Ghostly Thoughts While Walking on a Cape Cod Beach

Thoughts from a beach walk

in early October along mile-long

West Dennis Beach, Cape Cod

I searched for ghosts in Nantucket Sound
Where hundreds of sailors have drowned.
Upon the breakers their ships were tossed,
the men of sea knew that they were lost....

I walked upon the soft and salty Cape Cod sand
And thought of the many ships built on this land
that sailed every earthly sea and ocean,
manned by crews who sailed with devotion

To their lonely and demanding craft
despite the many dangers fore and aft,
they battled hurricanes, torment and strife
to bring to the land-lovers, a better life.

Copyright by Bill Russo

Cape Cod - 2017

The Weird Story of the First Halloween Jack O' Lantern

The tradition of cutting faces into pumpkins did originate in America, probably around Boston or New York.  But the first carving was actually in Ireland and it was a large turnip, not a pumpkin that was hollowed out, had a face cut into it, and was supplied with a candle to give it a scary glow.

According to the legend a mean, disorderly fellow, named Jack who lived in a shack in Dublin, loved to play tricks on unsuspecting people.  His foul antics affected everyone from his own family to the town’s upper class.

He took great delight in tripping old ladies, suspending wires across pathways to injure human and horse alike, and tying a thread around a gold piece that he tossed on the ground and then snatching it away from a person who spotted it and went to pick it up. 

Though a rogue and a no-good, mean Jack was very skilled in the art of doing bad things and always managed to escape harm from his foul tricks, even when he pulled one on the Devil himself!

By means of his extraordinary cunning he managed to convince Satan to climb up a full grown apple tree.  When the Lord of Hell was halfway up, nimble Jack tacked crosses all around the trunk of the tree.

“I can’t get down,” moaned the Devil. “I’ll suffer eternally if I even so much as brush across one of those terrible crosses. Take them away Jack,” begged old Satan.

“I might remove those crosses for you if you are in a bargaining mood.”

“Name your price you scallywag.”  

Jack smiled and thrust out his chest, puffing himself up as big as he could get and told the Devil…..

“The price for me to do it is one soul – my own.  You must promise me that when I die you will not claim my soul.”

“Take away those dreaded crosses and it’s done.  I shall never lay claim your dark soul, no matter what.”

Keeping his end of the bargain, Jack removed the crosses and the Devil climbed down the apple tree and went to Hell, while Jack went to the pub to celebrate his big victory over the Lord of Darkness.

About 20 years later after a life of deceit and drunken debauchery Jack died and applied for a small apartment in Heaven.  At the Pearly Gates, St. Pete took one look at the old reprobate and said “Not a chance. No way! There’s no place for the likes of you in Heaven Jack.  Go to Hell!”

So Jack did.  He knocked on the door of the gates to the inferno and was met by Satan himself who demanded to know…

“What the Hell do you want Jack?”

“I’d like a little spot in Hell.  It doesn’t have to be very big.  Really, even a little closet will do.”

“We made a bargain Jack.  I promised that I would never claim your soul no matter what.  I’m keeping my end of the deal.  Get lost Jack!”

“Yes, it’s lost I’ll be,” said the miserable old sinner, "for now I’m stuck forever in the dark netherworld between Heaven and Hell and I can’t even see where I’m wandering.”

“I’ll do one thing for you Jack. Here….” said the Devil as he tossed him a flaming ember from the furnace of Hell. “That ember will glow forever and guide you on your endless walk between the gates of Heaven and Hell.”

Jack had a turnip with him, a plentiful and favored food in Ireland at the time.  It was a large turnip and Jack felt that it would make a good holder for his flaming ember which was too hot to hold in his hand.

Jack hollowed out the turnip and cut holes in the side.  When he placed the ember inside, the light from it shined through the holes and lit the way for him in his perpetual walk. 

The last thing new souls arriving at the Gates of Heaven and Hell saw before they were admitted to one place or the other was a mean spirited man carrying a brightly lit “Jack O’Lantern”.

And so it was that during the first great waves of immigration, the Irish brought the tradition of turnip carving to America – though once they got here and discovered pumpkins, they stopped using turnips because pumpkins were bigger and easier to carve. 

