I have friends who don't eat fast food in any form. They're the smart ones, no doubt, and nature should reward them with longer lives and slimmer waistlines. Pulling into one of these fast food joints literally takes minutes from your lifespan... but we're all dying at some point, right?
Once you go all in and commit, part of the fast food lifestyle is discriminating between different brands. Some people have no brand loyalty at all. Others will deliver an Eff Wendy's rant while holding a quarter pounder that, when you peel the bun off of it, looks like that Noriega guy who used to run Panama.
What kills the fast food lifestyle for many is the paucity of choices. You have the King, you have Wendy, and you have Ronald. If your town or mall rules, you may also have a KFC or a Taco Bell... maybe even both in one store! The presence of a KFC/Taco Bell nearby was a selling point for me when I moved to Buzzards Bay, although this was before I met Jessica and started getting food that comes from the stove and so forth. A man can get used to that.
You still have to pull off the highway and get lunch in 3 minutes sometimes, and I cook poorly enough to invoke a situation where a Happy Meal is a safer nutritional choice than me trying to not burn chicken. At worst, Logan can at least make money suing McDonald's.
Now, Logan will also have the opportunity to get salmonella or Legionnaire's Disease from a new restaurant. Sonic Drive-In is setting her sights upon the virgin territory of New England.
Also known as Sonic, the Oklahoma burger joint has been spreading across the nation since her 1950s inception. She has been slow to come to New England, with just 4 stores in Massachusetts (Peabody, Lawerence, Wilmington and Stoughton) and one in Smithfield, Rhode Island. That ish is about to change, Big Man.
Sonic is expanding the franchise to Somerset, Massachusetts. My sources tell me that the new store opens on April 13th, just one week from when I'm typing this. You'll have to leave pretty early to beat me there. I've never even seen a Sonic, despite going to Florida recently (the only low-rent meal I had there was at a strip bar right when we got off the plane), and I'm long overdue.
I'm being told just now that they also have one working for nearby Swansea. Fall River and New Betty can't be far behind, at that point. Somerset was a bit behind schedule.
The chain has plans to open 36 franchises in the Greater Boston area. "Greater Boston" technically means the eastern third of Massachusetts sans the South Coast and Cape Cod, but it can mean whatever you need it to mean if you think that one will hit it big in Hyannis. I've even read estimates as high s 40 in some articles.They also plan for a smaller amount of franchises in New Hamster and Maine.
You'd better bring a lot of green to the Sonic man if you want to open a franchise. Don't even bother calling unless you have two milly in the bank. My people tell me that it would cost a million to build one up from the ground, or a half million to turn a financially-faltering Wendy's-type building into a Sonic.
If you hurry and establish one before anyone else within 50 miles does, you could have a novelty hit on your hands. Buzzards Bay should try to get one, it would really help their Main Street out.
From what I can see on the Sonic menu, it's the same garbage that you see at the other joints. Burgers, chicken strips, chicken sandwiches, hot dogs, fries and so forth.
They seem to have 8 different burgers, the most impressive being one mashed between two pieces of Texas toast. They also have 8 different kinds of hot dogs, each worse than the last.
They do have cool side order options, including chili fries, onion rings (a must in SE Massachusetts and extra-especially in Rhode Island) and mother-loving tater tots. They seem to be shake and slush focused for drinks, although I'm sure that you can get a Coke if you need one.
They also have a Taco Bell-ian/Burger King-ish breakfast menu, but you gotta draw the line somewhere, kids.
If your burger sucks (and if you're armed), why not see if you can throw it into the face of the guy in the car next to you?
UPDATE: This column went to the Smithfield Sonic! We had just taken Twin River for a quick $150, and decided to live large for a meal.
You can go inside, or you can pull up to an individualized service screen parking spot. They have people who skate the food out to you... or run it out if you go when it's raining, like we did.
I do wonder if enough kids roller skate these days to fully staff a Sonic in a small ton. At least the Somerset one is within skating distance of Fall River.
If you eat inside, they take your order, give you a number, and run it out to you when it's ready.
I felt just like Richard Petty!
The food blows pretty hard, like the mighty North wind. We only have ourselves to blame, as we just got a Coney (what they call hot dogs), fries and a strawberry-banana shake. The shake was really good, I wish that I had another right now.
The food?
The hot dog was around the quality of what you'd get at a Food Mart-style gas station if you were fortunate enough to grab one right when it neared optimal temperature. The french fries had a Wal-Mart Great Value sort of taste and appearance, but they're edible if you hide them in ketchup. I did have a seagull refuse one, a first for me.
It stayed down, which is saying something. I can see a lot of this food being regurgitated out of a car window on side streets in Smithfield by people who stopped at a Sonic after a day spent defeating a 30 pack.
Mobil-riffic!
That's why they grow the more powerful strains of marijuana, folks.
I don't believe that they are endorsed by the hedgehog from the video game, although it seems that he'd work cheap and would be a natural. He might be in PETA or something.
Some franchises never take off in New England. Krispy Kreme is the most famous example, as New Englanders violently prefer Dunkin' Donuts. You also don't see Papa John, Domino's or Pizza Hut survive here long... we have too many serious Italians and Greeks running house-of-pizza shops around here to tolerate processed pizza. Taco Bell, however, usually does well wherever they put it.
How will Sonic fare? Only time will tell. I hear that Smithfield does 500 orders a day. I have no idea if that is a profitable rate.
Even with a poor review from this column, it behooves the fast food ninja to make the hajj to whatever Sonic opens near your home town. I wouldn't recommend driving to Rhode Island from Plymouth to get some Sonic, unless they open one in Wareham or Kingston.
We only got Sonic because we were gambling nearby, This is important, as we knew that we were writing a Sonic article, and we weren't planning to bother with the drive from Buzzards Bay. Things worked out for the best.
We're getting a bit of April Snow. This won't amount to much, but it's still notable.
Coastal Massachusetts has a tendency towards not getting April snow... but when we get it, we get a lot of it (see: April Fool's Blizzard, 1997)... this is looking like an inch or two.
If we get a warm spell before a late season blizzard, it's a Strawberry Spring. Most of us know it from the Stephen King story, and I'm not sure if he made it up for the story or if he took it from local folklore. Either way, the event needs a name, and King has sort of meritorious naming rights to whatever he sets his mind to.
We may get snow tomorrow as well. Aril 4th is late for snow, but it does look like the last of the season. This snow is probably not the best of news for the Cape's blooming stuff.
Trying and failing to get pics of the snowflakes, which are getting up to near-baseball card size.
Mann Farm cranberry bog, Buzzards Bay MA... FGW wind turbine, Plymouth MA.... low visibility
From Sara Flynn, off of Pine Point on Duxbury Beach...
Little Buttermilk Bay, Bourne MA
This tree is saggin'...
Little Buttermilk Bay, sad tree, Bourne MA
NWS Snowfall Map for this storm
Snow Delay... Legion Field, Bridgewater, MA (Michelle McIssac photo)
The Great Salt Marsh (Skirt Meadow/Meadows for all of you map freaks), Duxbury MA, also by Sara Flynn...
