Preserving our Green Jewel

Rockport’s  “Magic Place”

Millbrook Meadow

          Rockporters have loved the beautiful green Meadow that lies between Front Beach and the Mill Pond.  There have been  Maypole Dances, the Scandinavians have had their festive  Midsommer celebration with dancing Finns, Swedes, Norwegians.

            People have brought all manner of dogs, cats, horses and even a stuffed unicorn down to the Blessing of the Animals.

            The annual Acoustic Festival has brought people in, as well as the Peace Festival. 

            People from all over have brought their kids down to the fastest Easter Egg hunt on Cape Ann.  You blink your eyes and the kids have scooped up every egg in sight.

            Kids from all over the North Shore have come down on the train for our Library’s “Story Hour” with storytelling and clowns and all kinds of fun.  One long line of excited kids!  As one group was leaving the Meadow, others were just getting off the train.

            Rockport native Penny Olsen and her husband owned the Linden Tree Inn near the Meadow. She left money to the Rockport Garden Club for a beautiful garden at the Beach Street entrance to the Meadow, in honor of her grandmother, Meg Day.   The Garden Club people do a careful, thoughtful job of keeping that garden up.  And other Garden Club people help battle the invasive plants that grow there. 

           

            Millbrook Meadow wasn’t always a nice green place.  For the first several centuries of life in Rockport, this was a pretty grungy place.  It may be hard for visitors who come now to imagine that Rockport in the 19^th and early 20^th centuries was a bare town of fishermen, granite workers and farmers. Life was hard for the men who cut, drilled and blasted huge chunks of granite from the quarries.  

            What is now “the Meadow” was “Millbrook Valley” then.  From the earliest days—the early 1700s, John Pool was milling lumber to send down to Boston. There were always mill wheels spinning, turning out ground meal, lumber, pianos, buggy seats, glue, ground fish bladders and more glue.  And did that place stink!  The oldtimers always complained about the smell coming up from there.

.           About 1920 the mill for grinding fish bladders, or isinglass, stopped work. With Prohibition, there was little need for this product, used  for making beer. The empty mill   sat idle, until during the Depression of the 1930s, it caught on fire and burned down.   The man who then owned the property had trouble paying his taxes, so he deeded it to the Town, and even agreed to take down the remnants of the old burned-out factory.  The ladies of the Rockport Garden Club bought it, for $1500, and then, in 1938 they donated it to the Town, and work began to turn it into a park. 

            It became a park, but in 1951 some businessmen downtown were looking for additional parking for visitors.  This is something businesses have been doing for many years here.  [See “Lura” below.]

The Mill Pond

Mill Pond in November, 1975

            Rockporters have a long relationship with the Mill Pond, going back to 1702 when workers dug it to create a water source for a grist mill and a lumber mill.

            Many have skated on the pond.  There have always been people fishing there. In the old days, when the fisheries people stocked the Pond, they caught some pretty good sized fish there.   

            In the winter, the Norwoods hired a lot of people to help cut ice on the Pond and store in two ice houses, one over by their house on Mill Lane and the other below Anderson’s house on King Street.  Times were tough and men really counted on the money they made sawing chunks of ice from the Pond, then hooking up a team of oxen to haul it to the ice houses.

            The dam built originally was made of boulders, logs and mud, but was improved to one of large granite slabs in 1830. That dam blew out in May, 2006, and it took six years to get the funding and all the permits to rebuild it.  Work began in July 2012. 

            The new dam, built according to 21^st century standards, was completed by T. Ford & Co. of Georgetown, with the supervision of Rockport’s Department of Public Works in January, 2013.  The project cost about $980,000, paid for from FEMA, State and local funds.

           

Mill Pond and our new Dam

         

And now….

We’ve all gotten a lot out of this brilliant green jewel right in the middle of town, but now, it needs help. 

             

            We are going to have to do some things to make sure that it can continue to be there for us.

The day the Dam blew out, May 15, 2006

            When the Mother’s Day rainstorm of 2006 blew out our old dam, water from the pond flooded the Meadow and scoured out huge troughs. 

            When the work was going on last fall to build a new dam, they drained the Mill Pond so that it was mostly mud with a few puddles.  We got a chance to see better than ever how it has been loaded with a century of sediment, washed down from Railroad Avenue and all of that part of Rockport.  And the Pond is clogged with all kinds of invasive plant life.  Those who skated on the Pond as kids know how much smaller the Pond has become. 

           

            The Mill Brook as it passes through the Meadow floods its banks often.  Stones lining the brook are all askew, and the high embankment near Beach Street is in danger of compete collapse. 

 Granite blocks that Mill Brook channel all askew

            Two huge old willow trees in the Meadow are at the end of their lives, and large boughs could come crashing down on some unsuspecting child any time. 

