My 1935 Chevy Coupe

 

I bought this car in 1966, and sold it in 1967 to a man in Plymouth, Massachusetts, for $1200. I'd love to know where it is now!

To Health With You!

The results are in from my MRI on November 14, 2022.

I am currently clear of the nasty and very aggressive brain cancer called glioblastoma. Dana Farber folks are awesome, especially Farber. Joke.

I will have to pay better attention to my body from here on out. Tomorrow I am starting a six month cycle of chemo which I take as a pill. I had 42 chemo doses, 42 anti-something pills against the chemo drugs, 4 MRI's and 30 wonderful radiations. 72 nurses. You are gonna take my blood AGAIN?? Don’t you know my name by now? I thought that my 100-mile trail races tired me out, but radiation treatments were much worse. Although I had no pain through this whole ordeal.

I feel good. My weight is the same. I did not lose any hair, and my blood pressure — which started all this -- is under complete control. I woke up this morning thinking of my cancer when it dawned on me that I do not have it today.

Thank you for all the attention you have given me over the past three and one half months. Yah, it has been that long. Cakes, visits, postcards, get well letters, desserts, meatballs, phone calls, dinners out, dinners in, hand written letters, dinners delivered to the house, flowers, phone calls, texts (only kidding) e-mails, stove-side chats. Smiling faces at Mc Donalds with my morning coffee. Sitting in the sun at the pool.

My family at 110 Stagecoach treated me as if I was in the hospital. It got confusing at times, with all the drugs that I was taking, and the transportation issues kept us hopping. Some of my appointments were in Boston, and some were in South Weymouth, and some were in Pembroke. We have a lot of history with South Weymouth and the hospital. Kezia and Marnie were both born there, as was our only grandson, Abel. Sandy and I both have had surgery there, even before this fun-filled Fall. Three years at NAS South Weymouth Naval Air Station. Even Sandy for a time worked there. Air shows, snow bills, 50-year long-lasting Navy Seabee friendships. Nights at Christo’s over in Brockton. Reliable Fence Company. Our apartment in Rockland.

Life is good. We are still planning on going to Mexico for February and March. El Cuyo, Isla Holbox, Isla Mujeres and PTO Morelos. We have arranged for blood testing while there. I will bring my own chemo. Three couples are joining us at different times during the two months. It will feel so good to see old island and Mexican friends again. 

Thanks for the solid, warm support. You are AWESOME, and again good health to you!

Bob  “Tocino" Bacon

 

Notes for Vacationers in Sicily

 Sicily vacationers,

If you ONLY went to Taormina Sicily for three days, your whole two-week Sicily trip would be worth it. Cruiseship people stop there for an hour or two Some even get off the ship. You can see Mount Etna from there.

It is on the east coast of Sicily. Explore the ancient Greek/Roman amphitheater, cut into volcanic rock, on the ocean facing Italy. Zigzag walk to the top of the mountain, go to the opera. Mangia, mangia, mangia. Eat, eat, eat. One of our favorite spots in the world. My Sicilian barber Carole Santacrocci said don’t miss it. 

Mt Etna Volcano Tour: I did not want to do it after seeing it on National Geographic. Cold, grey and blustery. Wear a coat, bring a blanket. DO NOT miss it.  It blew its top fairly recently. Our friend Mauricio said that it was so bright that you could read a newspaper there at night in Catania. It might not be open for the tour. Spend the whole day there if it is available. If it’s not, don't spend the whole day there. Ja ja  ... little joke there

Trapani: miss it. The baseball Dimaggio's were from an island off of the coast of Trapani called Isla Mujeres. ycmthis sup. Dad went to San Francisco and eventually brought everyone over. San Francisco is in our state of California.

“Where have you gone Joe Dimaggio? A nation turns its lonely eyes to you / Woo woo woo”

Villa Romano del Casale: A farmer found it buried when he hit a corner with his plow. The best mosaics Sandy and I have EVER seen. Spend the day. Have gelato in the town of Piazza Armerina. This is one of the very Top Four things to see in Sicily. No! Not having gelato, seeing the ruins. My former friend Don Salmond would have thought that. Astounding!!  Most tourists miss it.

Yes!  There really is a town there called Corleone.

Cefalu: Really cute town on the northern coast. Shop, shop, shop. Climb to the top of the big rock. Try the pasta alla Norma and we sincerely hope that you like eggplant. Lots and lots of eggplant.

Syracuse: My least favorite. Everything is written in Italian. Dull and grey and run down. Beautiful area where the Cattedrale Metropolitano della is. Everywhere you look they spell cathedral wrong. Take photos. Eat drink at Volpi's or Bianchi's and people watch. A few ancient Greek stones in the town center. Big deal. I enjoyed Tombstone Arizona more.

Palermo: A big city but worth seeing for a day. Ask for Luigi.

Agrigento Piazza Armerini: You will think that you are in Greece. On the south coast not far from Africa. General George Patton was here. Spend the day. Wear good shoes and wear a wide hat. It is HOT! and wide open. It looks like the Parthenon, but way more beautiful and way more to see.