Maybe we were a bit hasty with that Last Snow headline in late March...
It seems that we have not one but TWO snow events coming at us... and that's just through Monday morning. Although some April snow is newsworthy, the real story will be the combo of wind and cold heading for us.
We were pushing 70 degrees around here on Thursday and Friday. We'll be in the 20s on Sunday, with places north of us diving into the teens.
We also want to tag in now to let you know that there is a chance of coastal flooding at the end of next week. We'll get to that in a second.
Why not let the National Weather Service explain? They just published a detailed forecast for the whole active weather period. They use ALL CAPS, so it is obviously important stuff of which they speak:
RAIN TODAY WITH THE POSSIBILITY OF ISOLATED THUNDERSTORMS ACROSS
THE INTERIOR. INTENSE STORM SYSTEM EARLY SUNDAY MORNING. BURST OF
ACCUMULATING SNOW LIKELY. HURRICANE FORCE WINDS POSSIBLE. THEN AN
UNSEASONABLY COLD AIRMASS OVERSPREADS THE REGION SUNDAY AFTERNOON
AND NIGHT WITH BLUSTERY NORTHWEST WINDS. ANOTHER LOW PRESSURE
TRACKS OVER OR NEAR THE SOUTH COAST OF NEW ENGLAND
MONDAY...BRINGING THE RISK FOR ANOTHER ROUND OF ACCUMULATING SNOW
TO THE AREA. DRYING TREND TUE BUT REMAINING UNSEASONABLY COLD.
MODERATING TEMPERATURES MID TO LATE NEXT WEEK BUT ALSO THE RISK OF
WET WEATHER.
&&
.NEAR TERM /UNTIL 6 PM THIS EVENING/...
7 AM UPDATE ...
NOT MUCH CHANGE FROM PREVIOUS FORECAST. RAIN SHIELD /MAINLY LIGHT/
CONTINUES TO OVERSPREAD RI AND EASTERN MA...WITH LITTLE IF ANY
RAIN NORTHWEST OF BOSTON TO PROVIDENCE CORRIDOR. FOR WHAT IT/S
WORTH THE 06Z NAM AND GFS BOTH TRENDED HEAVIER WITH RAINFALL LATER
THIS MORNING AND EARLY AFTERNOON ACROSS RI AND EASTERN MA. LOW
CONFIDENCE ON THIS SCENARIO WILL CONTINUE TO LEAN TOWARD LIGHT TO
PERHAPS MODERATE RAIN AT TIMES...HEAVIEST RI AND EASTERN MA WITH
LIGHTER RAIN ACROSS CT AND WESTERN-CENTRAL MA.
ONLY CHANGE TO THE FORECAST WAS TO LOWER HOURLY TEMPS A BIT AS
RAIN HAS LOWERED TEMPS CLOSER TO THEIR WET BULB VALUES. OTHERWISE
PREVIOUS FORECAST ON TRACK. EARLIER DISCUSSION BELOW.
INITIAL LIGHT TO MODERATE RAINFALL EVENT FOLLOWED UP BY A SWEEPING
COLD FRONT AND SOME CONVECTIVE SHOWERS.
SO WITH THE FIRST SYSTEM...WAVE LOW DEVELOPS ALONG THE STALLED
FRONTAL BOUNDARY OFFSHORE PARENT WITH STOUT MID LEVEL ENERGY AND
FORCING THROUGH THE OVERALL BROAD CYCLONIC TROUGH. GREATEST POP
CHANCES AND RAINFALL S AND E CLOSER TO THE SKIRTING WAVE LOW. MUCH
OF THE ACTIVITY EARLY MORNING INTO MIDDAY.
THEN SECONDLY...ATTENTION TURNS N/W WITH THE FIRST IN A SERIES OF
LOW PRESSURE CENTERS THAT BEGIN THE PROCESS OF DRAGGING COLDER AIR
ACROSS OUR REGION. IN TANDEM WITH A SWEEPING COLD FRONT WILL SEE THE
BOUNDARY LAYER COOL AND BECOME UNSTABLE UP TO H6. IF THE 24-HR HRRR
IS CORRECT...LOOKING AT CONVECTIVE SHOWER DEVELOPMENT AHEAD OF THE
FRONT ESPECIALLY ACROSS THE N/W/CENTRAL INTERIOR. STRONG LOW-MID
LEVEL FORCING TO THE TOP OF THE LAYER AROUND -20C COULD RESULT IN
GRAUPEL / SMALL HAIL WITH THESE SHOWERS ALONG WITH LIGHTNING...AS
WELL AS 20-30 MPH GUSTS. THREATS EXACERBATED IF WE SEE CLEARING
BETWEEN THE S STREAM WAVE LOW AND N STREAM SWEEPING COLD FRONT. WITH
ANY THUNDER MENTIONED IN THE FORECAST WILL APPEND GUSTY WINDS AND
SMALL HAIL. THREATS SWEEPING NW TO SE DURING THE LATER HALF OF THE
DAY INTO EVENING. INSTABILITY NOT AS ROBUST AS FRIDAY...SO THINKING
STORMS WILL NOT REACH WARNING CRITERIA.
OVERALL A MOSTLY CLOUDY AND COOL DAY IN ADDITION TO THE WET WEATHER.
HIGHS INTO THE 50S.
.SHORT TERM /6 PM THIS EVENING THROUGH 6 PM SUNDAY/...
TONIGHT INTO SUNDAY...
* STRONG TO DAMAGING WINDS NEAR HURRICANE FORCE POSSIBLE
* WIND ADVISORY / HIGH WIND WATCH POSTED
* CONVECTIVE SNOWS POSSIBLE WITH ACCUMULATIONS 1 TO 3 INCHES
* STORM FORCE WINDS ACROSS THE WATERS
SNOW BURST EARLY SUNDAY MORNING INTO MIDDAY ACCOMPANIED WITH STRONG
TO DAMAGING WINDS. WILL BE AN UNPRECEDENTED RARE EVENT INCORPORATING
RAPID CYCLOGENESIS...INTENSE LIFT...AND ACCUMULATING SNOWS AS WELL
AS THE LIKELIHOOD OF THUNDERSNOW. SHOULD SEE IMPACTS TAPER DOWNWARD
LATE AFTERNOON INTO SUNDAY EVENING. AFRAID MANY ARE GOING TO BE
CAUGHT OFF-GUARD WITH THE LATE SEASON SNOW. WILL HIT ON THE DETAILS
BELOW AS BEST AS POSSIBLE.
POTENT VORTEX OUT OF THE GREAT LAKES REGION CYCLONICALLY DIGGING S
OF NEW ENGLAND INVOKES INTENSE CYCLOGENESIS ALONG THE S-SHORELINE.
