Day: March 16, 2009
Viewing Schedule of International Space Station from Gloucester
THE FOLLOWING ISS SIGHTINGS ARE POSSIBLE FROM GLOUCESTER, MA FROM FRI MAR 13 TO SAT MAR 28
SATELLITE | LOCAL | DURATION | MAX ELEV | APPROACH | DEPARTURE |
DATE/TIME | (MIN) | (DEG) | (DEG-DIR) | (DEG-DIR) | |
ISS | Sat Mar 14/07:55 PM | 2 | 21 | 11 above S | 21 above SSE |
ISS | Sun Mar 15/08:22 PM | 3 | 73 | 10 above SW | 73 above SSW |
ISS | Mon Mar 16/07:14 PM | 5 | 26 | 12 above SSW | 10 above ENE |
ISS | Mon Mar 16/08:51 PM | < 1 | 29 | 25 above WNW | 29 above WNW |
ISS | Tue Mar 17/07:40 PM | 6 | 86 | 10 above WSW | 11 above NE |
ISS | Wed Mar 18/08:10 PM | 3 | 31 | 27 above NW | 15 above NE |
ISS | Thu Mar 19/08:37 PM | 2 | 18 | 15 above NW | 15 above NNE |
ISS | Fri Mar 20/07:29 PM | 3 | 28 | 25 above NW | 11 above NE |
ISS | Fri Mar 20/09:04 PM | 1 | 13 | 10 above NW | 13 above NNW |
ISS | Sat Mar 21/07:56 PM | 3 | 17 | 15 above NW | 10 above NNE |
ISS | Sun Mar 22/08:23 PM | 3 | 14 | 10 above NNW | 11 above NNE |
ISS | Mon Mar 23/08:50 PM | 2 | 15 | 10 above NNW | 15 above N |
ISS | Tue Mar 24/07:42 PM | 3 | 14 | 10 above NNW | 10 above NNE |
ISS | Tue Mar 24/09:17 PM | < 1 | 15 | 11 above NNW | 15 above NNW |
ISS | Wed Mar 25/08:09 PM | 3 | 16 | 10 above NNW | 12 above NE |
ISS | Thu Mar 26/08:36 PM | 2 | 24 | 11 above NW | 24 above NNE |
ISS | Fri Mar 27/07:27 PM | 4 | 16 | 10 above NNW | 11 above NE |
ISS | Fri Mar 27/09:03 PM | < 1 | 30 | 19 above NW | 30 above NW |
An Island No More
With all the book talk lately, I thought I would share one of my favs from Ron Gilson.
Readers of An Island No More will immediately recognize this memoir as no routine historical account of Gloucester. It is a deeply moving essay of an author’s experience of the fishing industry as it affected the everyday life of its citizens. Gilson transports the reader into decades that cover depression, war, prosperity and, finally, decline. Gilson’s story is a poignant personal insight into many vignettes of the characters which fill his historical account. Using the fishing industry as a metaphor for life, Gilson reveals the life of a city over four decades. This historical approach is the strength of his work. Only a native of Gloucester could have written such a memoir.
As I read Gilson’s history, having been away from my home- town over fifty years, I was immediately taken back into time. Gilson’s account rings with such an authenticity, a virtual new experience of that time and place came back to me. In short, this history will engage the reader at all levels of emotion.
Dr. Richard J. Elliott
Professor Emeritus
University of New Orleans
From Sally Goldenbaum
Dear Joe,
National Marine Fisheries Sticker Aboard The Lady Jane
Where Zat? #15
I asked my son if he knew where this was. He should know, but he didn’t. Joey probably does.
Take a shot at it! Good luck!
Things To Do- GMG NCAA TOURNEY PICK EM
For any of you out there who would like to enter, I set up a NCAA Basketball Tournament Pick Em. The deadline to get your teams in is before tip off of the first game in a couple of days.
It costs nothing to enter.
Click here to enter- GMG NCAA BASKETBALL PICK ‘EM
For first place a prize pack of three pictures that I had printed on high quality paper.
Things To Do- Passports Wine Dinner March 26th
These wine dinners always sell out. Here’s a heads up for anyone wanting to make a ressie-
Four Course Wine Dinner:
Where: Passports Restaurant, 110 Main Street, Gloucester, MA
When: Thursday, March 26, 7:00 pm
Details:
Gino Rossi will share four wines from Burgundy, France. Each wine will
be paired with a course matched by Gino & chef/owner, Eric Lorden. The
cost is $35/person (gratuity not included). Reservations are essential.
Please call 978-281-3680
Passports Restaurant
110 Main Street
Gloucester, MA 01930
978-281-3680
passportsrestaurant@verizon.net.
Beautiful Industry
I don’t always know what I’m shooting, but my eye says, “Hit the button and don’t ask questions!”. So that’s what I do. (And then I ask!)
Dogtown Books Has This -Beer New England Book
I was thinking that the boys down at Cape Ann Brewing would love to have this. There are many out of print books at Dogtown Book Store. Swing by and check it out. I bet you find something you like. Just like I found that book of Edward Hopper paintings.
If Bob doesn’t have a hard to get book, he will try to locate a copy for you. That’s the kind of service you get at small town shops like Dogtown Book Store and others in Downtown Gloucester that you would never get at a mall.
You get shop keepers who care. They give a shit. They aren’t employees at a mall store punching a clock. They go the extra mile. It’s just another reason Gloucester Rocks! I just love our Downtown.
GMG Q&A- Melissa Smith Abbott Part I (Buckle Up)
One of my favorite features of GMG is the Q&As I just got back from vacation, opened my work email and had a questionnaire filled out by Melissa Smith Abbott that is a novel. I’ll be breaking it up into parts because the blog formatting goes to shit when I try to format the entire thing.
