A Vintage Car Climb event was held recently at the Crane Estate featuring pre-WWII vehicles in timed races. This sounded very interesting so we secured tickets and attended on a gorgeous fall afternoon. It was a celebration of the “roaring twenties” and “jazz” era complete with costumed staff, appropriated music accompanying the vintage vehicles. You really felt drawn back to a long lost era with the roar of the engines, lively music, dancing and costumed participants.

The event was very well organized with lots of volunteer help for the sold out crowd. Our friends at Lyon-Waugh Auto Group sponsored the event and we even got to say hello to FOB Cidalia ! The vintage vehicles were spotlessly maintained and it was so much fun to watch them race by, complete with the sounds and smells of pre-WWII automobiles!

Carla Grillo is the author of “The Past Is A Present”, a book profiling 28 seniors from the Gloucester senior community.  All proceeds will benefit The Gloucester Council on Aging and the Rose Baker Senior Center. 
The book is sponsored by the Friends of The Gloucester Council on Aging.
TO PRE-ORDER THE BOOK, USE LINK:  https://pastisapresent.org

⚓  ⚓  ⚓

GLOUCESTER’S “CATERPILLAR” MASTER MECHANIC

RAY CHANDANAISMy friend and a great guyLooking back over 50 years ago, when I first met Ray, we both were so young.  Ray had teamed up with Ozzie Howard, starting their Marine Repair business on Pond Road, while I had just opened my Gloucester Marine Insurance Agency.Ray and Ozzie both serviced our fishing fleet, and in a way, complimented each other’s work.  Ray approached his Caterpillar customers with the tools and expertise of a brain surgeon.  His partner, Ozzie, serviced his customers with his “jack of all trades” experience and a sledge hammer!  IT WAS THE BEGINNING OF ONE ERA AND THE END OF ANOTHER.

FRIENDSHIPS
As our business relationship grew, our friendship intensified.  In my life, the friendships I’ve made along the way, are all important.  Ray Chandanais is my good friend, along with his family:  wife, Helen; son, Jay; sister, Theresa Wilkins; mother, Mary, and their own family relatives come to mind.
In 1981 when our family opened our Union Hill Coffee House, the first daily breakfast customer was Ray!  No one supported our business more than Ray, and on weekends, his entire family.  Our friendship went far beyond business.  Ray, Helen, and their family were our family.  Joan and I were invited to their wedding at the Surf in Magnolia.  Family birthday parties, Veteran’s Day and Marine Corps (10 November) annual restaurant birthday celebrations, when Ray loaned his sons’ Marine Corp portraits for display above our restaurant dessert case.  Ray was so proud… GREAT MEMORIES!
Gilson’s 60th Wedding Anniversary
When our family – sons Brent, Blake, Joan and I opened our restaurant, September 17, 1981, our lives changed… our new family, our Union Hill customers led by the Chandanais, became our life!
Ron Gilson

GLOUCESTER’S “GENERAL MOTORS” MASTER MECHANICSEBASTIAN “BUZZY” PARISIJoe G… F/V St. Peter says “He kept us running!”
Sebastian “Buzzy” Parisi, now retired, was a Number One diesel mechanic, just like his dad, Joseph “Three Finger Joe” Parisi, before him.“Buzzy” Parisi possessed the same mechanical genes as his father, Joe, who was the legendary Atlas Imperial Diesel Engine Master Mechanic from the Golden Age of Fishing 1940 – 1955.  I can’t resist offering this memory of the 1940’s.As a 12 year old boy in 1945, I sat on the threshold of the engine room companionway looking down at the initial starting of the Catherine Amerault’s big six-cylinder 400 H.P. Atlas Imperial diesel engine.  As the Atlas Company representative checked all the operating systems and the Lister auxiliary engine pumped up the air, I watched Walter Davis, Alec Grimes, and “Slim” Cook ( Groton’s Machine Shop employees) doing their thing in preparation of starting this monster AWESOME (to a young boy) green machine!Unlike the stream-lined Cooper Bessemer, the Atlas had a Rube Goldberg character – the push rods, rocker arms, valve cages – moving parts were exposed!  When the Atlas rolled over, belching the sound of escaping air, gears engaging, chain drives rattling – in unison, all responding to engine room bells and buzzers – it was a MIRACLE beyond words to a young boy!  That was the world of “Three Finger Joe” Parisi. I’ll never forget it!Joe’s son “Buzzy” would follow his dad into the GM “General Motors” era only a few years later.
As the 1950s faded, more and more the heavy-duty slow turning engines were being replaced by small Buda’s, Cummins, and GM 6-71s, etc., especially in the day-boat fleet.  Many old timers thought that horses were being replaced by ponys!  That the small high-speed engines would not last – not true.
Three-Finger Joe’s Son, Buzzy Parisi, a GM manHis father was a heavy-duty Atlas genius!
Buzzy Parisi’s era was dawning.  He would be in on the ground floor.  The fleet quickly adapted to these smaller high-speed GM’s and Cats.  Buzzy would be the waterfront’s “go to” GM diesel man!In a 1999 GDT article by Peter Prybot, he mentioned the F/V Serafina N., St. Jude, and Diane Carinhas, as a few of Buzzy’s engine customers.  They were all my insureds!  I can see Lakeman’s Diane Carinhas loaded, coming like a train down the North Channel, thanks in part to Buzzy Parisi’s expert maintenance.  The fleet – at least 50 – 60 boats equipped with Detroit GM diesels – depended on Buzzy Parisi.Like his dad before him, MASTER MECHANIC SALVATORE “BUZZY” PARISI had no equal when it came to GM diesels!

⚓  ⚓  ⚓
Presented by
Ron Gilson and Erik Ronnberg
Arthur D. Story Shipyard
Essex, MA
Circa 1947

Golden hour…

The Joy of Sax will be playing from 5:30-8:00 pm and we will have a selection of German inspired foods available for a $20.00 fee.  There will be a cash bar with specialty beers and of course wine too!

First Great Granddaughter after eight boys!

Cake Ann has relocated to the 7 Seas Wharf in the former Gloucester House on Rogers Street. We stopped in and were impressed with the setup. There is much more room available with indoor and outdoor seating. There is a ribbon cutting scheduled for today Wed Oct 20 at 3 PM if you are interested. Check it out! Best wishes to our friends at Cake Ann.

While at our friend’s Chris and Marcy Plante house we discovered their awesome smokeless firepit- the Solo Stove Bonfire. It has a way where the inner chamber does a secondary burn so there isn’t any smoke (the main reason a lot of people don’t care for firepits is teh smoke that gets in their hair/clothes.

It’s all stainless steel and brilliantly designed.

Right now there are on super sale and on top of that once you buy one you can give referral codes for an extra $15 off on top of the super sale that they are having this weekend.-

I had ordered Adventureman Jamie MacDonald’s new book Running America as soon as it was released last spring but it hasn’t been available in the United States until this week. I had been looking forward to it but it was still a nice surprise to find it on my doorstep a few days ago. Of course, I immediately turned to the chapter regarding his time here in Gloucester in March 2019. And that brought up memories of that wonderful day on the boulevard. Congratulations Jamie! We still love you here across the pond in your sister city.Jamie thanks Good Morning Gloucester, Nichole Schrafft, Ray Johnson, Sheree Zizik, Mayor Romeo Theken, Cape Ann Motor Inn Loran Caputo and Brad Pierce, AND the Crow’s Nest crew!!! Obviously there were so many others instrumental in the success of this event for him and for the fund raising efforts on behalf of children’s hospitals and I am sorry I cannot name them all either but I hope you know we appreciate you all.