THIS WHILE DRAGGING CONSIDERABLY COLDER AIR ACROSS THE REGION WITH
H85 TEMPERATURES FALLING -10 TO -15C NEAR RECORD BREAKING PER LOCAL
SOUNDING CLIMATOLOGY. STRONG LOW TO MID FORCING ABOVE SURFACE INFLOW
AND BENT-BACK WARM FRONT WITH COLD AIR ADVECTION REARWARD RESULTING
IN THE ATMOSPHERIC COLUMN BECOMING SUPER-ADIABATIC / UNSTABLE UP TO
H6 BENEATH THE TROPOPAUSE FOLD. ENSEMBLE CLIMATOLOGICAL PERCENTILES
SHOWING THIS EVENT TO BE NEAR OR AT ALL-TIME HISTORICAL MINIMUMS...
IMPRESSIVELY ANOMALOUS.
TEMPERATURES / PRECIPITATION INTENSITY....CRITICAL WITH THIS EVENT
IS THE PRECIPITATION INTENSITY DETERMINING PRECIPITATION TYPE...AS
WELL AS 2M SURFACE TEMPERATURES. WILL DRIVE SUCH TEMPERATURES CLOSE
TO IF NOT AT THE WET-BULB DURING EXPECTED TIME-FRAME OF INTENSE
PRECIPITATION. INITIAL RAIN WHICH HAS INSTABILITY TO WORK WITH AS
THE COLUMN BEGINS TO COOL TO COULD YIELD GRAUPEL/SMALL HAIL WITH
ANY THUNDERSTORMS. BRIEF BEFORE CHANGING OVER QUICKLY TO A INTENSE
SNOWFALL.
SNOWFALL...ALONG SHORES EXPECT LITTLE IF ANY ACCUMULATION ADJACENT
TO WARMER WATERS. LOW ELEVATIONS EXPECTING SLUSHY ACCUMULATIONS ON
ELEVATED / GRASSY SURFACES WITH WET ROADWAYS. AND FINALLY N/W AND
ACROSS HIGH TERRAIN WITH COLDER TEMPERATURES THERE IS A GREATER
OPPORTUNITY AND MORE CONCERN FOR SNOW ACCUMULATION ON ALL SURFACES
WITH HIGHEST SNOWFALL AMOUNTS ATOP BERKSHIRES / WORCESTER HILLS.
SNOW EXPECTED TO OCCUR QUICKLY...IN A SHORT DURATION...ON THE ORDER
OF 1 TO 2 HOURS. STORM TOTAL ACCUMULATIONS 1 TO 3 INCHES AWAY FROM
THE COASTAL PLAINS.
THUNDERSNOW...PRECIPITATION SHOULD BE INTENSE CONSIDERING THE SUPER-
ADIABATIC / UNSTABLE LAPSE RATES. BENEATH THE POTENT VORTEX YIELDING
RAPID CYCLOGENESIS...LOOKING AT LIFT OF 50 MICROBARS PER SECOND IN
SNOW GROWTH REGIONS. DEFINITELY A SIGNAL FOR THUNDERSNOW. WILL PUT
AN ISOLATED MENTION INTO THE FORECAST. INTENSE ENOUGH...WOULD EXPECT
SNOW ACCUMULATION ON A MAJORITY OF SURFACES...EVEN AT THE LOWER
ELEVATIONS. COULD SEE 1 INCH PER HOUR SNOWFALL RATES. COMPLEX TO
FORECAST.
WINDS...INTENSE PRESSURE COUPLET YIELDING HURRICANE FORCE WINDS AT
H925 ACROSS NJ / DELMARVA EXTENDING ON UP ACROSS SE NEW ENGLAND AS
THE STORM EXITS LATE MORNING TO MIDDAY SUNDAY. WITH INCREDIBLY STEEP
LAPSE RATES...UNDOUBTEDLY A MAGNITUDE OF SUCH WINDS WILL MIX DOWN TO
THE SURFACE. 35 TO 55 MPH WINDS ACROSS INTERIOR NEW ENGLAND N TO S
WITH 50 TO 70 MPH WINDS ACROSS RHODE ISLAND AS WELL AS E/SE MASS.
HIGH CONFIDENCE FOR WIND ADVISORY CONDITIONS OVER ALL S NEW ENGLAND.
LOWER CONFIDENCE ON WHERE EXACTLY HIGH WIND WARNING CRITERIA WILL
BE MET. WENT WITH A WATCH OVER E/SE NEW ENGLAND.
.LONG TERM /SUNDAY NIGHT THROUGH FRIDAY/...
HIGHLIGHTS...
* VERY ACTIVE WEATHER PATTERN NEXT 7 DAYS
* TEMPERATURES - UNSEASONABLY COLD FOR EARLY APRIL SUNDAY THROUGH
WEDNESDAY...THEN MODERATING LATE NEXT WEEK
* PRECIPITATION - ACCUMULATING SNOW LIKELY MONDAY ALONG WITH OCEAN
EFFECT SNOW SHOWERS EASTERN MA TUE MORNING. OTHERWISE DRY TUE INTO
WED FOLLOWED BY WET WEATHER LATE NEXT WEEK
SUNDAY NIGHT ... MODELS HAVE SPED UP THE ARRIVAL OF THE NEXT SYSTEM
WITH SNOW POSSIBLY BEGINNING BEFORE SUNRISE MONDAY ACROSS WESTERN
PORTIONS OF CT AND MA. THUS TEMPS SUN NGT WILL NOT BE AS COLD AS
PREVIOUSLY THOUGHT. ALTH STILL UNSEASONABLY COLD. OTHERWISE DRY
WEATHER PREVAILS MUCH OF THE NIGHT WITH A VERY COLD AIRMASS IN
PLACE WITH TEMP ANOMALIES AT 925 AND 850 ABOUT -2 STANDARD
DEVIATIONS COLDER THAN CLIMO. THIS WILL RESULT IN TEMPS FALLING
INTO THE 20S REGIONWIDE ALONG WITH A FEW UPPER TEENS ACROSS
NORTHWEST MA. NORMAL OVERNIGHT LOWS SHOULD BE 30- 35 FOR EARLY
APRIL.
MONDAY ... AS MENTIONED ABOVE MODEL GUIDANCE HAS SPED UP ARRIVAL AND
DEPARTURE OF SNOW FROM FRONTAL WAVE. 00Z GFS IS ON THE NORTHERN EDGE
OF THE GUID WITH SFC LOW TRACKING ALONG THE SOUTH COAST...RESULTING
IN PTYPE ISSUES /RAIN & SNOW/ ACROSS CT/RI AND SOUTHEAST MA.
MEANWHILE REMAINDER OF GUID INCLUDING 00Z NAM/ECMWF/GEFS AND 12Z EPS
ARE FARTHER SOUTH AND COLDER. GIVEN TIME RANGE HERE AND SMALL
FRONTAL SCALE SYSTEM A MODEL BLEND IS LIKELY MOST SKILLFUL. THUS
WILL USE A BLEND APPROACH HERE. REGARDING QPF...00Z ECMWF/GFS/GEFS
AND 12Z EPS SUPPORT POTENTIAL QPF OF 0.20 TO 0.50 INCHES ACROSS THE
REGION. PRELIMINARY SNOW FORECAST VERY DIFFICULT AT THIS TIME RANGE
ESPECIALLY WITH SMALL FRONTAL WAVE IN ADDITION TO POTENTIAL PTYPE
ISSUES. FURTHERMORE ACCUMULATING SNOW ON PAVED SURFACES IN APRIL SNOW
EVENTS /HIGH SUN ANGLE...WARM GROUND AND LONGER DAYS THAN NIGHTS/
HINGE ON INTENSITY OF QPF. IF INTENSITY IS LACKING MOST ACCUMULATION
IS CONFINED TO THE COLDER SURFACES/HIGHER TERRAIN AND SECONDARY
ROADS. JUST TOO EARLY FOR ANY INSIGHT WHERE HEAVIER SNOW BANDS
WOULD POTENTIALLY SETUP. STAY TUNED.