           

            It is time for us to take steps to repair our Meadow and our Mill Pond. 

         

            Millbrook Meadow Committee has joined forces with the Department of Public Works (DPW) to plan the Restoration of the Meadow and the Mill Pond.  The first thing we did was request $60,000 from the Lura Hall Phillips Trust. 

            Next, with the DPW, prepared a request for $120,000 from the Community Preservation fund.  Those funds, if they are approved, come from a special local source collected in a surcharge we pay in our property taxes, and augmented by state funds. This money is to be used for affordable housing, or purchase of open space for the town, historic preservation or recreational spaces.

            In April we will request an additional $60,000 at Town Meeting.  

            These three amounts, totaling $240,000, will allow us to conduct a study of the Meadow and Pond, looking at the geotechnical details, the hydraulics, how water flows through the Brook, how water drains in the Meadow, the plant life, both in the Meadow and in and around the Mill Pond. Then will come design of the restoration.  Based upon early surveys, we will begin to learn what we can and should do, and how much it will cost.

            In all the 75 years the Meadow has been in existence no comprehensive study has been done, and work has been done with limited local resources, and much volunteer help.  This plan for restoration is intended to give the Meadow and the Mill Pond new life to last another few centuries.

            We have already begun to look for federal and state grants to assist us in this restoration, and we are planning a drive to solicit private contributions.

Picture from Rockport Art Association, 1956

Lura

            Lura Phillips was the lady who, back in 1951, went head-to-head with businessmen who wanted to convert the Meadow into a parking lot.  She was a one-woman bulldozer, raising funds for Millbrook Meadow.  Lura was expert at wringing donations out of people, whether art from artists, or goods from other merchants, or dollars from regular citizens.  All for the Meadow.

           

            Rae Francoeur, a Rockport writer who now spends most of her time writing in New York City, lived in Lura’s house for several years.  Lura told her this:

     Saving the meadow

Lura was standing on the upstairs deck of her house with me and she pointed in the direction of Millbrook Meadow.

“Do you know how I got interested in saving the meadow?” she asked. “One day, I was standing out here just like this and I heard noises coming from the meadow. I ran over and saw a backhoe. I thought they were going to turn it into a parking lot. So I rolled up my sleeves and got busy.”

“Whenever I go into the meadow,” she said, “I realize what a magic place it is. It doesn’t matter how I feel when I arrive. But once I get inside, I feel the magic and everything changes.”

            When my wife Marty and I came to town in 1990, Lura was already into her nineties, but still full of energy.  She lived in a house up on Main Street.  She was having one of her frequent yard sales one day when we walked by.  We stopped to admire some antique glass doorknobs.   When she found out that we had just moved in on Mill Lane, around the corner, before we knew what was happening, we were signed up to join the Millbrook Meadow Committee. 

            When you joined a committee run by Lura, you pretty much gave up your freedom. 

            Lura was continually holding events in the Meadow.  She held a fund drive to build a pretty stone bridge, dedicated to the Founders of Rockport—the Tarrs and the Pooles, and some of the other old names in town. 

            She launched a fund drive to build a nice winding stone stairway from King Street down to the Meadow.  It was in honor of the Quarry workers.

            She grabbed us to help run “Pets and Hobbies Day”.  She had 19 members in her committee when we joined, and all we had to do was line up people to bring their pets to the Meadow on “Pets and Hobbies Day”. 

            And line up vendors to sell hamburgers and soft drinks, all for the Meadow. 

            And line up ladies to bake pies and pastries to sell, for the Meadow. 

            And write stories for the newspaper, and print and put up posters all over town.       
            And talk people into displaying their hobbies, and charging everyone who set up a display. 

            Of course someone needed to rent the tables and chairs, and put up the markers for each booth, and run the electrical lines from the abutting businesses, like Peg Leg Restaurant. Bob Welcome (restaurant owner)  had already agreed to donate the electricity.

            Lura had an interesting leadership style.  She would ask about five people to do the same task, figuring that at least four would forget, or do it so poorly that someone else would have to fill in.

            Lura loved that Meadow, and protected it, and raised funds to keep it up. 

            Lura left money in a trust, and now we are using that as seed money to start our restoration of the Meadow.

   

            I mentioned above that in 1951 some businessmen downtown were looking for additional parking for visitors. 

            They decided that it was time for a nice parking lot right where Millbrook Meadow was.  That was when Lura “rolled up her sleeves and got busy.”  She harangued and badgered and cajoled the Selectmen; she found a good local lawyer to support her cause. She fought and argued, and gathered signatures and supporters, and finally, the Selectmen saw that the law was on Lura’s side, and she stopped the hot top.

