Alexandersmap

    Tag: Pocasset

    • Dog Days

      This is the big weekend on the Cape, with the Falmouth Road Race pulling in thousands of runners. It’s big in Pocasset too this weekend, bursting at the seams. The house was full of dogs this morning. And people. But the dogs steal the show as usual.

      Beach work and gardening to earn a swim. Tread water for 20 minutes, bobbing like a buoy on the rollers. Summer days of salt, sun and sand. Sailboats quietly cruise by. Power boats buzz by too, with too-loud conversations over the engine noise. Yes, sound carries over water.

      A moment of quiet now, waves lapping on the beach, deck umbrella creaks as it twists to and fro, runners gone to check in and pick up numbers. Half the dog population and their people have gone home. A few of us remain, holding down the fort. Witnesses to the parade of boats floating back and forth. Sun warming all. These are the dog days of summer. They never last, and changes are coming too soon. Today is all we have, and with that in mind, it’s a lovely place to spend it.

    • One Token Ripple

      This morning I stood out on the jetty well before sunrise looking for the pre-event light show. Not much aside from the building gray-to-white-to-orange glow. Limited cloud action and such. As I stood there waiting for the moment I heard the unmistakable momentum of the swells begin building on the rocks and retreated back to higher ground before my shoes soaked through. The wake of some unknown boater from some time before reached the place where I stood. Their ripple intersected with mine and I was the wetter for it.

      Turning around to scan the horizon for my mysterious boater friend, I saw the glint of first orange light up the windows of some house in Marion. They owned the earlier sunrise while I waited for the sun to clear the hills of Pocasset. Turning back to the east I waited out the climb until finally the dark hills caught fire and I became part of the new day too.

      Walking back to the beach I saw footprints and tire tracks below the high tide mark and realized I wasn’t the first one on the beach this morning. Like Robinson Crusoe I recognized I wasn’t alone. Less a shock to me. As the active fishing community here starts their day during my deep sleep stage. I rise early, they rise in the middle of the night.

      I read yesterday that there have been an estimated 107 billion people. I’ve felt the ripple of a small percentage of them, but have been touched by untold others. People I’ve never met, like the boater who’s wake got my feet wet this morning, or the Army Core of Engineers who built the jetty I stood on when it washed over. Or the carpenter who installed those windows betraying the coming sun in Marion. Authors read, and those who influenced them in turn. A chain of 107 billion links; of those who came before and those amongst us still.

      Two cups of coffee later in conversation with a friend who’s ripple has been more profound, we heard the slapping water and boiling sound of a bluefish run right into the beach. Walking down to the water line we watched the swirling ballet of bluefish and fry dance right to the sand and back out again. I saw the reflection of four fry on the sand that had leaped out of the water to escape the frenzy. Scooping them up I flicked them back into the bay one at a time. Perhaps they’ll survive to adulthood and feed some family a year from now. Or avoid that fate and spawn another generation. Impossible to know, but whatever happens to them, it’s one token ripple sent to the future.

    • Where the Narrows Open Out

      Looking at John Sellers 1675 “Mapp of New England” I’m drawn to the place names on Cape Cod. “Yermoth“, Sandwich and Pocasset on the Cape, and the islands of “Martina Vineyard” and “Nantuket“. As with the entire map things are way out of scale, but still a fascinating snapshot of place in 1675 Cape Cod.  The other unique thing about Sellers’ map is that he turns New England on its side, offering a new perspective on the familiar shapes.

      The Pocasset Wampanoag were no strangers to Buzzards Bay, but they lived in the area that is now Tiverton, Rhode Island up to Fall River, Massachusetts and surrounding towns. If a place were going to be named Pocasset wouldn’t it be Tiverton or Fairhaven or some other place on that side of the bay? So how did this little corner of Cape Cod become known as Pocasset?

      The answer might lie in the word itself. “Pocasset” and some similar Algonquin names like “Pochassuck” and “Paugusset” all mean “the place where the narrows open out”. And that certainly applies to this part of Buzzards Bay. For the English settlers choosing Pocasset was likely easier than Pochassuck.  I can imagine the middle school jokes at neighboring towns if they’d gone that route.

      This place was likely visited by the Pocasset often as they traded with the Pilgrims at the Aptucxet Trading Post nearby. In talking about the land and the bay around them it’s probable that’s how the area was described as the bay opens up right after the point of Wings Neck. On the map Pocasset encompasses what is now Falmouth. Given the scale of the map it could be a minor point, or perhaps the entire stretch from Wings Neck to Woods Hole was considered the place where the narrows open out.

      That description fits the mind as well. Looking at old maps, reading books, and traveling to new places opens up my own once narrower mind. I break free of the daily routine and see things in a new way. So having a home away from home in Pocasset is more appropriate than I first thought.