MON NIGHT AND TUESDAY ... VERY PROGRESSIVE SYSTEM SO A DRYING TREND
THIS PERIOD. THE EXCEPTION WILL BE OVER COASTAL PLYMOUTH
COUNTY...CAPE COD AND NANTUCKET WHERE NORTHEAST WINDS AND STEEP LOW
LEVEL LAPSE RATES LIKELY RESULT IN OCEAN EFFECT SNOW BANDS. THIS IS
COURTSEY OF VERY COLD AIR ADVECTING IN ON BACKSIDE OF DEPARTING
SURFACE WAVE. IN FACT THIS AIRMASS WILL BE JUST AS COLD IF NOT
COLDER THAN SUNDAY/SUNDAY NIGHT/S AIRMASS WITH H85 TEMPS DOWN TO -
15C 12Z TUE! OTHERWISE EXPECT A VERY CHILLY DAY TUE WITH MUCH OF THE
AREA DRY WITH THE EXCEPTION OF SOUTHEAST MA AS MENTIONED ABOVE. VERY
BLUSTERY IN THE MORNING ACROSS SOUTHEAST MA WITH DEPARTING WAVE AND
1033 MB HIGH ENTERING THE GREAT LAKES.
WED ... LOOKS TO BE A TRANSITION DAY WITH COLD ANOMALOUS TROF
MOVING OFFSHORE AND HIGH PRES BUILDING INTO THE REGION. OFF TO A
COLD START BUT AIRMASS MODIFYING DURING THE DAY. DRY WEATHER
SHOULD PREVAIL BUT RISK OF PRECIP WED NIGHT PENDING SPEED OF NEXT
UPSTREAM SYSTEM.
THURSDAY AND FRIDAY ... COLD ANOMALOUS TROUGH MOVES OFFSHORE SO
TEMPS WILL REBOUND TO MORE SEASONAL LEVELS /50S/. HOWEVER MEAN
TROUGH RELOADS OVER THE GREAT LAKES AND OH VLY. THIS RESULTS IN A
STRONG FRONTAL BOUNDARY APPROACHING THE REGION WITH STRONG WAA
PATTERN INTO SRN NEW ENG. MODELS THEN DIFFER ON LATITUDE OF FRONTAL
WAVE DEVELOPING ON THE FRONT. NONETHELESS UNSETTLED WEATHER LATE
NEXT WEEK. ALSO WILL HAVE TO WATCH INTENSITY AND DURATION OF ANY
COASTAL LOW/FRONTAL WAVE AS ASTRONOMICAL TIDES ARE VERY HIGH...12.0+
FT AT BOSTON. HENCE RISK OF COASTAL FLOODING.
Some cold-hearted SOB cut off an alligator's head and dumped it in the woods of Westport yesterday. This is an astonishing act of animal cruelty, and the Westport police are asking for any help that the public might be able to offer. Call them at 508-636-1122 if you know something.
Why would someone own an alligator? Why would they cut off the head from it like it was MacBeth or something?
Well, I can see why someone would want to own one. Alligators are cool. Its like having a baby dinosaur. However, there is immense difficulty in having a gator around the house, and only serious people should consider it.
When non-serious people own them, they end up headless in the forest.
I did a bit of research on decapitating alligators. I thought it might be a Santeria thing, but nothing I dug up on Santerian animal sacrifices includes alligators. My sources might just have a passing interest in Santeria and not be aware of the Santeria Alligator Sacrifice Ritual, but I don't have enough to even start slurring Santeria people.
Headless alligators turn up in Florida and Louisiana now and then. Several sources are mentioned... poachers, trophy-hunters, fishermen who hooked a protected species and didn't want to talk to the park ranger about it... and even some guy who was injured (or perhaps had a relative killed) by an alligator, who now holds an Ahab/Quint-style grudge against the species in general. It could have been the work of a Florida State fan trying to send a message to his Florida fan neighbor.
Of course, not a lick of that makes sense in Westport, Massachusetts. The alligator poaching scene here is somewhat limited by the fact that alligators are not found in the wild in Massachusetts. Not many fishermen hook them up here for the same reason, and that low number is even bested by the paucity of people who come to Massachusetts looking to kill wild alligators for trophies. Ahab or Quint would know better than to hunt Gator here, and the 'Noles/Gator argument looks like a long shot.
That leaves one obvious answer, and one wild guess.
Wild guess first... has anybody ever had alligators fight? You know, like pits or chickens? Starve them, tell them one gator said something about the other's sister... get 'em mad enough to fight? Bet on it? Sort of like Jacco Macacco meets Wally Gator, while filming Bloodsport.
The animal lover in me beats it down, but before it goes down, the part of me that would like to see two alligators fight gets a few words off.
The more obvious answer is that somebody went all Sleepy Hollow on a pet. You can buy alligators easily enough. You can get one here (when in stock) for $149.99, no questions asked... at least not at the alligator store. Your wife or landlord may not share your enthusiasm for a pet alligator when it is as large as the sofa, eating X pounds of meat a week, sh*tting wherever the f*ck it wants, and maybe kinda possibly most likely might be responsible for the missing Schnauzer.
A decent man, when faced with that scenario, will try to sell the alligator through whatever channels used alligator sales move through. If that fails, he should man up and call the town's Natural Resources Officer to get the gator taken care of. It is illegal to own a gator in Massachusetts.
At that point, the less than decent man has to resolve the Ol' Yeller quandary... sure, you can lock Ol' Yeller out in the barn and let the rabies do him in... or you can do the humane thing, take him out behind the barn, and put a hole in his head like Dig-Dug.
I don't think that alligators get rabies, but if the wife issues an ultimatum, the effect on the gator's longevity is similar to that of Ol' Yeller. You can loose him into a Massachusetts lake in March to slowly freeze to death, or you can make the ending quick and painless.
That scenario gives too much credit to the man in the Westport case, who may also have killed it just so he could make a trophy of the head or jaws.
I have no idea, which is why they pay detectives to figure out stuff like this.
How about a quick quiz? The answers will be at the end of the article.
Which Sorts Of Wildlife Can You Own In Massachusetts?
1) Tilapia?
2) Piranha?
3) Northern Leopard Frog?
4) Fathead Minnow?
5) Red-eared Slider Turtle?
6) Boa Constrictor?
7) Reticulated Python?
8) Anaconda?