Two weeks is a long time for Sicily. You could go north to Naples, not the one in Florida, Amalfi Coast road and Herculaneum and Pompeii, and or a day boat trip to Capri.

If you don’t send me a postcard I will be pissed. Not from Maine, from Sicily.

Roberto Baconi     

110 Stagecoach Drive  

Marshfield, MA 02050

Really, I found them along the roadside ...

 

... but not these four knives. From left to right:

• My brother Mike's hunting knife. He left the building without his knife in 1984 at age 36.

• An orange switchblade knife issued to P-2-V Navy plane servicemen to cut yourself away if you parachute into a tree or some other weird place -- like among the lines of a telephone pole, or even a clothesline pole. Hey, it could happen!

(Lockheed P-2 anti-submarine warfare. 1,177 built. Retired from the military in 1984.)

• A combat knife, Ka-bar, issued to me in Port Hueneme after Class A School in California in 1964. I once took Liberty in Oxnard and saw Tex Ritter in a small honky tonk and I can prove it.

Well at the time, they were thinking of places to send us, and one of them wasn’t Hawaii or Reykjavik. Believe it or not, with most Seabees going to Cau Rong, Da Nang, a sailor from Malden did get his orders to Iceland. His name was Mark Ruane. How do I remember that from 57 years ago?  And why?

• Meanwhile at my phenomenal knife collection, a dinner knife, stamped with USN, from the galley in Argentia, Newfoundland in 1964. Pretty fancy silverware used while the Navy orchestra entertained us. It is actually silver, and needs to be polished. Who knew? Excellent spelling words -- orchestra. Silver - wear? - ware?  Only beaten by the word phenomenal. I think I spelled it correctly.

During my training runs of 23 years and 54,000 miles, I have seen a lot of STUFF.

Wild animals, tools, people kissing in cars (cleaned up for the youngsters in my following) litter, empty nips, 27,000 cans and bottles in 2015, a suicide by electrical cord hanging from a tree on a hot, beautiful, sunny, July afternoon, ... and these twenty knives found alongside the road.

I stuck them in a window sill in Garagemahall. No, I do not know why. 

The other night on TV, on Channel 5’s Chronicle show, they had a man who was a semi-hoarder of grandfather clocks and pocket watches. I fear the disease has hit me, and at my advanced age, I need to unload some STUFF. I thought taking a picture of my knives might make me get rid of them after the documentation. Sorta, maybe.

Check out my knives. Kitchen knives, a Jim Bowie knife -- you of course remember him from Mission San Antonio de Valero or the Alamo. Filet knives, bread knives, a serrated knife, a paring knife, a grilling fork, a butter knife, and an oyster shucking knife. Many of the knives are beach-related. Marshfield is on the Atlantic with five phenomenal beaches.

Everyone knows that our American Indians sharpened their knives only on one side. But so do the Japanese, even to this day.

Which knife should I send you? If not, how about taking one of my 266 scrapbook photo albums? I don’t know why. "I don’t know why I love you like I do. I don’t know why. I just do."

useless information to the lonely from            

- Tocino

My Father's Stillson Wrench

Original owner: Francis Chelsea Bacon (Bob’s  Dad)

In the Seabees, my father was a motor machinist mate. I was always impressed with his knowledge of knots. He knew them all. Square knots, running bowlines that didn’t slip, and even simple half hitches.

In Port Hueneme, California, at Seabee Electrician Power Pole School, we learned the bowline to rescue a man from the top of a 35 foot power pole. Everyone calls power poles telephone poles but they ain’t. Bowline sounds like a way to tie up a boat so that it doesn’t get away. That knot does not slip.

In his civilian life he was a millwright, welder, and blacksmith. Knowing ropes and come alongs and torches, he could fix The Crusher at New England Lime Company when it broke down. Huge, no tailgate Euclids would dump the broken up limestone into the The Crusher. It was loud, and you could easily hear it all over the Italian section of town, Zylonite, where we lived. When it broke down, everything from Greylock Mountain to the valley floor in Adams stopped. Except the blasting. Every day around 2pm, the quarry crew would blast a huge section that would then topple into the open pit quarry bottom. You never went near the quarry around 2pm. Never.

Rosa Carnazzola, at her grocery store, would have to put the cans that had fallen back on the shelves. Mom would straighten her picture frames in our little house. As I was saying before you interrupted, everything stopped. The ball mills that pulverized the soft ball size limestone, the kilns that heated the powder, the bagging machines that had nothing to bag if nothing was coming from the quarry. The empty tractor trailer trucks and railroad cars that would haul the lime out of state. Some of it even went to Yankee Stadium. There were no Red Sox fans in Adams. We got our TV signal and news from WRGB Albany. It is in New York. 

Dad would drive up the limestone road with five or six men and they would do the repair. Sometimes it would take days.

In Ms. Malley's English class in 1962, each of us had to stand in front of the class and make a presentation. I made mine using Dad’s Stillson wrench pictured above. It is the actual one.

Ms. Malley wore her hair pulled back and she had leather, quite substantial, tie shoes, which she wore with her below-the-knee dresses. She wore granny glasses and took NO prisoners. She was partial to the high school football players. My halfback Adams High captain father was scouted by the New York Giants. But then the war came. In 1939 she was my father's English teacher also.

