Road Fotos 26

Three years ago when I visited Cape Ann, I returned obsessed with ideas about edifices and erections . . .  no no not what you think.  For a spell I toyed with efforts to grow ideas of erecting lights in the sixth boro like this . . . until I concluded–at the time–that our fair harbor already has its light. . . yet I’m ambivalent about the finality of that answer.

I like Gloucester’s unique reinvention of the tradition of a tree with lights, a genuine community effort, building the tree while building a community.

Evidence of community building showed elsewhere too  . .  like here.

The inscription barely visible in the foreground says “Step into my shoes and feel inspired,” and I did and was.  Fitz Hugh (or Henry) Lane‘s work is truly a memorial framing past.

Gloucester’s Harbor Walk has to be one of the most amazing ways to marry state-of-the-art technology with a  means to memorialize the past.  Here’s an article on its genesis and funding, and the  home website for these 42 “stations of the port.”

A stone’s throw from the water . . . a shrine to Gordon W. Thomas,  author of one of my all-time favorite books.

Here’s another memorial at the Portuguese church.

This marker in Bearskin Neck (Rockport) features some great obsolete words, seafencibles and “townsmen … in stockings.”

Actually, I was there in part to build a personal memorial, although I hadn’t known that when I first arrived.  Standing in Fitz’s shoes was inspirational.

And so  . ..  south of Straitsmouth Light, here memorialized in a postcard . . .  until some gust might topple it, a cairn stands.

All fotos by Will Van Dorp.