Progress has been made on the lower part of the puzzle but I’m really struggling with the upper part. Please note the missing piece on the right of the puzzle. THE CAT is the villain.
Meanwhile it’s still raining outside. Rain, rain, rain. I think I prefer it to the icy conditions recently experienced on the East Coast. I was particularly struck by the pictures of ice and snow in Perkins Cove in Ogunquit Maine.
vintage postcard
Summer is on its way. This is the art supplies and clothing shop where I lived and worked in the summer of 1957. I was the live-in cook and shop assistant. It was located in Perkins Cove and the fishermen stored their dories underneath my room – there to the left of the structure. I had only to cross the street to walk the Marginal Way to the beach every morning. What a golden summer!
But this was a long time ago. The owners eventually sold the shop and it was transformed into Barnacle Billy’s – a very popular restaurant. Nevertheless I have my treasured memories of the Brush & Needle Studio, established in 1917, the oldest Gift Shop in Ogunquit.
1930’s postcard from Ogunquit Maine
I could write a long book about the memories stirring in me as I view this postcard from Ogunquit Maine.
One of my favourite summer activities is to walk the Marginal Way in Ogunquit Maine. This almost qualifies as a heritage site for those who know and love Ogunquit so I just have to post this photo to show that I was there. The photo was taken early in July. Improvements have been made to this iconic walk but it is essentially the same as it was over 50 years ago when I walked it just about every day. It was very hot the day my sister Nan and I did the walk this year – we were really rather foolish to set out at 11 a.m. with the sun fully blazing down. I headed for the shade as quickly as I could but the shade was at the far end when we were almost at our destination in Perkins Cove.
along the Marginal Way, Ogunquit, Maine
the sisters, at breakfast at the Colonial Inn, before our walk
the rest of the family who had gone back to Connecticut before the Ogunquit part of the trip
For an interesting account of the geology to be discovered along the Marginal Way, click here.
Late June, early July – that’s a popular time for going away. And that’s in fact what I did. We had a big trip to the East Coast to visit family in New England. Connecticut, New Hampshire, and Maine, with arrival in and departure from Logan Airport in Boston. Almost immediately upon our return I went off to an Early Music Workshop which lasted all week. It was great. I am just back from that wonderful week, my head full of music from the Baroque and Renaissance periods in history. The workshop was very well organized, the tutors outstanding, and the University of Puget Sound in Tacoma a very suitable setting. That small college campus reminded me of my alma mater, Middlebury College in Vermont. And lo and behold, one of the attendees was a Middlebury classmate from way back when. Small world. I attended a similar event in Ireland back in 2007. This one was even better, possibly because I have that much more experience in playing the recorder and other instruments.
On the final evening there was a very well catered banquet and many of the people dressed up in Elizabethan wear. It was really splendid and we didn’t need any wine to make us feel very merry. However, wine was provided and then of course the prevailing mood was even merrier.
Here are a few photos taken at random:
Little League baseball in Connecticut proved to be most exciting and dominated our schedule, depending on the team’s fortunes.
Meeting with Middlebury friends.
Then came the lobster the evening before the 4th of July Reunion.
A few left in the pavilion while the rest dispersed to play games etc.
Sisters and cousins at the reunion
Snapshots from the Music Workshop
One of the consort groups I played in
contra line done to swinging music by Shera, one of the workshop leaders.
That’s it for now. I can’t seem to get these pictures in the right order. Will try again later.
Late last night I had trouble trying to annotate my sequence of postcards and their messages – see yesterday’s entry. Actually I wrote the annotations and put the postards in their proper sequence and with all the fiddling about, the annotations and the proper sequence vanished. It was enough to make me say a bad word – and then decide to try again this morning.
The sequence of the pictures on the cards doesn’t really matter. What is rather interesting though is the sequence of the messages.
Postcard from Vermont, May 23 1957 – Spring semester final exams are imminent
Postcard from Ogunquit, June 24 – I’ve had a ride in Mr. Turner’s boat pictured in the postcard
Postcard dated June 26 – I’ve had a bit of a disaster with the oven and I thought my last days had come (I’ll add here that I do remember the “explosion” very vividly but I don’t recall thinking things were nearly so terminal.)
Postcard dated July 9 – I write that on my Sunday dayoff I do not feel like cooking at all and hope that my Aunt Alice will invite me round for a meal (In fact my 2 vegetarian grandmotherly employers quite often took me for a lovely meal at the Barbara Dean – a restaurant in the old-fashioned style)
July 11 – I write about going fishing again – ( this seems to be a frequent mention -50+ years later I don’t recall these fishing expeditions at all) I went to see a marvelous production of Brigadoon at the Ogunquit Playhouse
July 26 – I baby sat for Grace and Hal (Grace Auntie Alma’s daughter)
August 3 – My cousin Rusty took me to the Ogunquit Playhouse to see Basil Rathbone in an Agatha Christie mystery, “Witness for the Prosecution”
The postmark August 3 is poignant for me. August 3 1957 was a Saturday. The next day on Sunday August 4, 1957 my mother and grandfather were playing their usual Sunday afternoon round of golf at Winchester Country Club there outside of Boston. Sadly my grandfather collapsed and died, on the fifth hole. The news reached me in the early evening. Aunt Alice contacted me at Grace and Hal’s home where I was having dinner. Grace was so good – she walked the Marginal Way with me for a couple of hours as we absorbed the shock. Even now, 50+ years later it hurts to write this.
n.b. It’s now getting late and I have corrected this entry any number of times and WordPress seems to keep over-riding my alterations. I’ll try again in the morning to fix things again.
Remember when a postcard could be sent for 2 cents. Amazing isn’t it. Well, that was quite a few years ago. I seem to have sent quite a few cards during the summer of 1957 when I was working in Ogunquit Maine. I was the chief cook and bottle washer for 2 vegetarian ladies who owned the Brush and Needle Studio there in Perkins Cove. The premises are now greatly expanded and are well known as Barnacle Billy’s. These ladies were like grandmothers to me and they were in fact of that generation. My Aunt Alice (my mother’s younger sister) and her husband Russ(ell) Ireland owned the Sachem Hotel (since torn down) and also the hotel next door. Mimi and Auntie Alma were Uncle Russ’s mother and aunt. I lived over the shop and was the cook, and also a shop assistant in the afternoons. A wonderful summer job.
In my mother’s archive I have found a number of postcards which I sent to her that summer, but first a card sent from Middlebury Vermont just near the end of the spring semester in May 1957.
postmark May 23 1957 Middlebury Vermont
Now for the postcards from Maine:
postmark July 9 1957 Ogunquit Maine
postmark June 26, 1957 Ogunquit Maine
postmark June 24, 1957 Ogunquit Maine
postmark July 11 1957 Ogunquit Maine
postmark July 26 1957 Ogunquit Maine
postmark August 3 1957 Ogunquit Maine
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Janet's thread 
