A Significant Date

The first of many notable anniversaries was today.

On February 21,1811 The Congress of the United States of America approved a bill authorizing the Secretary of the Treasury to take no more than 6 acres of land to build a Lighthouse at Cedar Point, Scituate. I was working with some documents today when I came across that citation and noted the date. That wasn't the day the whole ball got rolling but it must have been some sweet satisfaction for the petitioners who had lobbied Congress for a Light. They would not have heard the news for at least a week but surely there was a great sense of anticipation and pleasure when they heard.



I wonder how they celebrated. I just went out and got myself a piece of carrot cake.

Lots to tell

A great deal to report on from out here on the tip of Cedar Point.

In a follow up to an earlier post I have a photograph to share. Just after the Boxing Day Blizzard the family pictured found the plaque described. Lost for nearly twenty five years it is recovered, cleaned up and ready to be part of the permanent record at the Mossing and Maritime Museum. Thanks go out once again to all the Concannons and especially to Brett (far right) who wanted to escape from this notoriety but could not.

Brett's mom Meg dropped off this photo earlier this week. She described a tough dig out at the spot where the small jetty meets the beach. I was told that there were a few anxious moments and some wondering just which of those giant pieces of granite might move when this plaque was removed. In the end no harm was done. Dad Concannon had his arm in a sling before the find.

In another follow up to an earlier post, I received a DVD in the mail this week from the BBC. Titled "What is Reality" this is the documentary on physics that was filmed in part here on Columbus Day. The old house never looked better and the topic was as far away from the every day lives of most of us as can be. MIT professor Max Tegmark appears at the top of the Light using the window panes as his chalkboard. He writes down a number of equations and explains how they express physical realities like gravity and the motion of atoms. While sitting by the jetty he explains how he believes reality is math, that reality is not just described by it but that math is the basic building block. This is Platonic philosophy for the twenty first century. I will forward a date for the program when I get it.




No group will ever have a finer day than Helen, Leili, Sam, Tobey and Max had that day and they took complete advantage of it. How they managed to get what they needed and not show the Cub Scouts, the families, and the hundreds of others that walked the jetty and played on the beach that day is the miracle of movie making.


Scituate will be celebrating its 375th birthday this year and as events become finalized I will include mention of them on the blog. We are hoping that the Light will be a focal point for several of the events as the milestones of the Town and the Light coincide.

Preparations continue for the 200th anniversary dinner for Old Scituate Light to be held this September 30th at the Barker Tavern. The tickets are being designed as I write and I will have news on their availability soon. The Historical Society currently has tickets to a five hour Lighthouse cruise through the Cape Cod Canal this July. Contact the Society at 781-545-1083 for more details. Tickets are going fast so call ASAP. Last summer's three hour cruise was one of the highlights of the season. Don't miss this one.

On February 23rd I will be speaking on Life at the Lighthouse at the South Shore Audubon Society in Marshfield. I have been looking forward to this chance for some time now and will offer the audience some brief remarks on the past two years here as Light Keeper. It is enormously flattering to have such an opportunity. My thanks to John Galluzo for the chance.

In the last two weeks we have taken the house room by room and given it a scrub. Just as we saw two years ago when moving in, Murphy's Oil and elbow grease has done the trick. The old floors come right back with some soap and water and the the wood work is free of dust for the moment. If I could get ten more degrees somehow I would get to the windows and knock that off the list. This office is the next room to get the treatment and that means it is time to wrap up this post. When next I write there will be a sheen to the desk and picking a book out will not risk a dust storm.

Something I Forgot to Do

A huge thank you is in order and I forgot to do it here.

Tom Greland teaches Building Construction at Marshfield High School. In the first week of 2011 he emailed me to let me know that his students could and would do the repairs to the wall torn up by the Boxing Day storm. Shingles were purchased and the students arrived.

The work has been complete for a week and a half and I have neglected to post this picture. The guys did a terrific job. We are water tight again.



I had hinted at this work when I posted the panoramas. In the top photo of that set you can see the guys at work along the runway and at the damaged wall.

I could not be more grateful and I hope you can see on these faces how these kids responded to this opportunity. Good people doing good things. I should have said thank you here sooner.

To the Airwaves

Storms come and with them our local television stations.

Julie made the big time on Wednesday afternoon, when in anticipation of another 10 inches or so of snow, Channel four prompted her out into the wind and rain to show them the prior damage and to gauge her feelings on the night ahead. A couple of facts got hung up in the gusts but I hope you enjoy the Tale of the Wind Blown Wife.



I was given a chance to go on the air with our neighbor Channel 5 meteorologist Mike Wankum the following morning. He had asked me to come out and to go on camera during the last storm but I think he was being polite as he caught me in sweats and a t shirt when he came to the door. This time he called ahead and I got myself ready. He and his camera man were set up at the beginning of Rebecca Road and we did 30 seconds or so right around 7:00 in the morning. School had been called at 5:00 for Haley and me and I waited out the worst of it before shoveling out around 10:00.

