Amazon's Jeff Bezos - He's Worth a Lot of Zeros

 Returning from Lawrence this morning after getting my first COVID vaccination, I tuned in to Meghna Chakrabarti’s “On Point” program on NPR.  She was discussing Pres. Biden’s pro-labor stance with her guests, Stephen Greenhouse (a reporter for the New York Times), and a labor leader from an Alabaman poultry factory.  Consider this claim, made by Greenhouse:  if Jeff Bezos gave every employee $60,000, he would still be making the same income that he was making pre-COVID.  Bezos’ business, Amazon, was one of the “winners” this past year, a year that saw tens of millions of Americans losing their jobs, and the majority of small business owners predicting - nearly a year after enforced closings - that they’ll never fully recover to pre-COVID levels.  But, get this - Bezos’ net worth at the end of 2020 stood at 184.3 billion dollars, putting him at the very peak of Forbes’ list of most wealthy.  Notwithstanding my tendency to get all topsy-turvy with big numbers, Bezos’ income and overall wealth doesn’t fail to impress.  Several hundreds of billions of dollars.  That’s a shit-ton lot of benjamins.  How many storage units would that fill?  How long would it take a person to count out those bills, even in the highest currency denomination of $100?  And how many times would that person  have to start over because he lost count in the middle?  (Did you know that we used to have bills of $500, $1,000, $5,000, and even $10,000 until discontinued in 1969?)

And get this, too - Bezos bought a $165 million house in Beverly Hills right before our country shut down and the economy hit the skids.  I did the math on that.  While the accepted wisdom on mortgages for the average person is that you should stay comfortably within 28% of your income, if Jeffrey chose to take out a mortgage, based on his 2020 income of $74 billion, the mortgage amount that he could be approved for by a regular loan institution would be $20,720,000,000, or - in simpler language - nearly $21 billion.  That’s just the mortgage; given the customary 20% down payment, Jeff could have written a check for a little over $5 billion and bought his dream home for $25,900,000,000, or - again in simpler language - nearly $26 billion.  By the time I’ve entered in all those zeros, my calculator - in order to fit the number on the screen - has reduced the font size so much, that I have to squint to see the answer.  The obvious questions then begin their assault.   Do houses exist at that price point?  Where would they be?  Isn’t that more than the cost of a small-to-mid size island?  What features would they boast?  How does Jeffrey fit that five billion number in that tiny space on his check? My powers of imagination fail me in this line of questioning.  So, while at first blush a $165 million house seems excessive - you’re getting much, much more house than you can ever need, that’s pocket change to Jeff Bezos.

 

The real issue, which deserves dedicated space on my blog, is the drive by Amazon’s operational staff in this country to unionize.  (One is much more apt to see unionized warehouses in Europe). Needless to say, the company is opposed; they see it as an obstacle that will, among other misleading claims, harm the “healthy” communication that exists between management and labor.  How this plays out for Amazon is of great interest to other commerce giants, like Walmart and Target, as well as established unions here in the U.S., but, like I said, the topic merits exclusive attention.  I’ll come back to it. . . unless something else intercepts my attention.

The Hermit of Black Rocks

Part I

 

John Keenan pulled the door closed to his driftwood cottage at Black Rocks, descended the three steps, and turned slowly to follow the sandy lane away from his modest home.  The retired mill laborer fixed his gaze on the uneven pathway, and tugged on the tattered brim of his flat cap, his fondest article of clothing and a nod to his Irish immigrant roots.  In an effort to shield his body from the wind sweeping in from the direction of the ocean, he simultaneously raised his shoulders and tucked his chin into the shawl collar of his worn but heavy wool jacket, which hung a little more loosely on his body of late.  The day’s weather wasn’t any colder than an average mid-December day, and he took little notice of the recent dusting of snow on the ground.  But John Keenan, the “Black Rocks Hermit”, was feeling every one of his 84 years.  Of late, too, a persistent, as yet undiagnosed pain was worrying him, and for that reason he resolved to visit Salisbury’s most trusted and beloved physician, the Reverend Dr. Jacob Spalding, at his hospital at Brown’s Park, off the town center.

 

Before setting off on foot, (it being off-season, the “electric” was not running between the jetty and the beach center,) John stopped in at his neighbor’s cottage to let him know that he was heading to the hospital.  Carl Barck was a fisherman who also ran a ferry service between Plum Island, Black Rocks, and Newburyport’s downtown. He was a good neighbor to John, likewise an immigrant — in his case, from Sweden, and when several days had passed without signs of John’s return, he followed up with Dr. Spalding, only to learn that John had never arrived at the hospital.  He alerted the public, resulting in an anxious appeal in the Newburyport Daily News, December 16, 1914.

 

“’Black Rocks Hermit’ Missing” headed the brief article that had intercepted my attention while browsing an archival edition of the Newburyport Daily News.  Hmmm. . . interesting, I thought.  I’m always fascinated by people’s stories, and the spareness of detail further fueled my curiosity.  I instantly launched myself into research about my curious new subject, John Keenan, on two fronts: archival newspapers and genealogical platforms.  As you can well imagine, someone dubbed a hermit is not going to give it up freely, so a good deal of my searching was marked by frustration.  Most of John Keenan’s story can be supported by verifiable records; some is just me determining what is plausible and fleshing out the details, and some of it - when wide gaps are revealed - is sheer imagining.  

One early take-away was that Keenan’s story closely resembled my ancestors’.  Through federal census records, I learned (to the extent that one can “learn”, given the fluidity of the information supplied to, and recorded by, census takers) that Mr. Keenan immigrated from Ireland to the United States in 1845 at the age of fifteen.  For those unfamiliar with patterns of Irish immigration, 1845 marked the first in a succession of devastating years that were collectively - and variously - called the Great Famine, The Potato Famine, and the Great Hunger.  The recurring seasons of widespread blight of their staple food - the potato - caused unspeakable tragedy in the form of death, disease, and the famed Irish Diaspora.   New York City, Boston, and Quebec were popular U.S. ports of entry during this time period, but in John Keenan's case I was unable to pin down precisely where he arrived.

