Send In The Clowns

from ABC

Massachusetts is now in the full grip of Creepy Clown hysteria.  You don't have to go on Facebook very long to see that there is most likely a clown working your area. It's only October 4th, so it's probably going to get creepier and creepier until Halloween.

Reports of clowns, some of which are hoaxes, are turning up in New Bedford, Brockton, Wareham, Rehoboth (RPD is denying it), Agawam, Weymouth, Plymouth and God knows where else. Merrimack College was actually locked down after a report (that later turned out to be false) concerning an armed clown roaming the campus. There are too many sightings, too far apart, for it to be the work of one clown.

It speaks of a Clown-spiracy.

Clowns run the gamut from friendly ones like Bozo to sad ones like Pagliacci to scary fictional ones like Pennywise to outright IRL serial killers like John Wayne Gacy. You could bump into WWE personality Doink the Clown, although I think the wrestler who played him is dead. They can even be a Juggalo, who are followers of the Insane Clown Posse. You have no way of knowing which type you're meeting, although if you meet one on a side street at 1 AM, he's probably not out looking for Mayor McCheese.

Clowns scare us in ways that other circus performers don't. I have seen not one report of, say, an acrobat or a lion tamer roaming the streets of Brockton. Maybe it's the face paint, maybe it's the capering, maybe it's the frozen deathly rictus... either way, I'm down with the clown like the guy in Repo Man felt about cops... "I ain't got nothin' against no cop.. I just like it better when they aren't around."

Folklorist/cryptozoologist Loren Coleman is largely responsible for both publicizing the 1981 cases in Massachusetts where clowns tried to lure children into cars, and for keeping the concept of RL creepy clowns in the public eye. He's been saying that the phenomena is coming back, and everyone laughed.... but the only one laughing now is Loren Coleman.

Keep in mind that many of these clown sightings are going down in the Bridgewater Triangle, which is another theory of Coleman's.

So, it's just early October, and the creepy clowns are out in full force. The clown craze is already larger than life, so it's not going away. That leaves you with the question of "Well, what can I do about it?"

Here are some tips that just may save you from a ghastly death at the gloved hands of a Killer Clown.

- Dress like a clown. I say this because I'm using Zombie Apocalypse Logic... you never see Zombies fighting each other. They have some instinct that makes one walk right past the other. Maybe clowns are like that... or maybe you and Pennywise can have a turf dispute. OK, maybe this idea sucks.

- Watch out for little cars. Clowns like to pack themselves into small cars like hybrids or VW Beetles. There's no comic value to fitting 12 clowns into a H2 or a Chevy Suburban. Sh*t, I've done that a few times. If you're on a dark side street and hear laughter or bicycle horns coming from a Toyota Yarris... well, you're probably already dead.

- If a clown chases you, try to run in areas with narrow paths. Clowns tend to wear big shoes, you see... there's no shame in surviving a clown chase only because Ronald got his foot snagged under a tree limb. You'd think that a guy with size 16 feet would have better Huge Shoes jokes, but I'm a bit under the weather this morning and have very little in the tank.

- In the Six Day War, the Israelis gained a war-winning advantage by staging a pre-emptive assault on the rival nation's air forces. Before the war was an hour old, the Sons of David owned the skies, and Syria/Egypt/Jordan/whoever suffered mightily for it. Do not be afraid of launching a pre-emptive strike against the clowns. Make-up stores, joke shops, even a circus.... you just have to know what to look for, and not be afraid to kill.

- Clown weaponry tends to lean towards the absurd. You notice that The Joker rarely kills with a gun. In fact, if a clown pulls a gun on you, it will most likely have that little BANG! flag pop out of it. At worst, it shoots out a boxing glove. Also be wary of lapel flowers that spray acid, 30000 volt electric joy buzzer handshakes, crowbars, and weapons that have "guaranteed to level Gotham City" written on the box.

- Girl clowns are always sexy, but the sex appeal is just a clown trick. Girl clowns may act like they love you, but their heart belongs to whatever clown first got them to put on the make-up. Harley Quinn always goes back to the Joker, even though Batman is worth a billion dollars and is built like a Greek God. Harley usually tries to do Batman in, rather than do Batman up.

