One Minute Movie
PREVIOUS MOVIE FIRST IN SERIES
Dallyin’ A4
2 Replies
Author Archives: deansgreatwahoo
Cape Cod #6
It is amazing to me, but I remember only two tiny snippets of hitchhiking back from Cape Cod, Massachusetts, to the Catskill Mountains of New York.
One snippet is Boston.
My main rule in hitchhiking was to avoid big towns and cities. I didn’t like trying to catch rides in traffic and for the most part had no interest in witnessing how one big city handled tying streets together versus how another did the same thing. But Boston was different. Boston is so tied to the history of the United States I wanted to get the feel of the town. And, having been a Unitarian Universalist since high school, I wanted to check out the first church (founded 1620) in the English American colonies. Yep. It’s Unitarian.
How did I make it into and out of that city without remembering a ride or standing on a corner with my thumb out or any other detail of dealing with a world capitol? How did I spend two nights there without remembering one bed or couch or beer or bar? (The only way I know it was two nights is from reading it in a letter a friend saved.) All I remember is a view of the lawns and trees of Boston Commons rolling off to the north west, filled with students studying and chatting. And looking at First Church from the outside. I don’t even remember if I tried the door to see if it was open
Having left Boston, I do remember it beginning to rain as I crossed the Hudson River from Massachusetts to New York. And raining harder as I got closer to Oliveria Road, the tiny mountain meander that passed over the Catskills and wound down Frost Valley. I don’t remember the ride (or was it rides?) over the mountains, but I remember the rain coming down harder. And when I got to the Frost Valley estate I had spent the summer on and let Stan the caretaker know I was back, he told me a hurricane had hit Cape Cod and the rains were headed our way.
For not remembering much about my return, I distinctly remember my disappointment at having missed the opportunity to go through a hurricane. Had I known Gerda was on the way I would have stayed on the Cape for the 5.6 inches of rain.
Hum. “Had I known.” — So THATS why people listen to the news !
Dallyin’ A3
Dallyin’ A2
Dallyin’ A1
Cape Cod #5
The big event snuck up on me.
It turns out I arrived at Provincetown, on the tipy tip of Cape Cod, on the Thursday of Labor Day weekend. The place was busy but, it turns out, it was just gearing up. By Saturday what had been crowds were mobs.
And then the Great Abandonment began.
Sunday lunch was as busy as Saturday had been. By six o’clock there was room on the sidewalks. I figured it must be dinner time so most folks would be off the streets.
The hustle and bustle Monday morning was half-hearted at best. Then, hour by hour, Provincetown became more lonely. By five o’clock many shops had put out Closed signs. By seven even the gay bar was empty.
A gay bar ? Empty ? Come on now …
Tuesday morning the grocery store was open. And the gas station. There were no cars in the street.
Closed signs had added For The Season. The bustling burg had pulled up the covers and closed its eyes. The winter nap was neigh.
I had never been in a resort town on closing weekend before. Wow.
Cape Cod #4
If you’re fond of sand dunes and salty air
Quaint little villages here and there
You’re sure to fall in love with
Old Cape Cod
The song Old Cape Cod had me looking forward to an enchanting, tiny sand dune tucked into the lapping sea.
If only!
Once I got across Massachusetts I started up Cape Cod. For sixty miles I didn’t even see the sea!
Apparently there were quaint little villages here and there, but they were on the Atlantic Ocean and Cape Cod Bay, not along US Highway 6. Today a freeway for half the distance of the cape, in 1969 Hwy 6 was a two-lane affair running smack up the middle of the massive sandbar.
The only tiny things I noticed while hitch hiking Cap Cod were the short little rides I got from summer home owners heading back from whatever chores were keeping them in a scurry.
Yet I was rewarded—at the end of those sixty miles was Provincetown, the enchanted town Patti Page had promised.