 

Keenan had a child with Margaret Gill (likewise an Irish immigrant); their son James was born in 1857 in Lawrence.  It wasn’t until 1863, however, that the couple married, and when James came of age, he joined his father as a textile mill worker. James, along with John’s sister-in-law, Ann Gill, were considered “fancy weavers”.  (What is of interest from the historical angle is that there is good reason to believe that the family would have been “touched” – at least peripherally – by the widely-reported Pemberton Mill collapse and fire of 1860, a disaster that disproportionately impacted Irish immigrant mill workers of Lawrence.  Coincidentally, my great-great grandfather had migrated to the “Immigrant City” at this very same point in time.)

 

Keenan was typical of so many up-river mill workers.  They rented apartments close to the factories in which they worked, and genuinely lived for the one day a week that they could venture as a family down the river aboard a steamboat, disembark at the wharf at Black Rocks with thousands of other like-minded day-trippers, eager to while away the entire day close to the ocean, breathing in the sweet, fresh air, listening to the soothing sounds of the waves, and snacking contentedly from the picnic basket that they would have carefully prepared early in the day at home.  It was a pronounced contrast with the toxic air they breathed in and the deafening sounds that battered their ears all week long inside the factory walls.

 

For a span of several decades in the latter half of the 1800’s, there was a welcoming attitude toward these visitors to Salisbury Beach on the part of the Beach Commoners, who held title to the entire area.  The commoners’ interests at this point in time were not in opposition with the vacationers’.  The former were interested in preserving their longstanding right to harvest salt marsh hay, and sell sand; the latter, to enjoy the June-to-September “season” at the beach, even if in their hopes of making more permanent arrangements, they were denied the option of actually purchasing lots.   (The best that a cottager could wrangle was a lease option that was predictably renewed over and over.)  However, as the end of the century drew near, the value of oceanfront property was trending skyward.  Elsewhere along the New England coast, where “sweepage lots” had typically been under the ownership of Massachusetts Bay “commoners” dating back to the earliest years of settlement, most of the land by 1900 had been deeded over to private interests.  Salisbury was one of the last communities to alter the common arrangement.

 

The occasional hammering together of cottages turned into the steady rush of construction in the last two decades of the 19^th century.   The attraction, too, felt by real estate developers desirous of acquiring title mirrored, in a way, the magnetic pull that the cottagers had felt, but the motivation couldn’t have been more incompatible.  The two sides were thus unwittingly galloping along a collision course; the fallout would be tragic, at least for many of the Black Rocks cottagers.

Part II

 

In 1903, after quietly securing the approval of at least two-thirds of the beach commoners’ heirs (or at least the approval of two-thirds of the descendants he had succeeded in locating), Edward P. Shaw of Newburyport, one of that city’s darlings, engineered a constitutional “coup”; in other words, he succeeded – quite controversially – in having the state legislature alter the terms under which the “common” property at Salisbury Beach could be bought and sold.  Many men had tried this before, but Shaw exhibited the requisite tenacity and convincing artfulness, thus setting the stage for a showdown.  Rather than conclude that Shaw’s actions were motivated purely by greed – he was, after all, a shrewd and ambitious businessman, it is better to view his role in the broader context.  Shaw had a vision for the Beach; in his mind’s eye, rather than discrete parties of visitors converging on our shores, whiling away the hours, and then vanishing without having really been a part of anything, he reflected on an alternative image.  The Beach should be purposefully designed with a sense of cohesion and, importantly, permanence.  The “common” arrangement that had been in effect since the Town’s inception in 1638 had always made such a notion difficult, if not impossible.  Evidently, it had served the needs of the citizens for centuries.  Changing preferences for land use, however, dictated a new way of looking at the space.  The new arrangement, structured by Shaw, was called Salisbury Land & Improvement Company; Shaw, himself bought up several lots, placing some in his name, and many in his wife’s name.  

 

Although it might seem a contradiction, E. P. Shaw’s vision was ruinously short-sighted.  Between 1903 and 1910, an agreeable arrangement hummed along between cottagers, as lessees, and Shaw, as landowner. However, the esteemed Newburyport investor hadn’t limited his real estate acquisitions to shorefront property (for the sake of renting or leasing beach lots).  He also had invested heavily in real estate positioned along high-traveled routes; his development of trolley lines throughout the region was significant, to say the least.  When Shaw found himself overextended and filed for bankruptcy in 1909, his “Salisbury Land and Improvement Company” went into receivership.  

 

The new landowners were not compassionate men.  In fact, despite their intentions of addressing larger infrastructure needs, they showed a cold detachment where it concerned the cottagers, especially the ones occupying the south end of the beach.  They – the south end cottagers – tended to be of the humbler sort, mostly mill workers, tradesmen and fishermen.  Many were foreign immigrants; the principal country of origin was Ireland, with a lesser number having arrived here from Canada, and one – Carl Barck, Keenan’s closest neighbor – having immigrated from Sweden.  The lease agreements that the south end cottagers had struck with Shaw were emblematic of hard-earned, yet fragile dreams. They instead viewed the machinations of the new landowners, the Salisbury Beach Associates, as an “unmitigated steal”. (Newburyport Daily News, Mar 6, 1912)

 

Who were the men behind the scurrilous Salisbury Beach Associates?   They were three Lawrence men:  Walter Coulson, lawyer; Portal Black, real estate dealer and mining company investor; and James Simpson, banker and investor.  The three men had one thing in common – an unfaltering commitment to amassing wealth, and the biographical details of two of them – Coulson and Simpson – offer similar abstracts.  They were contemporaries; they were both sons of immigrants, Coulson’s father having immigrated to Lawrence from Ireland, and Simpson’s father arrived here from Scotland.  Both fathers ran highly successful and lucrative retail grocery businesses; it is conceivable that their paths crossed as a consequence of this commonality.  Coulson and Simpson grew up in refined circumstances in which the families regularly retained young, single, female servants.  Moreover, the parents placed an emphasis on higher education; as such, Coulson earned his law degree through Harvard University, while Simpson followed through on a university level engineering program.  It would appear, then, that the lawyer and the banker were accustomed to some of life’s advantages.  

 

Portal Black’s trajectory through life bore little resemblance to that of his SBA cohorts.  A generation older than his business partners, he was just as ambitious, propelled by an acquisitive hunger; by the age of 30, he had amassed real estate holdings and a cozy sum of money, all on a mill operative’s earnings.  Black progressed from mill operative to rooming house overseer to rooming house owner/landlord.  The slow and steady pace that defined the early stages of his career path gave way to a more intensified (and reckless) pursuit of wealth, eventually placing him in the crosshairs of a grand jury indictment after he was accused by several stockholders of swindling them in a much-publicized mining company stock manipulation case in 1902.