- Every police department in town is going to issue warnings that the Clown Fear is just mass hysteria and that you shouldn't worry yourself over it. Don't believe them. Many of these warnings will actually be put out by the clowns themselves, in order to lure innocents into Fairhaven or Rehoboth or wherever the cops say "Don't Worry" the most. It's a lot like Thoreau once wrote... "The more vehemently that he spoke of his honor, the more closely that I watched the silverware."  I only half-remember the quote, but the point is what matters.

- If you do decide to kill a clown without a trial, don't forget to Double Tap them. I can't tell you how many horror movies I've seen where someone knocks over Michael Myers, thinks he's dead, and then gets an axe to the dome about one murderer sit-up later. Don't go out like a sucker.

 - In the same vein, remember that- should you take out a gun- a clown who runs is definitely an evil clown. A clown who begs for his life is a really sneaky evil clown.

- With "clown" sure to be among the top Hallowen costumes this year, it will be very easy for true Evil Clowns to mix in among the trick-or-treaters. Always know how many kids are in your trick-or-treating groups, and if you come up with one extra when you count heads, be wary. Also, if you go out with 4 little children and- at some point- the kid who was dressed as a Minion is now dressed as an evil clown... well, you're probably already dead. These odds go up if the clown-child is the newly-discovered fifth kid, and he's now six foot four.

- Legend has it that once a man kills while dressed as a clown, he can never get the make-up off. It's sort of what happened to Lady MacBeth. Killer Clowns can only look human again by taking out even more make-up. So, if you see an otherwise normal person with a touch of pure white on his skin, you should probably kill him first and wonder if he just ate a powdered sugar donut later.

- There are no Black, Asian or Latino clowns. Clownery (?) is like hockey to these people. If you see a black guy dressed as a clown, he's probably Canadian and doesn't count.

South Shore Saturday Storm Surf Shots

We had a steady East wind yesterday, so we took to the road to see how local beaches were looking. This decision was greatly influenced by me having nothing to do.

We started off in Scituate, because.. well, why not Scituate? I know people who say that you shouldn't start anywhere but Scituate. I wanted to be in Scituate before high tide, be in Marshfield for high tide, and then just move back towards Cape Cod until the wave pics started to get weak.

My girl has taken a few waves to the face, I'm sure. Having your house look like the front bow of a ship is pure New England Coastal, player. I lack the skills as a writer to tell you how cool this guy's house is.

The wind wasn't too bad, and the surf is nothing worthy of a George Clooney movie. Like I said, I had some free time.

Anyone who grew up on a beach knows that this is an incoming wave that got smacked up by a wave ahead of it that was rebounding off of the seawall. I was in Marshfield by this point, and it was high tide. I was very pleased to see that I still have the instinct where I know when a wave will throw water over the wall, and managed to get behind the car door before this wave soaked everyone who was watching it with me.

Marshfield was fun, as there was some splashover happening. It was a change, being soaked by the waves instead of the rain. I had to change clothes not once but twice getting the pics for this article, but that's how I roll, people. If you're the family who came around the corner of the Pavilion while I was changing at Duxbury Beach.... the giant nude guy says "Sorry." I also apologize to the commenter on a previous article who noted that I tend to tilt the horizon on my shots. I've been working on that, but sometimes the wind wins.

There were no lifeguards on duty at Duxbury Beach yesterday. I did hook the seagull up with some of my turkey sandwich, just in case you think that I don't compensate my models. I don't think that Green harbor was that foggy, I was having a lot of trouble getting even one shot off without the camera lens getting spotted up by the rain. I have a rotten camera, and the lifeguard chair shouldn't be looking that good when the housing behind it looks that bad.

Duxbury has to do this to the seawall boat-ramp opening because the ocean smashed through 6 inch thick hardwood planks when they used to use those. If they don't put that iron plate there, this opening births an ocean river flowing into a residential neighborhood.

I usually shoot the residential part of Duxbury Beach, but I really didn't feel like getting out of the car if I could avoid it. I was soaked. I went to the Bath House, but I ended up having to get out of the car anyhow. As you have probably guessed, I got soaked.

What happens if you assume a bad Cuban accent and yell "Hey, Pelican!!" at a heron over and over.... at least that's what happens on Duxbury 's marshes. 

