Thoughts on: “Hot town, summer in the sixties.”
The days were hotter and the summers were longer.
For most kids in Mattapoisett, summer days were spent at the beach or on the ballfield. Shoes came off the day school ended in late June and didn’t go back on until after Labor Day … unless someone said “Let’s play ball,” then we’d put on our old black Keds high-top sneakers and head to the Center School field.
We’d climb the bat to determine who was on which team, each of us praying we would not be chosen last, an embarrassment of major league proportions. Someone would bring an old wooden bat. The ancient wood and chicken wire backstop was painted green and the ball was more than likely wrapped in black tape. Bases were non-existent, but that didn’t matter because the game was the thing and the score was forgotten by the time the sun went down.
On the hottest days of August when baseball was out of the question, we’d hot-foot it to the beach. Al Boucher was the head life guard and Ada Delano was the bath house matron. During the school year, Mrs. Delano was the head of the cafeteria at Center School, so she knew her way around marauding youngsters and generally kept us all in line with a friendly smile and a cautious scolding. Few actually went in the water. Mostly we hung around the bath house or played volleyball.
The beach not only provided a respite from the summer heat but it is where the town’s folk gathered on the Fourth of July to watch fireworks over the harbor or where you went to the annual Lions Club carnival to gorge on sticky cotton candy and lose your paper route money in a game of chance. Nights were spent at band concerts or the teen dances on the wharf.
The bandstand was at the edge of Shipyard Park nestled up against the parking lot. It was an old wooden structure painted grey balancing precariously about three feet off the ground on rickety two-by-four legs barely able to hold up the talented members of the Town Band who performed there on Wednesday nights.
The mischievous among us would sneak under the bandstand and push sticks up between the floor boards to distract the players. Woe-be-tied the kid who got caught doing so by the notorious Beatrice Ingram, Police Matron extraordinaire, who ruled the park with an iron hand.
Just as now, there was a split rail fence surrounding the park. Any kid who dared hop over it, or sit on it or even lean against it would be corralled by the much-feared Officer Beatrice, who would scold you in a harsh tone and chase you away or worse ban you for life from the park … or at least until the next concert or dance. As Shakespeare wrote, she “was a harmless, necessary cat,” but she sent shivers up the spines of the little tykes … and provided a challenging game of cat and mouse for the older set.
Years later, the band concerts were suspended for a time. Popular demand brought them back with an M.C. who sounded like a carnival barker and talked more than the band played. Thankfully, wiser heads prevailed and small town nostalgia returned.
Teen dances were held on the parking lot every Thursday night. Bruce Barrett, a local teen who actually spun records on Saturday mornings at a local radio station, would be the disc jockey. The “hops” would be open to all comers even from surrounding towns which caused problems and the dances would come and go and come again moving from the parking lot to the wharf proper.
The dances are gone yet again and the lazy days at the beach and the ballfield are no more, casualties of modern distractions, but the band concerts remain a highlight of warm summer nights. Thankfully, the more things change, the more some things stay the same.
Dick Morgado, Mattapoisett
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