Just like Samuel Colt of Connecticut did with his pistol, Daniel Stillman of New Hampshire, around 1865, made his prototype from wood. What was new about it was unlike the monkey wrench, the teeth on the Stillson were on an angle. He paid someone to build it of steel, and every plumber or swimming pool builder you know today has a Stillson. 

I carry this one in my pick up truck. The loop loc swimming pool safety covers are secured with brass screws into the concrete. There are around 40 of them. They get full of sand, or they get stripped, and sometimes you cannot unscrew them -- unless of course you own your Dad’s Stillson wrench.

Say Kids, What Time Is It?

 I am reading a book called The Other Custers.

George Armstrong Custer, who married Elizabeth Bacon, had three brothers and one sister. The book covers from their births, through the Civil War and Little Big Horn in Montana Territory, and more. Brother Tom won two Medals of Honor. Boston was not named after our town but after a small town in Pennsylvania called East Boston where their mother was from. I am still reading.

His brother Nevin was the only brother who did not go to war. Tom and Boston, and sister Maggie's husband  James Calhoun, all died on that hill near the Big Horn River. In the end Captain Myles Kehoe's horse, Comanche, was the only warm body of the Seventh Calvary still standing. Crazy Horse, Gaul, and Sitting Bull were not harmed.

Nevin had a daughter named Clarabelle. We know Clara from Hotel Cabanas on Isla Mujeres.

Why is that name familiar? Then it hit me, “Say kids, what time is it?"

Sing with me, "It’s Howdy Doody time, it's Howdy Doody time!"

It ran on TV from 1946 until 1960. Buffalo Bob was the host. How did he come up with that name? He lived to be 80. Some of the characters were 

• Clarabell

•  Princess SummerFallWinterSpring

• puppet Howdy, of course  
• Phineas T. Bluster
• and Don Salmond's favorite, Chief Thunderthud

No wonder that children born in the 40’s, especially Republicans, are dull witted.

Bob Bacon 1945

Senior Chief Chester Urbati has left the building

Attention on Deck!

Sandy and I spoke to Carmen Urbati  in Gulfport this sad sunny Sunday afternoon from our deck.

Chet needed a heart valve and had the operation through the groin in December 2019.

Part of the old valve broke off and did serious heart damage. He needed open heart surgery but the Navy doctor said that he was too old to possibly survive it.

Carmen arranged a drive by via their front porch for Chet's 85th birthday on June 25th. Seventeen cars drove by and the Urbatis truly enjoyed that day.

It seems he did not suffer a lot, but at the end he was ready to go. Chet was cremated along with a Navy Seabee flag.       Shocking!

Carmen met Chet in her native Puerto Rico, at the PX, when he was stationed there. Wish I watched that courtship happening. They celebrated their 50th wedding anniversary plus six months this year. They could dance Cajun and the four of us did just that at Mulates on the waterfront in New Orleans once or twice.

Carmen is planning Chet's funeral for 2021 in Gulfport. The funeral company is doing a write up on him. I hope they have enough paper to record the many places that he was stationed during his 44 years of service. South Weymouth Naval Air Station, Sicily, Rhoda Spain, Italy, Vietnam, Gulfport Mississippi, Guam, American Samoa, Ethiopia, Puerto Rico, and probably seventeen other places that he forgot to mention.

I met Chet in 1965. He was my section leader in the electrical shop at NAS South Weymouth. I was only 20. We kept  Barracks 76 and the NAS runway and taxi way lights, and the two airplane and blimp hangers lights, on even during the East Coast black out of 1965. We also kept the runways clear during the winter Snow Bill, during twelve hour shifts.  “Snow Bill is In," was the telephone call we would get, calling us back to the base for duty off of weekend liberty. I think it only snowed on weekends.

He totally took me under his wing, as if I was family. As a matter of fact, he even took me to his mother and father's house in Hingham, at Crow Point. They made me feel totally at home. I visited often on my own.

Did you ever see him not happy, or complaining about anything? Or even criticizing anyone? I wish I had his eternal optimism and general happiness. He was always smiling and telling sea stories. He had a way of telling original stories that made you feel you were hearing them for the very first time. I am so thankful and blessed that he was a part of my life.

He sent me a baboon skin from Ethiopia. Has this ever happened to you?

He was dating the Army captain's daughter. It was an Army base. The chief called him in to has office:  “Urbati, do you think as an enlisted man that you should be dating a base commander and officer's daughter?"  It was shortly after that that he was transferred to Da Nang. Who could that possibly happen to?  The one, the only … a true patriot: Chet Urbati.

Bacon R.F. CEW 2  10-93-10-63     United States Navy Seabee     

Mercedes Barcha & Gabriel Garcia Marquez

 

Gabriel “Gabo" and Mercedes met when they were 9 y 14 years young and he knew. She did not. Sandy and I met when we were 14 y 15 and I knew. Sandy did not. I really did. And I didn’t know much, but I knew.

We have to stay married for three more years to tie the Garcia Marquez’s. I have read many of his books. I always wondered why he would take two showers every day. An adventure to Colombia taught me why.

