12-7-2010 0710 BBA. Yes, and if this were Weds or Thursday during a regular week here, I would be out on the bikepath by now. As it is, I am sitting here as the ancient hot water radiators in this wonderfully settled house warm up, against the falling temperatures outside. The tree branches are tossing around, and the windows bang in their frames. Fuji has come downstairs to be greeted, scratched, and petted, and has now gone to curl up on top of one of said radiators, her favorite place with a view of her domain of living room and side yard. And so its time to write.
I am pretty sure West Falmouth was a station stop, because there is a big parking lot right beside the bike path. Old Dock Road crosses at right angles, and the inner harbor is within a few hundred feet. Its one of the nicest waterfronts around, pretty much just spartina grass, fiddler crabs mud and sand, with small boats tied to home made moorings. The harbor is shallow and complex, not attractive to commerce. But the names, such as Firewood Landing, suggest a more active past. West Falmouth market, like the library and the Quaker Meeting House down the road past the Funeral Parlor,has been here for some time. Just now, the front entrance of the market, which sits right beside 28A, is clogged with cut Christmas trees. Before it was pumpkins, but during the summer it’s kept clear for the increasing number of people who come for the muffins, scones, bread, and local produce. They also do fancy baked stuff; haven’t tried that but it looks tempting. No, I am a muffin guy, or if they aren’t out yet or all gone, perhaps a scone. There is a ding bell on the front door, and in the back a very full service sandwich making delicatessen that is as good as any in Brooklyn. Well, I admit they don’t do Biali’s, but who does, outside of NYC?
Coffee is good too, I guess, but I generally bring that with me, taking the second pull from the La Pavoni that gives Sala her morning cuppa. I get tachyarrythmias if I do more than a cup of caffeine, unless I am doing work that can use it more wisely, such as kayaking all day or the like.
By the time I get to West Falmouth I am usually a bit sweaty, so it feels OK to go back out into the cold.
From West Falmouth, the path runs behind back yards, crosses a few smaller roads, and then makes a boundary to the meadows of the Salt Pond Bird Sanctuary. A good place to go on autopilot.
So, Cape Cod, and Sandwich on Massachusetts Bay at the base of the cape in particular, seems to be where dissidents often ended up in those pre revolutionary Puritan colonial days of 1660 and on. Quakers were numerous enough and their missionaries were visible enough to receive a lot of the persecution…which of course the Puritans had internalized from their own oppression in England. They had, of course, made it a legal requirement for men to go to church..their church. But the early Quakers kept on quaking, and some of the oldest ongoing Friends Meeting Houses are on the Cape, one right next to the bike bath in West Falmouth. Yes, and what about cranberries? They really do grow wild on the Cape, but most are in commercial bogs. Our friend John grows; the Cape seems to have more than its share of strong intelligent men who insist on engaging in marginally profitable activities such as fishing, cabinet making, and cranberry farming. Hearing him describe the details of ice avoidance, flooding, harvesting dry and wet, and the like make Pinot Noir seem easy. Think about that when you open that can of cranberry sauce.
Crossing the bog now; its after the harvest, but the leaves are reddish, a faint remembrance of how the bog looked flooded, with the red glow of the myriad red berries floating on the surface, lit up by the setting sun. Yes, and most bogs have their resident giant snapping turtles…met one from this bog last spring, as she looked for a good egg laying sand bank.
After the cranberry bog and a small horse stable, I am thinking of getting there, and try to pick up the pace. For me that means shifting to abdominal breathing, and trying to keep my focus on peddling in a circle rather than a square. I don’t have clips, so this is more a mental exercise than a physical reality, but it feels stronger. I past a privately installed War Dog Memorial (consisting of a antique fire hydrant and a statue of a wistful dog), the last overpass, and then the backs of a small strip Mall. I actually turn off at Silver Lounge, a local revered watering place, just before the real end of the bike path. But its enough…its more than enough. Its great!.
Tomorrow…back to work.
Aloha
Alan
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