Plymouth, Cedarville to be precise, was our next stop. I poached my way into the White Hills Country Club for some above-the-fray shooting. This is from around where their 18th hole is,  That rock structure is called a Groyne.

Even small waves erode the heck out of those sand cliffs. That's why they are willing to risk the goofing that comes with installing a Groyne. 

Cape Cod Canal... this is a jetty, not a groyne.

Sagamore gets maximum barrier beach protection from Cape Cod.

Sandwich looked pretty calm from where I was standing. Time to wrap it up.

October Surprise? East Coast Tropical Storm Late Next Week?

Now, we're more than a week away from when we'd need to be worrying about this, but we don't like to have anything sneak up on our readers.

Tropical Storm Matthew formed just east of the Windward Islands today. He's already a very powerful storm, at around 60 MPH. He should blow through the islands tonight and tomorrow, and then move between Hispaniola and South America over the weekend.

The water in this area is very warm, and Matthew should intensify. What he does after that is a bit of a mystery.

The European models drag it into either Florida or the Gulf of Mexico. Not our problem. The GFS model puts it on a run up the Eastern Seaboard. That can be a problem.

It's a problem that looks like this:

Now, we're dealing with a system that is over a week away, and there is a lot of disagreement among the geeks as to what happens to where and when.

There is also this weekend's rainstorm in Massachusetts, which could serve to drag Matthew up here as it pulls away from us.

Even if the storm takes a run up the East Coast, it could hit any Confederate coast state, the DelMarva area or even New Jersey. All of them are more likely to get it than us.

October hurricanes, while unusual, are not without precedent. The Halloween Gale, aka the Perfect Storm, hit at the end of the month.

If it does target us, the due date would be Thursday/Friday.

Here are the zillion spaghetti charts:

Hillary/Trump Debate Drinking Game

Donald vs Hillary! Debate time!

Will the former First Lady bury Donald in a blizzard of Wonk? Will Donald's world-swallowing charisma be too much to overcome?

Either way, this website encourages you to view this as a playoff game. You should be heavily into the firewater well before the opening salvo is fired.

You'll need that booze, because it's time to play the Debate Drinking Game!

I used to play Love Boat when I was in high school. Everyone gets a character, and you drink every time your character is on the screen. Everyone drinks if either A) they show the boat, or B) Issac is on the screen. This game, as awesome as it is, won't work for a two person debate.

The debate drinking game is ideally played between two ideological opposites. Both the liberal and the conservative should be able to drink as much as the other. However, you can play it with two libbers, or two rednecks.

Simply put, you each choose a side, and you have to drink when certain keywords come up, or when certain conditions are met, or when certain incidents occur. It might actually be fun for the liberal to choose Donald Trump or vice versa with the conservative and Killary.

I'm using beers and shots, with the shots reserved for special conditions. If you don't drink and favor THC, you can use bong hits and dabs, saving the dabs for the more serious transgressions. If you're a straight-edge fan of this column, try some BDSM thing with cuffs, whips and the strapper.

Either way, we're going to score it with alcohol. Here are the criteria:

* Hillary comes out in a pantsuit, one sip for the liberal

* Donald's tie is red, white or blue, one sip for the con

* Donald declines on saying "Madame Secretary," and refers to her by her first name... one sip, con

* Hillary says "The Donald.".. one sip for the lib.

* Hill'ry suffers a Katniss-style fall as she walks out... one shot for the lib

* Donald declines a pre-debate handshake.... one shot for the con

* Bill Clinton is attending, and he's sitting with a young woman who isn't Chelsea... one sip, lib

* Donald's wife is shown, and her dress shows cleavage... one sip for the con

* Donald dodges a tough question by insulting the moderator... one sip, con

* Hillary tries a joke, and it bombs like the Enola Gay... one sip, lib

* Which comes first, a "Crooked Hillary" or a "Deplorable?"... CH, one sip con, D, one sip lib

* Who gets brought up first, George Bush II or Monica Lewinsky? GB/lib, ML/con

* Donald slips and utters a racial slur.. one shot, con

* Hillary faints on stage... one shot. lib

* Who gets heckled by someone in the crowd first? Trump, one shot lib... Hillary, one shot con

