The Patriots had a first round pick- most likely an All Pro caliber player- taken away from them. Tom Brady, in the home stretch of what might be the greatest career of anyone who ever picked up a football, was suspended for a quarter season.

Running the king of sports leagues is no easy job, and there will always be some bumps on the road. As we said, Mr. Goodell has a lot on his plate. Great power entails great responsibility, and uneasy is the head that wears the crown... or however that goes. Cape Cod is sympathetic.

That's why, effective at 9 AM on May 1st, Roger Goodell is banished from Cape Cod.

"It's a complicated legal issue," said Randy Hunt, the state representative from Sandwich. "This is unprecedented. Remember, even Benedict Arnold wasn't banned from America. We had to go back to the Holy Roman Empire, and the concept of an Imperial Ban."

Imperial Banishment involves:

- The banished person (known as the Geächtete, colloquially also as Vogelfreierei, "free as a bird,") loses all of his political rights

- The Geächtete suffers forfeiture of all assets and possessions

- The Geächtete is considered to be legally dead.

- The Geächtete can assume that he will be offered no protection by the law enforcement agencies, and (according to the Wikipedia) "anyone is allowed to rob, injure or kill him without legal consequences." Hunt is working to soften our stance on that one through a series of amendment riders.

Barnstable County Special Sheriff Jeff Perry has been put in charge of the Goodell banishment.

"My plan is to beat the fear of God into him," said Perry. "My deputies have been instructed to, on sight, gaffle Mr. Goodell, physically drag him to the Barnstable County House Of Corrections, lock him in solitary confinement and beat him on the kidneys with tonfas every hour on the hour."

Perry and Hunt, both Republicans, were quick to point out that the ban enjoys bipartisan support across Massachusetts. Conor Kennedy, scion of the famous Kennedy clan from Hyannis Port, stood beside Hunt as he announced the ban. Chatham mayor Em Nonesuch (D) notes that the nautical penalty would be Keelhauling.

Both Brstol County Sheriff Thomas Hodgson and Plymouth County Sheriff Joseph McDonald are also said to be considering the Imperial Ban.

Several local businesses are taking the initiative with the ban, striking before Cape Cod's official announcement. Lambert's Rainbow Fruit, a powerful Massachusetts produce giant with a store in Sandwich, has already barred Goodell from their stores.

"I'd jam a cabbage down his stupid throat," said family representative Jeffrey Lambert. "They'll be calling him Ol' Cole Slaw Head when I finish with him."

from Boston.com

Cape Cod is just a few highway exits away from Foxboro, and we count Bob Kraft among our residents. Bill Belichick has a place on Nantucket, and several of his coaching progeny have places on Cape Cod.

"Remember, Cape Cod is where a guy was pulled out of his car at a county fair and beaten with a baseball bat for the crime of wearing a Yankees hat," said Cranberry County Magazine founder Stephen Bowden. "It's worse with the Patriots. Even the local priest will punch you in the face for wearing a Peyton Manning jersey."

The atmosphere across the bridges is decidedly ugly. Goodell has been burned in effigy all over Cape Cod, and a recent anti-Goodell rally along the Cape Cod Canal culminated with a 15 story Roger Goodell pinata being smashed with a LNG tanker. Instead of candy, the pinata released 200000 bats.

Goodell may not be out of the woods just yet, either. US District Attorney Carmen Ortiz is said to be considering the possibility of prosecuting Goodell for violations of the Patriot Act. "There is some stuff in the small print of the Patriot Act that may beat a path to the gallows," said a spokesperson.

Goodell's spokesperson declined to comment.

Goodell now has a problem that .000000000001% of the world has. Imagine a scenario where Roger Goodell and his rich friends are planning vacations. Imagine how Goodell would have to react when someone suggests the go-to rich person destination of Martha's Vineyard.

"I can't go to Massachusetts. I'll be chased through the streets like the Town Fool."

(uncomfortable pause as Roger looks around the room, gauging his chances)

"Let's go to Indianapolis, instead. I'm like a God there."

Payback Time: Vote to Give Officer MacDonald His Retirement

There is a very important matter up for a vote at the May 2nd Town Meeting that we ask you to consider.

Last year, a man named Adrian Lima murdered an ex-girlfriend and shot the ex-girlfriend's current girlfriend as well. Doubling down, he then fired upon the Bourne Police Department when they arrived to investigate. Lima was eventually taken into custody.

Before they gaffled him, Lima managed to shoot a Bourne Police officer, Jared MacDonald. MacDonald was hit in the back, just under his protective vest. The gunshot resulted in critical injury to MacDonald, and he is now unable to do his job.