 

One can’t help but feel exasperated with the harsh tactics of “The Three Associates”, as the SBA came to be known.  Any reader of this particular chapter in my version of Salisbury’s history will note my personal bias.  Indeed, as with so many David and Goliath stories, my sympathies are with the underdog, the downtrodden.  While the real estate partners were being lavished with all kinds of praise by the press for their plans to “improve” Salisbury Beach (and later, even, Seabrook Beach), they were simultaneously re-writing leases for cottagers with impossible terms that were transparent efforts to evict them.  If they seemed tone-deaf in the face of their lessees’ plights, that’s because their calculus left no room for compassion; it was business, not personal. And if they had had cause early in their lives to interact with people occupying society’s lower rungs, they were left unaffected by the experience.  They had no understanding how arduous life was for some.  

 

John Keenan was one of the few cottagers who emerged from the fray ostensibly unscathed.  What he no doubt observed must have made his heart heavy.  All around his cottage at Black Rocks, neighbors were being systematically squeezed by the new landlords.  Those who either refused to surrender to the new terms or were financially unable to continue leasing found themselves in a most untenable predicament; if they couldn’t remove their cottages and personal possessions from their lot – and they mostly could not because at that point in time there were no roads upon the shifting sands, then the landowners would take possession.  It wasn’t unheard of for an aggrieved evictee to set his cottage on fire before departing.  There were also several cottagers who entered into mortgage agreements with the Salisbury Beach Associates, choosing to buy the land on which their cottages sat.  For a significant number of them, it ended badly, as well, in the form of foreclosure.  In at least one case, it is interesting to note, a long-term cottager used the courts to fight back.  After being served with a breach of lease conditions, a Mrs. Sarah White was issued eviction orders by the landowners, the Salisbury Beach Associates, who proceeded to sell the lot to a Lowell interest.  In Superior Court it was resolved (in March of 1916) that, while the landowners – new and old – may have had title to the land, they had no legal rights to the cottage.  Damages were assessed, and it marked one of the few clear victories on the part of the cottagers.

Part III

 

How had John Keenan set himself apart from so many of his neighbors who found themselves in a no-win position?  How had he escaped the eviction process?  Without being able to positively assert, we can surmise that throughout his life he handled his earnings carefully, dutifully saving so that he could buy his cottage.  It’s easy to read too much into the information that is provided to census takers, but it can’t be without some importance that on the part of the 1910 census where it indicates occupation, “carpenter” was crossed out, and the words “own income” were inserted.  A rumor at the time was that John Keenan was a wealthy man.  There may be validity to the claim.  It’s also possible that this immigrant mill worker who succeeded in buying his own cottage, ultimately owning it outright – when so many of his neighbors with similar profiles failed the test, offered his fellow citizens an unrestrained opportunity to speculate wildly.  Rather than draw the logical conclusion, that he earned a secure living and saved judiciously (because sometimes what appears to be the case, is just exactly that), their reasoning took them in a more imaginative and romanticized direction.  They fancied an Ebenezer Scrooge-like character, steadily amassing a fortune, yet all the while living in a driftwood cottage (or “dugout”, as one journalist called it).  

 

The brief mention in the Newburyport Daily News, dated December 16, 1914, that the “Black Rocks Hermit” was missing makes evident that although Keenan preferred his own company, his welfare was clearly on others’ minds.  The article revealed that he hadn’t been well, and he let a neighbor know that he was setting out for Dr. Spalding’s hospital; with his whereabouts still undetermined for a week, he had everyone concerned.  It’s quite plausible that Keenan, en route toward the center of town, changed his mind, preferring not to learn a bleak diagnosis.  Instead, according to the Daily’s version of a happy ending a week later, Keenan re-appeared after having visited friends in Haverhill. 

 

Three years later, it was reported once again that Keenan had gone missing.  According to the Boston Globe, March 6, 1917, the ailing 87-year-old disappeared from Dr. Spalding’s Hospital, and was unaccounted for for three days.  The search party, consisting of Dr. Spalding and Capt. Willard Charles of the Salisbury Beach Life Saving Station, fought their way across thigh-high drifts of snow to reach Keenan’s shack.  You have to marvel at the fortitude, not to mention stubbornness, of a sick 87-year-old walking several miles through high snow drifts.  I’m the first one to romanticize the details of someone’s life, but the Globe’s version of events struck me in a wry sort of way; in the article entitled “Aged Hermit Goes Back to Die by Sea”, Keenan’s departure from the hospital was described as “the longing for lost solitude and the call of the roaring breakers…”.  Our hermit of Black Rocks survived his ordeal, but lost the greater battle, finally succumbing to “cancer of the face” in 1919.

 

Despite all the research that I conducted, I’m not really substantially closer to understanding how John Keenan came to be known as the Black Rocks hermit.  The Pittsburgh Press (March 13, 1917) claimed, “So far as known, he has associated with no one for more than 40 years and has seldom spoken with anyone.”   As I see it, he may have kept his own counsel, but he held a factory job as a laborer until his retirement, and in post-retirement worked part-time as a carpenter.  Neither of those occupations seems compatible with a reclusive lifestyle.  Moreover, for a time – while his wife was still alive, her sister was living with the family.  His son, too, came to live with him at the Beach in his later years.  My hypothesis is this:  after John’s wife passed away, he moved from Lawrence to the Beach permanently.  Finally, when his only son died from consumption in 1907, he was quite alone in the world.  He did have grandchildren, but how active a role they had in his life I’ve been unable to suss out.  

 

I’ve scrutinized the census records for the south end of Salisbury Beach for the decades just prior to and after the turn of the century.  Even though it might appear to present inert data, there’s life behind the information; they’re beginnings of stories about families, neighbors, livelihoods.  They tell of origins, arrivals, departures, those things that suggest transience or permanence or relationship building.  They hint at larger actions – in this case, the controversial turning over of the Beach Common to real estate developers, and the dramatic consequences that that series of events would produce in the first two decades of the 20^th century.  In trying to solve the mystery of the “Black Rocks Hermit”, the man who went by the name of John Keenan, I may have failed in providing you – and myself – a satisfactory explanation for the moniker.  I remain convinced that he was an ordinary man who kept most people at a safe distance.  Along with countless other factory workers from upriver, from June to September, he felt that same magnetic pull to leave the city after a hard week of work, journeying down the Merrimac to profit from the cleansing air and waters at Black Rocks.  Unlike the vast majority of his peers, Keenan was able to buy a piece of his heaven, and make it his permanent home. And if I’m not mistaken in my calculations, he most likely preferred the winter months.