Is theirs a fabulous story or yes?  Sandy, Marnie and I have been to his casa in Cartagena, and even the bar at the El Hotel Santa Clara where he drank.

A friend, Charles Gregory of Albuquerque, New Mexico, pushed the book “One Hundred Years of Solitude" on me twenty years ago. Charles had spent much of his young life in a mission near the Alamo in San Antonio. 

I do not enjoy fiction. I read the whole book on the playa at Na Balam with my toes in the warm white sand. I did not like it. A little too fictional for me.

Years later on Isla Mujeres, Mexico, I found a copy of the novel abandoned at the free book table at “Cabanas" Maria del Mar. That copy sold for $3.95 in 1971. Once again. I reread it, thinking to myself. “Don’t be so serious. Enjoy the words.”  Last night in my casita on the bog, I reread the first three pages -- WOW!

Only 50 million copies sold? Published the same year Sandy and I were married. A coincidence? I think not.    

ja ja      

Have YOU read it ?

su servidor,           

Roberto Francisco Tocino

Follow this link to read Mercedes Barcha's obituary: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/08/23/books/mercedes-barcha-dead.html

Souvenirs

I am dusting the six lighted shelves in our kitchen, in what was once a broom closet. All kinds of cool memory-souvenir-travel stuff: 
• kachinas from the Hopi Mesa
• some awesome Maya statues from Coba, Uxmal, Tulum, Campeche and Chichen Itza
• pottery pieces from the ancient village above Agua Caliente, New Mexico
• a coffee cup from Cortez, Colorado near Mesa Verde
• a rug from Istanbul (OK OK we didn’t buy it, but it is a fun story)
• a stone statue from Portovenere (port of Venus) in Italy at the south end of Cinque Terra
• a carved Maya wall piece from Palenque in Chiapas 
• a cowboy statue from Disney Land 1967
• a beautiful sandstone with a natural red heart from Capital Reef National Park in Utah
• four kachinas from Santa Fe, Canyon de Chelly, Gallup and Flagstaff
• a stone from the bottom of the Grand Canyon on the Colorado River
• three pieces of cholla wood from the cholla cactus of the hills of Albuquerque
• a salad bowl that has a piece of medical tape on it that says "Nora Bacon" in my mom's own handwriting
• four types of railroad spikes that held the wooden ties of the Old Colony Railroad that once ran to the Cape through  our back yard (1845- 1939)
• a lava stone from Hawaii, and one from Phantom Ranch
• a small white Zeus or Poseidon bust from Athens
•  beat-up Pusser's Landing BVI tin cup that once held a Pain Killer drink or two
• Sandy’s father's WWII medals and his cigarette lighter
• a piece of white coral from Isla Mujeres 
• a slice of red rock from Sedona
• a flat wall rock from Connecticut that has imbedded fossils in it 
• a 6,000-year-old spearhead that I found on a pool excavation on the North River
• a rectangle rock labeled "2001 Montana" 
and 
• a Mohawk Trail plate with an elk in the center that Rich Busa gave me 19 years ago. I have family photos with my father's father on that very site on the Mohawk Trail on Route 2, at the top of the Hoosac Mountain Range. Thank you.

Why Did You Come Back?

Sandy & I came back from our winter in Mexico 10 days early. Some asked "Why?" We were afraid that we would be stranded there for months possibly. It probably is true that we would be safer in the Yucatan area of Mexico than here.

For a while we thought we would have to drive back.  How long would that have taken? It all started when a rumor spread that the Isla Holbox ferry was shutting down. It was only a rumor. When we are on vacation, we do not turn on the TV or read the news. My phone stays in my truck in Massachusetts. The last of the ten hotels we were staying at was on Isla Mujeres. Sandy said, “If they shut down the Puerto Juarez ferry, how will we get to the aeropuerto in Cancun?” 

One of the books I devoured while on vacation was Paul Theroux's “On the Plain of Snakes” (October 2019). He drove from Cape Cod to Mexico. He toured only the western part of Mexico, and it was scary. Maybe even scary enough for us not to visit Mexico City or Cuernavaca next year, or ever. 30,000 cartel people were killed in one year.

One of the girls on Marnie's Belize Yoga Retreat told of her recent escapade. She and her sister were traveling in Barcelona and Lisbon. Her sister had a serious fall in Portugal. After the hospital stay, she could not fly. They managed to get on a cruise ship to Great Britain, even though they were told that it was impossible to do so. Then they managed to get on a second cruise ship that was heading for St. Marten, full of drunken Englishmen. They got off in Florida. It took 40 days and it cost $30,000 for them to get home.

I broke a tooth in Mexico. I went to the dentist on Isla Mujeres. She said, “You need a crown.” I think that is what she said. 

My dentist from the Navy told me the same thing for years. I never got one. He retired after being my dentist for 40 years. My new Duxbury dentist has been trying to get me to do one for only $1600. I am old. I am in no pain. But now, in Mexico, I have to get it done. 

I ask, "How much?" ("Cuanto cuesta?")

She says 6,800 pesos. 

