Do you.......

[Flaptail]

1973, fresh out of High school, living on a charter boat and running the beach in my 1973 chevy truck at night. Anyone remember the Hibachi craze? Had one in the back of the truck, set on the tailgate and cook steaks or on top of the fish box when the no seeums were not too bad at the dock.

Bathing in a pond each night. Landing on Monomoy in 77' and fishing the beaches on the island with no restrcition, no seals, no rangers and having egg fights with the guys I fished with with sea gull eggs.

Dig clams by hand on the flats at low tide in the middle of the night and fill the cooler, no problems. Sell anything you caught to Old Harbor, Victory and Chatham Fish.

Camp anywhere you wanted in the woods of Wellfleet, Truro. The cops would tell you to make sure you cleaned up after yourselfs and don't make a lot of noise and btw "how is the fishing"?

Drive from Coast Guard Beach in Eastham to RP ON THE BEACH!!!

.49 cent a gallon gas, parking my skiff behind MacReed's and sleeping in one of the rooms above his shop no charge in the off season if the weather sucked. Fishing w/ MacReed.

Everyone in season wore waders into stores, restaurants whatever when fish were running it seemed that waders were mens official Cpae Cod apparel. Jeep wagoneers, and Grand Wagoneers, Cape Cod Cadillacs, they were called.

Launching from Calflin's Landing and having the Chatham cops watch your vehicle even though it was no parking as long as you told them when and where you were catching you were gievn the priviledge.

Sitting on a bare wood deck with no railings at a cottage on Thumpertown Beach in Eastham with my Dad and brothers watching the sunset and planes bomb the target ship, while we cheered them on and Dad ate cherrystones and sipped his ice cold Miller High Life.

God I miss those days.

[Tagger]

Mom and Mother in law are old .. 5,,10 minutes away from either.. I'd still like to live in Hull someday ,,,or Wareham ..or Marshfield .. all other sea shore communties are out of my league .. I know your not going to believe this,, but Brockton's not too bad .. Shoot down 24 to RI or 495 to cannal or other way for Hull .. Fred ... Your post makes me want to jump off a cliff ..

[nightfighter]

Born and raised in Swampscott, but all my friends were water rats from Marblehead (next town over and bitter rivals) Made for a lot of physical beatings in football and hockey for me, we beat them in football, they kill us in hockey, I always got run by my 'friends' every game...after a summer of sailing, fishing and raising hell with them.
Actually made the move to Marblehead when I got divorced, and changed careers. Now I work almost exclusively in town. Furthest access to in-town shore fishing is seven minutes, closest is 200 yards away. Boat is docked half a mile from the house. Nice community with a great seafaring history. And good fishing. Kids are here. It's home. Tough to leave in the summer.

Now if there were a place on the ocean with mountain access like Lake Tahoe, I might be tempted to move......

[chris L]

i live in America exactly as I want too ( for now ) . I would only move to a pond from where I live today . but it would be in America and maybe away from Ct ( cant afford the pond water here ) . Im local to alot of good things I like to do . and If I want to travel away from America ( I have a # of times ) its only a short ride to the airport . hot looking hookers would be nice too but not in my neigborhood .

[ProfessorM]

Originally Posted by Karl F

(Larry... shop wellfleet now!!!... there are some deals... Flap... saw a corker of a 3 season, (that could go 4 with very little effort) in the fleet, almost to truro line, very reasonable)...

Really. Wife has been talking about looking for a cheap, I know that is not possible in Mass., type fixer upper for a summer place. 3 season would fit the bill. Maybe she has some money tucked away. Have been looking a little though but not that far down Cape. One persons financial woes is another's gain sadley and that is what I have to hope for I guess if I am going to have a summer place someday, which is my dream. I lived in Centerville for 6 years once and have worked on Cape for 20 years..

I live in Lakeville because the wife is the breadwinner so she gets the shorter commute, Boston/ Hingham. Lakeville to Cape is an easy commute too for me. I like it as much as anywhere away from the sea I guess.

[Sluggoslinger]

i just up and moved in september to california. Just closed on our home in corona del mar last week and i now live 0.4miles from the beach. Its beautiful, warm year round and i love it. though we are still in transition mode and i get very jellous reading about all you lucky people in the cape at my favorite time of year. I always said boston loves you from may to sept but slaps you in the face every other mornign with the crap weather and cold... I still love it though

[Grapenuts]

Originally Posted by Karl F

... SourBalls... er, I mean GrapeNuts.... you should be really PO'd at your dead realatives for selling off all of there land, for short money, to the folks from "away"... self admitted washashore, been here since age 11, 1968... and had the good fortune to be taken under the wings of some Brewsterite Cape Codders... lifelong friends, who i hafata remind once in a while that I'm still a washashore ... I guess thats acceptance... Bill fontneau usta let us stash our schoolie rods in the back of his tackle and gun shop just down 6A from the old elementary school.. we'd race over there after school pick up our gear and pedal down to breakwater beach and fish the jetties or walk out onto the flats, depending on the tide... 16 incher=supper.... .... that was a keeper back then.. and they was the best eating.