Our Drowned Coastline

 

This is a sample of how I “learn” stuff.  While I hesitate to say that my approach to learning new things adheres to proven methodologies, my way is really fun.  An adventure.  One that has no clear roadmap.  I just go where my curiosity take me.

 

My curiosity this morning began when I was reading about Salisbury’s “drowned coastline”; Margaret Rice’s On These Things Founded says just enough to inspire me to dig a little deeper for an adequate explanation.    What was – or is – the Fundian Fault, and what was its role in the “drowned coastline” of New England?  And why would I be interested in that?  I’ve been delving into Salisbury’s history as a way to better understand my own place in its present.  By and large, it’s working, too.  But, first, about Fundy.  (Fundy wasn’t a person, so you won’t find any namesake connection, just some suggested etymological explanation about “fendu”, a French word meaning “split”).  On to the Bay of Fundy, a cold place with fascinating associations to be made: 1) the first European settlement in North America was near there, making me wonder how reasonable a people were the Europeans, to freely settle in a North Atlantic locale where water temperatures rarely get above 45ºF, 2) it boasts the world’s highest tides, something to do with “resonance” and rocking motions, an idea that is kind of pleasant to consider, and 3) also because of tidal behavior, the exposed cliffs of Joggins, Nova Scotia offer the paleontologist the greatest array of fossil pickins’ in the world.

 

Every reasonably-aware American has a vague understanding of the perils of earthquakes and tidal waves, and living on or near fault lines.  As New Englanders we reassure ourselves that our fault lines are ancient, well-worn, and less prone to catastrophic quakes.  At least, that logic allows us to sleep comfortably at night; we think, thank God we don’t live anywhere near the San Andreas Fault along that other big ocean.  But, earthquakes do register – and fairly regularly – in our region.  One of sizeable magnitude, 5.6 on the Richter Scale, occurred here in October, 1727, and had all adults on their knees, trembling; they trembled both because the ground beneath them was shuddering and because their terrified minds were convulsing as they tried to reconstruct recent events – had they pissed off our Glorious God in some way, and was it too late to promise good behavior; at the very least and with nothing to lose, they begged God’s mercy.  And then they pooped their homespun breeches. . . seismically.  An earthquake of even greater magnitude shook the region in 1755, with an equally predictable result: every colonialist – from Asa to Zebediah – dropped to his knees and once again begged God’s great mercy.  And once again, these God-fearing colonialists pooped their breeches. 

 

It takes some imaginative thinking to visualize our coastline miles further to the east.  In all honesty, I have just as hard a time accepting that the sub-aquatic surface is anything but sand, miles upon miles of nothing more than sand.  So, it causes me delight when I learn things like, in the waters off Nantucket Island, while mapping the sea floor in 2005 for a proposed wind farm, scientists discovered an ancient submerged forest beneath the seabed.  The ocean, it turns out, doesn’t just cover sand that is endlessly wide and deep.  In stumbling upon traces of insects and various flora - artifacts associated with life on land, the implications are clear; once upon a time, the coastline was further out to. . . well. . . sea.  

 

Episodic erosion can account for only so much of the changing shoreline.  When we invoke Mother Nature, we automatically conjure extreme weather events, perhaps Nor’easters, but surely hurricanes.  Can we assign earthquakes, too, to her purview?  We raise a much thornier geological issue when we introduce concepts such as glacial melt; there’s the natural association - at least to some - with global warming.  We know how that discussion will unfold, don’t we?   Be that as it may, scientific evidence points us toward a single conclusion; rising seas have long been gnawing away at our coastline, and will continue their relentless advance.  That’s not welcome news to those among us who live at the watery fringes of our continent.  While it’s intriguing to witness occasional signs of transformation - after all, one can’t help but stand in awe of nature, it can be quite unsettling to reflect on the overall pattern of shore abrasion.  I’ll leave you with one comforting thought:  erosion is, by and large, a gradual phenomenon; that means, most of us will probably be long gone from this earth by the time the sea has advanced enough for us to take notice.  (On the other hand, Massachusetts' barrier beaches seem to have been taking incessant thrashings in recent years.  What's up with that, Mother Nature?!)

“Salisbury Beach’s Original South End”

I wouldn’t be so foolish as to say that Salisbury, as Massachusetts’ northern-most coastal community, is too popular as a summer destination, but I would allow that the slower, calmer pace of the off-season can be equally appealing.  It’s a contrast that evokes sharper awareness of nature’s offerings; one is more attuned to the behaviors of wildlife, less so, social behaviors.  

Although it takes a bit of extra work to ready myself (and the pups) for nature’s side of my front door in the middle of winter, it’s worth it.  Walking in my neighborhood is pleasant; as the oldest established neighborhood in Salisbury, it has great history – lots of Buswells, Stevenses and Pikes settled on the “Circular Road”, and family drama – rife with Hatfield and McCoy-like feuds – ruled the day.  Several homes still exist that once were occupied by descendants of our town’s first division settlers; also to be appreciated is a handful of ancient and towering trees that allow me to imagine their spindly forms from earlier times when they optimistically stretched skyward in front of or beside those homes with intriguing histories.  (I’m always fascinated by trees, especially ones that have so obviously been around for a long time, and Massachusetts is still counted among the states with the oldest tree populations.)

 

Even more pleasant for walking in our town is Salisbury Beach State Reservation.  Massachusetts’ Department of Conservation and Recreation does a fine job of keeping the beach groomed in the summer, and an equally fine job of clearing snow in the winter.  As the years have rolled by, the “season” (by which I mean, that period of time when the Rez plays host to a diverse panoply of visitors) has become longer and longer and characterized by, well, even greater diversity.  It is especially evident this year that our Reservation’s charms can be fully appreciated in the cold months, too.  Of course you won’t see RV caravans, school busses, or back-to-back traffic on the road in; instead, you’ll see solitary figures walking on the beach or dog walkers on the river or a boat here and there bobbing along on Black Rock Creek.  For sure, you’ll see birders – alone, in pairs, or in small clusters (and lately, a good-sized cluster of Mass. Audubon birders).  

