My View of Life on the Dock
The world’s greatest pork chop and no where else is even close is @tonnogloucester Before I had it, if you had asked me if I’d ever considered ordering a pork chop at a restaurant and I would have looked at you like you were crazy. But on opening night the construction crew told me I had to try it. Boy am I glad I did. Outrageous.
More Cape Ann Community News-
http://www.capeanncommunity.com
The Library will be open Saturday December 31 (New Year’s Eve) regular hours!(8:30am-5:00pm). Come in and get some books, magazines, music, and movies for the long weekend! The library will be closed Monday January 2 in observance of New Year’s Day.
Artist Series #4:
Save the date:
More Cape Ann Health Fitness and Wellness News-
http://www.capeannwellness.com
Your Bridge to Health; Promoting Optimal Wellness for Body, Mind and Spirit
The World Has Lost ‘Bright Lights’ with the passing of ‘Mother-Daughter’ actors Debbie Reynolds and Carrie Fisher. Two strong women known for their resiliency and humor, especially in the face of adversity and mental health issues. May they be together in everlasting peace. Peace to their family and friends.
A Home in the Meadow – (The tidal beach pictured in this video reminds me of Good Harbor Beach.)
Sung by Debbie Reynolds in the movie How the West Was Won, now seems a prelude to welcome her ‘home.’ Carrie Fisher died from complications of a heart attack. Her mother, Debbie Reynolds died one day later. While it is has been reported that Debbie Reynolds died from a stroke, dying from a broken heart is a real syndrome, and severe stress can cause the release of stress hormones that elevate blood pressure, constrict…
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Submitted by: Roseanne (Ercolani) Cody
CHRISTMAS DINNER IS SERVED.
APPROXIMATELY 45 YEARS AGO EVERETT ERCOLANI BEGAN THE GENEROUS TRADITION. OF PREPAREING AND DELIVERING DINNERS FOR THANKSGIVING AND CHRISTMAS, EASTER WAS ADDED ABOUT SIX YEARS AGO.
AS A LEADER OF THE AMERICAN LEGION, EVERET ENLISTED FRIENDS, FAMILY AND FELLOW VETERANS TO HELP WITH THIS ENDEAVOR.
HIS FAMILY CONTINUES THE TRADITION. HIS NIECE, ROSEANNE CODY, HER THREE CHILDREN; ANNMARIE,JACQUELINE, JAY, THEIR SPOUSES, AND THEIR CHILDREN HAVE VOLUNTEERED FOR 30 YEARS.
THIS PROGRAM SERVES LOCAL ELDERLY AND INDIVIDUALS IN NEED OF A HOT HOLIDAY MEAL. SOME GUESTS CHOOSE TO HAVE THEIR DINNER AT THE AMERICAN LEGION, JOINING FRIENDS AND FAMILY.. WHILE OTHERS CALL AND ORDER THEIR DINNERS TO BE DELIVERED TO THEIR HOMES.
THIS YEAR OVER 350 INDIVIDUALS BENEFITED FROM THIS PROGRAM.
ONE OF THE MOST REWARDING BENEFITS OF DELIVERING MEALS IS THE JOY ON AN ELDERLY PERSON’S FACE WHEN A CHIILD HANDS THEM THEIR MEAL.
AN ELDERLY RESIDENT RECENTLY STATED. “YOU ARE THE ONLY VISITOR I WILL
HAVE TODAY.” THIS WAS SAID INNOCENTLY, BUY IMPACTED THE VOLUNTEER DELIVERING THE MEAL AS THEY SHARED THIS MOMENT TOGETHER..
VOLUNTEERS ARE ALWAYS NEEDED, CALL THE AMERICAN LEGION AND GIVE YOUR NAME.
Photo of some of Everett Ercolani’s relatives who carry on the tradition year after year.
Captain Dave Jewell stopped by Captain Joe’s with his adorable new Labrador puppy Stormtrooper (his young kids are Star Wars fans). He knows how much Joey loves puppies 🙂
Captain Dave Jewell and Trooper
Essex River Sunset and Great Blue Heron
Readers, what do you think?
December 27th Gloucester Daily Times letter to the editor from Elizabeth and Brad Story.
“To the editor:
Cape Ann folks should be aware of the fact that there is significant opposition to dredging the Essex River in town and it comes from local people who know the river best. Rather than celebrating a boondoggle like dredging, we ought to be mourning a body blow to an incredible local natural resource.
The reason the Essex River hasn’t been dredged since the ‘90s is that dredging:
— actually causes the river to fill in more quickly;
— is terrible environmentally, no matter where the dredge spoils are dumped;
— is a waste of money.