and you... LOL.... if ya cracked a smile ya'd hurt ya face...

magine that...old wild bill....jumped ship an went north.heard the acting was better up there,swapped alot of guns/ammo with him,half that ammo wound up in the brewster dump on rats.....yep! sold for a buck an acar once the hardwood was cut,,brewster,harwich...still had the haying rights to hardings beach when grandpa passed...wood skiffs built in the barn next to the cows...still see him pounding in the rope to make the seams tite....train coming in downtown with coal...same with orleans[snows]...no road to morris island.....only one 3' tree along oyster river...only one number to dial...401...nantucket sound froze solid...home made baked beans and cornbread simmering on the castiron stove..beach plum jelly...wild blackberry jam...ring dings for .10....lobster rolls...25 cents...pure fresh sea water coming over the bar straight into stage harbor....cat boats towin for scallops ..oysters were wild not grown....walk for miles and never see a sole.....yeh...I miss it bad.


did I tell ya about the deeds in PT. and truro from gov. bradford? land down there too.

[Back Beach]

I'm all set where I am. Would like to purchase a vacation home near the ocean once we get out from under the 30K annual daycare tuition for our two kids.
School system is decent, but classes are a bit on the large side at 30 plus students per classroom. On the fence right now with regard to public or private school for the kids once they're old enough.

[Back Beach]

Originally Posted by Flaptail

Launching from Calflin's Landing and having the Chatham cops watch your vehicle even though it was no parking as long as you told them when and where you were catching you were gievn the priviledge.

Threre's a place I used to do a lot of fishing with Old Goat. Good memories of fishing the hummock bar that used to be aboout 500 yards right of the parking lot. Sadly, it got washed away a few years after the breach really widened. Is was a striper magnet for many years.

[Slipknot]

As long as this is a reminiscing thread, I remember eating rock candy that was on a string from a little candy store in Dennis behind Harneys somewhere. In the late 60's and 70's we'd camp at Airline mobile home park in Dennis and when we were about 9-13 y.o. I remember the summers we'd stay all summer with my Mom, and Dad would go back home to work at General Dynamics in Quincy but come back on weekends, and we'd go off on our bikes all day, we'd club frogs and mom would fry the legs up for us. Ya don't see goldfish and frogs anymore We had a blast back then in our endless summers. Swimming at West Dennis beach then come back and go in the pool.
There was always stuff to do or places to explore. Scargo lake tower was a ritual, my brothers and I learned to swim in that pond, the pottery lady up there let us make clay things and later on my mom would fire them in her kiln. I remember lots of stuff from back then. It's not the same world these days that's for sure.

I forgot, my dad driving us out to the dunes near Pilgrim lake and climbing them carrying a big piece of cardboard box and sledding down the dune over and over. try that today and you'd get arrested I bet.

To answer your question Flap, ya I'm happy where I am, just close enough and far enough at the same time. Timing hasn't been a good factor in my decisions sometimes but I accept what I have.

[Squid kids Dad]

Ya...My memories go back to spending from April till September on the Cape in Eastham in Sunset Village near 1st Ecounter Beach for roughly 20years..Watching the bombing of the Target Ship(USS LONGFELLOW)..Sometimes even during the day..Remember sailing on the sunfish out there and they would do a few fly over to let you know you better get the hell out of there..Walking out at low tide to go swimming getting your feet bit by crabs..lol..Spending nights on the beach at a fire with friends..Catching my 1st Striper at the herring run..Ahh the memories...My wish is to end up back there but I'm afraid it is just a wish

[Hooper]

Originally Posted by Slipknot

As long as this is a reminiscing thread, I remember eating rock candy that was on a string from a little candy store in Dennis behind Harneys somewhere.

Hey Slip, Would that be The Red Cottage Store (Also owned under the name Gordon's at one time)???

I grew up across the street from there, rode my bike to Harney's, Highbank Bridge, the train bridge that crosses Bass River that you can see from Route 6. Good times...

I was born on the Cape, and aside from an enlistment in the Army where I was station at Schofield Barracks in Hawaii, I have stayed put.

Though not without it's challenges, I still think the Cape is a better place to live than many others, though I believe our public schools are in serious trouble, but another topic for another time.

Locally, I'd like to live on the Vineyard. Almost took a job there in 1996, and I wonder how things would be if I had taken it.

In wintertime, I dream of snook fishing the mangroves around Sanibel and Captiva, and if I had the approval of the Admiral, I might look into making that happen, but for now, the Cape is home and always will be.

[Slipknot]

Ya Hooper, that's the place. Your memory is alot better than mine.
Bass river bridge, I remember fishing off that many times as a kid. Can you still do that?