 

Over the years I’ve learned some bits and pieces about the Rez’s history.  To begin, one should embrace the idea that the area was long referred to more generally as Black Rocks.  Right now is a good moment to reflect on an aspect of Salisbury Beach’s history, or more broadly, our coast.  Long before access was thought of in terms of Beach Road from Salisbury Square, people arrived via the Merrimack River – by curraghs, sailing ships, ferry boats, and later by steamboats.  It takes some work of the imagination, moreover, to visualize a much earlier time when the area featured a broad expanse of tall pine trees nuzzling the water’s edge. Dare to go back even further – thousands of years to an era when glaciers characterized New England and before the dramatic alterations wrought by the Fundian Fault, which caused our region’s land surface to become a “drowned coastline”; back then – as hard as it is to imagine – our coastline was several miles east of where it now lies.  

 

We’re more interested, though, in the modern landscape.  Today’s topography presents beleaguered dunes and marsh surrounding a flat, methodically gridded one-mile square of sandy campground with sites that are perfectly spaced apart.  Each site is adorned with a precisely placed scrub pine, the most meager bit of shade or privacy that the camper can expect.  (Truth be told, campers who stay at Salisbury Beach State Reservation don’t come for a woodsy, frontier-like experience; they come for the unrivaled enjoyment of the alluring beaches that are mere steps away). When you’re able to observe the mostly-dormant campground in the winter, the little pines tell their own stories.  When taken as a whole, their comically irregular and contorted stems lend a dynamic quality to the campground. Many of the crouching trees lean westward as if succumbing to relentless east winds, while others incline in random directions in droll defiance. 

 

One would think that this original “South End” always played second fiddle to what we view as the heart of Salisbury Beach.  However, it was a true hub “back in the day”, by which I mean from the latter half of the 1800’s up until its twilight era from the late 1920’s to the early 1930’s. Ferry passenger service from Plum Island and Newburyport proper, as well as regular steamboat service from up-river livened both the waters and the landscape around Salisbury Point and Black Rocks.  To bridge the transportation gap between Black Rocks and what we know as the Beach Center, a horse-car line was installed, later replaced by a steam “dummy” line, called the Seaside Railway but just as often simply referred to as "the dummy", which itself was subsequently upgraded to the “electric”.  In contrast with the current state road that runs a straight course from Beach Road to the river, riding high above the marshes, it more closely hugged the shore, running from Salisbury Point, the tip of land from which the jetty extends, to Broadway.  Such knowledge explains why we have Railroad Avenue; no physical evidence remains, however, to signal that we once had rail service along the ocean between the beach center and the south end of the beach. The gradual waning in popularity of the electric in the 1920’s can be attributed, not immediately to private automobiles, but to bus (or “jitney”) service.  And, of course, automobiles supplanted all other modes of transportation.

 

In the same way that evolving needs and desires - and nature’s forces – will re-shape the appearance and designs of a landscape, Black Rocks underwent its own metamorphosis.  Its transformation has at times been gradual and subtle; the River’s ever-shifting channel, for example, reminds one of the fickleness of nature. Likewise, the first wave of cottagers who craved the closeness of the water were – cyclically, it seemed – urged to move their structures back from the edge, especially after the most powerful storms.  Years would pass, complacency would set in, and the cottages would once again be lifted off their pilings and moved closer to water’s edge.  And so it went, at least until the ominous arrival of the Salisbury Beach Associates (SBA), aka “The Three Associates”.

 

Transformation of the Black Rocks section of the Beach at other times has been – arguably – more consequential.  Thus, as the Beach Center drew ever-growing numbers of day-trippers, weekenders, and other folks who craved the shinier enticements that imaginative business entrepreneurs were dreaming up at a staggering rate, Black Rocks gradually lost its appeal as the nucleus of seaside escape and revelry. The1930’s marked its grimmest period of deterioration, and the local citizenry recognized the peril that sustained neglect would occasion.  It was a very difficult moment of reckoning for the Salisbury community, and it was precisely at that historical juncture when it ceased to be just a local concern or a source of worry for Salisbury’s self-styled benefactors, the Salisbury Beach Associates, who still held the lion’s share of deeds for much of the beach area.  In reaching out to the Commonwealth, local politicians framed their arguments as messianic proposals to “clean up Salisbury Beach”.  The tactic of couching their appeals for appropriations and labor in a way that made transparent what was wrong with our beach had the predictable yet unfortunate effect of causing immense shame.

 

The event that would, in my opinion, most dramatically transform the space in both appearance and purpose was born out of this perceived crisis.  First, in 1933, the state acquired the 4.5 mile stretch of beachfront (a steal at under $30,000!); a mere 2 years later, the town ceded (according to a Boston Globe article dated 23, April, 1950) an additional “520 barren treeless acres” to the state.  (Fifteen years later, in 1950, people still bemoaned the absence of trees.) With this new and enduring arrangement, the town was able to benefit, if indirectly, from the grand designs of the state.  And this is the part of the Rez’s story that will have the ring of familiarity, for the state proposed a park that would draw visitors, not just from the customary upriver places such as Lowell, Lawrence and Haverhill, but from the western part of the state, as well as from bordering states.  (It was everyone’s good fortune that, through chance timing, much of the labor was funded through Works Progress Administration ((WPA)), Civil Conservation Corps ((CCC)), and Federal Emergency Relief Administration funds made available as part of President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s sweeping New Deal programs, and in each case administered by the state.)

 

Throughout Salisbury’s history there has been strong evidence to show our community’s sense of team play and good will.  It was true in 1812, 1863, and 1942 when the federal government established military installations at Black Rocks.  It has been true, also, whenever common interests summon cooperation – such as concerns, for example, the welfare of our shared Merrimack River.  In many ways, as hard as it sometimes is to reconcile that so much of Salisbury’s cherished beach was surrendered to the Commonwealth, the symbiotic nature of the relationship really does work in the favor of Salisbury’s citizens.  Each year (with perhaps the exception of 2020) the Reservation employs local people, as well as attracts countless visitors happy to spend in our stores, restaurants, etc. We still are able, too, – at any time of the year – to frolic in the ferocious surf (but only if one is insane), do some beachcombing, launch a boat for a day’s or just a morning’s fishing, marvel at the beautiful scenery, raise a pricey monocular to site the perennial snowy owl or the harbor seals that have hauled out on Badger’s Rocks, enjoy a picnic, cast a line from the river’s edge, fly a kite. . . need I go on?  