* You see a black Trump supporter in the crowd... one sip, con

* You see a woman in Islamic dress with a Hillary sign. one sip, lib

* Trump throws a joke at Hillary, and she bests it with a comeback... one sip, Con

* Hillary infers that Trump is wearing a wig... one sip, lib

* Someone in the crowd is dressed as a wall... one shot, con

* Donald says "You're not even your husband's first choice"... one shot, lib

* Hillary points out that Donald has 5 kids from 3 wives... one shot, con

* Donald makes a cigar reference... one shot, lib

* Hillary dodges an email question... one shot, lib

* Donald shows that he's not 100% sure where Syria is... one shot, con

* Hillary has a coughing fit... one shot, lib

* Donald claims that managing a wrestler at Wrestlemania makes him qualified to lead our military... one shot, con

* Donald makes the moderator laugh... one sip, lib

* Donald has to be corrected by the moderator... one shot, con

* Who interrupts who first? Trump, one sip con... HC, one sip lib

* Hillary claims credit for killing Osama bin Laden... one sip, lib

* Hillary utters the words "game show"... one sip, con

* Hillary mentions Liz Warren... one sip, con

* Donald answers it with a Fake Indian line... one sip, lib

* What comes up first, Hillary's email or Trump University? Email, one sip lib,,, scam U, one sip con

* Donald infers that Hillary is killing people who get in her way... one sip, con

* Hillary says Donald's tie is made in China, Trump turns it over, and it says MADE IN USA.. one sip, lib

* Hillary bombs with a Donald Duck reference... one sip, lib

* Trump says "Killary."... one sip, con

* Hillary does a Trump impression, one sip, con

* Trump does a Bill Clinton impression... one sip, lib

* Hillary promises free college for all... one shot, lib

* Donald talks about his dick... one shot, con

* What comes up first, Trump Steaks or Vince Foster? TS, one shot con, VF, one shot, lib

* Hillary promises a minimum wage hike...one shot, lib

* Donald promises a land war in Asia... one shot, con

* Who gets called a rapist first... Bill Clinton or Julian Assange? BC, one shot lib, JA, one shot con

* First celebrity reference? HC, one sip lib.. Trump, one sip con

* Who gets booed first? HC, lib, DT, con

* Anytime the flag is shown full-screen, both opponents drink to the health of the other.

The Messiah Cometh?

Gimme a T! Gimme a second T!

The New England Patriots have one game to play before Tom Brady comes back. They have two other QBs, but they both have suffered Injury and can not play. They may trot one out and risk permanent injury, or they can pursue other options.

Matt Cassell used to play for us, but he's backing up Marcus Mariota in Tennessee. Ryan "MC" Mallett is serving a similar role in Baltimore. Neither team is going to bail us out by cutting one of these men so that he can help win a game for a conference rival.

I'm not keen on playing Julian Edelman at QB, as there seems to be a Madden Curse/Foxboro Triangle effect on those who would replace Tom Brady. We need him catching passes and being tackled by little cornerbacks, not throwing passes and being hit by 340 pound Danny Shelton.

There is this one guy, he played some QB back in the day. He played for Belichick before, and he knows the Josh McDaniels offense. He is a phenomenal athlete and a model citizen, so we don't have to worry about him showing up with a beer gut or a cocaine hangover after killing someone. I'm sure that the New York Mets won't mind him freelancing a bit. He's not the best QB in the world, but neither is Julian Edelman, with the difference being that I couldn't tolerate seeing Edelman get hurt playing QB. He won the only NFL playoff game he took part in, against the Steelers, too. Most importantly, he has plenty of free time.

If you took his very famous name off of the jersey, would you NOT want an experienced QB, familiar with the offense, used to throwing at Gronk and Edelman, who you know is in top shape? You don't even have to worry about hurting his feelings when you cut him the instant that Tom Brady is street-legal again. He'd know he was in it for one game.

There's really no other choice. God himself commands it.

They have to call Tim Tebow.

Bourne Cheerleading Squad Aiming High

My friends and I would like to welcome Bourne's new cheerleading coach Tara Baker to town!