It is still early in the vacation. Tom and Sandy are figuring out all the meal bills. A margarita -- rockes y sal with Don Julio -- is $4.00. I get that. But when it comes to big things like motor scooters or refrigerators or a house, I don’t know where to put the decimal point. You have to divide everything by 20. Twenty pesos to the dollar. Right now it is 24.2 pesos per dollar. In 1988 it was only 10 pesos to the U.S.dollar. 

Anyway, after three separate trips to Dra. Victoria Arteaga, up in the Colonias, I have a brand new Mexican crown. Alfredo, our private taxi driver, drove me. His grandson is attending West Point.  ycmthissup

I paid her in cash. It cost $211 US. 

Stop by our casa some time if you want to admire it.

All-inclusives are not this much fun.        

Keep traveling!   

Tocino

Don't Look Down

The Bacon compound on 90 and 92 Howland Avenue Adams Massachusetts, October 2019.

My father’s mother and father lived in the big house, and we lived in the small house to the left. The first time I experienced fear of heights was when my father decided that he would put a slate roof on Frank & Hattie’s house. The big house. I went up into the attic, and then up through the partially torn-out roof, and knew right away that I did not like heights, and departed.

The comedian George Carlin said that he is not afraid of heights. He said he is afraid of falling from heights.

Not having any idea what I would do after high school, like my father I signed on with the Navy Seabees. They were called Seabees because they were the construction battalion for the Navy during World War II and Vietnam. Get it? C.B.’s

I wanted to operate bulldozers like John Wayne in the movie “The Fighting Seabees.” We build, we fight. We wore Marines uniforms overseas. To this day, the Marines love the Seabees. On a walking tour through Sicily, I found myself one night at dinner sitting across from a female retired Army Colonel. She didn’t have a lot to say. She was stoic. She sat up very straight. I didn’t know how get her to open up. She had been stationed everywhere. I finally asked her if she'd had any contact with the Navy Seabees. She blossomed, smiled, and said, “I love the @$#&* Seabees.”

Eventually an Electrical Construction school opened up in California for three months during the winter. California for the winter sounded good. The last phase of electrical school turned out to be pole climbing. In pole climbing school, when rookie Seabee climbers first strap on their gaffs, at least half put them on inside out. Try not to gaff into a knot hole. Your next step will be interesting to say the least. 

It was the first time that I heard of the country called Vietnam. I did not have a choice. To pass school, I needed to become a pole climber or flunk. A telephone pole, really a power pole, is 32 feet. Some are as tall as 90 feet. When I completed school, Dad was really proud that I had conquered my fear of heights. With gaffs nonetheless strapped to the insides of my legs. Spurs and tree climbing spikes. Specifically Buckingham steel climbers. 

That is me gaffed in on the forward pole with Elmer Berkee sitting on the crossbars. That was 1964. How do I remember that and so clearly? The second pole down is a red-haired real sailor from the fleet, who shipped over to the Seabees. He called every one Mate. He probably was from Ohio. I don’t know who his partner on the power pole is. But I can picture his face. Just like runners, pole climbers have different styles.

Up to that point I had not done much that pleased him. That was my fault.

Eventually orders come and I am stationed at the Naval Air Station in South Weymouth Massachusetts. I work out of the Public Works electrical shop. We change fluorescent light bulbs, install duplex receptacles, and maintain the emergency generator and all the taxiway and runway lights. One runway was called 826. The second one was 17/35. I forget the other one. Occasionally we have work to do at the two ammunition dumps in Hingham, Wompatuck and Bare Cove.

One day at 0800 muster, Chief Harley Taylor tells my section leader, Urbati, to take three sailors and go to Bare Cove and change the light on top of the rusty 80-year-old water tower. It is like the joke: How many Polacks does it take to change a light bulb? Two to turn the ladder, and one to install the lightbulb.” Urbati takes me aside and says, “I don’t need to take three men to the Hingham Ammunition Dump to change a lightbulb. It’s Friday. Why don’t you take an early liberty and go visit your girlfriend in Adams.”

Oh I forgot to tell you, we also took care of the lights on the blimp hanger, which was 148 feet high. 

I got really good at giving tours to new Seabees, or anyone if they dared. Taylor gave me half a day off every time I climbed the inside stairs to reach the top and the magnificent view. Even sailors that didn’t like me had to admire my new-found courage at age twenty.

Look how little the orange and white water tower looks, compared to being on top of Hangar One!

Monday 0800 muster. The first thing out of the chief’s mouth is, “Did Bacon climb, or did he chicken out?” Urbati said, “He climbed.”

Time goes by. Muster 0800. Urbati gets orders to Ethiopia of all places. He is gone. I have advanced in rank. The light on the rusty tower goes out again. Taylor says we need to fix it before a small plane crashes into it. "Bacon, take three men and go over to Bare Cove.”

I do not know how tall that water tower was, but it was high.  

It looked like this.

There were no safety belts. You are free climbing on your own. 

The last twenty feet leans out before the roof peaks. A rusty ladder is welded to the floor of the roof. There are no hand rails. I remember the climbers rule: Never look down, and don’t stay on top ogling the view. You might freeze up, and then you are basically screwed. Oh, and then there is the red shouldered hawk who might dive bomb you, a clear objection to you being in his air space.