Provincetown, right at the very tippy tip of Cape Cod, was, indeed, a quaint little village. Yes, it was filled with good looking tourists in bright colors carrying every sort of beach paraphernalia one can imagine. It was busy. And it was quaint.
As busy as the town and the grocery and the shell shops were, they were roomy compared to the gay bar.
Which was perfect for me!
What can I say? I was young and tall and carrying a pack. Finding a place to crash was no problem at all. And, folks, after months of the agrarian beauty of living in an isolated Catskill Mountain retreat, I was ready to pursue some lust!
Before long I was invited to a most fun and accommodating crash pad. For three days I was out every day enjoying the sun and sea and dunes and salty air.
As for the nights? Well. My host was most accommodating. You’ll have to wait for the book …
Cape Cod #3
It was early to rise the morning after sleeping in an unknown military barracks somewhere in Connecticut or Rhode Island. The handsome guy who had offered me a bed gave me a ride back across the border to Massachusetts and a highway heading east. I stuck out my thumb.
Massachusetts is a long state, some 250 miles west to east, but I remember nothing about getting through it. No hunger pains. No particularly long waits. No particularly memorable rides (as long as you don’t count the three fast-driving, heavy drinking party jocks who pulled up in a convertible. I didn’t feel safe refusing a ride, so I joined the guy in the back seat, held on, and shut up. Fortunately I was too boring for them to put up with and they soon told me they were turning off the highway. I was glad to say thanks for the ride and once again be alone, terra firma solidly under my feet). 
The only reason I had lit out across Massachusetts was a Patti Page song. In 1957 Patti put Old Cape Cod to vinyl, an act which no broadcast system could resist. Radios treated us to it every hour while every TV variety show had its own black-and-white set of a seaside restaurant to feature their star crooning —
If you’re fond of sand dunes and salty air
Quaint little villages here and there
You’re sure to fall in love with old Cape Cod
Patti continued —
If you like the taste of a lobster stew
Served by a window with an ocean view
You’re sure to fall in love with old Cape Cod
The song put Cape Cod on tourists’ maps.
Twelve years after Patti first sang of quaint villages and salty air, the song was still stuck in my head. I followed it east, to the tip of a long, long state. A tip, it turned out, that was a long, long cape.
One wild ride and being impressed with how long Cape Cod is. Those are my recollections of hitch hiking Massachusetts.
Don’t take my word for Old Cape Cod getting stuck in one’s head. Check it out — https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HT2ao0rcxoA
Cape Cod #2
I finished my last blog telling about coming upon the Rip Van Winkle Bridge across the Hudson River some 120 miles north of New York City. 
Besides it being free to walk across a foot path on the right side of this mile-long toll bridge, I finished up commenting on being fascinated by how far above the river the bridge is, how wide the river is, and how green the Hudson River Valley is.
But mostly I was fascinated by the fact that the Hudson River was FLOWING THE WRONG WAY ! !
It was flowing NORTH !
Over and over I worked my understanding of geography in my mind.
Over a hundred miles to the south I had seen the Hudson River connect with the Atlantic Ocean at New York City. Yet here I was on the south side of the bridge and the river was flowing first under my side of the bridge and then under the roadway!
Surely the river does not flow from the Atlantic up to the St. Lawrence Seaway ? ? ? It just couldn’t be. I knew there were differences between the East and the West in this great land of ours, but I was pretty sure the side of the continent did not change the notion that water flows downhill!
Yet the Hudson River was right there, FLOWING UPSTREAM!
I thought perhaps it was some illusion caused by being so far above the water. But as I got to the far shore I checked and sure enough, there were grasses and branches along the shore that were being pushed by the current and they were being pushed UPSTREAM !
Alas, it was getting late and I needed to put that mystery on hold. At the time I needed to got off the bridge, put out my thumb, and see what shelter may come along.
I immediately got a ride from a young military man who was friendly as could be and, I’ll admit, easy on the eyes.
