This is a series of videos that Kathleen, her Mother, Maryellen McEwen, brother Warren, and I made to homes that the McEwen’s lived in during the 1960′s.

They first lived on 73 Atkinson Street in Dover and then moved to Rye New Hampshire where they lived in three homes on Robbin Road.

Also included is a visit to Wallis Sands Beach, where they used to hang out and a impromptu visit to the USS Albacore in Portsmouth, NH.
 

The McEwen Home at 73 Atkinson Street – Dover, NH

The Homes on Robbin Road – Rye, NH

Port-Potty Drama – Wallis Sands Beach – Rye, NH

Kathleen Shows her Beach – Wallis Sands Beach – Rye, NH

Warren takes a dip!

The USS Albacore Museum – Portsmouth, NH

Yesterday, I took a trip out to Mount Holyoke with college friend, Charlie Whitcomb.  No, not the college, but the nearly 1000 foot hillside that the college is named after!

Mount Holyoke is the western-most peak of the Mount Holyoke Range located in the Connecticut River Valley out in western Massachusetts.  At the top are the remnants of an old hotel first opened in 1800’s. Unfortunately, the hotel structure is need of repairs and you can’t access the porch that goes completely around the hotel and used to give a 360 view of the entire valley.

Below are:

• A panoramic photo looking at Northampton from Mt. Holyoke, spliced together by my brother, Mike.
• A photo of Charlie and I (and some other friends) on the way up the mountain, back when we were dorm-mates at Greenough at UMass. (Photo by Chip Herzog)
• And, a short video of Charlie yesterday.

View from Mt Holyoke looking at Noho (click on image to see full view)

Mark Wilhelm, Al Morel, Charlie Whitcomb Al Morel, Howie Berman on Mt. Holyoke cira: 1976 (Photo by Chip Herzog)

On May 1, 2011, we took a trip to Cape Cod to revisit a couple of spots that we had stayed previously.

Billisgate Ave In Eastham, MA

Is where we spent our honeymoon back in 1986, near First Encounter Beach. OK, it’s true that I left the honeymoon a little early to go back and play the Irish National Volleyball Team in the Shamrock Games!

The Cabins at Route 28 and Old Main Street West Dennis, MA

Red, Mayellen, Kathleen, and Tim spent some vacation time in 1991 with an unwelcome guest: Hurricane Bob.
I had to work that week but when I returned to the Cape the next weekend, there was a huge boat next to the cabin, trees and telephone poles down all over, and many of the homes down on the beach were destroyed. They were without power for 4 days or so.

View Trip to Cape Cod in a larger map

On this day back in 1924, my namesake, and grandfather, married Agnes Gibbons, a girl from Clinton, MA .  We decided to take a trip Clinton to see if we could find my great grandparents gravesite and visit the church. The document below is the current version of the Morel and Gibbons family tree and directions to the gravesite in St. John’s Cemetery in Clinton, MA. It’s on the same road as the Clinton Hospital.

Morel Gibbons Family tree and directions to Gibbons Gravesite (PDF)

Here’s a quick tour of St. John’s Church in Clinton, where Albert A. Morel, Sr. married Agnes F. Gibbons, on November 27, 1924. This church is truly amazing and you can get a general idea from this dark-ish video. It’s worth a visit if you’re in the area.

Here’s the Gibbons Family Gravestone front:

Here’s the Gibbons Family Gravestone back:

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May first is always a special day for me. It was on that day, nearly 50 years ago, that I was hit by a car. I usually try and make it a special day and use it as a day of remembrance and thanksgiving. I guess I was pretty lucky to get out in almost one piece.

My family had moved to Newport, RI and I was staying with my grandparents to polish off second grade. We were visiting relations one evening, and some young kid was barreling down the street and the next thing I know, I was flying through the air in what seemed lie slow motion. I vaguely remember my grandfather screaming at the top of his lungs and the ambulance siren as we went to the hospital.

I ended up spending a couple of months in the hospital with the main injury being a compound fracture of the femur.  After, a short hunger strike (another story, another time) I spent most of the rest of the summer in a full cast in my grandparents’ living room and listening to the Rex Sox on the radio with my grandfather.

The videos below are the video diary of our trip on May 1. They include: An Indian wedding procession, a meeting with a congressman, picking up a group of Franciscan monks hitchhiking. And, at the very end of the day, I was in the art co-op in Shellburne and and overheard a group of the artists, who were behind the counter having dinner together, talking about how they were hit by cars as children. (Insert your own spooky music here!)

May 1, 2010 Videos

Part 1: The Indian Wedding Procession

On our way out of town, we found this Indian wedding procession in the parking lot of the Royal Plaza Hotel over in Marlborough. The groom rides a horse with much fanfare to meet his bride to be who is waiting for her family. Now this is wedding!

Part 2: Davidian Fams in Northborough, with a 1914 Model T and Congressman James McGovern

We decided to stop for a quick bite at Davidian Farms in Northborough and saw a really cool 1914 Model T and met Congressman James McGovern and his district Representative, Kathlen Polanowicz.

Part 3: Bits and Pieces

A few short clips from the trip with photovoltaics in Ashburnham, the Toy Town horse, a historic plaque in Hinsdale, NH and some hawks caught circling around.

Part 4: Our Franciscan Hitchhiking Friends

We picked up these folks hitchhiking in southern Vermont and drove them to their destination. They were traveling from Lawrence, MA to their retreat for a week.

Part 5: Dinner in Shelburne Falls

After dropping off our new friends we headed back east and stopped at the bridge of flowers and had a meal.

I have a friend who once advised me that one should make all of one’s major life decisions in a cemetery.  I’m not sure if I entirely buy that, but I must admit that I have always been drawn to them.

Over the school April vacation, Sam and I made a trip down to the DC area via Gettysburg. I also got a chance to visit my parents gravesite at Arlington, so actually most of the time that I was not visiting with family, I was at the cemetery, It did generate some thoughts.

Sacrifice:

You can’t help but be struck by the sacrifice that past generations have made for this country. It is truly amazing and humbling. There is an amazing story of sacrifice here on one of our last trips to DC for Mom’s funeral service. A young man, just out of college killed in Vietnam just weeks about his wife’s first pregnancy.

Humility:

The Gettysburg Address is generally considered one of the jewels of American prose. The keynote speaker of the day, Edward Everet, was an amazing orator and was a Secretary of State, Congressman, Senator, President of Harvard, and Governor of Massachustts. Lincoln only spoke for two minutes at the end (Everett spoke for over 2 hours!) and most people were not even aware that he was there much less delivered a speech.

Everett wrote Lincoln a note after the speech and immediately knew what had happened. In part, he wrote:  “I should be glad, if I could flatter myself that I came as near to the central idea of the occasion, in two hours, as you did in two minutes.”

Now that’s amazing humility and recognition of that is now considered a given, but at the time, not so much.

Bronze statue of Lincoln at Gettysburg National Park