Years ago, the national anti-tobacco campaign slowly and with little apparent effect chipped away at Americans’ deadly addiction. That battle is far from over, but the results have been significant.
Now in recent years, we’ve been getting warnings from dermatologists and cancer specialists about exposure to the sun, especially people like me, in Shakespeare’s words, “the fairest creature(s) northward born, where Phoebus’ fire scarce thaws the icicles.” We’ve been educated on the toxic effects of ultraviolet light, see a daily UV prediction in the weather forecast, and can even buy clothing purported to block harmful rays.
That’s how I know that on this sunny Fourth of July day I should be wearing a long-sleeved shirt, sunglasses and a broad-brimmed hat. But I’m not wearing any of those, and even though this catamaran ferry between Lynn and Boston is fairly flying (the only time it ever slows down is when the right whales are migrating through Boston Bay and everybody has to slow down), I can tell it isn’t outrunning the sun.
I’m spending a few days at a huge birthday party, perched on a perfect vantage point across a bay from the place where the first birthday party took place 250 years ago. My friend Bea has a house on Nahant, several miles across the water from the towers of Boston and the seaside towns of the so-called North Shore. She likes to say that it’s one of the very few places on the East Coast from which you can watch from the seashore the sun setting over the United States.
Geologists call Nahant and its attached neighbor, Little Nahant, a “tied island,” meaning that it’s attached to the shore by a low sand spit, called a tombolo. In colonial days, farmers drove their stock across the spit at low tide. High tide formed a barrier to keep the critters there till they were driven back at the next low. A bit later, wealthy Bostonians used the island as a summer retreat and built “cottages” there. Their influence lingers today. Finally the state raised the spit several inches and, after much debate, constructed a four-lane divided highway. During storms, the landward end still floods at extreme high tides. Driving here, after I’ve battled increasingly heavy traffic and stoplights on the way, the causeway is an immense relief — as long as I remember that at the island end the speed limit drops to 25 miles an hour almost instantly, and there’s often a welcoming officer.
I had a job to do in eastern New Hampshire Wednesday morning (how I love driving into the rising sun!), and I was coming down here anyway for the weekend, so rather than drive all the way back to Vermont and then to Massachusetts Thursday for the holiday, Kiki and I zoomed down I-95 in surprisingly light traffic and settled in for several evenings of watching fireworks and relaxing on an open porch on Bea’s house that looks out over Broad Sound, the distant towers of Boston, the route of the passing ferryboat, dozens of small boats and the airliners on their way to and from Logan Airport. The porch is whimsically named the Spanish Porch because of its stucco arches, and it’s an ideal place to read, nap, sip a drink, chat or meditate to the sound of the waves on the stony beach below. Kiki has settled into sticking nearby, so she alternately snuffs around the yard or snoozes on my feet.
Thursday we ventured out to the so-called Doggy Beach, where dogs are allowed off-leash year-round. There are three beaches whose various regulations would tax an attorney, but the main thing to remember is that there’s no parking, except by admission fee, for any car from off the island. The lots are full on holiday weekends. That evening we watched fireworks on the mainland from a friend’s porch.
Today, Friday, is the 249th Independence Day, but in Boston the Revolution begins a year earlier with the battles of Lexington, Concord and Bunker Hill. Philadelphia may be considered the cradle of American democracy, but the fight for it began here. Today promised cooler temperatures than we’ve had, so the three of us are on a round-trip ferry ride to Boston.
As we slowed for the entrance to Long Wharf, the captain announced we might be held up by the presence of the USS Constitution, making its annual tug-assisted run out of its berth in the Charlestown Navy Yard. And there she was! her wide decks crammed with happy patriots. We were delighted to be delayed by her. She exuded the somber, but confident aura of a retired old brawler never defeated. Tonight we’ll watch more fireworks on the skyline, marking the finale of the 1812 Overture at the band shell way over on the Charles River. A perfect way to celebrate our birthday.