 

As someone whose formative years were (relatively) far from the ocean, I regard Salisbury Beach State Reservation as a blessing. . . a gift.  In my mind, to really appreciate its charms, you have to be able to measure it against places that don’t have a long stretch of beautiful ocean (and, of course, river).  Sure, I still consider myself a bit of a rookie even though my husband and I moved here with our 2 young daughters “way back” in 1985.  I’m trying to fit together all the historical moments that have shaped its present character.  One day I imagine I’ll be able to declare, aHA!  It all makes perfect sense now.  I have still so much to learn.

A Matter of Days

 10 January 2021                

Given the appalling attack on our Capitol by domestic terrorists four days ago, I don’t think it’s an exaggeration to say that the nation is in dire crisis.  It astounds me that nearly all of our Republican lawmakers, at the same time as they recoil in disgust from the events that resulted in the loss of 5 lives and left parts of the building in shambles, have adopted a “well, gee, we only have a handful of days left to endure Trump’s shenanigans (as if that is the proper way to describe his behavior); let’s stay the course and not do anything rash.”  

 

Consider other moments of crisis in our nation’s history, and weigh the practicality of just hanging in there and doing nothing.  Where would we be?

 

When confronted on October 24, 1962 with aerial images of Cuba’s build-up of nuclear missiles (courtesy of Russia), did President Kennedy inform his Ex-Comm that he preferred to wait it out?  A mere 12 days later, after a tense back-and-forth at the highest levels, the crisis had been averted, as a lengthy, discursive letter from Khrushchev to Kennedy demonstrates.  Both leaders recognized the greater existential threat that the standoff represented.  

 

When Pearl Harbor was attacked by the Japanese on December 7, 1941, did FDR stroke his jaw in idle thought and say, Let’s wait and see what Hirohito’s next move is?  His response was swift, but controlled, and reflective of an objective view of the facts.  

 

Thus, while these two examples are illustrative of foreign threats, and the prompt responses were at the executive level of federal government, there is much to be learned from them.  In the first place, both leaders recognized the gravity of the situation.  More significantly, however, they understood the profound implications if they failed to extinguish the threat. 

 

Make no mistake: the deadly uprising at the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021 was an angry and deluded attempt by U.S. citizens to dismantle our democratic ideals.  It was masterminded by the very man entrusted with our nation’s security, a traitor in every sense of the word.  Underneath all the rhetoric and despite misguided maneuvers by some members of Congress, I have to believe that they all know how dangerous this one man is. His unrestrained appeals - born of deep insecurities – to continue the “fight” to assure his continuation on his “throne” (whatever it takes) have reached willing ears.  As uninformed as the current president is regarding history, the American citizenry, and the true nature of his responsibilities; he has been careful in his language.  Section 1 of the Terrorism Act of 2006 clarifies for us what constitutes criminal liability, however, including direct, as well as indirect exhortations to commit a crime.  It seems important to point out that the people who descended on the Capitol with zip-tie handcuffs, pipe bombs, and delusions about a stolen election, were of one mind; through force they would wrest presidential victory for their Republican savior.

 

Make no mistake: the signs are obvious that the perpetrators have unfinished business.  While the ceaseless and vast media coverage allows the insurgents’ chests to fill with pride and their chins to tilt up haughtily over what they have thus far achieved, they remain frustrated that their end goal wasn’t realized.  They fully intend to nullify what should be the incontestable results of a free and fair election, and they have not just our President’s blessing on their side, but his incessant urging to resist the outcome. 

 

For rational-minded people, the solution to this crisis is simple - remove this president from office. . . immediately.  An objective view of the facts leaves no doubt as to his treasonous behavior, and that he represents a clear and present danger.  Moreover, by sitting and doing nothing, our Republican leaders are implying that the Constitution is meaningless; either that, or they have cowardly abandoned the oaths they promised to uphold when originally sworn in.  The drafters of our Constitution were perhaps dazzled by the patriotism and sense of unity exhibited by the new nation’s citizens; nevertheless, they weren’t naïve about future prospects for treachery and other events that would threaten the Union.  For this reason, they included various clauses (Article I, Sections 2 and 3, as well as Article II, Sections 2 and 4) that would safeguard our democracy.  It has always been acknowledged that the reason the Constitution didn’t include provisions that more clearly delineated corrupt behavior was because the insertion of impeachment clauses would present a mechanism for establishing and addressing such.  (Bear in mind, also, that when Kennedy’s assassination made evident that our Constitution lacked a provision for presidential succession, the 25^th Amendment was ratified, a piece of legislation that can be generously interpreted.) We always have impeachment, one might comfortably aver; yet history shows a fair amount of dust accumulates on top of that part of the Constitution.  

 

Why the stubbornness?  And why the “paralysis by analysis”?  In this moment we would do well to adopt General Ulysses S. Grant’s position when all his aides were fluttering around him, waiting for signs of General Lee’s next move in the Battle of the Wilderness, May of 1864.  (See: https://www.cnn.com/2019/10/05/politics/ulysses-grant-trump-impeachment/index.html).  The implication here is (and I direct my comments to our United States Congress): take control of the situation; don’t make your next move a reaction to this dangerous adversary’s.  You’re in possession of the facts; take action.  Remove this president.

 

 

Considerate judgment of mankind

I turned on ABC/Good Morning America to catch the local weather report, which then happened to fly by me without me paying attention till the last second.  Instead, I clued in to the next piece, a disturbingly familiar one these days:  an African-American father with his teenage son were passing through the lobby of a hotel in which they were guests when a young woman accosted the son, accusing him of having stolen her phone.  The short video clip shows a white woman raving and demanding intervention on her behalf by strangers; she appears to be certain, both in her claim of victimization and her belief that surrounding “witnesses” will automatically step in and take the young black man’s phone and hand it to her.  Each part of that is so troubling.   