            All during Lura’s later years, she saved her money.  In her 90s, she sold her house to Rae Francoeur and moved into DenMar. (Local Rehab. Center).

            When she died in 1994  she left money to the Lura Hall Phillips Trust, for the improvement of her beloved Millbrook Meadow.  

           

            Lura loved Rockport, and she loved the Meadow.  Now, her money can be used to help restore the Meadow and make it the Magic Place for future generations.

Frog Pond, photo by  Joe Doakes, 2011

            We’re holding a “Visioning Session” at the Rockport Library on Wednesday, March 20^th  at 7 p.m. 

            We’re going to ask Rockporters to tell us what they like and don’t like about the Meadow, past and present, and we want you to share ideas about how you’d like it to be in the future. 

            Do you have ideas about the Meadow and the Pond to make it better? 

            Please plan to come, and urge your friends and neighbors to come!

            We’d also like to invite you to join us at Town Meeting on Saturday, April 6^th, and support our request for funds for Restoring the Meadow and the Mill Pond.

            Thank you!

Samuel W. Coulbourn

Chairman, Millbrook Meadow Committee

P.S. Gunilla Caulfield, Trustee of the Lura Hall Phillips Trust, talked recently with June Sullivan, an old friend and neighbor of Lura.  June (now 92) recalled that day when the bulldozers arrived in 1951. June said Lura had told her all about it, still shaking. June related: "Lura got a phone call that bulldozers were entering the meadow, and, frantic, she hurried out of the house and took a right-of-way shortcut to the meadow, running. When she arrived, she stood fast, holding her ground, put her arms up, and stopped them from entering."
s.c.

China in the 20th Century

The Rape of Nanking 

by Iris Chang

Japanese soldier uses bayonet to kill Chinese civilian 

who has been tied to a pole, Nanking, 1937.

          If you live near Rockport, and you are interested in our world and what is going on, and what has been going on, come join us for a meeting of the History Book Club. 

            Read a book about Israel and Palestine in the 20^th and 21^st Centuries, or one about any aspect of Israel and the Israelis, or anything about Palestine and the Palestinians.  Read about efforts to bring Palestinians and Israelis together, or about the wars between Israel and their Arab neighbors… about Gaza or the Six Days’ War, or Hezbollah, Fatah or Hamas. 

            On Wednesday, February 27^th we’ll meet at the Rockport Library and discuss what we’ve read.  7 p.m., in the Trustees’ Room.

            Perhaps you have personal experience in the region.  Come and join the discussion!

            In March, we’ll read a book of our individual choices about Mexico or Central America from 1900 to 2013.  You pick the book, read it and come and join the discussion, Wednesday, March 27^th. 

            In April, we’ll read about Africa, from 1900 to 2013.  Any subject—the independence movement of the 1960s, Rwanda, the Congo, Zimbabwe and Mugabe, South Africa and Mandela, Idi Amin and Uganda, Somalia, Ethiopia, Sudan, Chad, Niger, Burkina Faso, Angola, Tunisia, Algeria  ---- your choice!  We’ll meet April 24^th.

            In May we’re looking at BRIC-- four big, powerful countries all in a similar stage of advanced economic development:  Brazil, Russia, India and China.   We’ll meet May 29^th.

            We had a great discussion at our meeting this week.  Our topic was China in the 20^th Century. 

            Dick Verrengia reported on the life of Richard Baum.

           

China Watcher: Confessions of a Peking Tom  by Richard Baum

University of Washington Press, Mar 15, 2010 - Biography & Autobiography - 342 pages.

            Unless you live there, and speak perfect Chinese, it’s hard to understand China, but we gain great insight from people like Richard Baum, who had dedicated his life to being a “China Watcher”.

            This illuminating memoir reflects on 40 years of learning about the People's Republic of China through China watching, the process by which outsiders gather and decipher official and unofficial information to figure out what's really going on.

            Dick Verrengia gave us a tremendous bonus, and it’s the kind of thing that makes our meetings so interesting. 

            At the end of World War II, Japan was defeated, and the United States and its allies were the victors.  However, there were still some 1 million Chinese soldiers all over China, and the United States military had the job of making sure they evacuated rapidly.  Our job was made much more difficult because in China the Nationalists (Kuomintang, under Generalissimo Chiang Kai-Shek) and the Communists (People’s Liberation Army, under Mao Tse-Dung) were fighting their own war.  All during World War II they’d been fighting each other as well as the Japanese.