9) Ridge-tailed Monitor Lizard?
10) Komodo Dragon?
11) Emu?
12) Ostrich?
13) Southern Flying Squirrel? (I won't give it away, but owning the moose is illegal)
14) Water Buffalo?
15) Wolf-Dog Hybrids?
Imagine if the Westport alligator's owner got the speech from his girl in July, and decided to just let it loose into, say, Long Pond in Lakeville? As we kick it around here, remember that I'm not a herpetologist, and that this is more Edutainment than an actual expert speaking to you.
Alligators, according to my 45 seconds of research, can be active in temperatures as low as 40 degrees. 40 degrees may kill weaker alligators, while a stronger one will seek a warmer microclimate in which to do his alligator stuff. When he gets chilly, he brummates... which is a sort of less torpid version of hibernating. A lake gator in Massachusetts wouldn't live long, but for a spell, he'd be unchallenged on the top of the food chain... unless he went swimming with a great white shark.
Long Pond is a warmwater pond, covering 1700 acres. It's the largest pond in our region, and one of the largest in Massachusetts. It's the drinking water for New Bedford.
Long Pond was last surveyed in June of 1990 when fisheries crews found largemouth bass,
bluegill, chain pickerel, yellow perch, white perch, pumpkinseed, white sucker, alewife, blueback
herring, brown bullhead, golden shiner, tessellated darter, lake chubsucker and bridle shiner. A few
walleyes are occasionally taken in Long Pond River. Thanks to Mass,gov for the pond map.
I have no idea how cold or warm Long Pond gets (this chart shows what sort of fish prefer which temperatures of water, and you can sort of cross-reference what the summer water temperature may be in lakes that they inhabit), although I have read tales of released pet alligators surviving in southern Ohio.
I don't know how much fish an alligator needs. I have read that a meal goes a long way with a gator, and that a 1000 pound alligator will need less food in a year than a 100 pound dog requires.
The horror movie starts when he can't catch enough fish to survive. He might be able to snatch a deer as it gets a drink, but this isn't an Africa savannah with herds of antelope all drinking at once. Deer are also nocturnal, a time when Ali Gator would be brummating. No local animal has a defense mechanism response set for alligator attacks.
There are also families living in houses on the lake. Alligators have killed 26 Americans since 1970, and have maimed even more people. Even a 7 footer is perfectly capable of dragging away and killing a full-grown man. Alligators generally flee when humans approach, but if he's hangry or something... hey, time for some People Food!
An alligator in a Massachusetts lake with an acquired taste for human flesh would launch a bigger manhunt than a Chechnya brothers APB. We would be unable to call upon Steve Irwin. We'd have to solve this problem ourselves.
While Jessica and I are finishing up work on the South Coast Compound of our media empire, we thought that we would take to the countryside and see what we could do for you all...
This article could have had several titles. I've erased several of them myself, and Jessica vetoed one. Among those titles that we considered and discarded for one reason or another were:
"Where To Hide A Body In Eastern Massachusetts" "Where To Have A Sasquatch Run In Front Of Your Car" "Where To Teach Your Clumsy Daughter How To Drive" "Where To Smoke A Joint And Drive 27 MPH With No One Behind You" "Where To Illegally Dump Your Washing Machine" "Where Old People Who Just Now Bought The '57 Chevy That They Always Wanted Go To Drive With Elvis Playing And Not Have Modern Kids Laugh At Them" "Where UFOs Look To Scare Isolated Individuals Whom No One Will Believe" "Where To Stumble Onto A Satanic Ritual" "Where To Bet Your Car's Pink Slip On A Drag Race" "Where To Introduce The 'Put Out Or Get Out' Dating Quandary" "Where To Be Mistaken For A Deer And Shot By A Hunter" "Where To Go If You Feel Like Driving But May Have A Warrant Out For Your Arrest"
Among the contributors to this website... Stacey, who is a soccer mom, came up with "stashing a body," "Satanic ritual" and the date rape joke. Her daughter, who is in her teens, came up with the Elvis joke. Non-hunting Stephen came up with the hunting joke. Abdullah, who has no kids, came up with the Clumsy Teen Driver joke. Stephen had Stacey's "Where To Stash A Body" joke as a working title for this article before Jessica intervened.
A nice, isolated stretch of road is a wonderful thing, and it gets more and more rare every passing day. In other parts of the world and even in other parts of Massachusetts, a lonely run of street isn't a rare thing. Eastern Massachusetts isn't other parts of the world, however.
As my friend Beth once noted after leaving New Jersey, "You forget how accustomed you can be to white trash, overpopulation and air pollution."
As people diffuse throughout America, these empty spaces will become harder and harder to find. Our elderly residents can no doubt recall when somewhere with a busy mall used to be a back road to nowhere.
We all have our own reasons for seeking an isolated road to drive on. We listed some up above, you may have other reasons, and no one is here to judge you. We're just here to guide you to some cool places to drive.
We'll use some of those aborted titles as logic for including certain streets in the list, and we will also try to point out where certain practices might prove impractical. We try to be inclusive to anyone who might stumble onto our humble web page, even chronic litterers and serial killers.
So, without any further ado, we give to you but a small sample of some places you can go in our area to have the road all to yourself.
courtesy of Sara Flynn
Gurnet Road/King Arthur Road, Duxbury
I use the dual designation here because, even after growing up there for 30 years, I'm not 100% sure where Gurnet Road ends and King Arthur Road begins. Google Maps says KAR juts out just a few hundred yards from Saquish. Other people, maybe more for convenience than for authenticity, use the Powder Point Bridge as the dividing line between the two roads.
Gurnet Road implies the residential section of Duxbury Beach, while King Arthur Road would be very handy for describing the road south of the bridge. However, I'm fairly sure that it is Gurnet Road right up until you get to the actual Gurnet, at which point it gets named after the silly English king.
The differences are minimal, however. What you have here is about 5 miles of sand road, as bumpy as a golf ball, and probably the best coastal scenery in non-Cape Massachusetts. 4WD only, at least once you get to the bridge.
You can very easily pull over on this road somewhere and, if you see no approaching headlights, be pretty sure that the closest person to you would have to swim across Duxbury Bay to say "hello."
Bournedale Road, Bourne
There is no truth to the story that "Bournedale" is an Algonquian word for "Shortcut." That may have been made up by a Bournedale-area website content generator guy.
Other than a few dozen houses, Bournedale Road is uninhabited. It's little more than some gorgeous scenery, and a way for Buzzards Bay and Wareham residents to get home from Route 3 without messing around on the Scenic Highway.
This road can be fairly busy at certain times of day, but you can have it to yourself if you pick your spots.
This is a terrible road to train a teen driver on. It winds a lot, has numerous high-angle descending S curves and is lined with sofa-sized boulders right at the road's edge. It isn't a very challenging road, but it is very unforgiving.
Added bonus: The Buzzards Bay end of it has a farm stand and a horse farm.
West Wind Shores, Plymouth
Not a lot of people know about this area, as there is really no reason for anyone to use it. "If you ain't from here, you don't come here" applies to this tiny Plymouth village.
