My View of Life on the Dock
I will turn off my creepy Santa in the Attic if you take your Christmas wreath down. I moved back to New England 46 years ago and still haven’t figured this tradition out. Are you supposed to leave them up until Easter? Let’s start a new tradition and take them down when you leap forward. Gloucester Winter flags on Stacey Blvd. Take them down. Don’t wait until summer!
We made it. Hardly even had a winter. Just some randomness on the first really warm day in Boston.
Roger Porter got a great shot of the Aurora Borealis last night looking north from Old Garden Beach in Rockport. All you need is a good view of the northern horizon and some sign that an Aurora might happen. Go here to the Gloucester Area Astronomy Club Web Site and click on the Ephemerides menu and click Aurora. This will give you the odds as to an aurora happening.
Click here for more cool shots of stuff up in the sky by Roger Porter.
A new ongoing series wherein Rubber Duck selects a tidbit from the past. Here is Captain Tom Ellis of the Lannon answering questions during the long running but cancelled series of “Joey Sidewalk Twenty Questions”.
I have it queued to Tom’s segment.
From GMG post on November 11, 2011
To all the people (Skip Montello et al) who got up at the crispy crack of dawn (see what I did there?) and took photos of the sea smoke when it was wild and crazy I thank you. Better you than me and you take better photos anyway. Find them on Facebook in “Rockport Stuff”. Skip takes some of them in Infrared which are mind boggling.
nb. There is an old wive’s tale about the noise a duck makes, the quack, does not echo. Glad we cleared that nonsense up.
There were carolers this weekend but most of the stores I hit were going to be open all the way to Christmas Eve. So that pair of earrings or feather boa, salad bowl, or nutcracker, or that weird gift, the big stone thing to put in the garden and put a candle inside.
Bearskin Neck is a must but make sure you make it all the way down main street because there are gold mines of goodies all through town.
The best part is easy in and out. Rockport meters are all covered and plenty of street parking available.
Sun rose at 7:09 AM kind of drab and grey but the light show was twenty minutes earlier.
RD itinerary for the next few days to find Christmas Spirit.
Friday night December 4 from 4-9 PM Shop Rockport. Bearskin Neck but don’t forget down the street past Shalin Liu for more art and great Tuscan bowls and stuff.
Saturday 1PM The Freemantle Doctor putters into Rockport Harbor with Santa. This is earlier than the previous 50 years so make a note. 1PM. Thousands of children crammed on the docks screaming “IT”S SANTA!!!” I have not seen one fall in yet. Maybe Saturday …
Saturday 1-4PM Santa hangs out in Rockport. Pull his beard. Drink hot chocolate. Sing Christmas Carols.
Saturday 4PM The Rockport Tree lighting in Dock Square.
Saturday 7PM The GMG Christmas Party at Cape Ann Giclee. Even if you have flexilis anatidaephobia like Joey and Craig you have to stop on by. RD will be on a leash.
You will have to wait something like two billion years to see something like this again. 10:11 PM is the time you need to remember.
6:22PM the moon rises.
8:12 Penumbral eclips begins nothing to see
9:07 PM partial eclipse begins
10:11 PM full eclipse begins (shit gets real. The moon is now in complete shadow.)
10:47 PM maximum eclipse ( demons appear, world ends)
11:23 PM full eclipse ends (watch for that first glimmer of light passing over Mount Everest hitting the moon)
12:27 AM (only astronomers and nerds will stay up for this.)
Good Morning Gloucester 