Thank you so much Melissa for taking the time to write and share all you did, it’s awesome!
Hi Joey,
My name is Melissa Smith Abbott and I read your local blog fairly often. I work for the Gloucester Times as the Downtown Advertising Consultant. I have read your GMG Question and Answer column with interest but to tell you the truth the one word or even one sentence answers you mostly get from your interviews leave me wanting more. I startd thinking about what I would say if I was given a chance and today I wrote down some of my musings and really it is only a fraction of what I have thought up. I think your questions are provocative in a way that it makes me think about the history of things in Gloucester. I like delving into things a little more than the average person. I thought I would pass it on to you and if you feel guided maybe publish it but if it is too long, I understand. I have attached a recent photo of me with my husband Charlie Abbott’s 1st grandchild “Madison”.
How Long Have You Lived in Gloucester?
In June it will be 56 years. I was born at the Addison Gilbert Hospital and delivered by my mother’s father or grandfather, Dr. George Melvin Doyle, who was a Doctor in Gloucester. The story goes that I tried to grab the scissors out of his hand when he went to cut the cord. The Doyles had come down from Prince Edward Island in Canada around 1895 and settled in Gloucester. Thier family had a big potato farm up in PEI and they also had timber so they built seine boats. The family had gotten a land grant in PEI in 1805 and had come there from Wexford, Ireland. There are a couple of family legends about the Doyles from Wexford. One is that they were decedents of Charlmagne and the other was that it was either the prison ship or PEI and that’s how the family got there. My mother actually visited the family in PEI a few years ago and was shown the original china they brought with them in 1805. The family still owns the Potato farm there! The younger kids
who weren’t going to inherit the farm came down to Gloucester and worked in Giffords boat yard on Parker Street where The Rockport National Bank is presently. They built working seine boats and pleasure sailing boats for the well to do customers too. My Great grandfather, Austin Doyle, ended up buying and running the boat yard from the Giffords sometime before WW1. He ran the place with his two sisters, Annie and Elizabeth. He died sometime in the early 1930’s and he had wanted my grandfather George Melvin Doyle to become an engineer but since his mother, Catherine Rice, had died at the hands of a quack doctor on Short Street in Gloucester somewhere around 1911, he had vowed to become a Doctor. He attended John Hopkins and was one of the only Doctors in Gloucester during the depression and WW2. He didn’t work for money, he just opened the back door of his house at 33 Middle Street and there would be things on the steps like fish, potatoes, molasses,
liquor…anything really. His 1st wife was Margaret “Peggy” Greenleaf from the West Gloucester Greenleafs. The Greenleafs were early settlers. My 10 greats grandfather on Peggy’s fathers side was Edmund Greenleaf who was a Hugonaut escaping religious persecution from Europe. Originally he was from England but had lived in Holland and worked as a silk dyer before buying a boat and captaining his flock to the new world. He was both the captain of the little ship that arrived in Newbury, MA on the Parker River around 1636 as well as the minister. His decedents were famous during the American Revolution and fought with General George Washington at Valley Forge. later they were given land grants in Westford, Maine for their service during the American Revolution. One of those decedents was named William Greenleaf and he and his brother Nathanial built themselves a schooner and came down to Gloucester around 1880’s or perhaps a little earlier. They were two
of the Highliner Halibut Schooner captains of thier day. This was at a time when the schooner fishing captains were like the Rock Stars and were extremely well respected. William was married to a pretty girl with long red hair he met in Nova Scotia named Mary Connors. There is some family story about a kidnapping or elopement but I am unclear of the details. This is the same family as the Connors Drugstore family. Anyway, they lived in Gloucester and misfortune did strike them when they lost a schooner on her maiden voyage. Her name was the “Henrietta Greenleaf” and on their shakedown cruise a huge storm and wind came up and capsized the boat killing several on board including Mary Connors Brother. William lived and was rescued but from that day forward he supported 5 of the family’s of the men he lost, until he died in the 1930’s. No small feat in the earlier part of the last century.He was a real larger than life take charge kind of guy who was
fearless. He was the captain of the Grace L. Fears when Blackburn got lost on it and rowed to shore in the snowstorm. There are many legends and stories about him but he was known as “the best cusser in Gloucester” but he made of point of never swearing. So it seems he must have had some colorful language without taking the lords name in vain.
My father’s family the “Smith’s” didn’t come to Cape Ann until 1929 during the depression when they drove up here in a Model T from Connecticut (Originally they were from Scotland and Northern Ireland with a side trip to Wales for a while) to look at a Blacksmith Shop which was for sale in Rockport very cheap. The driver of the Model T was my great grandmother and she was named Melissa Collins (whose husband Allan Smith was a ships carpenter who traveled the world) and she came with her daughter (my grandmother) Melissa Collins Smith. They were shown a Forge Building on High Street in Rockport where the very popular Blacksmith had unfortunately committed suicide because everyone stopped using horses and started using automobiles. The building was practically unsalable to any locals because of the guilt the neighbors felt over his death. To make a very long story short, they bought the building and started The Blacksmith Shop Restaurant in 1929. The
Smith’s had several businesses on Cape Ann including The Andama Bread Company, The Easterly Inn, The Faraday Inn, and The Cable House Inn. I grew up working in the Smith family businesses and I was named after my Great grandmother and grandmother, Melissa. My grandmother Melissa Smith was a great mentor to me and at a time before women’s liberation, ran her businesses with a combination of cut throat fairness, kindness, and compassion. She absolutely loved and lived to cook. I have all of her recipes on the website www.anadamabread.com . Many of them seem old fashioned in this day and age but I can assure you in their day, they were state of the art delicious. I have many recipes for old time Gloucester Specialties on this website so check it out.