The End

Killer Catfish in Cape Cod?

Far from the tourist havens of Hyannis, Sandwich, Dennis and Yarmouth; deep in the interior of Cape Cod, there are extraordinary beaches that visitors to the 64 mile long island never see. They encircle the waters of a lake several miles distant from the popular oceanfront resorts clinging to the big sandbar - Cape Cod Bay on the one side and Nantucket Sound on the other. The vast tract of more than 900 acres of brackish water, rotting logs, and a billion insects is as far inland as it is possible to go.

Formed in 1938 when The Great Northeast Hurricane knocked down half the trees of the lower cape and gouged out a depression five miles long and one mile wide - it quickly filled with water. In some places it’s only as deep as a fisherman’s boot while in others it seems bottomless – though it’s probably about as deep as the Provincetown Pilgrim Memorial is tall – 252 feet.

Despite the murky water you can see deep enough, to gape at the submerged remains of row after row of trees clipped off near their bases by the force of the hurricane, and left to stand forever in the muck, like lonely corpses staring up at the surface with blind eyes.

There are no roads to get to the lake, which the locals call “Kaycee Pond”. Surrounded by thick pines, sharp vines, and dense brush, the only access to the vast, muddy swamp is by trudging through a quarter mile of living tunnel formed of weeds, twisted trees, hedges, and swamp grass. 

There are no homes circling the lake, no camps or campsites, and no RVs or vans. The land around “Kaycee Pond” is home to many thousands of creatures, but not a single one of them is human. 

At first glance the pond looks serene.  The brown water gently laps at the hundreds of exposed tree stumps and rotting logs that almost seem plentiful enough to form a footbridge from one end to the other.    

Fat frogs sit unmolested on soggy timber, snapping out their tongues at regular intervals to entrap buzzing flies who themselves got fat from sucking on the decaying matter that washes onto the beaches. Foxes, coyotes, deer, and other animals drink at the edge of the water, but only if they are very, very thirsty.  They know by instinct that the calmness of “Kaycee Pond” is merely a Halloween mask that can be whisked off in an instant.

Read the rest of the story for free...click the link: https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/747189

Should Ellen be Fired from Television for Inappropriate Conduct?

If a man, while with his wife, is caught staring into the cleavage of another woman, at the very least he will be in deep trouble with his life partner.  He'll be lucky if all she does is pour water on him. 

It would be even worse if he had a television show.  People and various watchdog groups would be calling for him to  be fired.

So, should it be any different for Ellen DeGeneres?  In 2013 at the Grammy Awards she acted like a 13 year old boy, staring down at Katy Perry's chest.  She did it in front of her wife.   

From left to right, Ellen's Wife, Ellen, and the victim, Katy Perry.

Apparently she skated by and nobody noticed, but on October 25 on Katy Perry's birthday she sent out this photo and said to Katy, 

"Happy birthday, @KatyPerry! It’s time to bring out the big balloons!"

12:53 PM - Oct 25, 2017 .

DeGeneres is taking some flak for her inappropriate behavior but is trying to deflect it by saying she was making a joke!  Even if it's a joke it's low grade potty humor, and if a man did it there would be consequences.  

Should Ellen be removed from her program?  Should she be suspended?  Should her wife slap her silly?  

What do you think? 

Agile Giant Threatens Town at the End of Cape Cod

Agile Giant Threatens Town

at the End of Cape Cod

Source: Weekly Newspaper based in Provincetown, Massachusetts

It began on Commercial Street in Provincetown.  A huge Figure clad entirely in black, save for a yellow necktie, bounded over a picket fence and landed in front of a group of school children.  Looming menacingly over the frightened kids, it glared at them, growling savagely to reveal long white spikes of teeth.

Though it happened several times, the adults of the town did not get too concerned. It was after all, just a few weeks before Halloween.  Probably some teenager’s October prank, they thought.

But then Mary Costa saw it.  She was walking near town hall when from nowhere an impossibly tall and agile creature sprang over a nearby picket fence and landed upright some thirty feet beyond, directly in front of her.

