A few weeks ago I attended the Cohasset Elders End-of-the-Season Cookout, held at the Cohasset Light Keepers. I had a great time enjoying the burgers, hot dogs, lemonade and ice cream floats as we all sat talking, laughing and taking in the view over our beautiful Cohasset Harbor. I left when the line dancing began…thinking these folks really know how to have good time!
Whenever I go to an Elder Affairs event I always enjoy listening to and learning about Cohasset. Some of the Elders go back many decades and some others are part of families that even go back to Revolutionary times. In many ways our present day hamlet by-the-sea was brought to us by our Elders and their predecessors.
During the party I sat next to an elderly gentleman who had lived in town for many decades, raised his family here and also given back to the community as a volunteer. Overlooking the new Sailing Club he reminisced about the original Sailing Club which he helped found. It was fascinating to hear about why and how they went about building the original Sailing Club. He talked about learning to sail from there as a young man and then teaching his own children how to sail from the same spot. His children now live near the sea in other communities and he believes they chose to do so because they were raised by the sea which they came to love in Cohasset.
As the lemonade continued to arrive in fresh buckets, and the ice cream sodas flowed freely, we began to loosen up and talk more about our lives. My new friend was of the generation that survived the Depression and then went on to fight and win WWII. They obviously had a different life than we enjoy today. In many ways a more practical, common sense, down to earth way of life. We chuckled when he told me how learned to swim. At five, he asked his father to teach him to swim who accommodated the lad by placing him on his back, swimming out into the harbor and periodically diving several feet under water. Obviously my friend learned to swim…and rather quickly I am sure!
He told of another life event – one far away from yet, I believe, tied to life as he knew it growing up in Cohasset. Shortly after WWII he was an officer in the Merchant Marines, stationed in Japan. He came to be responsible for a large factory operation located near what is now a nuclear plant. Labor dissension and difficulties arose and one day several of his subordinates hurried into his office with the distressing news that the workers were going to picket and strike the factory the next morning.
My friend, in his practical Cohasset manor, calmed his management team down and advised them he would take care of the matter. He told them to erect several tents in front of the factory. He asked them to put tables under the tents and place large buckets of iced tea on the tables…emphasizing lots of extra lemons in the tea, not sure why that was but that is how told it. He then told the managers and all others to stay inside the factory.
When the crowd of protestors arrived at the factory next morning they were greeted by my friend standing alone in front of the tents and tables full of cold iced tea. Approaching him, I am sure tentatively, our Cohasset Elder cheerfully and graciously greeted them. He invited them all to enjoy some cool iced tea before beginning their striking and protesting at the factory. Pointing skyward he noted that the sun was particularly hot that day and as they all lived under that same hot sun they should all share in the iced tea.
After a while, one of the leaders approached our Cohasset Marine and thanked him for the cold tea and advised them that the workers decided not to strike the factory that day…in fact, he said they would never strike or protest at that particular factory.
I am not sure what the deeper meaning of this story is…my friend never elaborated. His generation doesn’t opine or brag about meeting big challenges. They just seem to somehow solve them and move on. Maybe it is self-evident and our ways and language nowadays cannot properly covey the meaning of it all.
Maybe it doesn’t matter. Human decency, empathy and common sense carry their own self-revealing truth. I suspect, somewhere in his upbringing, in a 400 year old small New England hamlet hanging on a ledge by the sea, our Cohasset Marine learned a thing or two about common sense and treating people with simple human decency that carried him and his factory though a challenging time on a hot day, in a faraway land, many years ago.
Kevin McCarthy resides at 155 Fairoaks Lane and can be reached at: mccart9@gmail.com. Kevin is also a member of the Cohasset Board of Selectman (BoS) but his above comments are his own personal views and are not attributable to the BoS.