Essentially all of Plymouth 1) west of Cedarville, 2 ) south of The Ponds Of Plymouth, 3) east of Wareham and 4) north of the village of Buzzards Bay, it's a unique spot on a political map. You can fire a gun from certain spots in the area and have it be heard in 4 towns, 3 regions and 2 counties.
West Wind Shores is fed by what is either Bourne or Plymouth Road, depending on what town you're in. There are some side roads which veer off into extreme southern Plymouth's lake region.
Where the mentioned-earlier Bournedale Road is a shortcut which Wareham and Buzzards Bay people use to skip the main road traffic when coming and going from Route 3, West Wind Shores is what they use when traffic is bad enough to snarl up Bournedale Road.
If you're reading this to find a place to illegally dump a sofa, this is a bad spot. The road, perhaps owing to her shortcut status, is busier than it should be.
However, once you got the sofa off the road and into the woods a few dozen yards, even God might have trouble finding you.
Just be careful that the locals don't see you... you can get a smack for that.
Glen Charlie Road/Agawam Road, Wareham
It is somewhat interesting to note that of the first four or five roads we mentioned, only Duxbury's contribution is not in a fairly linear run of roads, separated by mere meters of forest.
West Wind Shores, Bournedale Road, the College Pond Roads and Agawam Road are really only kept apart by there being no real need for a shortcut from an isolated Plymouth lakes village to an isolated Wareham one. They wouldn't be isolated if they cut out a road to them, right?
Some people, myself included, even pay to be isolated.
The Myles Standish State Forest and her adjoining regions provide a great portion of the areas we'll explore in this article. It's the Swamp Yankee hinterlands.
Glen Charlie Road, while sticking out into the middle of nowhere, isn't that isolated. If you really need to pour some lime on a former human, you want to veer off onto Agawam Road.
I have no idea who Glen Charlie is/was. I know the road is named after Glen Charlie Pond, which used to just be called Glen Pond. If you know, hit us up in the comments.
Lower/Upper College Pond Road, Carver/Plymouth
That's actually Barrett Pond, not one of the College Ponds. It's off one of the College Pond Roads, so it's good enough.
These roads punch into the Myles Standish State Forest, and you can pretty much go from Carver to the Pinehills on them.
This one is the #1 seed if we break this down to brackets. It is one of or perhaps the only road that goes through the seasonally uninhabited MSSF region. The MSSF makes neighboring towns like Plympton or Freetown look like the lights of Paris.
There are probably some serial killers in the region who have buried two or three generations of victims in this area.
This is as much road as you can have to yourself in Eastern Massachusetts, to my knowledge. It would be awesome for a very brief and hotly-contested NASCAR race. I might have to make some calls.
Old Indian Trail, Marion
This road isn't that long, but it does have the look that we were seeking. I was creeped out driving down it, and it was 2 in the afternoon. There was definitely a chance of Yeti Attack on this street.
There is no Young Indian Trail in Marion, or anywhere that I'm aware of. That might be in regular India.
This was our bumpiest road, and you wouldn't want to try it with an open beer or mixed drink. It's not the road to try in a Dodge Stratus. There were a few potholes on this road in which, if it rained, you could float a battleship around. If your girl isn't having any nonsense and you both know it, this road will at least bounce her around a bit. You gotta take what you can get sometimes, player.
Fortunately, we only needed to go 20 yards from the last house on the street to get the shot above. We went deeper, but that shot did the trick.
Quanapoag Road, Freetown/ Braley Hill Road, Lakeville
There's actually a road or two between Q Road and Braley Hill Road, but the differences will only matter to locals.
This is actually a very nice drive through some beautiful Lakes country. If you're here looking for nice country drives as opposed to somewhere to get rid of a refrigerator, you can do a lot worse. I intend to return with a camera next October, during foliage season.
After researching this project- which for some time had the title Where To Bury A Body In Eastern Massachusetts- one thought kept hitting me. Whitey Bulger used to dump bodies on the banks of the Neponset River. He was about 100 yards from one of America's main highways. He must have been able sit on his own balls.
I suppose some audacity is a must in his line of work, and nobody knew the dark spots of the town better than Whitey Bulger... but we'd be driving 10 minutes in isolation on some roads without being 100% sure that we could get a (theoretical) body out of the trunk and into the ground without being seen, even in a Nowhere Land like Lakeville.
That's why I got into Journalism, folks. I just murder time. Mine, yours, Jessica's... whatever pays.
Lingan Street, Halifax
The lakes region of the interior South Shore has been used as a dumping ground by numerous killers. The killers that I'm aware of used the Chaffin Reservoir in Pembroke and Bartlett's Pit in Pembroke instead of the wastelands at the end of Lingan Street in Halifax. They also got caught.
This road punches through the swamplands on the south side of West Monponsett Lake. It ends at a former campground, if you are willing to circumvent some gates. It looks exactly like where they should have based the Friday The 13th movie.
I used to teach in the city, and I'd take my little Hood Rats out into this area for field trips. Several of my students, far more used to an urban environment, were nervous about being in such a remote area... even in broad daylight.
"This is the s**t where Michael Myers kills all those white girls," one kid from Roxbury told me. "Black people have more sense than to go to places like this." I really couldn't argue with him.
I used to date a girl from Lingan Street. "Date" may be the wrong term, as I do believe that she could barely stand me. She looked like she could scrap some, too. I'm probably lucky that I'm not pushing up daisies at the end of Lingan Street.
Thompson Street, Middleboro/Halifax
You know that you're in the boondocks when you can host drag races on one of the main roads (Route 105, nonetheless) in this area without getting caught or endangering innocents.
I don't want to say that I have gone out early on Sunday morning and seen crude START/FINISH lines painted a quarter mile apart on a straightaway here... but would you look at that, I just said it!
This road is also full of farms. It's a great place to buy flowers, as well as a great place to go if you have never seen a cow in person.
Much like that Camp Murder from the Lingan Street section of this article, this is another spot that I used to field trip my city students to when I lived in Monponsett. Even a genuinely dangerous thug student becomes a cute 7 year old when he sees farm animals for the first time.
This is a beautiful road for the most part. I just shot the scariest part of it.
Will's Work Road, Mashpee
I fished WWR off of Facebook suggestions, and we here at CCM thank the readers for their help.
We'll use WW Road (which I didn't feel like driving to) and this awful screen cap to illustrate a few things this list is looking for.
It's easier if you highlight "Will's Work Road" and Google up the map, but we can see enough here for the basics.
Isolated area? A beach? A marsh? No houses? Minimum expectation of police interference, perhaps a border area of two towns? Plenty of road? Chance of wildlife? In our coverage area?
Will's Work Road, off of Waquoit Bay meets all of those criteria. She'll hold a nice rank on this list if we decide to get competitive.
Oyster Way/Seapuit River Road/Indian Trail, Osterville
This is another reader submission, much obliged!
Oyster Way has a lot of the same features that Will's Work Road enjoys, such as a tidal bay, some nice road to work with and a lot of forest cover.
