Tuesday, March 8, 2016

Idle ramblin's (the checks in the mail Carole), local tales

I am writing this because I feel compelled to write. For the most part I will be making this up as I go along. See, I just made that last sentence up...and this one too! No I haven't been drinking though Arlene and I killed a bottle Sunday night after a lovely dinner at Raso's. We both had the same thing. I can't remember how to pronounce it but it was a chicken cutlet (or shrimp) covered with lemon garlic sauce with mushrooms on top of roasted peppers and prosciutto on a bed of linguine. Out of this world! Oh now I remember. Ok I looked it up. It was called Chicken Saltimbocca. Which in Italian means "jumps in the mouth". This restaurant is a little gem right in our own back yard. Ever since they built a hotel here, 10-15 years ago. A bunch of really nice restaurants have sprung up around our small square. One of my favorites, and I know I've mentioned it before, I just can't remember if it was here or 10 years ago on Spaces, is a former bank. It's notorious because over the Memorial Day weekend in 1980 the Depositors Trust Bank was broken into by three local cops. They broke in through an optical shop next to the bank and broke through ceiling into the bank. They did it for 3 consecutive nights. They got 1.5 million in cash and anywhere from 10 to 25 million in gems and jewelry. The estimates were all over the map. Besides who really knew what was in those, not so safe, safety deposit boxes? Only the people who put the stuff there in the first place. They made a made for tv movie about the incident in 1990 called "The Cops are robbers". The upshot of all this is that the former bank is now a restaurant but they left the hole in the ceiling where robbers broke in.

Oddly enough as I write this I think of another notorious incident that took place across the street back in the 70s. Back in the 60s and 70s there was a chain of muffin houses around New England called The Pewter Pot CafĂ©. There also some notorious characters around in those days. One you may have heard of, Whitey Bulger. He was headquartered in the next city which borders Boston. There was another local mobster that was headquartered in Boston. Whitey Bulger wanted that operation. He slowly started eliminating the mob in Boston, you can guess how, and that mobs leader took off to here. Why he picked to flee only about 10 miles where he was before seems kind of stupid. Well guess what? Whitey found out that he liked to go to the Pewter for coffee and a treat. In walks a man dressed as a construction worker and guns him down in broad daylight, escaping in a waiting car.

The Pewter Pot chain is long gone but the place is now a breakfast place. Arlene and I have gone there from time to time on a Sunday morning.

Lets see... Mark Walberg is trying to shoot a movie about the marathon bombings. So far he will not be able to shoot any scenes at the University of Massachusetts and the town of Watertown, 8 or 10 miles west of here. The town won't allow them to shoot the scene on the street where the shoot out between the brothers and the police took place. The residents on that street were ok with it but the town manager was against saying something like, "It wouldn't be good for the town."

For a laugh I checked out real estate on Martha's Vineyard. Believe me I don't have the kind of money it would take to buy a home there. I can't even afford a home here. Anyway there wasn't a home for sale under $900,000. The prices went up to $3,500,000. Yikes! Still, I want to be here.







Ok, enough. My brain is drained. Time for bed.
I'm outta here.

3 comments:

  1. Food for thought.....I live in a very boring area compared to yours and we don't even have a neat eating place within 30 miles. We have a history of old-time activities and even the underground railroad, though......It would be fun to switch for a while!

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  2. Boston Boy, That's some history. Yikes. We used to say at work...locks are for keeping honest people honest...cause crooks don't care. LOL I wish you owned a house on the vineyard....I would come visit. LOL. You would think those small home ideas would catch on and some one would put about 20 of them on one lot and rent them or sell them. Blessings to you, xoxo,Susie

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  3. Wow that was interesting post , these were cops to! It would be wonderful to afford one of those beautiful houses , such a glorious dream.
    Maybe some of those naughty robbers live there somewhere. Wonder did they ever get caught.

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