            Dick Verrengia was a young Marine, part of the First Marine Division, sent to North China.  It became a Marine regiment sent to protect the Chinese rail lines, carrying coal between Beijing and the coast.  Shipping millions of tons of coal was vital  for the millions of shivering Chinese in that first winter after World War II ended.  Young Dick found himself as a train guard, riding trains loaded with coal.  A lot of his time was spent in the city of Qinhuangdao a port city in northeastern Hebei province of North China. It is about 300 km east of Beijing, on the Bohai Sea, the innermost gulf of the Yellow Sea. Its population in 1945 was some 300,000, but now (2010) it is 2,987,605.  

            Dick related how one day a quarter of a million Chinese communist troops came marching in, led by a fat Chinese general in a fur coat, riding in a Packard open-top sedan. 

            The general demanded that the Americans leave at once.  Dick’s commanding officer, a Lieutenant Colonel who was drunk most of the time, speaking through an interpreter, demanded that the Chinese leave or his Marines (some 150) would drive them (some 250.000) out. 

            Cooler heads prevailed, however, and the American Marines evacuated. 

            Next, Beverly Verrengia reported on The Party: The Secret World of China's Communist Rulers by Richard McGregor.   HarperCollins, Jun 8, 2010 - History - 336 pages.

            This is an investigation into China's Communist Party and its integral role in the country's rise as a global superpower and rival of the United States.

            In The Party, Richard McGregor delves deeply into China's inner sanctum, showing how the Communist Party controls the government, courts, media, and military, and how it keeps all corruption accusations against its members in-house. The Party's decisions have a global impact, yet the CPC remains a deeply secretive body, hostile to the law, unaccountable to anyone or anything other than its own internal tribunals. Richard McGregor offers a captivating portrait of China's Communist Party, its grip on power and control over China, and its future.

            Next, Rick Heuser reported on

The search for modern China by Jonathan D. Spence. Norton, 1991 - 876 pages.

            In this widely acclaimed history of modern China, Jonathan Spence achieves a fine blend of narrative richness and efficiency. Praised as "a miracle of readability and scholarly authority," (Jonathan Mirsky) The Search for Modern China offers a matchless introduction to China's history.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                              

          Next, it was my turn.

Chang, Iris, The Rape of Nanking: The Forgotten Holocaust of World War II.  1997. New York, NY: Basic Books. 290 pp.

            My family and I lived for three years in Japan.  Actually, we lived in the home that had once been occupied by the commander of the Imperial Japanese naval base in a city near Nagasaki.  I never, not one time, ever caught even a tiny glimpse of the characteristic of the Japanese military that led them to do the horrible things that they did countless times during World War II.

            The Rape of Nanking is the story of how the Japanese army in December 1937 systematically raped hundreds of thousands of women, then killed them; in mass killings they murdered men, women and children, shooting them, bayoneting them, whacking off their heads by sword, then dumped hundreds of thousands of corpses into the Yangtze river, until the river ran red with their blood. 

            The author of this book, Iris Chang, was a young Chinese American woman, and she received many awards for this book, and for others she wrote. Her grandparents barely escaped death in Nanking.

             This book appears to be well researched.  She went through hundreds of drawers of files to find the story of how the Imperial Japanese Army attacked Shanghai, then marched overland to seize the capital city of Nanking (Nanjing).  The Japanese Army promised Chinese army troops humane treatment, then bound their hands, and marched them off to be machine-gunned and bayoneted, hundreds at a time.   This horror took place over six weeks in the city of Nanking.  The Japanese murdered some 300,000 civilians during this time.

            The Japanese Army committed atrocities in many other places in their invasion of China.  They are quoted in numerous records of saying that they did not look upon the Chinese as humans, but rather like pigs, “except you could eat pigs.”

            Ms. Chang writes about a few Americans and Europeans living in Nanking who were responsible for creating a safety zone in the city that saved hundreds of thousands. One particularly helpful person was a German named John Rabe.  He was a member of the Nazi party, and used his swastika armband to intervene when Japanese were about to kill Chinese.  While the Japanese sometimes ignored the pleas of other foreigners, the sight of that Nazi armband usually did the trick.  Ms. Chang called him the “Oskar Schindler of Nanking.” (Schindler was the Nazi who saved some 100,000 Jews from the Holocaust in Europe.)  She tells stories of an American woman, Minnie Vautrin, and a Nanking-born American surgeon named Robert Wilson, who risked their lives countless times to save many thousands of Chinese.

            Ms. Chang writes about “A Second Rape” in noting how American schoolchildren learn about Hitler’s gas chambers, about the diary of Ann Frank, and about our bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, but they know nothing about Nanking in 1937.  In Japan, there is a “soothing perception” of history that either ignores the Japanese massacre at Nanking, or puts a decidedly Japanese spin on the actions of the military. Japanese ultranationalists have threatened everything from lawsuits to death, even assassination, to opponents who suggest that these textbooks are not telling the next generation the real story.  And it is not just the ultranationalists in Japan who have tried to airbrush this part of their history. 