She claimed that it was at least eight feet in height with long pointed ears and green, glowing eyes.  It growled gutturally at her and then disappeared in a flash by vaulting like an airplane over the fence from where it had come.

Soon reports began popping up all over town.  Charles Farley told the Provincetown Advocate that he had his rifle in hand when the thing accosted him.  Farley asserts that he put a bullet straight through the monster’s brain but it just laughed at him and disappeared in a flash. 

Another man told Provincetown Police that the Demon from the Dunes, all dressed in black except for a yellow necktie, sprang from the roof of a tavern and landed at his feet as he was walking home.  He said that he took a punch at the ’thing’ but it caught his fist and crushed his hand until the bones broke.

The radio networks and newspapers around the country picked up the story. By Halloween night, the whole nation was talking about the tiny land of Cape Cod and the Demon of the Dunes. 

The moon was full that night and the temperature was near 60 as young Louis Janard  got ready to take his little brother and sister out for Trick or Treat.  As soon as they left the house, the monster sprang at them.  Fourteen year old Louis turned tail and ran, leaving the children alone to face the beast.  But their brother soon returned.  He had not deserted them, but had gone in the house for a pot of boiling water which he hurled at the demon who bounded away screaming in pain and was never heard from again!

The dunes of Provincetown, a tiny Cape Cod village 64 miles by land, off the coast of Massachusetts

...

(Source: 1939 documents from The Provincetown Advocate and other publications. Adapted by Bill Russo)

New Rotary Phone is Partnered With Apple

An innovative rotary telephone poised to enter the market place in 2018 was unveiled on Cape Cod recently at the annual convention of the Massachusetts Dial Telephone Manufacturers’ Association.

A full report of the MDTMA meeting at the Swan River Convention Center in the village of Barnstaville Mills, is to be published in the upcoming issue of  “Number Please Monthly”, a semi-annual magazine for retired telephone operators.

Ed Bell, the publication’s chief editorial writer, said that Luke Bach, the president of the manufacturer’s group predicts that the rotary phone will soon replace all Android and iPhone devices.

“Mr. Bach, how can you say that a phone based on technology developed in the late 1800s can supplant today’s high speed wireless devices?”

“You didn't hear me correctly Mr. Bell, I didn't say we are going to replace them, I said we are going to supplement them.”

“How do you plan to do that?”

“It’s very simple.  Number one, instead of a complicated and quirky 'qwerty' keyboard with up to fifty different buttons, our rotary phone only has ten choices and yet each phone contains the entire alphabet plus all the numbers.  Number two, we are giving away an apple with every single unit.”

“Mr. Bach even if you are able to get people to buy these machines, will they be able to use them?

“As an editorial writer Mr. Bell you should know that rotary phones, or dial phones as some people call them, will work just fine with the digital technology of the 2000’s.  All of our offices and all of our members use their rotary phones every single day.  The phones work on a principal called pulse dialing.  It’s every bit as good, and even better than the wireless systems used by Android and Apple.  It’s more reliable and far less costly. Our motto is: "with a rotary phone and a quick dial, you’ll never have a call end up in a rubbish pile.”

“That seems to be a silly motto.  I don’t get it.”

“Think about it Mr. Bell.  With a rotary phone you won’t drop your calls because there are no lost calls with a dial phone. Plus it makes a cool sound when the dial moves.”

“One final question Mr. Bach.  You say your phones are going to be affordable.  How can this be if you’re giving away an iPhone with each one?”

“I didn’t say we're giving away an iPhone with our rotaryPhone.  I said we’re giving away an apple – and we are.  Every customer gets a dial phone and a free Mac.”

The full report of the MDTMA meeting will be in the next issue of “Number Please Monthly”, available by subscription only. 

DISCLOSURE: The writers and editors of this article do not have any stock in any firm manufacturing rotary telephones or any farm growing apples, or any high tech firm assembling “Apples”.  For information and a stock prospectus for rotaryTelephones, contact the author of this article through Cooper’s News Stand on Main Street in Barnstaville Mills, Cape Cod, USA – Box 13, zip code 105.7

Buiild Bridges, Not Walls