It took the murder of George Floyd under the knee of a malevolent police officer in May of this year to force an uncomfortable national conversation about a loathsome pattern (and practice) in American society.  I can’t even bring myself to say “current” society, because, as much as I do believe our 45^th president has shown himself to be perfectly and embarrassingly giddy about the way his worshipful followers have carried out his own hateful designs, if there is one truth I have come to better appreciate this year it is that the components and characteristics of a racist society have always been there, waxing and waning in intensity. 

 

We are all complicit if we avert our collective gaze when, for example, neo-Nazis strut in our midst, aggressively wagging their AK-47’s (as if to proclaim, we know we’re inadequate; that’s why we carry guns). We are complicit if we tsk-tsk and mumble a how unfortunate – thinking that’s good enough to convey our opposition – when peaceful protesters are teargassed by federal marshals.  We are complicit each time a person of color is unfairly kept from profiting from the “American Experience” that the rest of us enjoy.  And, historically speaking, on every occasion when efforts have resulted in seemingly ironclad promises to level the playing field, the counter-response has revealed an ugliness about how we treat our fellow citizens.  

 

We never really did critically (and adequately) examine the Emancipation Proclamation when we studied it in 11^th grade (or, at least, I didn’t give it close scrutiny).  Crafted foremost with a mind toward potential military advantage, it was conceived for the wrong reasons; as such, despite Abraham Lincoln’s invocation of “the considerate judgment of mankind”, it didn’t free all slaves, only those in Confederate states, and it neatly avoided all matters of citizenship.  (The thirteenth, fourteenth, and fifteenth amendments to the Constitution would have to legislate what should have come naturally in a so-called “evolved” and humane society.)  What the measure couldn’t adequately do was squelch the rise of Jim Crow laws.  In essence, what it couldn’t do was put into place safeguards so that freed slaves – ultimately all African Americans – wouldn’t be subjected to predictable, hostile acts of bitter resentment.  

 

Jumping ahead nearly one hundred years, a similar reactionary behavior was exhibited in the wake of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.  (For an engaging read – but one that will break your heart, get a copy of Jerry Mitchell’s 2020 release of Race Against Time: A Reporter Reopens the Unsolved Murder Cases of the Civil Rights Era).  Once again, we bear witness to our nation endeavoring to right a wrong, only to provoke repugnant displays of miserliness and indecency.   Apparently, we just can’t help ourselves; at every opportunity to right the wrongs, in every historical moment when the moral high ground generously presents itself as an option, we reflexively show cowardice.  Are we that afraid of forfeiting privileges that we merely inherited?   I freely admit that I have been a lousy Catholic; I don’t attend mass, so the practicing piece of my faith is regularly challenged.  I often, however, find myself saying, there but for the grace of God go I.  That’s not enough, though.  I shouldn’t simply be grateful that I don’t suffer the injustices that others endure by virtue of skin color.  I ought to be uttering these words, whatsoever you do for the least of my brothers, you do for me.

 

As this distressing year comes to a close, I vow to more critically examine how I personally respond when witnessing instances of injustice, and to do a better job of voicing opposition.  Opposition is clearly not enough, however.  If I can say I’m part of the solution, then maybe that will put me on the right path.  Nothing ventured, nothing gained, right?  Oh, and that young woman who ranted like a lunatic in the hotel lobby?  Her Uber driver found her phone in the back seat of his car.  Worth thinking about:  what if the roles had been reversed, and it was – in all its unlikeliness – the black man and his teenage son charging into a random hotel, grabbing the young white woman and accusing her of theft?  Right now, she’s not in jail (and would not even be under investigation were it not for the fact that a video of the event went viral), but would the black teenager have been graced with the same consideration, the same “deliberate and measured” approach? Moreover, shame on the hotel manager who insisted that the boy comply with the deranged woman’s exhortation that he produce the phone for her inspection when she wasn’t even a guest at the hotel.  Really!  Sometimes outrage is the perfect and necessary response.

Learn to Skate

Behind the house at 1777 South Street were three ponds tucked into a wooded area.  They were imaginatively named “The First Pond”, “The Second Pond”, and “The Third Pond”. Rarely were they ideal for skating because the surface would perpetually be leavened with leaves, twigs and branches, or snow. For early efforts at learning to ice skate, however, they were perfect.  There were frozen streams, too, that connected the three ponds, allowing you to conveniently skate from one to the next.  I was forever pursuing my brothers, who without warning would all race off to the next pond.  I think I cried a lot when they did that, not because they didn’t see me as their equal, but because of scary woodland creatures who would then be able to easily pick me off.  And that comment about “equal”, how could they consider me one of the gang when, on the ice, all I managed to do was tentatively walk around – in my skates – with crooked ankles nearly grazing the ice, arms akimbo?  It was a style that forced my body to do splits every ten feet or so.  Whenever the command “move!” was issued as I crossed into areas where frenzied hockey action was taking place, I responded with a fresh startle reflex much like an infant who has been presented with a sudden loud noise or a bright light, my feet shooting out from under me and my arms splaying.   And I cried.  I was better at locating logs to sit on. . . and even better at experiencing hypothermia.  I should add that I did have an important role; whenever the puck sailed into the surrounding woods, I was sent to retrieve it.  Consequently, my skates required frequent sharpening. (pfff!  As if!). I grew up not very fond of skating. . . until I met David, and Johnson’s Pond in Raynham provided a new venue for that dance that teenage boys and girls do in large unsupervised groups.  My feet were just as cold then, too, but I didn’t mind. At least I didn’t cry.

Up for some shinny?

Have I mentioned that our family was BIG into hockey?  Well, it bears repeating.  All my brothers were groomed from an early age to be ice hockey players.  Mom and Dad imagined themselves, at least in the beginning, as devoted hockey parents.  So, I remember as a child watching my brothers in training, each, in turn, skating around the various ponds in Bridgewater, pushing a wooden kitchen chair in front of them.  Youngsters throughout Bridgewater likewise took to the area’s frozen bodies of water; there were several ponds and lakes that provided great conditions for skating: Carver Pond, Skeeter Mill Pond, Sturtevant’s Corner, and the Ice Pond (aka State Farm Pond).  It didn’t strike me as especially fun; therefore, despite all the enforced hours logged on area ponds, I never progressed.  Impressed as I was with Peggy Fleming, her moves just totally flummoxed me.  