            In her epilogue, Ms. Chang sets down three lessons from Nanking:

1.      Civilization itself is tissue-thin. Japan’s behavior during World War II was less a product of dangerous people than of a dangerous government.  The Japanese Army for years had created a Samurai culture of unspeakable cruelty to each other, for starters.

2.      The role of power in genocide.  Those who have studied the patterns of large-scale killings throughout history have noted that the sheer concentration of power in government is lethal.

3.      The third lesson, one that is perhaps most distressing of all, lies in the frightening ease with which the mind can accept genocide, turning us all into passive spectators to the unthinkable.  The Rape of Nanking was front-page news across the world, and yet most of the world stood by and did nothing while an entire city was butchered. The international response to Nanking was eerily akin to the more recent response to the atrocities in Bosnia-Herzegovina and Rwanda.  And, since publication of this book, the massive killing now in Syria.

            Ms. Chang’s book has received harsh criticism from some quarters, particularly in suggesting that the Japanese have tried to soft pedal or suppress this part of their history.  She was hounded and criticized harshly, and became very depressed.

            In November, 2004 Iris Chang took her own life… perhaps one more victim of The Rape of Nanking.

-end-

The Personal Navigator offers these books:

Lydia Ann's Autograph Book, 1849-1910    1841    New York, NY: J.C. Riker, 129 Fulton St. 35 + 4 pp.  15.5 x 19.4 cm. Elegant little autograph album with full-page floral illustrations and (mostly)  full-page sentimental writings of Lydia Ann's friends over the years, from 1849 to 1910. Inscriptions begin with Sarah from South Natick in 1849, include Lizzie W. from Boston, 1857; Sue Parker and Mary Odiorne in Cohasset, 1860; Priscilla in Boston in 1852; Carrie S. Watson in Lynn, 1867; Delia Wilson in Lynn, 1866; M.F. Palmer in Lynn, 1868; more. Leather album with elaborate gilt embossed design and six floral illustrations and tissue guards. Leather album with embossed gilt decoration, boards warped, slight wear to heel and toe of spine, very good. (5827) $65.00.  American Originals/Autograph Book

                                                                                                                                   

To Lydia Ann,

“Forget me not,”

When thy lovely form is kneeling,

When at eve the prayer is stealing,

“Forget me not.”

When  thine eye is fondly beaming,

And the burning tears are streaming,

When thy soul of heaven is dreaming,

“Forget me not.”

Lizzie W.         Boston, July, 1857

North Atlantic Patrol, The Log of a Seagoing Artist by Coale, Griffith Baily, Lieutenant Commander, USNR 1943            New York, NY: Farrar & Rinehart, Inc. 51 pp. 19 x 27 cm.     Designated as one of four combat artists commissioned by the U.S. Navy in 1941, LCDR Coale made the fateful North Atlantic Patrol that ended in the sinking of USS Reuben James on Oct. 31, 1941.  Coale's book describes, in words and his black and white drawings, life on patrol, in ports, and especially the rescue of 44 members of the Reuben James.  Woody Guthrie wrote a song about the Reuben James sinking that became a patriotic rallying cry during World War II. Decorated cloth on board, clean, text block clean, but dust jacket fastened to back cover by adhesive at top. Book is good, nonetheless, but dustjacket is in two pieces and poor. (5801) $24.00. Navy/World War II       

Early Starrs in Kent & New England  (With Starr Family Association booklet, 1937)        by Ballou, Hosea Starr  1944 Boston, MA: Starr Family Association. 141 pp. + 8 pp.    15.5 x 23.2 cm. Compilation of a series of articles on the forbears of the Starr family in the U.S. and England, together with an 8-page Starr Family Association booklet published in 1937. Includes articles on English Ancestry, Early Life in County Kent, English Baptismal Records, Dr. Comfort Starr Arrives in New England, The Monhegan Island Episode, Rev. Comfort Starr Graduates from Harvard, more.Includes frontispiece photo of author.  Red cloth on board with gilt lettering, moderate wear, text block tight and clean, inserted papers very good, book very good. (8310) $50.00.  Biography                        

                                                                                                                                               

Enigmas of Life by W.R. Greg Greg, William Rathbone 1873     Boston, MA: James R. Osgood and Company. Greg (1809-1881) offers in this book some suggested thoughts, based upon his outlook after having reached the age of 60. In his Preface he sets forth the framework for his thought: "..it becomes possible at once to believe in and worship God, without doing violence to our moral sense, or denying or distorting the sorrowful facts that surround our daily life." Greg takes on Malthus' discouraging theory of geometric progression of populations against arithmetic growth of sustenance, in "Malthus Notwithstanding". He takes on Darwin in "Non-Survival of the Fittest".  322 pp. 12.6 x 19.4 cm. Maroon cloth on board with Gilt titles, minor wear and blotches on cover. Inscription on front endpapers: "Louise Grant, 1873". Very good. (8297) $27.00. Educational/Philosophical