Normally, if you get a debilitating injury on the job, the job has to take care of you. It's a no-brainer, one of the chief coups of the organized labor movement spawned during the Industrial Revolution.

However, there are differences between an injured cop and, say, an injured factory worker. The factory worker, if he suffers an injury, can almost always tie it to either employee or employer negligence.... "He stuck his head under a piledriver" or "The shabby scaffolding collapsed." It makes for an easier determination of Fault.

With cops, there is an additional variable. Very few factory workers are shot by crazy people. Police? They sort of dabble in crazy people as a trade. Sometimes, crazy people get guns, and sometimes they manage to shoot a cop.

That doesn't change the scenario much for an injured police officer. He showed up for the job, did what he was supposed to do, but still suffered an injury.  That much is easy. However, his status as a public servant with essentially 20,000 people as his employer means that the town has to vote to give him benefits.

That vote goes down at the Monday, May 2nd town meeting, at Bourne High School. 7 PM, citizen.

This should be a no-brainer. I'm technically a criminal, but I am not only voting for the policeman to get his retirement, I'm writing an article urging you to do so as well. That's a fairly strong endorsement right there, albeit one coming from the proverbial Low Road.

Cops are unique people, tasked with a ridiculously dangerous job. If your baby is trapped in a burning building, a cop will run into the building to get it. If the building has explosives in it, is surrounded by a leopard pen and guarded by ISIL... the cop is still going in. You can argue that with me, but I have a Bourne cop with a bullet in his back as Exhibit A.

You get that sort of bravery for a relatively minor salary... many people give close to as much money to Bob Kraft, Walt Disney or Rihanna over the course of a year as they pay in taxes to employ a cop.

There is a flip-side to that low salary. If the cop gets a debilitating injury, the community should take care of him. If I were a Bourne cop and watched the town vote against giving benefits to a fellow cop who was shot protecting Bourne's citizens... well, let's say that I might wait for some backup before I run through the theoretical Taliban's leopard pen to get that baby out of the burning building.

However, many cops would STILL run the gauntlet after such a vote, but that would be because they are brave, principled or both.... which is even more of a reason to vote to take care of your own.

"Officer MacDonald's retirement needs to be voted on because he was shot in the line of duty making him eligible to receive a specific retirement above the standard medical retirement. This retirement package is the same as other officers in the state that have been shot in the line of duty. This retirement package has to be approved by the town." (Get Well Bourne Police Officer Jared MacDonald Facebook page)

Taking care of an injured cop/soldier/firefighter/EMT is perhaps our most solemn unspoken social contract. They run into Hell to rescue you... you can run down to the high school Monday night (May 2nd, at 7 PM) and cast a vote to show that you appreciate it.

Picture stolen borrowed from Get Well Bourne Police Officer Jared MacDonald Facebook Page

Bourne, Fishing And Stan Gibbs

Bourne is a nautical town. We are where the state decided to put her Maritime Academy. We're the first clam shacks and fish huts you see when entering Cape Cod. We're named after a guy who was named after a harbor... in fact, the harbor may actually be named for him, I've got to Google that some time.

Not only are we surrounded by water, we're divided by water. You can't go from Sagamore to Pocasset without dealing with that Canal. However, Bourne residents love their little man-made ocean river, even if it sort of curses us with gridlock every weekend.

One of the reasons we love our Canal is that it has some superb fishing. It is essentially a river between Buzzards Bay and Cape Cod Bay, and all sorts of beasts (fish, whales, squids, sharks, tunas, dolphins, seals, and even, as far as we can tell, at least one bear) swim through it. You can make a case that, once accessibility is factored in, the Cape Cod Canal is the best surfcasting spot in Massachusetts.

If you had the right tools and the necessary will, you could fish a LNG tanker out of that Canal. It would require Herculean strength and Napoleonesque game-planning... but if it could be done, the Cape Cod Canal is where you could be doing it it. It is also the only place that a particularly deft surfcaster could snatch the cap off of a millionaire from 100 yards away as he piloted his Sea Limo through the Canal. You actually get a bench along the Canal named after you if you do that, it's in the small print of the Town Charter.

And if anybody could have pulled that off, it would have been Stan Gibbs, but we'll get to him in a second.

Those fish have filled many a tummy over the years, as the locals soon figured out that the Canal was essentially a Fish Funnel that could be tapped again and again and again. Her reputation grew, and it is now a Grade A surfcasting spot. 

