The Early Vineyard Years

I don't know why we started going to Martha's Vineyard. Maybe it was just for a change of pace. It was certainly a shorter drive than Blue Hill, Maine, with a ferry ride on the Islander thrown in for good measure. We summered on the Vineyard for four straight years. The first year was spent in a beach cottage in Chilmark, the next three years were in the Webster house in Gay Head. I don't remember much about the Chilmark house except that it was on the small side. The beach was only a short walk away. The one memory I do have is of my friend John finding a deflated balloon on the beach. Only it wasn't a balloon. It was a Portuguese Man of War. He got a nasty sting.

The Webster house years bring back mixed memories. Let's get the bad memory out of the way first. One summer my mother got really sick from a tick bite and developed a large bulls eye on her abdomen. The local doctors didn't know what to make of it and sent her to Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston where she underwent weeks of penicillin treatment. She was gone a long time but was finally cured. This turned out to be the first reported case of what, twenty years later, became know as Lyme Disease.

When you're 8, 9 and 10 years old, life is good. We were friends with the neighbors, the Howells, who had a couple of boys so we always had playmates. It seemed that every summer my cat, Pudding, would present us with a litter of kittens, usually born in my mother's bureau drawer. We named the kittens after Greek Gods and Goddesses. My favorites were Apollo and Aristotle, who were later adopted by our neighbors back home in New York.

The Webster house wasn't on the beach but you could walk to Squibnocket if you knew the shortcuts through the woods and didn't mind sloshing through some swampy areas. Squibnocket Beach was famous for its undertow so the folks didn't like us going there. Squibnocket was also known for its pond which was supposedly home to large loggerhead turtles, but I never saw any.

We picnicked at Lobsterville Beach, almost daily. Lobsterville Beach was a calm-water beach on Vineyard Sound, adjacent to Menemsha. It was a pebbly beach. My friend John and I would fashion pieces of driftwood into bats and spend hours seeing who could hit the beach stones the farthest. Other pastimes included watching teams of oxen working the fields near Gay Head lighthouse and collecting multi-colored clay from the cliffs there. Nothing was off-limits in those days. I was back for a few days a couple of years ago. Sadly, my former playgrounds are now either Indian preserves or private. I wouldn't vacation there with kids, there's nothing fun for them to do anymore.

A pinkletink is a singing tree frog, a peeper, commonly found on the Vineyard. The Pinkletink was the name given to the double-ended, open whaleboat that my father rescued from the scrapheap of a nearby boatyard. He worked for weeks on the banks of Menemsha Creek fixing her up, painstakingly replacing plank after plank, using only hand tools.  John and I would scamper around the creek looking for crabs and eels while Dad worked. I learned new words such as "clinker built" and "lap strake," probably learned a few curse words too, although my father rarely swore. The Pinkletink was seaworthy before the end of the summer and was put to good use. Fitted with a small British Seagull outboard motor, the Pinkletink would slowly chug through Menemsha harbor to our favorite fishing spot off Lobsterville Beach. The fishing was awesome, made better by the fact that the whole family could fit in the boat. My mother was an excellent fisherwoman. She would talk to the fish saying "come fish, come fish" and invariably caught the most. We had the Pinkletink for a summer and a half, until she was damaged beyond repair by a winter storm.

The State Road bridge that connected Chilmark to Gay Head washed out one summer, stranding all the Gay Headers. There was a car crossing the bridge when the storm surge hit. The car wound up in the pond fifty yards downstream, the lady driver amazingly unhurt. The bridge was out for several weeks before a temporary replacement was fitted. To buy groceries you had to row across the gap where the bridge once stood, then take a cab to the nearby general store. The cab company probably made out well.

Hurricanes tend to be cyclical; in the 1950's, the Northeast got hit regularly. Hurricane Carol, late in the summer of 1954, was the worst storm I remember. It blew shingles off the roof and sunk many boats in Menemsha Harbor, including mega-yachts from the visiting New York Yacht Club. One of the few boats undamaged was an old, green fishing trawler named "Bozo." Her captain chose to ride out the storm at sea, a gutsy move by an obviously highly-competent seafarer. Hurricane Carol was also the demise of the Cataumet property. On the way home to New York, we stopped there to survey the damage. Gone were the garage, dock and tennis court, washed away by the storm surge. There were large holes through both sides of the main house. The renter's car was upside down in the driveway. Hurricane insurance wasn't available in those days and my grandmother wound up selling the place that winter. She basically gave it away, netting a paltry $10,000, as per my parents, for the whole compound.

Ayuh

Our home was in Bedford, NY, a small town forty miles or so north of New York City. I had three brothers, Davie, Far and Rob who were 15, 13 and 11 years older than me respectively. My grandparents were our neighbors. Olwyn, who had emigrated from England with her son, John, lived with my grandparents. John was a year and a half older than me and was like a fourth brother. We traveled as a family, usually in two cars because there were so many of us.

The Laidlaw men - Me, Rob, Dad, Far and Davie at Cataumet 1948

Davie & Me 1948

I don't remember Cataumet, Massachusetts well. I was too young. My grandparents had what should best be called a compound there - a couple of houses, a dock, boats, a tennis court, the works. I've seen the pictures and know the geographic names of the area, but my memories of Cataumet are

Cataumet

Dad & Me 1948

basically as a stopping off point for summer-long vacations elsewhere.

As a child, I could never understand why we didn't just stay at Cataumet. Turns out that my grandparents had income property that was taken by eminent domain by the State of Texas and they needed to rent the Cataumet complex to help make ends meet. Some of the rental income paid for summers in Maine, Martha's Vineyard, Maine, Block Island, Martha's Vineyard, Nantucket, and Maine. Notice the recurring Maine theme. So my first travel memories are of summers spent by the New England seashores.