Working among the wealthy neighborhoods entails a certain set of risks. For starters, you have to get by a gate. Also, the kind of guy who is disposing of a washing machine illegally might stand out in Osterville. Calls to the police will be investigated promptly. There is the chance of video surveillance.
Added bonus: After burying that body, why not unwind with 18 holes at the neighboring Oyster Harbors Golf Club? Not a member? Hey, you've already buried one body today, why shirk at adding a bothersome golf course employee onto your tab with God? God may even take your side on it, there is little guidance in the Bible concerning golf etiquette.
Big ups for being the second Indian Trail to make the list.
Service Road, Sandwich
You could actually classify this as anything between Sandwich and Shootflying Hill in Centerville.
This one requires a Bulger level of testicular fortitude, as you are 50 feet from Route 6 when doing whatever it is that you're up to. However, with the cover of darkness, some foliage... may as well be the deepest, darkest part of the forest, right?
It can also be highly-used, and that usage can spike unexpectedly if there is an accident on Route 6 and people start seeking alternate routes.
This is a nice, safe road that is fine for teaching the teen to drive on. However, the people you do encounter there may be in a great hurry.
Navigation Road, West Barnstable
The Cape is dotted with fire roads, roads that were abandoned after hurricane flooding, Indian trails and service roads. The minor width of the Cape prevents you from getting too isolated, but it can be done... especially in the off-season.
On this road I visualize a guy with every possible sort of infraction on his driving record who just needs "Deer Strike" to win a sort of Irish Lottery with the insurers.
Don't let the name of the road intimidate you... it's a straight line. "Forward" is all the navigation you'll need.
This was another FB suggestion, many thanks! The comments around the FB suggestion include "I drove down there, and my gas tank fell off the car."
Collins Road, Truro
This was the stomping grounds for the Beast Of Truro, who tore up a bunch of livestock in 1981-82.
The Pamet Puma was neither caught nor identified. There were numerous sightings, including one by a Truro policeman.
Some people said it was a pack of dogs, some thought it was a cougar, some thought it was a monster like The Beast Of Bray Road.
He eventually just went away... or did he?
If a monster, mythical or not, roamed your road... your road is going to be on this list, my friend.
Bonus:
Not Massachusetts, but here's what Stanley Kubrick did with the Isolated Road theme....
We hoped you enjoyed.... here's some more Duxbury, Plymouth and Halifax , below...
via Kerri Yanovitch Smith
Did we leave any roads out that deserve to be on this list? Let us know!
Keep in mind... Al Capone died in his bed, albeit in a jail cell. Jeffery Dahmer only got the death penalty because it was meted out by a prisoner. Charles Manson still draws breath, the Tsarnaev kid is still kicking, Whitey Bulger will most likely die of old age and Sirhan Sirhan still applies for parole.
However, America saw fit to put Thomas Granger up on the gallows.
I first became aware of his case when someone was trying to identify the grave of Myles Standish. They narrowed it down to a pair of graves, and even got some ground-penetrating sonar to make sure that they had a short guy (Standish, although more man than most, was about 5 feet tall). They then dug up the body, and because it didn't have some old Standish leg injury, they knew that they had mistakenly disinterred the previously-unknown grave of the kid who was put to death for, and I quote from memory via the Duxbury Reporter article from the late 1980s, "having gained carnal knowledge of the Brewster livestock."
Granger's crime? "Buggery with a mare, a cow, two goats, divers sheepe, two calves, and a turkey." He was caught in the act, with a horse.
E-I-E-I... Oh!
We're delving into Buggery (aka Bestiality, a term not invented in 1642) today because Granger is one of my homeboys, from Duxbury.
Granger was the second person (after murderer John Billington, of Billington Sea fame) to be put to death by the Europeans in 'Merica, and he was the first juvenile to go up a rope. He was an indentured servant to Love Brewster, and was 16 or 17 years old. He didn't make 18.
Granger's 1642 sentence came straight from Leviticus, and, in keeping with the Bible's commands, the animals that he tenderized with the Meat Hammer were slaughtered in front of him. They were then buried, with no use being made of any of them. After that, they had a Thomas Granger necktie party.
There was probably a 0.0% chance of a casual sexual encounter for a white-slave farm hand in Puritan America, and even The Scarlet Letter (based in the same 1642 year that the Granger trial was) story had to be based in the more hard-partying Massachusetts Bay Colony. History is quite clear on what happened in Colonial Plymouth when you let the freak flag fly freely, friend.
Plymouth was Freak City in America for a while, and probably shamed Sodom on a per capita basis. John Walker was tried but released on charges of "laying with a bitch." It could have been a dog or a lewd women (both uses for "bitch" were common in 1642), history doesn't specify. William Honeywell skated in 1655 on a Buggery case when no evidence could be put against him.
Thomas Saddeler lost a Buggery case in 1681, but he avoided the death penalty by being branded with a P (for Pollution) on his forehead. He also had to sit atop the gallows with a rope around his neck, to remind him that he was getting off easily. Saddeler, ironic name joke coming, was caught buggering a horse.
People tend to think of the Colonial-type people as dour, prudes, and sexless. However, they did have children, and that involves sex. Now, this was pre-YouTube, and Larry Flynt's great-great-great grandfather was still a few hundred years from being born, but love will find a way. Granger has a resume that would shame any modern porn star, and he built it up 375 years before Sinn Sage was born.
To keep it Duxbury for a bit, let's examine the case of Mary Mendame, of "Duxburrow." She snuck off on her hubby one day a whole bunch of days when what I shall call Forest Fever took over, and she entered into a dalliance with Tinsin, a local Wampanoag with a taste for The Other White Meat. There were numerous and, yes, diverse dalliances, and "the act of uncleanness was committed."
Mary was lashed for these dalliances, and was forced to wear some sort of scarlet letter thingy. If she was caught without it, she was to be burned in the face with a hot iron. Tinsin, who drew some sympathy as the seductee, just got whipped with a halter for going Five Hole on the colonial cutie.
The Native Americans come up if you research this topic, but they also come off looking pretty conservative. Colonists were amazed to learn that rape wasn't a part of Native American culture, and that they didn't rape their war prisoners. To my knowledge, there was only one instance of a Native raping anyone of any tribe or ancestry.
"Sam, The Indian" was convicted of raping Sarah Freeman in 1682. Rape was one of three crimes (murder, rape, and I'm assuming Buggery... Adultery too, but the Big A dropped down into the minor leagues by the 1680s) that had the death penalty back then, but Sam,who was noted to have "limited capacity," was given some slack because they very progressively felt that he may not have been aware of the concept of rape. "Given some slack" in this case means a lashing and exile.
Sam pulled off one of two rapes recorded in early Colonial history. The other case involved Ambrose Fish and a Lydia Fish. Ambrose escaped the gallows because there was only one witness (Lydia), and Ambrose refused to confess. He got a whipping instead. Ambrose and Lydia, of Sandwich, may have been brother/sister. It beats a sheep, I suppose...