A celebration of that Canal would be very problematic without Fishing placed up in the front row. After that, Natural Beauty and Ease Of Transporting Goods, the Canal sort of becomes a Catastrophic Traffic Issue... and, in an emergency of the right sort, a veritable Line Of Death.

But enough of that talk. We're talking about fishing today, and we're celebrating the Sea Dog, the surfcaster, the angler, the old salt... The Fisherman. 

A state stands in Buzzards Bay.. It honors the fisherman, and it has a very clever Rembrandt/Hemingway sort of title... The Fisherman.

The statue was funded via donations from private citizens (mainly the Stan Gibbs Fisherman’s Classic Fishing Tournament people), and it stands 10 feet tall. It was made by Hyannis sculptor David Lewis, and was bronzed in Arizona. It is placed near Buzzards Bay Park, by the railroad bridge. It will be surrounded by roses, fountain grass, and will even have a compass rose. As near as I can tell, the statue will be "aimed" at Sagamore.

The text reads:“The Fisherman. A tribute to past, present and future striped bass fishermen of the great Cape Cod Canal, inspired by local fishing legend Stan Gibbs." It cost $80K.

The statue depicts Stan Gibbs, and a famous photograph of Gibbs served as the model for it. I'm not the one to make the call on whether Gibbs was the best fisherman ever on Cape Cod and the Islands (I'm pretty sure we are where Quint and Captain Ahab are from, at least Movie Quint), but he certainly owned the Canal.

Gibbs was born in Easton, but the sea drew him to Sagamore. He was a giant man, but also a creative man. He became world-famous for the fishing lures he created, many of which (Polaris Popper, Casting Swimmer, Pencil Popper, Needlefish, and Darter) are still being copied and mass-produced by whatever companies make fishing stuff. His family (I think) still runs the business he created out of his love of fishing, Gibbs' Lures.

Check the Salt Water Fishing Lures Collection Club convention, at the Canal Room of the Trowbridge Tavern in Bourne.... just off the Bourne Rotary. It's going on today.

He also pioneered the use of numbered poles to mark his fishing spot. To this day, Canal anglers will say "254 was on last night" and so forth. I was completely unaware of this before I went out the other day and started bothering local fisherman.

Bothering the local anglers also provided the meat of this Story Sandwich... his legendary accomplishments. All legends need mythology, and Stan Gibbs has some amazing stories floating around about his skills. The possibility that locals were teasing a girl with ridiculous fishing stories can't be disregarded. I welcomed that, to be honest. Stan's dead, by the way, so he wasn't feeding me this stuff himself to sell lures. Primary sources are excellent and essential for real history, but they only get in the way of Legend Building. 

Here is what I've heard about Stan Gibbs, and mind you that I wasn't out collecting stories that long:

- The state catch limit on stripers is known as the Stan Gibbs Rule.

- Stan's record for Speediest Catch was 17 seconds, and that included beaching it.

- At least 20 people told me that Stan could cast completely across the Canal if someone put a C Note down on him not being able to do so.

- Stan knew the Canal's bottom well enough that he had names for certain troublesome spots.

- Stan not only fished during Hurricane Bob, he executed a 120 yard cast into the teeth of the wind. When he was casting with the wind at his back, he was somehow catching deep-sea fish.

- On a dare, Stan could snap-cast and hook a fish like an arrow shot if he had a clear visual and it wasn't windy. It required a special spear-lure that Stan refused to produce commercially.

- Stan could fish holding poles in each hand, and often did so just before Good Fridays during the Depression if the Salvation Army was planning a big supper. See "catch limits," above.

- Not only did Stan never tangle his line when fishing near others, but he could disentangle crossed lines with what I will describe as the same hand motion you use when winding up to shoot some dice.

- Stan didn't catch and release every fish in the Canal once just to intimidate them, but he liked to propagate that rumor once he started selling lures. He did it skillfully, of course. "Customers are just another fish, dear...."

- Stan was fishing for bait, caught some, and started reeling it in. A schooly striper than struck the hooked herring, in the process impaling itself on the hook. Most fisherman would have reeled that score in, but Stan- who had done it 20 or 30 times before- waited and waited... and a bluefish attacked the striper. Stan then reeled them all in, and had them for supper.

- The hat-off-a-millionaire story was actually told to me about Gibbs, but more in a "he casted so well that he could have..." manner than as something he actually did. They do say that he had a collection of Mister Howell-style hats in his shed that was completely out of context in comparison to his other trophies, but that he never ever ever answered questions about them.

- The shark you see in the New England Aquarium was caught by Stan, on shore, with a holiday ham as bait. He had a friendly boat haul his bait out a half mile, and Stan handled the rest.