Looking Backward 2000-1887 by Edward Bellamy 1889 Boston, MA: Houghton, Mifflin and Company. Author Bellamy in this wildly popular (in 1887) looks a century into the future in his fictional account by a man, born in 1857, who goes to sleep and awakens 113 years later at the end of the 20th Century.  He describes radically new social and industrial institutions, in a very upbeat and optimistic look backward, yet into the future. There is a strong look of socialism in this "new world", one which Marxists quickly admired.  Includes a Postscript by the author responding to a review of his book in the Boston Transcript of March 30, 1888.            475 pp. 12.4 x 19 cm.    Dark green cloth on board with black lettering. Moderate wear. Bookplate and inscription on front free endpaper: "F.E. Porter".Very good.         (8298) $96.00. Fiction/Philosophy

Contact me at scoulbourn1@verizon.net

Memories of cold times…

 

Cold.

Peredelkino, outside of Moscow. Photo shows the Church of the Transfiguration.

It’s c-o-l-d!  All the cold weather we’ve been having in New England has caused me to think back when I was really cold…. and Russia comes to mind.

Russia.  One day the Station Chief of our embassy in Moscow invited my son and me to join him and several other CIA people on a cross-country ski outing.  They chose the beautiful rolling hills at what used to be the dacha of  author Boris Pasternak.  Imagine, here we were, just 25 kilometers from the Kremlin, out skiing with a bunch of CIA guys.  It conjured up in my mind some kind of James Bond scene. 

            These guys were very athletic, and good at cross-country, and we flew across the fields like greased lightning.  One guy carried a flask of pepper vodka in his backpack, and when we’d stop, he’d offer everyone a swig. 

            Fortunately, the outing did not include any exotic Soviet female spies, a la Bond, nor even any of the grungy kind of real KGB agents who usually tailed us.

            But I remember it being really COLD.

             I was assigned as Naval Attaché in Moscow, 1981-83.  Most of our work consisted of traveling to other cities where we could observe the USSR in all its glory.  As a naval officer, I led a group of two naval officers and one Marine officer and some of us were on the road nearly all the time. 

            Most of our trips consisted of catching the midnight train from Leningrad Station en route Leningrad (now St. Petersburg).  We would arrive in that far northern city about 8 a.m.  and a driver would pick us up and take us to the American Consulate.  We kept a small four-wheel drive vehicle, a Soviet Niva, at the Consulate for our business.  As soon as we dropped our bags at the Consulate, we would get in the Niva and start our travel around the city. 

            Our job was to observe as much as possible of the construction of new warships at the many shipyards in and around Leningrad.  We would also observe what ships were in the harbor, and in the Neva River, including barges and ships, which traveled back and forth in the Soviet canal system.

            Some of the time, we would park our Niva and get out and walk, often in heavy snow, to get the best look at a particular intelligence target. 

            The KGB knew when we had filed to travel to Leningrad, and they generally followed us wherever we went.  Sometimes they followed us closely; sometimes they kept their distance. 

            Usually our routine included a walk along Lieutenant Schmidt’s Embankment of the Neva, where we could see a lot of ships tied up all along the embankment.   The KGB assigned a crew of “goons” to keep an eye on us there.  The head goon was a fellow we called “Fats.”  He had followed generations of western attachés.

            Slogging in that snow along Schmidt’s Bank was a cold exercise. 

            Sometimes we would be driving to view various shipyards, and stop for a lunch break at Harry’s Pie Shop.  Its real name, in typical Soviet fashion, was probably “Lunch Shop No. 237” or such.  Harry’s was a place that turned out really greasy pirozhki,  little pastries, stuffed with shredded cabbage or meat.  And if it were meat, you didn’t want to know any more about the meat.   They served these little pies with glasses of hot tea, loaded with sugar.  Or, you could walk outside the shop and find a little man with a portable tank, selling kvass or beer.  Kvass is a lightly-fermented drink made from stale bread.  The beer was watery and fairly tasteless.     If you decided to buy a glass of kvass or beer, it would set you back about ten cents U.S., and you got to drink out of the same glass the previous customer had used. 

            So, out of the cold we would come, to stand at the high tables in Harry’s, and eat a couple of pastries and drink sugary tea.  Then, back we would go to the snowy world of Leningrad. 

            Russians wear marvelous fur hats, which are quite comfortable in cold weather.  However, there is an ethic that they observe:  Real men don’t put the flaps down until it is “Minus dvadsat gradusov” or –20° C., which equates to –4° F. Russians say that only drunks and students put the flaps down in warmer temperatures. 