After the initial pleasantries in his car I was waxing poetic about geography and rivers flowing up stream. He was from the area and explained, “It’s the tide.”
THE TIDE ? ? ? ! ! !
Wow. 120 miles from the ocean and the tide is pushing back the mighty Hudson River ? ! I’m from the mountains of Idaho and had no idea the tide could do that!
He explained that the river continues to flow under the tide and the sea comes rolling over it.
Wow. I’d always heard how mighty the movement of the tides is. Considering all the rivers and basins and bays in the world, that is a LOT of water and land sharing a twice-daily sloshing around with one another!
The power of it struck me just like that — the mighty mixing up of water, earth, heat, cold, light and dark that has brought a carbon-based organic celebration upon this watery rock we ride around the sun!
The handsome military man ended up providing me with a place to sleep in the barracks of his camp.
After being impressed with how effortless it was to get a hitchhiker to an empty bed on a military base I enjoyed a sound sleep of sloshing dreams.
Cape Cod #1
Summer was drawing to a close but in a few weeks there would be chores to do on the Catskill Mountain estate I had come across in 1969.
There was a little time to go exploring and for no reason except having heard Old Cape Cod several thousand times on juke boxes and radios during my life I decided to get out my thumb and head across Massachusetts.
Avoiding freeways and towns as best I could, and conscious of being in the Catskill Mountains, I followed the little black lines on a map to the town of Catskill, on the Hudson River. It must have been a pretty easy journey for I remember nothing of it!
Nor do I remember much of Catskill the town. In fact I probably skirted the town itself, coming in on New York State Highway 23A and approaching the Rip Van Winkle Bridge on the east side of town.
What an unexpected treat! Built in 1935, the Rip Van Winkle Bridge is an impressive structure. After miles of forests and fields this mighty steel cantilever bridge jumps the mighty Hudson River some 120 miles from the river’s mouth at New York City. The bridge has ship clearance of 145 feet, a full 14-story building, above the water. Of course, ship clearance is not as far above the water as the bridge is.
On seeing the bridge I found myself calculating how to get across it. I wanted to walk across to check out the Hudson River, but I’d been on many of these narrow cantilever bridges in my day. I couldn’t imagine getting over nearly a mile of such an enclosed structure while dodging cars by squeezing on the side of the decking.
Matters worsened when I got close enough to realize the bridge was a toll bridge, meaning booths with officials that would surely report a backpacker taking off on foot in front of traffic.
But then my heart sang. I got close enough to discover this mighty structure, built to let wheels roll over water, included a walkway — an isolated path all on its own, running on the outside of the superstructure that held the road.
My heart was even happier to discover the toll for walking was free!
I found myself fascinated with several things about crossing Hudson River on the Rip Van Winkle Bridge —
First was how far above the river the bridge is. It crosses from above the bluffs beside the river, not over the river itself.
Second is how big the Hudson River is! Wow.
And, third, how green the Hudson Rover Valley is. Rivers are green in the desert West, but only along a few feet of their banks. Here all was lush.
My greatest fascination while walking across the Rip Van Winkle Bridge I’ll get to in my next blog.
More about the Rip Van Winkle Bridge—
(information from Wikipedia)
• Built by the newly-formed New York Bridge Authority in 1935
• Carries NY Highway 23
• From Catskill on the west to Hudson on the east
• Original cost: $2.4 million (inflation adjusted, $41.3 million)
• ship clearance: 145 feet, a 14-story building
• 5,040 feet long
• Lead paint removed and repainted in 2009
• Includes a separated walkway on the downriver side, closed at night
• Bikes can use the traffic lanes or walkway
• 1935 toll for cars: 80¢ + 10¢ per person up to $1
• 1935 toll adjusted for inflation: car, $13.76 / person, $1.72 / max, $17.20
• Actual 2015 toll for cars: $1.50 / $1.25 with pass
• No toll for walkway
• Yes, it is named after Washington Irving’s short story
Deans Great Wahoo 