When the channel is dredged, the banks are steeper. More boats use the river at higher speeds and the wakes and turbulence from the boats causes the steeper banks to collapse. The collapsed bank material fills in the channel. Now the river is spread out over the tops of the old banks and more filling in occurs.
We have seen this over and over again. If you look at the time period between dredging projects in the 20th century you will see that the time gets shorter and shorter. This is because the dredging makes the river less deep over time.
In the 19th century hundreds of huge Gloucester fishing schooners, steamers and other large vessels were built and launched on the banks of the river and were brought downriver on successive tides. There was plenty of water for them in the basin where they were launched and the trip down river just had to be guided by someone who knew the river. Once steam tugs were available they didn’t even have to necessarily wait for more than one tide.
Harold Burnham, who brings the Schooner Ardelle up the river to his boatyard, and has brought other large vessels up the river many times, uses the same method today. It is not a problem. My family operated the Story Shipyard, where the Essex Shipbuilding Museum is now, for many generations and I did business there until 1985. I built and launched many boats there and sailed from there downriver to Ipswich Bay hundreds of times.
The only people who have a problem are people who want to zoom up the river to the restaurants or marinas, and don’t want to deal with the state of the tide or the shoal areas. The police chief/harbormaster, who has so far refused to dock his boat at Conomo Point where there is deep water on all tides, also wants dredging. Maybe we need a harbormaster who doesn’t have to do double duty as police chief and therefore doesn’t need to be close to his office in the center of town? Might this work better without spending hundreds of thousands of dollars on harmful dredging?
The Coast Guard has always had a problem getting in the lower Essex River but dredging won’t affect that. The problem is the sandbars shifting across the mouth of the river and between the ends of Crane Beach and Coffin’s Beach each year. No amount of dredging will ever change that, nor is it intended to.
The main problem in the Essex River is not its shallow draft. It is people going way too fast in big, powerful boats. This is our public safety problem. We face it every time we try to go boating, especially on summer weekends.”
Mouth of the Essex River, looking towards Cranes Beach, and Double-crested Cormorants
By 2050 there will be more plastic than fish in the sea.
“If the average American uses 167 plastic bottles a year, in 60 years they will have used 10,000 plastic bottles.
Those same single use bottles will be around for your children’s children’s children’s children’s children’s children’s children’s children’s children’s children’s children’s children’s children’s children’s children’s children’s children’s children.
That’s a lot of bottles to be running away from, for a very very long time.”
Read more at the artist vonwong’s project here www.450years.com
Had a wonderful lunch with my friend Carol at the Beauport Hotel. We were then escorted up to the Roof top and enjoyed a speculator view.
With the cold weather here, looks like a great time to shop at TBT Post.
Your friends at TBT Post just wanted to let you know that we have extended our 50% Off Store-wide Christmas Sale until New Year’s Day!
Cozy pure alpaca clothing and handmade unique jewelry all at incredibly low prices, that’s our promise to you.
TBT Post
33 Main Street
Gloucester, MA 01930
Cape Ann Lanes, 53 Gloucester Avenue, Gloucester, MA
We had 11 people in there yesterday and had a ball!
Remember the WCVB-TV Channel 5 broadcasts?
NYE Music will be by the local and fabulous Joe Wilkins Trio, we are offering our full menu plus a Filet Mignon & Crab Cake special, party favors, complimentary champagne toast at midnight. Lots of fun, great food, music & cocktails! Thanks.
And we are featuring New Years Day Brunch too! Thank you!
Nothing says “it’s time to rip off the holiday feedbag” like the market stocking 6 packs of lettuce! Let the post-holiday lettuce and water diet begin!
First of year, Happy New Year. May 2107 be all that you want it to be.
SEE FULL ENTERTAINMENT SCHEDULE AND BUY BUTTONS HERE
The mission of Rockport New Year’s Eve (RNYE) is to broaden and deepen the public’s appreciation for the performing, literary, and visual arts through innovative, diverse and high-quality programs that offer the community a shared cultural experience that is accessible and affordable. RNYE presents year-round programs that both support this mission and raise funds. RNYE is also supported by business sponsorships and individual donations.
RNYE’s most important event of the year, and the one for which the organization is named, is the celebration of the arts on New Year’s Eve. The evening is designed to be an impressive, “small seacoast town” version of First Night celebrations held throughout the country. New Year’s Eve in Rockport is a treasured tradition enjoyed by Cape Ann residents and visitors
Attendees purchase buttons online or at stores throughout Rockport and Gloucester in advance of New Year’s Eve, or at the event headquarters on New Year’s Eve. A button allows the bearer to attend any events that are scheduled throughout the evening. The following description gives a good perspective of the depth, breadth and cultural diversity of the entertainment.