Mission accomplished. We drank beer on the way back to the base. There were no medals issued. But I should have received one.

I’m almost 75 now, and Sandy will not let me go on our 30-foot roof to clean the gutters. It is a good thing.

- Bacon R. F. 10-93-63 United States Navy Seabee CEW 2

Planet Zylonite

“I know he had a mustache.”

This is from Eugene Michalenko who is responsible for the Adams Massachusetts Historical Newsletter. He sings in the Saint Stanislaw Choir on Hoosac Street also. Sandy Zabek and I married there. Well, she is Polish.  We attended on Sunday with Cioci Flo. 

Sandy and I spent this whole last weekend in the Adams area celebrating our 52 second anniversary. Jack’s Hot Dogs, SWAT teams with drawn pistols on Howland Avenue, Mt. Greylock, Porches Hotel, Grazie Italian Restaurant, apples and cider, Hairpin Turn, my grandmother Hatties’ kitchen, fall foliage, St. Stan’s, train ride from Adams to North Adams, Mass MOCA, Angelina’s, George Haddad at the Red Carpet Restaurant on Park Street (opened in 1927 -- WOW!) Midgie Bechard, blah blah blah. It was so much fun that I just might write a blog about it. Or maybe I just did.

No wonder I like Eat-alian food. I spent my first eighteen years here. You probably did also. Aldo and Santino and Alvin and Etalo were common names. Taut, Hipe, Shorty. And I thought we had good nicknames. Remember Reno and Rose and Red and the beautiful Rosetta at Carnazola’s Store? Saturday night dances at the French Church, dandelion wine, anyone? Or how about a game of Kick the Can? Raise your hand if you went to Howland Avenue School. WRGB. Meet you for a pick-up game of baseball? See you at Eileen’s Dairy Bar. Did we have fun or what?

Kipper Avenue is now, and was for us, Apremont Street with a terrific story of why the name changed. 

The Quaker House, built in 1782, is on Friend Street. Some of the Friends fought at Bennington against the British.

 Comedian Steven Wright says he likes to reminisce with people he doesn’t know. But I remember you.  

 Bob Bacon

North River Pontoon Boat Cruise

Kezia leads a North River Pontoon Boat Tour. Photo by Greg Derr.

June 9 - Kezia arranged for a historical cruise for this Sunday afternoon by way of the North & South Rivers Watershed Association. There were nine of us on board. Mainly the tour was about the 24 shipyards that built wooden ships from the 1645 -1871. We took off from Mary's that is now called Roht Marine. Their restaurant was buzzing. The river was loaded with boats from The Spit and as far west as you could see or sea.

My wife abandoned me for Colorado, so Kezia invited me along to fill my time.

There were over 1,000 ships launched. One was the Columbia that gave its name to a river in Oregon. Another was the Beaver. In 1773 Sam Adams and a bunch of his friends threw its load of tea from England into Boston Harbor. Some were built for the whalers in Nantucket and New Bedford. There was even mention of Tom Egan's favorite war, the King Philip's War, that affected Scituate, Norwell, Rehoboth, Deerfield and Medfield. It ended in Rhode Island. King Philip was the son of Massasoit and had a regal bearing, so the Pilgrims made fun of him and called him King Philp. His Wampanoag name was Metacomet. But you knew that.

It took 57 acres of trees and 2,000 oak trees to build one ship. This factoid is from Nathaniel Philbrick's book The Hurricane's Eye.

Today was the most beautiful day we have had yet this year. Kezia told me to bring warm clothes but they were not needed. I brought a drink to hydrate me in a special container. And NO, wise ass person, it was not Coca Cola laced with Pussers Rum from Tortola.

Captain Bill has a long history with boat tours that handle five hundred people in Boston Harbour so the North River was not a big challenge for him. We were cruising right along. We stopped once to pick up a floating plastic bottle with a swimming pool skimmer. Nice touch.

Our tour director mentioned that in the 1600s to 1800s rivers were the way people got around. No one thought about 128 or Route 3 until 1957.

The above paragraph jogged my memory of building an indoor pool on the river in 1976 and being held up by archaeologists who were sifting through the sand and gravel. I asked what they were doing and one of them explained that 5,000 years ago the Wampanoag camped on the north side, built their fires, and kept the southern sun on their faces. I said, "Wow, 500 years!" He said, "No, dummy. 5,000 years." He shoveled one shovel full of sand into a screen and there were seven arrowheads in the screen. I have a spearhead that is 8,300 years old. Whoa!  Good spelling word arcilojist whatever.

The house they discovered while extending the airport in Marshfield ten years ago turned up 11,000 artifacts. Some of them are 8,000 years old. Four jets are housed in Marshfield. You can fly by yourself to Chicago for only $20,000. And that is the truth.

Along for the ride was photographer Greg Derr from The Quincy Patriot Ledger. He is also a birder. He has actually banded owls and osprey. He says osprey stink. One of the screech owls he banded at Daniel Webster Wildlife Sanctuary ended up in Montana. The osprey stand just west of the Route 3A bridge is named after its residents. Ozzie & Harriet Osprey. Old people, please explain this connection to the younger folk who don’t remember the 1950-60 TV show. First episode on TV: 1952. It pushed family values, whatever that means.