- When Stan tired of eating fish, he would sneak up near The Seafood Shanty or wherever and surfcast a cheeseburger off of the plate of a tourist. He did it enough that the various clam shacks would comp meals if this was claimed by a customer, no questions asked.

- A guy accidentally dropped his keys into the Canal while swimming in from a boat. He had only a rough estimate of where they fell into the water, and the current was strong. Local kids immediately fetched Stan Gibbs. He weighted down a treble hook, asked the unfortunate soul about 3 where/what/how far questions, and then fished his keys out of the Canal on anywhere (I heard this story a few times) between 1 and 20 casts.

- Stan once hooked a Mako Shark in the Canal, fought it for 9 hours, brought it to the rocks, slapped it in the face, and let it go."Tell the others my name..." he was rumored to have whispered to it. This act- done the summer after a fatal shark attack in Buzzards Bay- is credited by some with the lack of shark attacks on humans in this area since. I think the shark who bit the guy off of Truro a few years ago was European, and he fled town the instant he heard that this was Gibbs Country.

- "Stan" is translatable to "Satan" in Striperese.

- The first thing you actually learn as a fish when you join one of those schools is to Not F*** With Stan Gibbs. The second thing you learn is "Swimming."

- I won't say with any certainty that touching the Fisherman statue before you go fishing brings you good luck when you're fishing, but I will say that it certainly can't hurt your chances. I was raised by Catholics, and thus have a very keen understanding of superstition and so forth. I want dibs on that if people start doing it.

Wings Neck

Wings Neck doesn't have an apostrophe, and I checked more than once. It's a peninsula, which is actually a typo away from being a dirty term describing "a piece of land that is bordered by water on three sides but connected to mainland."

As near as I can tell from the Wikipedia, the big difference between a Peninsula and a Cape is that a Cape manifests itself as a marked change in the trend of the coastline. Essentially, Bourne to Provincetown is a Cape via her right angle hook, while the more Mexico-aligned Baja is a peninsula.

I think that Cape Cod is technically two Capes, with one running from the mainland to Chatham, and the Outer Cape sort of caping off of the Cape.

Keep in mind that I majored in Accounting when I am telling you all this stuff about Geography. I actually confuse Geography with Geology and even Geometry now and then, which is why I am rarely obtuse with people.

Wings Neck is a notable point where Buzzards Bay begins to narrow into the Cape Cod Canal. It is across the Buzz from Stony Point in Wareham. It's not as narrow as the Mashnee Neck/Codman Point bottleneck, but it's pretty narrow. If you've sailed north into the Cape Cod Canal, you passed Wings Neck on your starboard side.

It sort of sticks out from the mainland like a wing, hence the name. I'm guessing, and there could be some guy named Wing who may have a legitimate grievance with me.

The area was of regional importance before the Cape Cod Canal was dug out. The swampy area was rich in Iron, and the Pocasset Iron Company was powerful enough to greatly increase shipping traffic. Shipping into Wareham and Bourne/Sandwich had also increased heavily. Wings Neck merited a lighthouse by 1849. The original light was 50 feet above the water, and it cost a look-at-how-they-spend $3,251.

The first keeper, Edward Doty Lawrence, ran it almost uninterrupted through 1877. He was briefly removed in 1854 for belonging to the wrong political party. His daughter married the Keeper who followed him. John Maxim, who both replaced and preceded EDL as Keeper, was killed at Gettysburg.

Other notable Keepers were George and William Howard. The Howard brothers were noted lifesavers, and they saved 37 lives in their time running Wings Neck. One of the reasons that a U-Boat never attacked Bourne is that the Germans feared retribution from the badass Howard brothers.

It has a very lengthy history of lightkeeper's wives being the assistant keepers, doing the shift while hubby slept. At least one keeper's wife is famous for saying a prayer over her husband's newly-dead corpse, and then going up to run the light and clang the bell before the town doctor had pronounced him dead.

There was an 1878 fire that led to the 1889 construction of a new light, which had all that fancy stuff like a 1000 pound fog bell. They even floated an assistant keeper's house across the Buzz from Mattapoisett in 1923. It went from a fixed to a flashing light in 1928, and converted to electricity in 1934. This light was 44 feet above the water, and was visible for 12 miles at sea.

Wings Neck was once docked at by the US presidential yacht,Mayflower. The keeper, Wallace Eldredge, did a 21 gun salute with the fog bell for President Warren Harding. 