There were a fair number of rocks thrown up around the Tower again but they were small potatoes against the storms of last winter and spring. I went out today and began a clean up but only did about 40 minutes of what looks to be a 90 minute job. Every time I start shoveling stones I feel like Rocky training to fight Ivan Drago. After 40 minutes I am ready to get revenge for Apollo.

One of the stories yet to be told of the Boxing Day Blizzard was the discovery of a plaque thought lost for nearly 25 years. In 1986 The Cedar Point Association placed a plaque on the Tower commemorating 30th anniversary of the Grounding of Etrusco. A short time later the bronze sign was noted as gone from the Tower and vandalism was suggested. In the aftermath of the clean up in late December the missing plaque was discovered and turned in to the Scituate Police by a high school student named Brett Concannon. It was weather beaten and caked with sand when discovered. I cleaned it up some and it sits behind me as I type. Shortly it will make its way to the Maritime and Mossing Museum to join the other artifacts dedicated to that shipwreck. Call it the silver (or bronze) lining to what was otherwise a terrible storm.



There is another hit coming on Tuesday into Wednesday this week. As usual we are on the rain/snow line and the temperature will be the key. The tide is the most important ingredient for trouble here and that doesn't look to be extreme. If it gets bad, I will be back outside with the Rocky theme playing in my head, shoveling stone.

Thanks Tom

Several neat photos to share today. A follow up post later in the week with more details about one of them. (Click on each for a better look)



Tom Greland is a colleague who teaches boat building and construction. He shared the first photograph taken amazingly with his cell phone.

I was intrigued by Tom's photo and downloaded a program that would let me fool around with panoramas myself. The bottom two images are the result of that experiment.





I have got a new toy to play with here and several ideas on how to use it best going forward. Expect new looks at the old place as we continue along 2011.

Like Clark Kent

2011 has been mild mannered.

The first week of the new year has been a marked departure from that of last year. When teenagers arrived to take a new year's plunge last year their language was blue and so were their lips. Not so this year.

Mild temperatures greeted visitors to the Point on New Years and that has carried over into the first week. I was able to take the wreath off the Tower today with little wind or cold to bother me. It had been up there a full month and may have dinged up the Tower in the wind last week. We will know better after a hard rain if the mark I see up by the small window is just grime or if it is a scar.





The last of these pictures shows you this year's plunge. These two girls walked and talked up to their knees in the Harbor for about fifteen minutes and never flinched. Maybe some day I will think that is a good idea but I doubt it.

Alfred E. Newman No More!

All I can say is thank goodness for Russell Totman and Son.

I have mentioned before that there is no easy way to pick up 1,000 rocks. Turns out I was wrong. The Town of Scituate had Mr. Totman return the stone and sand thrown up on Boxing Day to the beach that protects the Tower and the Lighthouse Park. He moved his 1,000 (1,000,000) rocks with three neat machines that could hoist in bulk and with precision. It was a tremendous operation to watch.



My role was to run a shovel and get to edges, especially near the house, that the machines could not get to. I also worked on rounding up the shingles caught in the sea roses. There is a full wheelbarrow in the driveway ready for a dump run. Late in the day I took shovel and broom to the flagpole bench and got that looking a little better. Not Fourth of July better, but New Year's Day better at least.

A year ago there was the first of the many storms that culminated with the Tower wrapped in stone for two months. This time around, the stone scattered more widely and the loss of the fences, shingles, and shed wall demonstrated the power of water is even greater than that of stone. Last year three blocks of granite had shifted toward the beach, opening up a path that funneled the stone around the Lighthouse. As I posted two days ago, this storm moved a block of granite roughly 15 feet, plucking it as cleanly as a kid loses his first tooth. Yesterday, the dentist arrived to cap the gap and to reset the others properly. The MAD magazine look is gone: hopefully gone for good.




Wednesday had been my day to clean out the shed. The top is before; the bottom after.





I discovered that there were several things broken but nothing prized. We fit a lot of stuff in there though and I look forward to having it put back in order soon.

So, bit by bit, ground was gained over the last two days that left the yard in the shape you see below. I washed windows today. I got the Christmas tree out and down to Mr. Lopes, and rehung one of the wreaths. The Christmas decorations have been packed and stored. I graded papers and will do a few more when I wrap up this post. This afternoon Julie and I did some work on the fence in the background, using pieces of the fence that snapped on the walkway side of the house. A wedding party caught the last great light of 2010 as we hammered and moved, all the while crossing our fingers against the next event.



I have been asked several times if this was a warning shot for me and if I have had enough. Not so fast I have answered. Where else could I get the sunrise shot you see below and minutes later notice that there is a refrigerator washed up on the beach. This place places the sublime next to the absurd every day. I am not going anywhere willingly.