Coach Tara's mission is to transform Bourne's cheerleading squad into a regional powerhouse. Hey, maybe even national... you don't have to watch many cheerleader movies to understand that a wise man never underestimates cheerleaders.

My contacts at Bourne High School tell me that Bourne once had a championship cheer program, but that cheerleading stalled there over the years.

Cheerleading has traditionally been viewed as more of a hobby than a sport. People tend to ascribe a Queen-style Stomp Stomp CLAP simplicity to cheerleader routines, when the reality is far different.

Girls Sports are vastly underestimated by the general public these days. I do it myself, and a man who actually has looked at numbers all day should know better. A reporter who has evolved past viewing girl's sports as a sort of Pillow Fight is still very capable of answering "Football, wrestling, hockey, maybe lax" when asked to list dangerous high school sports.

In reality, the stats I'm looking at show a top three of Lacrosse, Football and Baseball/Softball. Girls play two of those, and girls even get on the football team now and then. The rest of the top 10 are Gymnastics, Soccer, Hockey, Track/X-country, Swimming/Diving and Basketball. Girls play every one of those sports, and comprise the majority of our gymnasts. If you throw in sports played outside of school, add in bikes, skateboards and trampolines.

It's shocking that Wrestling didn't make the top 10, as the object of Wrestling is to rough somebody up with the Black Widow or whatever they call wrestling moves that aren't on TV. Even more shocking is the fact that Cheerleading ranks 4th on this list.

Depending on the methodology of your stats, Cheerleading ranks higher. If you go by Catastrophic Injury, cheerleading accounts for 65% of injuries to girls in high school sports.

Again, the days of shaking the pom-poms while spelling out the school name are about 35 years in the past up here, maybe further down South where cheerleading is more prominent.

Cheerleaders work in a realm of flips, splits, leaps, catches, throws (you're more likely to get thrown in the air as a cheerleader than as a wrestler) and spins. As near as I can tell, they do their routines on either hardwood, meadow-style grass or- if your school has a football field with the Track lanes circling it- asphalt. The only surface you might survive a fall onto without suffering injury- grass- is pretty much the worst base that you can ask for to do dance/throws on.

Cheerleaders occupy a unique niche in school sports where, while doing their own sport, they can be injured by someone doing a whole other sport nearby. I've seen cheerleaders hit by pucks, run over by linebackers and bonked off the back of the head with a basketball. Only the team that practices near the javelin-throwers are in worse danger from such injury.

So, if you take into account the risk involved, cheerleaders are among the bravest athletes in the school. When you throw in the noble intent of cheering for their school, there is much respect due.

Coach Tara knows all of this.  Her girls will know it soon, too.

She will instill a program at Bourne that will make Cheerleaders out of these girls. They will be in great shape. I went to one practice, and they did splits and stretches and more push-ups than I've done in my life. They will drill their moves until they get them right (the best way to lower that injury risk that we led off with), and they will eventually act as One.

The team also has Tara's ex-military husband overseeing the training, so the cheerleaders won't be doing any sloppy push-ups without getting a R. Lee Ermey-style earful. Just kidding, he actually seems very nice.

They are going to need to be in good shape, because Coach Tara plans to have this team at competition level.

She has experience as a national champion cheerleader, and she has been coaching for 20 years. Her teams have won championships with her coaching. Now, she's bringing her talents to Bourne.

The kids deserve a good coach. They formed a cheer squad on their own last year, on a shoestring budget. This year, Bourne High came up with some funds, and the program is off and running. There is talk that the school may ask the girls to cheer for basketball, as well.

The move to bring in Coach Tara is already paying off. For the practice I attended, she brought in a guest speaker. Susan Shannon is the former Director of New England Patriots Cheerleaders from 1979 to 1985. She now works for the New England Professional Cheerleaders Alumni Association, as the President. She spoke to the current Bourne squad about leadership, public speaking, teamwork, confidence, character... basically everything that the Sport of Cheerleading has become.

She spoke of female empowerment and supporting your team, and also about how cheerleaders are athletes with opportunities for college scholarships. Susan spoke to the squad about leading not just your team and each other, but the football team and the crowd, as well. She discussed the importance of getting the crowd behind them. Susan told stories of former cheerleaders who took the skills they learned as a cheerleader and parlayed it into high powered careers.