            Moscow traffic policemen are recruited from Siberia, I am told.  You see them, in their long gray coats, standing in the middle of the road, directing traffic for hours, in the bitterest weather.  These guys must have a layer of fat on them like a walrus, to withstand that cold. 

            

And now we live on Cape Ann in Massachusetts.

           

.Winter swimmer in the Neva

USS Sablefish

            Submarines.  Life in a diesel submarine on patrol could be very cold.  We were assigned to patrol a barrier up off Iceland.  This was peacetime (1961-62) but we were always practicing for the time when the whole Soviet submarine force would pour out of Murmansk, Arkhangelsk and other northern ports and head for the coast of the United States. 

            We would patrol at best sonar listening depth—maybe 150 feet—for several hours, and then, when it was dark, we’d come to periscope depth, and if the coast was clear, we’d put up our snorkel and light off our diesel engines and charge the batteries. 

In the North Atlantic it is usually pretty rough, so the snorkel valve would open and shut as the waves hit it.  If the valve would stay shut for a minute or so, the engine, which required a lot of air to operate, would suck the air out of the submarine, and particularly out of your ears, until it got to such a vacuum that it would shut down the engines. (That may explain why I wear hearing aids today. That and the guns.)

            Difficulty charging meant that we tried to economize on that battery. In addition to proceeding at about three knots, we kept the heaters on only the bare minimum, and we didn’t use water except to drink.  It was really cold in that boat.  No showers, no shaving. 

            Soon it would come time to surface, and we’d race up to the bridge and set the watch.  In those waters, the heavy waves were usually crashing over the bridge, so you wore full immersion suits, and you strapped yourself on to your station so a wave wouldn’t wash you overboard.  There were just two lookouts and the officer of the deck up there, and it could be cold, and wet. 

            We made a long snorkel transit one time during the winter, from waters off Iceland to Massachusetts Bay. It was near zero degrees F. when we surfaced and motored on the surface toward Salem, MA, and ice was forming all over our decks.  I remember watching the fishermen I saw, out in this miserable weather, glad that I didn’t have their job. Shortly afterward, it was time to go back out to sea, and when we dove, we couldn’t submerge! All that ice on our decks made us very buoyant.   Soon, though, several tons of it broke loose, and we submerged, sinking like a rock!  We recovered, but it was scary.

            We’d been at sea for a couple of months, and since we were entering port the next day, and we’d eaten all the potatoes stored in the officers’ shower, we could take showers. Even though the shower was only 30 seconds long, it was hot and wonderful!

[Portions of the foregoing were originally published in my Blog of May 9^th, 2011.]

Now, the Personal Navigator has books and papers to offer:

Seamen's and Boatmen's Manual, The; Original and Revised by J.K. Davis, Chaplain, Troy, N.Y. First Edition   1847    New York, NY: Robert Carter, 58 Canal Street. 179 pp.     9.5 x 15.7 cm.  Rare religious guidance for Seamen and Boatmen. Address on Profane Swearing; address to youths employed as drivers on the canals; The Coming of Christ; Jonah in the Ship; Jesus in the Ship; The Sailor's Last Letter; The Orphan Sailor Boy; more. Chaplain relates his experience in saving souls aboard ship.   Blindstamped cloth on board with gilt lettering on spine. Two cm. crack on front hinge on cover, some pages foxed, last 7 pages dogeared; good. (8131) $100.00. Religious/Nautical                                               

Household, The; Weekly Supplement to the Detroit Free Press, 1882--Bound volume for the whole year of 1882, 52 issues         1882     Detroit, MI: The Detroit Free Press        208 pp. 28 x 38 cm.       Bound volume collection of 52 issues of "The Household" for Year 1882. Interesting letters from readers, including Southern Plantation tale about Aunt Polly. Whose fingers were prone to stick to things that she fancied. Her mistress thought Aunt Polly had secreted some newly made sausage in a special place, but alas, it was a long black snake!  Interesting letter from a "Cherokee" from Indian Territory. Recipe for Mashed Salt Cod from Oleta in Sacramento, Cal. Oyster Pie from Mrs. S.M.C. in English, Ind. "Hellespont" in Michigan writes about "Woman--her Rights and Prerogatives". Mollie in Bismarck, Dakota Territory sends recipe for Cracknels and Irish Cabbage.  "Hums" in Tombstone, Arizona Territory writes about religious observances in the West, and how she has organized charity dinners and raised good money to build a local church. "Castle Dare" from Albany writes nearly two columns about her adventure on an overnight trip on a locomotive, arriving full of soot and grime home again. Ads for Sozodont, Dr. Price's Flavoring Extracts, Royal Baking Powder, Dobbins' Starch Polish, James Pyle's Pearline, Neilson's Secret for the Complexion, Drt. Gouraud's Oriental Cream or Magical Beautifier, Ridge's Food for Infants and Invalids, Madame Griswold's Patent Skirt-Supporting Corsets, more. Bound volume of four-page newspaper supplements, worn, good. (8182) $48.00. Women's

