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Quick Hitter

Practicing for when I sign up for Twitter.

Bay State Parenting was here yesterday - wonderful guests in Carrie Wattu, her daughter Margot, and photographer Robea Patrowicz - great enthusiasm and warmth for the Cottage and the Light. Time went flying by while they were here. The issue will be out in August.

Later in the day a bus load of teachers from San Antonio Texas are led here by Fred Freitis, a Society trustee. Dave Ball did the honors, sharing the importance of the Light historically and introducing me for a few remarks. Haley was very excited to meet them all and she wrangled them all back on the bus when the time came to go. Julie took the group photo that we are sharing. The only downside was the gloomy weather of the past week hung on. They did not seem to mind. A lot made a bee line for the Big Jetty - the pull of the ocean was remarkable. Would that they could have stayed longer but it was a quick hitter before they made their way to the Maritime Museum and then dinner at the Mill Wharf.

Australians are coming next week - come on back.

Visitors from the Big City

Photographs copyright of Joe Lippincott 2009.

Passers by sometimes stop a while.

We have had the chance in the last 10 days or so to meet a few people who have come to the lighthouse on a mission.

Joe Lippincott is a Professor of Journalism at Boston University and he was here on Sunday June 14th with his student Courtney Gardner. They came to use a large format camera to photograph the Light. Think of a modern version of an old time box camera. Jules got to put her head under the curtain and take a look. (There really is a curtain to duck under) The image is upside down through the view finder. Joe described Courtney as his best student in 20 years and he wanted her to have this unique opportunity. Courtney hails from Corvalis Oregon and now can claim her piece of the Atlantic coast.

On Monday June 15th Producer Amy Masters from the WCVB program Chronicle (long a favorite here when Scituate native Peter Mehegan hosted) came to town and the Lighthouse was her last stop. Anchor Anthony Everett made some introductory remarks on camera before making a run for it to do the evening news. Amy then toured the grounds, the walkway, the tower and the house for the show. She had also visited with Dave Ball, Tom Hall and Peter Whitfield prior to coming over the the Point. The show will be broadcast in July - date to follow - and will focus on the Maritime Museum, the Lawson Tower, and the Old Scituate Light. It was interesting to watch the crew work and to try to imagine how they will piece it all together.

We are gathering more and more stories as we go. The list people who we would never have otherwise met is growing. This is a very cool place to live in ways we would not have anticipated. Next week Bay State Parenting magazine is coming to do an interview. We love the vistors from the Big City.

Colors (again)

Only a prism has as many colors as we are finding here.

I wrote on this before but had to return to it because of the photograph that accompanies this post. On Sunday night, at around 6:30, the sun came out below the clouds (thanks to my art teacher friend Michelle for that phrase) and we had a double rainbow over the ocean. A family was having a portrait taken on the rocks right in front of where I sit writing this and the photographer must have thought she had died and gone to heaven. People were scurrying around; a neighbor came to the door saying she wanted to tell us about it so that we did not miss it but did not have our phone number. It was not an everyday occurance and Jules got some terrific shots to share here.

The morning had begun with another kind of color show. A mob of small sportscars arrived at the Point for a visit. Haley and her friend Maddy got some shots that are loaded onto the slide show. It was like being witness to one of those gumball machines with the long chute gone mad. One color after another rolled in and then rolled off the Point. I was out working with a stone wall and looked up to see what could have been a giant video game image pulling into the parking lot, reds, yellows, blues, greens, whites, blacks, numbered and plain and each one meticulous. Most were convertibles too which only made it cooler.

The last color to share this time is found inside the house. We have been sorting through photographs, reframing some for display, putting others away. In the process I have found this photograph of my grandmother Delaney. It has to be from the teens or early twenties. Her hair is up like a Gibson Girl and she is wearing a shirtwaist as they were called at the time. The color would be described as sepia and yet so much more is there when I consider it. Her youth is a color. The ups an downs of life had not added in the wrinkles yet. She has a style that was long gone by the time I remember her; you can see it in cameo at her neck and the cut of her collar. Her eyes are the eyes of some of my cousins, big as buttons, seemingly brown, but they could be a dark, dark blue. It has been a pleasant exercise to reconsider it and see the line that follows down to Haley. It is in the jaw and the tilt of her head. She has the same colors.