So let's try this again

I have started several blogs since the last one I published. I think I became all blogged out. I've been doing it for about 9 years. I've made many good friends from all over the U.S. and a few in Europe and Australia. Things in life change. In 2016 I moved twice. It's a long story soon to be a major motion picture starring Victor Mature. Moving generally speaking is not fun and doing it twice in one year is double the unfun. I essentially am in the same house only I live upstairs now. Still I really don't have much to complain about though getting used to being fully retired since Jan, 5, 2017 is still an ongoing adjustment. Arlene had some health issues last year but has recovered nicely. We will be going back to the Vineyard in early mid October. Same hotel. I'll never forget the first time we went to the Pequot Hotel in 2010. The first person we spoke to as we registered turned out to come from the same city Arlene and I live in though admittedly it's not like we traveled halfway around the world. It's about a 70-90 minute drive to Woods Hole on Cape Cod and if we get there quick enough sometimes we can get on an earlier ferry and be on the island in about 45 minutes. The tourist should be sparse in number at this time of the year and it'll be nice to get away from all the construction, the god-awful traffic, the crowds and though the weather has been nice the winter is coming.
  
Ok what's next is from a blog I started a couple of months ago about Boston's North End, (or as you might hear, Nawth End) home to Paul Reveres' house, the Old North Church and Boston's' Little Italy. You'll hear the North Ends' version of the Boston accent in this short promo for this film. I have not seen the film. I didn't even know there was a film but I found this promo by accident. I'm not making any claim that this is the best little Italy in the U.S. but it certainly is a place where you can get a wonderful meal in about 90 or so restaurants and cafés. As somebody said, "You can smell the meatballs in the air." It's also part of my heritage. Both my grandfathers came from Sicily to the U.S. in the early 1900's and lived in the North End. They both lived in the same little town back in Sicily. I remember when I was young my mother showing me which apartment building they lived in. 
 



Well that's it for now. I better publish before I think of another reason to keep writing.
I'm outta here.

I'm back, I think.

So to begin a couple of reasons curtailed my blogging efforts. Number one Arlene had a couple of surgeries, female related, and she is doing well. Well enough to go back to the Vineyard. We returned this passed Friday. It was spectacular weather. It never got passed 75 degrees and there were very few clouds. This is the latest in the early part of year that we have gone. There were more people than we've seen in the past because we always went early in the season or after the summer season.

The second reason you haven't seen me around theses here parts is that I just ran out of gas. I have three unfinished blogs but I wasn't happy the way they were turning out. I hope I can be back on a more regular basis.

Still we had a wonderful week on the island. I didn't take as many pictures as I have in the past because how many times can you take pictures of the same thing. We did go to Edgartown which was beautiful as usual but there weren't any parking spaces to be had so we just drove around and went to other parts of the island.

We had some wonderful food, seafood in particular. This was from one night at Nancy's right on the pier. This is the place where the President ate. This is what Arlene had. There was shrimp, haddock fillet, clams and fries. 

I had the sea scallops with asparagus and mashed potatoes.

Both meals were delicious. Eating while watching the sun set over the harbor in Oak Bluffs was just a wonderful experience.

 

As we walked around Oak Bluffs looking for knick knacks and souvenirs, like we don't have enough of them, we stopped in this gentleman's shop. He was very nice and he claimed he remembered us from last year. Be that as it may he got to meet President Obama the last time he had vacationed there and he proudly posed with the pictures he had taken with the President. 

 

 

 

The weather was picture book perfect. It hit 80 degrees one day and the rest of the week it was about 75 degrees with hardly any clouds at all and no humidity. We really lucked out.

Below, this is looking up the street from our hotel.

This is one of the many parks near our hotel. About dead center of the picture is the wharf where we drove back on to the ferry to go home. 

 

The porch at our hotel.

This is looking up the street from our hotel to the ocean.

 

This is looking in the opposite direction.

Walking down one of the side streets in the neighborhood.

We met people from around the country and the world. Spain, Italy, England, people from up and down the east coast, from down south and one license plate from California. There are a lot of people from Russia who work here during the summer. The young ladies who sold us the fudge were Bulgarian.  Lots of people from the Caribbean and the first three years the young lady at the desk ended being from our hometown. This year the night manager came from the town next to us that borders Boston.  And we ended up talking about the local landmarks. I told her that hopefully she will be there if we return in September and we would bring her a loaf of bread from LaCascia's Bakery. It's been around for about 90 years. The manager of the hotel is from Florida. She drives up every Spring and leaves some time in October. The staff is wonderful to us. The Pequot hotel is just a gem!

 

So that's about it for now. I have laundry to do as well as some food shopping. It's hot and sticky right now and I wish I was sitting at the ocean feeling the cool breeze.

 

I'm outta here.

Revere Beach. A childhood memory.

True it was near the end of it's life but Revere Beach, was a wonderful place to go and have fun. In the late 50's and 60's every once and a while my parents or my aunt and uncle would take us to Revere Beach. The city of Revere is about five or six miles from here. I don't know this for a fact but I wouldn't be surprised if it was named after Paul Revere but I never researched it. By the 60's Revere Beach was in decline but it still was a fun place to go. It was the Coney Island of New England. There were ballrooms, hotels, a ton of food stands, all kinds of games and of course the amusements including one of the largest roller coasters in the world. After my friends and I got our drivers licenses in the late 60's it was often a destination to kill time, have fun, maybe take a date. It was near the end of it's life at the time. The roller coaster was pretty rickety looking by the late 60's, early 70's as it opened in 1896.

The dodgem cars, the wild mouse, the Himalaya were all pretty wild rides. It all came to an end in 1978 with the blizzard of '78. We got 27.1 inches of snow with hurricane winds in two days and that was the end of all the amusements. Sad but as George Harrison said "All things must pass." The beach, of course, is still there and it's nice to have an ocean beach so close but I do miss all the fun that we had there. This was Americas first public beach. Below is a clip from a PBS program from the 90's called Boston the way it was. Below that is slideshow that I made from pictures I found on Google. They are in no particular order. There are pictures and post cards from the early 1900's up till the 1970's. I think on the fun I had there, it was a blast!

I'm outta here.