Susan also discussed the legislative push in the state of Massachusetts to have cheerleading become a recognized sport.... a move that is lonnnnnngggggg overdue.

Bourne is now on the track to have a first-class cheerleading squad. They have a fine teacher and a great bunch of kids. The work of both the coach and the squad will carry on long after they leave Bourne High School, in the form of a solid cheer program that can become the pride of the town.

Three cheers for Coach Tara and the Bourne Cheerleading Squad! Don't forget to peep the Bourne Cheer website!  #SeeYouInTheStands #BHS_All_In

Dealing With The Ocean On Duxbury Beach

Living on the coast is pretty much the peak human condition. You can walk around barefoot. The beach is within hollering distance. You have a zillion trillion gallon outdoor pool. If you can convince a girl to visit you, she's a good bet to show up wearing a bikini... something that I took for granted growing up on a beach, and something that I was slow to realize didn't happen everywhere when I went to school in Worcester.

Yup, life on the beach is pretty nice. There are costs, however. That gorgeous ocean can become stormy, and stormy seas can push ashore and inflict catastrophic damage on the houses there. While giant waves can smash houses to splinters, even little waves eat away bites of the shoreline in an endless war of attrition.

You can't beat the inexorable Mother Nature, but you can hold her off for a little while. In fact, if you either A) don't care if the house falls into the sea on the great-grandchildren's watch, long after you've gone to your reward, or B) have faith that the science people will solve the problem in the future, you really have to keep the sea at bay for only 20-75 years or so. After that... SEP.

We're going to tour a few beaches before the weather gets too bad and going to the beach becomes something akin to work. As we go to these beaches, we'll have a look at methods people use to fight Poseidon. 

There is no consensus on protecting beaches. You can see different methods on different beaches, something you'll notice as you read the articles we write about different beaches. You can also see different methods on the same beach, something you'll notice today as we start our series off in Duxbury.

Duxbury Beach has a mix of inhabited, uninhabited and semi-inhabited coastline.

You can see several methods of erosion control at work here. We have a dune, some snow fencing, some rocks, some beach grass, some scrub pine... we could use some beach plum bushes, but this will do.

Shoot, the whole of Duxbury Beach itself is an erosion control machine, as it serves as a barrier beach for Duxbury Proper across the bay.

The house that you can sort of see in the picture above is the last residence on Duxbury Beach. South of that, it's all sand dunes and snow fencing until you get to High Pines.

Beaches tend to get onshore winds, and those winds blow sand across the beach. Any sort of obstruction, be it a plant or a flower or a stone, slows down the wind and allows the sand and grass to accumulate. As the sea grass spreads, the sand is nourished, and other plants begin to appear. These plants block more and more sand. Over time, a dune forms.

If the ocean doesn't interfere, the dune grows and grows. However, that's a big If.

The snow fencing probably performs some erosion control purpose, but the main one I can think of is that it keeps people from walking on the fragile beach grass.

If you need to know how well it works, here's a picture of how the dunes looked when the Trans-Atlantic cable came ashore a little bit after the Civil War ended.... which is why everyone looks like General Sickles.

Duxbury-savvy folks will recognize that this is the area where Ocean Road North and Cable Hill meet. Prior to the cable coming ashore, this area was known as Rouse's Hummock.... after some guy named Rouse.

Most of the present beach south of the Blakeman's pavillion/bath house works along this model, but the dune in this picture is more impressive than anything seen on the beach today.

The dunes are lower because Duxbury Beach suffers from vicious nor'easters. Nor'easters seem to be elementally offended by dunes, because they wash over them regularly.

If that picture of the cable guys doesn't give you an idea how close to the water the dune is, worry you not! My house on Duxbury Beach was right about where the dude in the dark suit is standing off by himself on the top of the dune.

Here's a view from where he was standing 150 years later. There's a house there now, and a seawall in front of it, but those waves have been hitting the area like that once a year or so ever since time began.

There isn't much beach behind the dunes. Duxbury Beach is barely 100 meters wide at her fat points. The picture below is taken after a storm, and it is aimed at what is by far the fattest part of the beach. It turns to marsh just after the houses and trees.

