Every kid of a certain age dreamed of running away with the circus. Short of hopping on a train and sleeping with the elephants, I lived the next best thing … the circus was in my back yard!

            In the late 1950’s, the Clyde Beatty Cole Brothers Circus visited Mattapoisett and for three days set up shop in the field at the end of our lane. Before there was a funeral home and a condominium complex, a police station and a future fire station, the second greatest show on earth (the first was Ringling Brothers) raised its tents in what was then Mahoney’s Field. This was no small time traveling show with one ring, a few ponies and a dog act like those that visited the same field years later. This was the “Big Top”.

            It arrived in the middle of the night on flatbed trucks with elaborate circus wagons, animal cages, and a grand calliope chained on top. By dawn the roust-a-bouts had begun unloading the giant canvas tent which would house three rings and over a thousand spectators, nearly the population of the entire town. Horses and pachyderms, aerialists, lion tamers and popcorn vendors, clowns and pretty girls in brightly colored costumes would soon perform for little kids, sticky with cotton candy, and to the delight of the young at heart.

            The giant tent towered over the field where I once played ball and picked raspberries. Smaller tents became the side show and clown alley. Ticket and souvenirs booths would be up by noon ready for the first show at 7:00 pm. Performers began to rehearse their acts balancing on giant balls or contorting their bodies in all manner of positions and clowns painting on their funny faces while other workers fed the animals. There were mobile homes where the performers lived many of whom ventured into the village. A few, like the band leader, stopped by my father’s barber shop for a haircut resulting in free tickets for each performance and permission to mingle with acrobats, tightrope walkers, jugglers, and clowns.

            Each night the crowds came early to pay extra to see the bearded lady and the tattooed man. They filled the seats under the big tent and listened to the deep voiced Ring Master directing their attention to one ring or another while they oohed and awed at the flying trapeze artists. Everyone went home happy.

            Then the circus was gone as quickly as it arrived. A virtual city vanishing during the night. Mahoney’s Field returned to being an empty lot where hay would be baled and wild raspberries would be picked. A place where a young boy ran away with the circus and for three days would awake to the sounds of elephants trumpeting and the roar of lions and tigers – a twelve-year-old’s fantasy come true.

By Dick Morgado

It was as if the evening had been specially designed for the event: warm gentle breezes, skies blue with icing of gauzy white clouds, a picture-perfect location by a harbor sporting a glorious glassy high tide. Yes, perfect in every way for an event that has become an annual gala – the Great Community Picnic.

            The annual fundraiser is a joint effort of the Mattapoisett Land Trust (MLT) and the Mattapoisett Historical Museum, now known as the Mattapoisett Museum (MM). It brings together two of the most important organizations the town can call its own: an active land trust striving to protect and conserve sensitive tracts of land, as well as fresh and salt water quality, and a museum that holds a wealth of internationally important historical artifacts and data, while evolving to become an even greater influence and center for cultural activities. A truly winning combination. But how was the idea of a summer’s picnic conceived?

            According to the museum president Jennifer McIntire, it came about through good old-fashioned brainstorming. “We had been trying to think of a way to hold a fundraising event together,” she said. Nothing the two teams thought of seemed to click.

            Then Chris Demakis, who is an MM board member who had attended a diner en blanc thought maybe that concept could be modified for Mattapoisett. “We knew no one would go for dressing up in all white,” McIntire said laughingly, ”but the idea of an outdoor summer’s evening picnic came out of those conversations.”

            Tables were sold with a range of seating options from 4 to 10 chairs with free hor d’oeuvres, while fresh oysters from local waters along with adult beverages were available for sale.

            As the bubbly and bites were shared, people gathered to listen to the live music that flowed across the lush property. They also strolled about enjoying the floral arrangements and other decorative elements partygoers had brought along to embellish their tables.

            One table drew on the growing shark mania that is spreading throughout the south coast and Cape Cod. Hillary Antone and Rene Bradshaw, along with friend Nils Johnson, tricked out their table with jaws memorabilia including a disembodied leg! People could pose for picture in a face cutout that put them in the middle of a great white’s gapping jaws. For their effort, the team was awarded Best Decorated Table and received a gift basket donated by a local vendor.