Guinea Gold, American Edition, Monday, January 1, 1945 Port Moresby, Papua-New Guinea: U.S. Army/Royal Australian Army. 4 pp. 26.2 x 39 cm.     This unique World War II newspaper, published in New Guinea and flown daily to U.S. and Australian troops all over South West Pacific command, often scooped the world, since General MacArthur released his communiqués to them 20 hours before they were released to the world press.  This issue's lead story, on first day of 1945:  "German Salient Shrinking: Berlin Says Patton's Attack Now ‘A Major Offensive’". Report from Moscow that two Russian envoys, carrying white flags were shot yesterday while carrying out negotiations for the surrender of the Germans and Hungarians in besieged Budapest.  "Must Occupy Japan to Win Peace, Says Nimitz." C-in-C Pacific Fleet Admiral Nimitz stated from Saipan Sunday that Japan will have to be occupied to win the peace. "Archbishop of Greece is Regent; Prime Minister Papandreou May Resign." Report from London: Nazi Seapower has been virtually destroyed by the Royal Navy in 1944.    Newspaper,  small tears in folds, fair.     (8208) $39.00. World War II     

Boston Courier  Semi-Weekly, Thursday, August 13, 1829 Boston, MA:  J.T. Buckingham, Editor and Proprietor. This is a lively Boston paper from the time when Andrew Jackson was President.  "Letters from a Boston Merchant"  recalls that in last chapter he said that Japan was "Paradise of Dogs"--- rambling discussion about hunting for dogs and dog-hospitals.   Refuge for Destitute Mosquitoes…  relates tale of a man on the Dorchester flats where the mosquitoes are as large and as hungry as in Turkey, and of man who bet he could strip bare and lie naked for five minutes with mosquitoes.  Japanese have taste for fine gardens. "Extinction of Egypt" dissertation on course of the Niger, speculation on physical extinction of Egypt.  Commentary on Boston Newspapers reports opinions of Mr. Ruffleshirt, Mr. Neverchange, Mr. Firebrand, Mr. Scrupulous and Mr. Sugarplum.  Adv. with illustration of Patent Sponge Boots for Horses' Feet.  See James Boyd, 27 Merchants' Row. 4 pp. 39 x 53 cm. Newspaper, worn, fair. Name "G. Wilkinson" written at top of front page. (8078) $30.00. Newspapers/History

Boston Courier  Semi-Weekly, Thursday, January 7, 1830  Boston, MA:  J.T. Buckingham, Editor and Proprietor. Editorial critical of discourse in Congress in Washington re debate about distributing proceeds  of the public lands by Mr. Polk. "Where words abound much fruit of solid sense is seldom found."  Commentary on the "Jacksonism" of Mr. Thomas D. Arnold of Tennessee. Report of proposal by DeWitt Clinton to build a railroad from New York to the state of Missouri.  Report from France notes that French journals continue their "harpings" suggesting that the days of the French monarchy are numbered. 4 pp. 39 x 53 cm. Newspaper, worn, fair. (8056) $24.00. Newspapers/History

 Travel Diary of Mrs. Harry Worcester, 1954 handwritten by Worcester, Mrs. Harry 1954. West Swanzey, NH: ephemera 28 pp. 10 x 16 cm. Leather "Travels Abroad" Diary: Mrs. Harry Worcester records trip she and husband took from Keene, NH to NYC, thence from Idlewild Airport via KLM Lockheed Constellation first to Gander, Nfld, then to London, then to Brighton by train; Banquet at Strand Hotel; met Mayor Dudley; back to London, tour, then by train to York, touring, visit The Shambles, on to Edinburgh; touring Scotland, then to Glasgow and steamer to Belfast, N. Ireland; train to Dublin; Dun Laoghaire then steamer to Holyhead, and train for  Caernarvon, Wales; Criccieth to Bristol, then London; flight to Chaumont, France; Harry visited places where he trained during World War I; Neuf Chateau, Verdun; Paris, Chalons-sur-Marne; sleeper train to Basel, CH, then Lucerne, Zurich, then another sleeper for Calais; rough crossing to Folkestone, then to London; flight home on KLM Connie to Shannon, Gander and Idlewild.  Green leather Travel Diary (only 28 pages of entries) with unused pencil in loop, very good. (7644) $30.00. Travel/Ephemera

Contact me at scoulbourn1@verizon.net