Here is a picture out the back door (Duxbury Beach residents almost universally refer to the door facing the ocean as the front door, and the street-side door as the back door), showing how much slack the marsh is giving you. Much of Duxbury Beach becomes a series of small islands if the storm gets bad enough.

Post-storm, too...

Notice the shark fin in the water to the left of the telephone pole and above the hay bales? Ah, just kidding, that's not a shark.

That flood will take some time to go away, as the water table is maxed out and it's the lowest point in the neighborhood. The marsh will drain itself as the tide goes out, but the meadow is on her own.

They did lay some pipe under the road after this 2007 storm, and all but the final inches of water will flow back into the marsh through them.

Here are said pipes:

There are corresponding pipe holes on the other side of Gurnet Road. The pipes take care of the meadow and the marsh water. The waves are a whole other problem.

I went with the picture below because it was the best one I have that illustrates both the height of the seawall and the erosion of the sand.

The sand depth at the foot of the seawall varies greatly, and can be augmented by seaweed and rocks. It can make a great difference in wave damage.

The seawall/sand ratio is important, as the sand is what the seawall is based in. If there isn't enough sand supporting the wall, the wall can topple forward into the sea.

The seawall blocks waves for a gang o' houses that pay a pile o' taxes into the town coffers. Many are summer residences which pump no revenue-consuming brats into the town's school systems. Hence, the armored seawall.

Here's another blurry shot, showing how the Duxbury/Marshfield line has to use boulders to help shore up the wall. OK, "shore up" is probably the wrong term here.

I'd have gone closer to the boulders to try to get a shot that showed them better, but I wasn't trying to get wet.

The seawall is the central defense for the residential area of Duxbury Beach.

It's about 15 feet tall, with maybe half of it buried in sand. It's about two feet thick. It can withstand powerful surf without breaking, although they do break now and then.

It runs in two big lines, one extending from Green Harbor to the Duxbury line, and one from 100 yards past the other one down to the end of Ocean Road South.

The gap in the middle isn't a town vs town thing, as I thought it was until I talked to some old-timers. Now, I know that the gap in between the walls exists because the homeowners there, secure on a small bluff, declined to pay the $500 fee for the wall.

Their houses are still standing, so they currently are having the last laugh. Others are doing for self:

If you go there just after a storm, you get the virgin snowfall-looking sand cover.

It costs a pretty penny to put up your own seawall.

Q) Reason?

A) It's worth it.

This sort of DIY seawall, while very fine-looking, makes up about 1% of Duxbury's seawall shield.

Seawalls can only do so much. A powerful storm surge can make the ocean level with the seawall, and then the waves are rolling straight into the houses.

Some houses still have cellars, but they are a dying breed. You need sump pumps to get the ocean water out of them (I had a beach cellar, and the water came in through the windows, through the floor, and through the walls in the Blizzard of '78 and the 1991 Halloween Gale), and I neither have any pictures of sump pumps nor any desire to look for a Sump Pump video. You'll just have to take my word for it.

Any modern housing constructed on the shores need to be on pilings. This lets the water rush under the house rather than through it, which provides some comfort for the house and saves the lives of the homeowners.

This is a pretty good strategy, as I was trapped in my house on Duxbury Beach for the Perfect Storm in 1991, and I saw houses get torn apart by the surf. I also saw houses get lifted up by the surf and washed back into the road.

Stilt housing came into vogue shortly after that, and none of them have been knocked over yet. They have worked their way into the front line of housing along the coast.

There is some debate, mostly among people who were living on the beach for the peak storm activity of the Halloween Gale and the Blizzard of '78, as to whether the stilt housing will hold up against a 100 Year Storm.

Much like the Blizzard of '78 finished off the dune houses on Duxbury Beach, the next hurricane-force storm might finish off traditional-foundation style housing. Again, only time will tell.

Breakaway stairs are also useful.

They are made light enough to either

A) pull them up onto the wall by hand,

or

B) drag them back to your house with a Jeep if you got lazy or sloppy and forgot to do option A.

There is an option C, but that involves building the stairs out of mortar and cast iron. You don't have to pull these stairs up if a storm comes.

Pic by Sara Flynn

Be sure to check out our Plymouth version of this article.