[Swimmer]

Originally Posted by Flaptail

1973, fresh out of High school, living on a charter boat and running the beach in my 1973 chevy truck at night. Anyone remember the Hibachi craze? Had one in the back of the truck, set on the tailgate and cook steaks or on top of the fish box when the no seeums were not too bad at the dock.

Bathing in a pond each night. Landing on Monomoy in 77' and fishing the beaches on the island with no restrcition, no seals, no rangers and having egg fights with the guys I fished with with sea gull eggs.

Dig clams by hand on the flats at low tide in the middle of the night and fill the cooler, no problems. Sell anything you caught to Old Harbor, Victory and Chatham Fish.

Camp anywhere you wanted in the woods of Wellfleet, Truro. The cops would tell you to make sure you cleaned up after yourselfs and don't make a lot of noise and btw "how is the fishing"?

Drive from Coast Guard Beach in Eastham to RP ON THE BEACH!!!

.49 cent a gallon gas, parking my skiff behind MacReed's and sleeping in one of the rooms above his shop no charge in the off season if the weather sucked. Fishing w/ MacReed.

Everyone in season wore waders into stores, restaurants whatever when fish were running it seemed that waders were mens official Cpae Cod apparel. Jeep wagoneers, and Grand Wagoneers, Cape Cod Cadillacs, they were called.

Launching from Calflin's Landing and having the Chatham cops watch your vehicle even though it was no parking as long as you told them when and where you were catching you were gievn the priviledge.

Sitting on a bare wood deck with no railings at a cottage on Thumpertown Beach in Eastham with my Dad and brothers watching the sunset and planes bomb the target ship, while we cheered them on and Dad ate cherrystones and sipped his ice cold Miller High Life.

God I miss those days.

Your younger than me, but we must have passed each other in the night somewhere. Spent a lot of time on Monomoy at Hanley's cottage, and all over the lower Cape. Surfing my ass off, and chasing the opposite sex. Used to sell beach plums to Macreed's as a kid. Used to run from Cook's Brook Beach all the way through Thumpertown up to First Encounter back then. Thumb to Coast Guard Beach with my 9' G & S surfboard and actually get rides.

[Hooper]

Originally Posted by Slipknot

Ya Hooper, that's the place. Your memory is alot better than mine.
Bass river bridge, I remember fishing off that many times as a kid. Can you still do that?

Yup, there was a hub-bub a few years back when some state highway hack took it upon himself to post signs on the bridge that read "No Fishing Allowed". They're still there but they have been mangled and vandalized, and the fishing continues, as it should.

Lee at Riverview tried his best to find out where the directive came from to put the signs up and I don't know that he was able to learn anything more than one guy decided to post those signs one day.

That's all I gonna say about that.

[Jimbo]

Like many others, I'm not a Capee, but have been fortunate to stay in a house that's been in the family in West Dennis. I bet many of you have probably driven by without noticing it, but it's been there since the late 1800's. Right on 28, one house back from the bridge. Electricity and plumbing were added a long, long time ago and haven't seen much improvement since. The bathroom has only an old tub, but we put an outdoor shower in about 20 years ago. There's nothing like that musty smell when we open it each year. That was home base for me from the day after school got out until Labor Day from 1958 until about 82, but I've managed to spend time there every summer of my life. Slipknot and Hooper bring back memories I have often of the area. The Red Cottage was where we'd stop for a cold drink when I drove a garbage truck for AH Crowell for a number of summers. I also remember cold Mountain Dews at Hamlin's garage after Red Wilson's Recreation program at John Simpkins, Cheap Beer nite at the Improper (with Jimmy Plunkit), riding in my grandfather's lapstrake Lyman to get rockweed for family clambakes on Bass River, Bottomly's Doughnuts, my first job ever was as one of the first miniature golf pros at Merry Mill around age 10. There were two other penny candy places we'd go to. One was across Fisk Street from Hojo's the other was in the barn a couple houses down from Christmas Tree. My grandfather owned a part of Big Simmons Pond in S. Dennis where my dad would take us to fish for perch and throw in a bar of Ivory so we could take our bath. I am proud to say I have Pilgrim blood in my lineage. My mother's family is from West Dennis and Truro. A distant cousin, Cap Paine was once "Station Keeper" at Highland and also Cuttyhunk and I always stop at his grave at that cemetary on 6 in Truro. My grandfather and now father have always had a keen interest in Cape history, which hearing them lecture about never bored us. I'm 50 now and he started his filming long before I was born, so the old 8 and super 8mm films are just an added plus (when the projector's working). It's astounding, to say the least, to see how Provincetown has changed over the years, or should I say evolved. I know you can never go home again, and it will never be like it was but still the Cape holds some allure for me that keeps me coming back and hopefully some time it will be permanent.