Kezia did a perfect job with props and notes. She was not stumped, not even once, by the many questions asked her. Her favorite place on the river is Couch Beach next to Blueberry Island. It is kind of obvious. Yes we talked about the book The Red House, of course. That is the oldest continually lived in house in New England. One of the daughters who grew up there in Two Mile wrote it.

Wish you were there.  I am sure that there will be an article with photos in the Ledger, so save it for us por favor.

To register for a Pontoon Boat tour (Kezia only leads a few per year, but NSRWA runs the trips every weekend), visit https://www.nsrwa.org/events/?customize_changeset_uuid=

Article from the Ledger:
https://www.patriotledger.com/entertainmentlife/20190629/back-in-time-with-north-river-pontoon-perspective?fbclid=IwAR0Yx7TUMyqWeo1Zz5Xepzap8Oqigel-3TxToQqnfBr6CoHf3u9gLGKM9nQ

Just The Facts

52 Sleeps in sunny warm Mexico this winter. Febrero y Marza 2019. Sandy packed me 19 short-sleeve dress shirts.

Sandy y Bob. 52 years married. A coincidence? Engaged for five years also. Never mind.

On the TV show "Dragnet," 1967-1970, Jack Webb playing Detective Joe Friday, while getting the information on whatever recent crime was committed, would always cut to the chase. When questioning the witnesses, he'd demand: “ just the facts.” One of his TV detective partners ended up on MASH as the first Colonel Henry. A free carnita to you if you know his real name.

We started out in Punta Maroma on the south coast of the Yucatan. Isla Mujeres was next, followed by Puerto Juarez, then to Isla Holbox on the Gulfo Mexico. Then it was back to Isla Mujeres. This is my confession. Whoops! I just slid back to my former religion. Lo siento.

Sandy and I stayed at eight different hotels. I know, I know, but we like to do that.

The startling facts are that we ate at 54 restaurants. We tried 19 different new ones. Well, we have been traveling Quintana Roo for 34 years. Of the 19 new ones, we would do only four again. We ate out 187 times. Sorry we can’t join you for dinner this first week back.


Olivias, Mogagua, Lolas, Javis’s, La Esquina (the corner), North Garden, Rubens, El Veradero, and Chlitos topped the list for more than once.

"How was the weather?" you ask. Hot! It rained only two days. Twice it rained at night, but it did not affect us. Many Mexican people walk with sombrillas to keep out the sun. As always, the ocean water was warm and blue. Holbox was the warmest ocean water we have EVER experienced. I always bring my swimming pool thermometer, but because it always registers 82, I left it home this time.

I cannot read on the playa. There is too much to see. But someway, somehow I read eleven and one half books.

The Captain's Wife
Three years at sea, 1830, from New York to Manila and back, by way of Cape Horn and Elba, where Napoleon is buried. Madera wine originally came from Madera because they let it sit in the sun for longer than usual and it changed the flavor. Only Don Salmond knows this.

Casey Stengel     
Manager of the NYY from 1950-1960. He was hit by a taxi in Kenmore Square and hospitalized. That is why he walked like he did. One year for Christmas, his wife bought him an ashtray. He was born in Kansas City and that is why they called him ...

Dear Bob and Sue     
A couple do ALL 59 National Parks. They did Bright Angel Trail in the Grand Canyon and stayed at Phantom Ranch.

Indian Givers
How South and North America affected Europe, especially the potato impact. Who knew? Tomatoes  tobacco, tequila, topkapi. Thanks Barb!

Sea of Glory    
Yup. Nathaniel Philbrick again. Mayflower, In the Heart of the Sea, blah blah blah, Last Stand, Bunker Hill, Pulitzer Prize, National Book Award, yada yada yada. He lives on Nantucket. Thanks Tomas!

Stranger in the Woods   
A twenty year old leaves his car in the Maine woods and disappears for the next twenty seven years. YCMTS up      Thanks Eileen!

Hey Buddy!      
Buddy Holly from a great perspective. Where were you on February 3, 1959? The day the music died. With his first big check, he bought new pews for his church.

Louis L'Amour 
His life. Prize fighter, shipped out on a freighter, writer.

Black Flags, Blue Waters       
Pirates of the Caribbean. Good stuff. Gracias Tomaso!

History of Wolves    
OK OK it was a novel and she didn’t marry the guy.

Arthur Garfunkel       
Way too much poetry but an interesting life. Like a bridge over ...

True Heroes of Texas Music
Texas musician legends like Willie, like Janis, Barbara Mandrell, Lyle. Like Waylon, Buddy, Freddy, George Jones. Like Flaco …… Sorry I overheard many "like" millennials talking on the beach. What is with the tattoos and nose rings and cigarettes? Did you get your TRAMP stamp before or after you found out what they were called? Wow, that thong bathing suit must hurt.

A friend asks, “Why would you get a tattoo on a part of your body that you can’t see?" But can I please look closer at the one between your breasts?