As a private residence, it once played host to the Von Trapp family of The Sound Of Music fame. Since former President Grover Cleveland vacationed in Bourne for many years and was an avid fisherman, he was most likely very familiar with Wings Neck. This is a ridiculous amount of clout for a literal backwater area where maybe 500 families live now.

Maps from vintage times show Wings Neck as a hazard to navigation, and it only got worse when the Canal traffic started floating by.

The lighthouse ran from 1889-1945, when it was deemed unnecessary following the construction of the Cleveland Ledge light. They then put up this Cape Cod Canal monitoring station in the picture above.

The monitoring station is the tallest thing around until you get to the Bourne Bridge. It has radar and CCTV monitoring. If you were doing some Love Boat as you were sailing up the Canal, they probably saw you. They may even have film of the act, which is why I never intend to run for President.

The station is essential to the flow of traffic through the Canal, and helps to prevent such nightmare scenarios as "LNG tanker collides with munitions ship as orphans and puppies watch from within the blast radius." Who needs to see that, right?

The hexagonal (you are either impressed that I know that word, or you know i just made it up) lighthouse still stands, and it is connected to a lovely 3 bedroom cottage by a charming breezeway.

It went up for sale, and is now a private residence. Those private residents (the Flanagan family bought it for $13K and change in 1947) use the place as a rental. You can stay there for the following rates.

Winter: January 4 – May 3 $2,500 per week

Spring: May 3 – June 14 $3,300 per week

Summer: June 14 – September 6 $4,500 per week

Fall: September 6 – December 31 $3,500 per week

Now, that's some good scratch, but it's worth it to live in a lighthouse for a week. You always say that you want to live in a lighthouse, and that's what it costs. It's a bargain, trust me. Go stay at that other lighthouse if you don't believe me.

There are few better places to watch a good storm from. If you loved ship-watching as a kid, you owe this place to yourself. It's also a top-notch Buddha Spot. If some people I know lived there, it would have so much smoke coming out of the top, Catholics would think there was a new Pope.

I don't know if they still have the bell, or if they let you ring it if they do. I was basically trespassing for these shots.

Chic-Fil-A Approved For Hyannis

Not to be outdone by the arrival of Sonic onto the South Coast, Cape Cod is importing a national heavy-hitter for a trial run in our local fast food universe.

Chic-Fil-A gained approval from the Cape Cod Commission to open up a drive-thru/eat-in restaurant in Hyannis. The franchise will be will be Chickening Out at the corner of Enterprise Road and Iyannough Road (Route 132). The area was previously overflow parking for the Cape Cod Mall.

Chic-Fil-A (pronounced: "chick filet") is a Georgia-based 1400 restaurant chain which specializes in Chicken. Unlike most fast food joints, I didn't see a cheeseburger on their menu. They use Waffle Fries instead of regular fries. They put pickles on chicken sandwiches, a distinctly Southern thing which I approve of. They also have a chicken-dominated breakfast menu.

I have never seen one of their commercials, so I can't say if their mascot is a clown or a king or a little red-haired girl or even a Kentucky Colonel. If my girlfriend is correct, their commercials are the ones where a cow bothers people while holding a sign that says "EATZ MORE CHICKEN."

Many people only know Chic-Fil-A via their hard-line stance on opposing all things Gay. “To glorify God by being a faithful steward of all that is entrusted to us and to have a positive influence on all who come into contact with Chick-fil-A,” is the chain’s mission statement. Mumbles Menino famously banned them from Boston in 2012 or so. They only use heterosexual chickens for their sandwiches.

Local reactions have been mixed, at least from the section of the community that we sampled. "Praise be to Jesus," said Osterville interior designer Jeff Nonesuch. "I've been searching high and low for a less gay-friendly chicken sandwich." 

However, as Hyannis Port retiree (and, she added, former Southerner) Anne Teechikfila said, "I'd sooner hunt and eat seagulls, and that's before you factor in Chic-Fil-A's odious bigotry."

Chic-Fil-A branches are closed on Sundays, which should hit them in the purse in an area of Massachusetts with about a 75 day peak season.

Due to mitigation costs (mostly traffic), the place may lay an egg early if they take off too many peak business days. The Cape Cod Times says that they will have to sell over 81,000 of their $3.49 basic chicken sandwiches just to pay off their traffic mitigation costs.

I do not believe that they will be open by July 14th, Cow Appreciation Day. That's a shame, because you can eat a free meal at any Chic-Fil-A on Cow Appreciation Day, provided that you arrive in the restaurant dressed up as a cow.

We'll let you know when they post their Opening Day date.