            Another group featured not a decorated table but decorated ladies, that is, ladies with decorated hats known as a “fascinator.” The ladies each designed and constructed their fascinator specifically for the event. Donning artistic creations of butterflies, purple netting, pearls, feathers, and flowers on their heads were Sally Westgate, Joan DeRugeris, Pat Goss, Joanne Dunn, Liz Waring, Linda Higgins, and Sue Cusic. DeRugeris demurred, ”We are ready for when Harry and Meghan invite us over.”

            MLT president Mike Huguenin said, “We love this event. … It’s the height of the summer season.”

            And as the sun set over Mattapoisett Harbor, the MLT and MM organizers were already planning next year’s gala by the sea.

By Marilou Newell

            On a recent sultry summer’s day, the vibrant and multi-layered history of the Cape Verdean Islands was explored when Candida Rose Baptista brought her presentation titled, Kabumeramericas, to the Marion Council on Aging. The story of the islands as told through music and Baptista’s research was rich with the emotional longings the Cape Verdean people have had for their country and their culture.

            To set-up the hour-long program, Baptista recited the poem The Sum Of Us with passages that spoke to a people torn from their roots by slavery, yet holding firmly to an identity born from many ports of call. “You ask about me and my people … me … I am a part of all that have met … my people … who do you mean …”

            Prior to the Cape Verdean Islands being discovered by the Portuguese in the mid-1400’s, the scattered landmasses were an uninhabited verdant archipelago. Once discovered, it became a colonialized outpost for the Portuguese. The islands were fertile enough to grow corps and support livestock, but the islands could not support the rapid over-grazing or farming practices brought from the mainland. 

            The location of the islands was strategic for another of Portugal’s business ventures – importing slaves from West Africa. Cape Verde, or Carbo Verde, became an integral port for the movement of human cargo throughout the Atlantic trade routes.

            By 1747 deforestation set up the once green mountainous landscapes for drought and famine. The people who had been captured and forced into sugar cultivation or traded to the Americas suffered well documented atrocities. The movement of people for profit continued well into the 1800s.

            So it was that West African blood mixed with the blood of their capturers, mixed with the blood of merchants, mixed with the blood of royalty, mixed with the blood of every nation that moved Baptista to share, “You are all part of me.”

            Moving through the centuries, Baptista said that in spite of suffering, “the people kept on going: they made do.” The generations intermingled resulting in what she tenderly said was, “cousins by the dozens.”

            Music was central to the Africans and thus became central to the new people created by colonialization and slavery. Baptista has heavily researched the musical evolution and journey of the Cape Verdean people. Studying trans-national musical trends, she delved into the musical heritage that even today can be heard.

            Baptista spoke of the mass immigration waves of Cape Verdeans that brought tens of thousands to this area – people escaping poverty and famine. And with each wave the music flowed through them, with them, becoming the glue that helped to keep them bonded not only together, but to a place – the Cape Verdean Islands. This is true even today, several generations out from those early immigrants, she added.

            From whalers to laborers in the growing cranberry industry, to factory workers, educators, preachers, the people came and settled in enclaves throughout southern New England. They strove to assimilate themselves into the American social fabric while maintaining a strong ethnic identification. Throughout it all, there was the music.

            Baptista, herself a gifted vocalist who is well known for her smooth lush voice, sang ethnic songs as many in attendance sang along or tapped their feet. She called their attention to the fact that Cape Verdean people have been part of the mainstream music industry for decades naming such international notables as Horace Silva, and Paul Gonsalves, as well as Jovi Gonsalves who worked with Harry Belafonte. Local greats that many in the audience acknowledged were Toy Grace, Johnny Duarte, and the locally famous Ultra Marine Band, a band that has been in existence since 1917.

            During the early days, Baptista said Cape Verdean people would gather in kitchens to play, dance and entertain one another, thus passing down not only traditional songs, but songs they were creating. It helped to keep their culture going, she said, “… usually by the third and fourth generations the culture is gone – not for the Cape Verdeans.”

            The contemporary ear will know the music of the group The Tavares whose many hit songs was the soundtrack of the 1970’s and 80’s. Playing a clip of one of their hits, Baptista put an exclamation point on what she had for the last hour been driving home – “Don’t Take Away The Music”. As long as the music remains and continues to evolve, Cape Verdean people will be one people drawn from many ports of call.

            To learn more about Baptista’s research, you may visit www.candidarose.net.

Marion Council on Aging

By Marilou Newell