The celebration begins at 6PM on New Year’s Eve. New Year’s Eve entertainment is scheduled on the hour, every hour, from 6PM to midnight, with 15 minute breaks in between each 45 minute session to allow attendees to walk from venue to venue and venue managers to reset for the next act. The entertainment options scheduled throughout the evening are culturally diverse and suitable for all ages. Musical acts may include folk, Celtic, blues, reggae, calypso, rhythm and blues, rock and roll, funk, soul, bagpipes, gospel, songs of the sea, 50’s and 60’s doo wop, country, western swing, African pop, New Orleans jazz, big band, and a cappella.. Other entertainment may include clowns, jugglers, puppeteers, story tellers, face painters, dancers, psychic readers, and telescope viewing with the astronomy club. Children of all ages participate in the drum jam and parade through the downtown streets, with a large dancing dragon and costumes. At midnight, attendees gather in Dock Square to watch the ball drop from the highest ladder of the town fire truck and sing “Auld Lang Syne”.
NOON YEAR’S EVE
Who says you have to wait until midnight to celebrate 2017?
Help us ring in the 2017 a few hours early with our first ever “Noon Year’s Eve” celebration! There will be special activities, prizes and giveaways, and a celebratory balloon drop, all included in the price of admission!
Test your tolerance for icy cold water, have some belly laughs with friends, and (most importantly) help raise donations for the Open Door!
READ MORE ABOUT THE OPEN DOOR HERE
Once again, it’s that time to come and celebrate the New Year with our invigorating celebration. Please join us!! We ask everyone to bring non-perishables to help out those in need. The Open Door will have a van set up at the entrance of the beach !! We also collect cash or checks made out to The Open Door. If you haven’t joined us before, please do so and bring friends!!!!! We start this yearly tradition with a poem from George Sibley and then take our plunge !!
Sunday, January 1st at 9:00 a.m.
Rocky Neck. Stevens Way, Gloucester,MA
As always, for a comprehensive list of family activities, please visit our friends at North Shore Kid
More Cape Ann Dining News-
http://www.capeanneats.com
More public art and heart-
Thanks to Janice Lufkin-Shea, Pauline Bresnahan, Hannah Morris, David Brooks Cape Ann Art Haven, Senator Tarr and others, Gloucester and its lobster trap tree and traditions have a place in the Massachusetts Senate President’s Office. Here are photos of Senator Bruce Tarr with Stan Rosenberg, the 93rd President of the Massachusetts Senate, in the Senate President’s Office. First two photos from inside the State House were from Senator Tarr.
David Brooks writes that he hopes the buoy will be a permanent ornament, “but I’m not sure how long it will last. Its made of a small plastic net buoy and plaster. We made it as an Art Haven team and tried to make it look like a kid did it so it fit the character of the tree.” Perhaps a bronze version may be commissioned from Cape Ann Art Haven one day.
There were special ornaments to discover on the tree in City Hall, too, in the rotunda outside the Office of the Mayor.
More Cape Ann Community News-
http://www.capeanncommunity.com
WHAT: AN AFTERNOON OF PRESENTATIONS ON THE MARTIN LUTHER KING HOLIDAY hosted by the Gloucester Meetinghouse Foundation
WHEN: MONDAY, JANUARY 16, 2017, 1:30-5:30pm
WHERE: THE HISTORIC 1806 GLOUCESTER MEETINGHOUSE (Unitarian Universalist Church), corner of Church & Middle Street, accessible side entrance at 10 Church Street
PROGRAM:
1:30 Mary Ellen Lepionka, Cape Ann Algonquians’ first encounter with Samuel de Champlain
2:30 Lise Breen, history of early African-Americans and slavery in Gloucester
3:30 GWC Fish Tales, first-hand stories about injustice and hope
4:30 Mayor Sefatia Romeo-Theken, summation on cultural diversity
5:00 Martin Luther King, Jr. delivers the ‘I Have a Dream Speech’ on the CAC&S big screen
5:30 Closing, tolling of the Meetinghouse Paul Revere bell for freedom
WHAT’S SPECIAL? A rare opportunity to gather in community to celebrate the legacy of Dr. King, learn about past and present-day persons of diverse colors, cultures and identities…
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From an early morning stop at the bottom of my hill, with a view towards the Harbor and City Hall (as well as a feisty Common Loon), to the creatures abounding along the shore, it was a gorgeous winter morning, and all set against a widely striped and deeply-hued winter sky backdrop.
Common Loon at the pier, swimming very close to where I was standing and seemingly equally as curious about me as I was about it.
Gloucester FV Connemara Bay
Male (left) and Female Red-breasted Mergansers foraging at the Harbor
The Lollygaggers
Flock of American Black Ducks
Orchestra of earth tones for a well-camouflaged female Mallard Duck
https://www.instagram.com/p/BOkW5ydDEAg/
Good Morning Gloucester 