Oh and by the way, sixty year old guy, your fashion statement ball cap is on backwards. Jack ass.

Speaking of Dopey. Can you name Snow White's seven dwarves? And who came up with her name?

Eleven folks joined us, probably for fear that our marriage would disintegrate with so much time alone together, Tom y Eileen, Annie y Dennis, Dave y Robin, three jogis from past retreats Janis, Illene and Nancy, and of course Marnie y Steve. We just missed Navy Seabee friends Janice and Fat Jack. Disintegrate is a good spelling word. Thanks Google.


We have made some friends in Mexico: Javis y Marla, Ariel y Bonnie from Alberta and Vera Cruz, Anna y Spartacus  from es-Spain, Oswaldo, Ruben, Jon Carlo from Madagascar, David, David and David, Romel y Joanna, Nick y Dianna  from Minnesota, Jessica y Anibal from Chiapas, Ken y Debbie from Indiana, Alberto from Barthalona (he owns Mogagua), Luis y Mary Theresa from France and Mexico City (they own Colores de Verano - the colors of summer - Hotel), Victor, Hortensia y Mauricio, Jorge, Jorge and Jorge, Victor again (he was in the movie from 1960 called "The Magnifico Seven,") Edgar, Martin from Quebec, Spanish Maria at PTO Morelos, Santa from Cleveland and the North Pole, Santiago, Salvatore, Mildred, Anna y Juan Carlos, Luis y Manual from PTO Morelos, Pedro, Carlos, Diego, Mosquito, Paeaso, El Penguino, Robin y Nayomi from Milano, Estavan, Rubin a second time, Nina y Nora Switzerland, Gaston, Ruffino, Enrique y Guadalupe and Jose, Laura Dumm “Lola" Oregon, Maria, Lior y Yuron Israel, Karen, Ricardo, Elvis from Villadolid (Bia doe leed), Gilbert, Margarita, Melania y Chucho Spain y Mexico City, Jesus, Lia y Mia Texas, Clara, Dino Puerto Vallarta, Lupita, Renee, Mario and Mario two, William Francis Giarmo, Ophelia, Alberto, Roberto, Victor (a different one), Joe from Detroit, Lilia Robles who owned hotel Na Balam for 30 years, Jan her friend married Stevie Ray Vaughan, Andrea from Saskatoon, Marvin, Susan, Loy, Polo of Mangos, Claudia, Armando, Fernando y Brenda from Argentina, but it seems EVERYONE is from Argentina, Monci from Merida, Donna y George from Michigan, Bruce y Marjorie from Maine, Axel, Lilia from Cuarnevaca, Aloy, Phillipe, Sonney from India, Maria, Iris, Braulio from Cancun no problemo ... even his Mom can’t pronounce his name, Irving, Nancy, queen of the Carnival 2018, Rafael owner of the Cuban Restaurante El Veradero, Luis (aha! we saw you with your boyfriend dancing at Face Bar Cantina), Lucia, Norma, Robert sells honey, Jesus, Pablo not Cruise or Escobar, Alexander, Milton 15 year old waiter at Javis (HAH v's), Lea May and the Mexican maestro from Isla Holbox who makes mandolas out of driftwood and played with the Russian symphony but chose to live on a Mexican island for forty years that did not have electricity until 1984. I probably missed some.

Fascinating places  … fascinating people.

For all or friends and familia and jogis who have shared this paradise with us, NAMASTE.

--

“What do you do there?" my good friend asks. 

The restaurants are fabulous. The choices are incredible. Peruvian, French, Eatalian from Milano, Sardinian from Sardinia. Mexican? Yes. Cuban. Fish? Well Isla and Holbox are fishing villages. Mediterranean? You bet. People watching is simply astounding. Especially on the main calle on Isla. The United States is behind on some things. The main street on Isla, Hidalgo, has no vehicular traffic. All the electrical wires and telephone wires are buried. Christmas lights abound.

Musica. "Is there musica?" Oh my god! Cantinas, street music, classical Spanish guitars, flamenco, Ventures instrumentals,  Cuban, Cumbia from Colombia. Jimmy Buffet and of course Bob Marley.

“Yah but ... what about cost?" Well dinner generally costs $10-$20 per meal for two including drinks. A stiff margarita is four dollars compared to El Serape's $16. Cervezas are $1.30 to $ 2.50 compared to $5-$6 dollars U.S. One night we went totally against my rules and ate from the street vendors. Dinner set us back $5.25. Our Sicily trip cost us more than fifty two days in Mexico for only nine days. One year Florida at nine days cost us more than five weeks in Mexico. Good bye Florida.

One of our friends is having a knee operation and asked Sandy to buy the pain meds in Mexico. In the United States they were $600. In Mexico they cost $18. NO This is not a typo.

My 10,200 cans and bottles, cleaned off Marshfield streets in 2018, paid for almost all of our meals in Mexico.

"How do you sum up your experience?"  Great food, warmth, blue skies, blue water, no shoes, no coats. Eleven friends joining you at various intervals. It keeps the marriage fresh. Friends. The ones that joined us and the ones we have made.