The 1960’s and 70’s were the sweet spot, I believe, for pick-up games in which teams were naturally selected by blood ties.  The baby boom generation – lots of families with lots of kids – provided a ripe culture for casual team sports.  The Bruins’ success, too, in the early 70’s converted young spectators into NHL aspirants.  Although gear was optional, hockey gloves were one of the more prized pieces of equipment, given that rules of engagement were rather loose, and hands were constantly getting smashed.  It didn’t matter if they were mismatched, or had holes, or even fit properly.  On the other hand, a helmet, perhaps the most important appurtenance from a long-term health standpoint, was alarmingly absent. Although randomly assembled teams were a perfectly acceptable option, in many cases entire teams could be made up of a single family or a neighborhood combination of families.  Hence, there were rivalries that evolved rather organically; the Morrisseys and Maloneys, for example, nurtured a competitive relationship that regularly included family sponsored fighting.  Kevin, of course, in his typically zealous manner, nobly did his part for the Morrisseys.  As feared as he might have been by his foes, there was great admiration of his skill set, which extended even to ice surface management.  Few kids, for example, would risk submerging their own vehicles in order to clear the ice of snow.  As the baton was later passed to younger brothers Marty and Bob, the family names changed; the Heslin brothers and the Blakelys brought greater finesse and skill to the pond hockey scene.  At this point, kids could just generally boast a more expansive indoctrination.  Organized hockey had arrived in Bridgewater.

Pick-up style hockey continued to enjoy popularity in subsequent decades, but, naturally, the game has experienced a metamorphosis.  What we observe today is akin to a coming-of-age; rarely do we see genuine, improvised games on local ponds.  It catches our eye when we do see a small handful of kids with sticks in hand, movement back and forth between two makeshift goals on a suitably frozen pond.  Even the length of the season has shortened; in earlier years it might have been possible to take to the ice in November; extended periods of cold are much rarer these days.  

Baby boomers never really left their passion behind, however. Pick-up games now more readily conjure ice rink settings, and schedules are firmly set.  And if you live in cold winter states such as Minnesota or Colorado, outdoor pick-up tournaments, which draw thousands of participants and are often sponsored by big-name purveyors of beer, bring you that much closer to your unfulfilled dream of playing professionally.  They’re highly organized programs, with perimeter boards and goalie nets that are the real deal, (one even boasts Zamboni service!), so prepare accordingly.  Make sure you arrive with matching gloves, fashion forward attire, and a mouthguard for your few remaining original teeth.  

The Folk Mass (or “Sacrae Liturgiae Catholica in Discrimine rursus”*)

“Come on, people, now, smile on your brother…” filled the airwaves in my kitchen yesterday morning.  Now that brings back memories of an uncertain period in my life.  1969 was a good year if you were a folk musician, and the Grassroots had by then joined other rockers, like Bob Dylan (only ever depressing with his lyrics) and Joan Baez, all hoping to cash in on the implications of the Catholic Church’s revolution.  Pope John XXIII had sent shock waves across the Catholic world when he rolled out “Vatican II” in 1959.  With this extreme modernization of the Church, communities began to examine from a new angle their own bridges, wondering how troubled indeed were the waters flowing beneath.  Social justice was top of the list of causes to be taken up in the 60’s and 70’s.  People in that day, yes, hippies, if you will, allowed their disaffection to shape their worlds, at least the part of it over which they felt they could exert some control.  Enter the folk mass.

Bishops, cardinals, and monsignors may have grumbled, but they couldn’t argue that a restlessness was consuming their congregations.  For most parishes, compromise was the only solution if numbers meant anything; high mass in Latin could go on, and for the bongo aficionados, a “vernacular” mass was added to the limited menu.  

I welcomed the alternative.  I wouldn’t characterize my response to the folk mass as pleasure, per se, but acceptance.  I had never enjoyed the Latin mass, although it’s doubtful that enjoyment was one of its objectives.  As many years as I attended Latin mass with the inscrutable Monsignor Meehan presiding, I could never crack the code; those words just rose and fell around my ears, and taunted me with their secret meaning.  And the droning, oh, the droning; wake me up when it’s over!

So, I rode that boat ashore, right over to the Parish Center, a grand-sized building recently constructed to accommodate the baby-boom generation.  This is where I make a full disclosure.  I didn’t love Folk Mass; I loved, however, the promised honey-glazed donut that was the reward for sitting there (and sometimes standing and swaying to the music).  There were other advantages, too; the mass ran about 10-15 minutes shorter than the version over at the church proper, you could carry the tune and sing the lyrics more easily, you could play along with “the band” with your own acoustic guitar (if you so chose), and your attempts to track who was there and who was missing were less easily detected due generally to the more restive atmosphere. As you might conclude, I may have missed the real point of it all.

The absolute worst experience at Folk Mass was the day that I had just swung my gaze back to the front of the hall, (clearly just checking the flock).  Sister Julia Francis was standing right in front of me with a tambourine in her outstretched hand.  I shook my head vigorously as if to convey the obvious, which was, No, you’ve got it all wrong!  I have no sense of rhythm!  Please, I beg you, take it away!  As I tried to impart silently all these panicked thoughts to her, she calmly stood there until I took the tambourine from her.  Needless to say, Allelu that day lacked a certain percussive brilliance. (I learned that day not to sit in an aisle seat.)

Unsurprisingly, the liturgical wars are still being waged in earnest, and although Pope Benedict made up lost ground during his tenure by, among other things, promoting the Latin mass, our new Pope espouses a much more liberal ideology, one that naturally embraces a customized approach to mass.  Fit the shoe to the foot, in other words.  (I reject the logic that if only Latin mass were to be offered, your greatly shrunken congregation will reflect a more pure following.  It's just snobbish).  There has been fallout, to be sure, with a more permissive culture. The purveyors of ermine capelets ranging around St. Peter’s Square today, for example, are bewailing the loss of high-stylin’ Benedict, primarily because priests, bishops, etc. nowadays prefer to rock (if only to enjoy the financial savings) the laid back, nylon-sporting fashion choices of Francis.   In response, the traditionalists who would disparage Frank’s embrace of Folk Masses and all that they imply, mutter about how Michael can take his f-in’ boat and row it elsewhere; clearly, it’s not welcome ashore.

*“Sacrae Liturgiae Catholica in Discrimine rursus” means, I think, “The Catholic Liturgy is in Danger again”, but my Latin is, well, you’ve figured that out.