Now, we started off with the heavy freak stuff for a reason. I don't think that too many people these days would bemoan the execution of a rapist, and a good beating is probably what a buggerer needs more than anything but therapy. I feel badly for Tinsin, but American blacks were being lynched for lesser interracial sexual "offenses" 300 years after Tinsin skated with a whipping. The Pilgrims don't really look that extreme at this point.
Where the colonists start looking somewhat overbearing is when they start judging less-spectacular sexual offenses. If the big three are murder, rape and buggery, there is a decided second tier of fornication, adultery, homosexuality, propositioning and a sort of shepherd's pie of lesser offenses like "frequently kisses a woman who is not his wife," "fails to be properly motivated to find a wife," and "enjoying a quick scrappe."
OK, I made up that last one. I found no information on solo flights (Woody Allen, when told he was a great lover, replied "I practice a lot when I'm alone."), but I'm also doing concurrent researchin/writin'. I'll rely heavily on a research paper that I stumbled across.
Adultery, as you recall (if I'm right), is what the "A" that Hester Prynne had to wear stood for. Puritans viewed Adultery as any sex act with a married or betrothed person who you weren't married or betrothed to.
Adultery was viewed as worse than Fornication, as marriages often involved a dowry that could make or break a family. Leviticus demands death for the A, but Deuteronomy provides a little wiggle room if the woman protests during the shagging. However, the onus of the punishment fell on women for their infidelity against their husband, because Dark Ages.
There were 9 cases of Adultery brought up in colonial Plymouth courts. Three involved straight philandering, three were brought up by someone seeking divorce, one was Tinsin and Mary Mendame, Two were "other," and I saw a reference to "whoredom."
Anne Linceford was caught riding the D Train with Thomas Bray when Mr. Linceford was out on the town. They were sentenced to lashings in both Plymouth, where the court was, and Yarmouth, where the deed went down. Anne had to wear an AD scarlet lettering (they feared that just an "A" would be taken by people as if she was wearing it for "Anne," like LaVerne DeFazio used to do with her "L" sweaters), for ADultery.
Katheren Aimes also got a two-town lashing for doing the shagnasty with William Paule, getting tiiiiied to the whippin' post in both Plymouth and Taunton. She also had a scarlet B, for (I think) Behavior. Aimes' husband, who may have abandoned her, was also punished, and did some time in the stocks.
Many times, the proof of Adultery was in the form of a baby. Mary Attkinson and John Bucke were charged with Adultery that resulted in a child. They weren't even sure if Mr. Attkinson was alive when Mary got Bucke Wild. They each paid a ten-pound fine and avoided a whipping.
Other cases involved sailors/whalers being gone for a year, coming home to their wives, and somehow having a newborn baby in a crib.
People were feeling the Bern even in 1681, when John Glover petitioned for divorce from Mary Glover because she took pipe from another man and then infected her hubby "with that filthy & noysome disease called the pox."
In some cases, even where divorce for Adultery was granted, the woman was not punished. Perhaps they felt that the shame was enough punishment, who knows?
Fornication was sex outside of the covenant of marriage. A baby being born 4 months after a hastily-arranged wedding was enough to merit a whipping and a scarlet letter.
A mutually-pleasing 69 cases of fornication were brought before Plymouth courts in the colonial era. They actually have some stats for this, which appeals to the fantasy-football geek in me. 48% involved people who were never married. 46% involved people who were not married or betrothed, but who eventually (and perhaps at the end of a musket) were betrothed, and 6% involved people who had entered into a wedding contract and just couldn't wait until the wedding to hit skins.
Punishment was generally a fine or a whipping, but they played it case-by-case. John Tompson paid a five shilling fine and skipped imprisonment for an out-of-marriage hippy hippy shake. Jane Powell, who put in work with a fellow servant, had her name cleared, as she was "in a sadd and miserable condition," and thought that the servant would marry her. Sarah Ensigne, convicted of whoredom, got the worse than usual penalty of being "whipt att cart's taile." Thomas Burge got a double-whipping for his sack time with Lydia Gaunt.
In fornication cases, it was not unusual for a man to get corporal punishment while the woman got a fine or a scarlet letter.
Two cases of Incest were recorded. Both were Daddy's Little Girl cases. Thomas Atkins was whipped in 1660 for propositioning his daughter Mary while drunk. Martha Hewitt's 1689 baby-sans-father was blamed on her own father, especially when Mary threw her name in the gully by refusing to name the baby's daddy. Pops skated when some paperwork was lost.
"Attempts and Propositions" sounds like where Patrick Bateman works, but it was a crime in Plimoth. You couldn't just walk up on a girl and go "Yo baby, wassup?" in 1650. Plymouth courts had 15 such cases in Funny Hat times.
John Pecke was fined fifty shillings for not leaving a maid alone. Edward Crowell and James Maker were lucky to slide with a four-pound fine after trying to break into a house while the man was at sea and demanding sex from his wife and sister.
My favorite was "Richard Turtall... presented to the court ... for laciuiouse carriage toward Ann Hudson, the wife of John Hudson, in taking hold of her coate and inticing her by words, as alsoe by taking out his instrument of nature that hee might prevaile to lye with her in her owne house" History does not record his punishment.
The oldest profession was practiced in New England, but at least one web page says that it wasn't as bad as we think it was. Of course, that page is called Doing The Nasty In Colonial America. False charges of whoredom were common, and could be made without a scrap of evidence. A charge of whoredom could be used as an economic weapon against females who owned property.
The type of rampant prostitution that you see in Jack The Ripper specials was more of an Industrial Revolution-era thing, and tended to be urban in nature. However, there are always women of the trade working any town where sailors come ashore.
There were a few cases of Child Support that made it to court, at least indirectly. In one case, Nathaniel Soule was sentenced to both a lashing and a child-support payment of ten bushels of Indian Corn. The payee, a Wampanoag girl, was also whipped for Fornication. A similar punishment was meted out to a male slave, who was assigned an 18 pence per week payment to a female slave named "Bonny" for one year, to be put to the maintenance of a child.
"Lascivious and Suspicious Conduct" could mean a lot of things, often where intercourse could not be proven. Hugh and Mary Cole were fined for LaSC, but the court could not prove Fornication. Johnathan Hatch and Frances (or Francis) Crippin escaped from being busted in a mutual extramarital affair with a warning for Hatch to stay away from the Crippin household. Ann Savory (awesome name) had to sit in the stocks just for being drunk in public with a man who she was not betrothed to.
LaSC was also used to persecute homosexuals of any gender. The wife of Hugh Norman and a Mary Haimmon were caught in bed together. No lashings went down, but Mrs.Norman (and maybe Mary Haimmon, I couldn't find her punishment) was forced to make a statement before the court.
So, in the end, those Pilgrims weren't so boring after all.
What kills the fast food lifestyle for many is the paucity of choices. You have the King, you have Wendy, and you have Ronald. If your town or mall rules, you may also have a KFC or a Taco Bell... maybe even both in one store! The presence of a KFC/Taco Bell nearby was a selling point for me when I moved to Buzzards Bay, although this was before I met Jessica and started getting food that comes from the stove and so forth. A man can get used to that.