It is fitting that I prepared for the summer heat today by scrounging around the attic for my plastic bin of t-shirts. They needed to be washed, or course, to get rid of the attic smell. I have two types of t-shirts, the presentable ones and the ones I wouldn't get caught wearing anyplace except the backyard. One of my favorite semi-presentable ones has the shape of the state of Maine on the front, made up of town's names. In the middle of the design is the word "Ayuh" in a much bigger, bolder font.

If you've been to Maine, you know the pronunciation and meaning of "Ayuh." If you haven't been to Maine, go there. My earliest summertime memories are of Blue Hill. It must have been 1950 or 1951. Blue Hill is located on the coast about mid-way "down east" between Penobscot Bay and Acadia National Park. The drive to Maine from New York was long and circuitous, especially once you crossed the border into Maine. I can't remember how far the Maine Turnpike stretched in those days; it wasn't far, maybe up to Portland. Most of the time was spent on Route 1, through towns like Bath, Wiscasset, Waldoboro, Camden, Belfast, and Bucksport. Every year, we made the same pit stops along the way. Wiscasset and Belfast were my two favorites. Wiscasset because of the lobster rolls and the hulls of the old wooden schooners rotting away on the tidal bank, Belfast because of Perry's Nut House, a quirky gourmet store near the Route 1 bridge. My grandmother always bought Guava jelly there. I personally hated the stuff, but the store was fun and had large, carved, wooden animals. I remember the smell of the pine trees as we drove, recaptured over the years by the little souvenir pine needle pillows I had bought as a kid.

We lived in a house right on Blue Hill Mountain, not far from the trail that led up to the summit. And climb the mountain we did, daily, and carved our names into trees along the way. We knew all the shortcuts and would race hikers to the top, winning every time. We were good friends with the forest ranger who manned the fire tower. He had a pet seagull named Mr. Saunders. Mr. Saunders was tame; you could pet him. I have never met anyone since who had a pet seagull.

In addition to seagulls, Maine also has a lot of snakes. My oldest brother, Davie, would catch black snakes and chase me around the house waving them at me. He obviously meant no harm but to this day I am mortified of snakes. In later years, I always hated going to the first tee at the Blue Hill golf course because it was right near the woods and there was usually a snake basking there.

Cinders and Yoyo

Barra

So far I've covered seagulls and snakes. How about dogs for a change. In our house, pets were considered family members. I vaguely remember Cinders and Yoyo, two dogs who were old when I was born. The first pet I remember well was our dog Barra. Barra was a Chinook. We got him from the Perry Greene kennels in Waldoboro, Maine. My grandparents, who lived next door to us in New York, also bought a Chinook, Rowan. Chinooks were an American breed and Perry and his wife Honey were the sole breeders, anywhere. Chinooks were beautiful, friendly dogs, having the appearance of blond German Shepherds. Not everyone could own a Chinook; you had to first pass the Perry Greene sniff test. If Perry's personal dogs didn't like you, then you weren't fit to have one of their offspring. Sadly, Barra died in the prime of his life, ignominiously run over by a garbage truck. Rowan lived a long life. After Perry passed away, Honey remarried but the breed was never the same. Sixty years later, the kennel has changed hands innumerable times but the breed still exists. There is a website, if it's still current, (www.chinookclubofamerica.org/chinook-history.html) which has an informative history of the Chinook breed including being lead dogs during Admiral Byrd's Antarctic expedition. Having grown up with Chinooks, I found it a very interesting read.

My older brothers had summer jobs raking blueberries. I remember driving with my mother to drop them off and later pick them up. I was always fascinated by the shape of their blueberry rakes. As an adult, I was surprised to learn that New Jersey has more blueberries than Maine. The blueberries in Maine grow close to the ground and can be raked by hand. The ones in New Jersey grow on taller bushes. A Maine blueberry rake wouldn't work in NJ.

Blue Hill had a library. I guess my parents liked to read because we went there a lot. On the library floor were two large bear skin rugs, one brown, one white. I can vividly remember rolling around on them. They felt comforting. I also remember Rowantrees Pottery. You could go in the back and watch the artisans working clay on their turntables. They'd even let you try. It was fun getting wet clay all over yourself. The faster the turntable spun, the more it splattered. Their pottery was indestructible; my mother drank her coffee from the same green-colored mug for at least 50 years.

We stopped vacationing in Maine after my grandfather died, opting instead for Martha's Vineyard. Several years later, we returned to vacationing in Maine and bought another Chinook but that's for another blog.

Naming the Blog - Thank you John Keats

I have travelled the world in many ways. On planes, trains and automobiles for sure but mostly on ships. I have also travelled the world through reading which is why I chose Keats's poetic metaphor as the title of my blog. Most Americans spell "travelled" with one "l." I chose the double "l" spelling, considered British English, in deference to Keats. Both spellings are correct.

On First Looking into Chapman's Homer

John Keats - 1816

Much have I travelled in the realms of gold,
And many goodly states and kingdoms seen;
Round many western islands have I been
Which bards in fealty to Apollo hold.
Oft of one wide expanse had I been told
That deep-browed Homer ruled as his demesne;
Yet did I never breathe its pure serene
Till I heard Chapman speak out loud and bold:
Then felt I like some watcher of the skies
When a new planet swims into his ken;
Or like stout Cortes when with eagle eyes
He stared at the Pacific – and all his men
Looked at each other with a wild surmise –
Silent, upon a peak in Darien.

My intention is to use this blog as a means to share some of my memories from childhood summers, vacation trips and professional travels. Many of the pictures included, especially the black and white ones, are real family photos. Enjoy.