The Sandcastle

When I began researching the New Bedford Whaling National Historic Park I got very confused. Was it a national park? Was it a whaling museum? Were those the same place? If so, why did it have two different street addresses?

It turns out the “Park” is an historic district of several blocks with several buildings officially part of the park but not all owned by the National Park System. The National Park System owns a visitor center with free exhibits and a film. Kitty Corner across the street from the NP Visitor Center is the Whaling Museum with it’s exhibits and films but my National Parks pass is not honored there.

We went only to those two buildings. By the time we did that our brains were on overload so we skipped the other buildings. We might have made an effort to see the church known as Seamen’s Bethel, a.k.a the Whaleman’s Chapel in Herman Melville’s Moby-Dick, but it was closed to the public today as it often is on weekends for weddings, baptisms, funerals, and memorial services.

We didn’t take a lot of pictures today because there was just too much to photograph it all but here’s a small sampling of what we saw.

The below deck section is the part of a whaling ship in which the ordinary seamen slept. Even I had to duck to get in there and the bunks were too short for me to stretch out in. The sides were higher than the mattresses so you wouldn’t roll out of bed in rough weather. I’d be badly bruised, though.

When a whale was sighted, you were expected to get into one of these boats with seven other seamen and go catch a whale whose skeleton was bigger than your boat.

If the harpooner did his job right, the whale would then take you for a wild ride before it died. Then you hauled the dead whale back to the ship for processing. The products it was turned into depended on where and when you caught your whale.

Personally, I’ve never been that fond of fishing.

TTYL,

Linda

For two years we traveled in a house that moves. Now we are coming to realize we live in a house that can travel. That difference is huge.

When one lives in a house, even when one is retired, he does not go sightseeing every day. There are days for doing chores and days for just being as well as days for playing. We can stay in one place for a week or more and have enough time to catch up with ourselves. We can do more in depth study of places we’d like to go thus making better plans. That causes my stress levels to drop rather dramatically. And my knees prefer a day of rest between museum trips. Plus, if we give ourselves permission to really slow down, we might be able to plan better meals and have the energy to cook them. Wouldn’t that be good?

Now, if winter will just hold off long enough to let us see the best sights without having to scurry south. It helps that the further south we go the later into the season the campgrounds are open.

TTYL,

Linda

I found the Museum of Work and Culture in Woonsocket, Rhode island, a fascinating place. Very little of it was my history but it felt like it was because it was such a submersive experience.

The story is primarily about the French Canadians who came to Woonsocket to work in the mills. These people had been mostly agrarian, working at home with the work day based on the sun rising and setting and the seasons.

When they moved to Rhode Island, a few were able to continue working at home.

But most went to work at the mills where life was very different.

They no longer had control over when they would work.

They no longer had control over how they would work.

They didn’t even have control over the results of their work.

Being a proud people, many rebelled. Some in small ways, others in larger ways.

But much of their culture was against them. They went to church and the priest told them to look to Heaven for their reward.

Their children went to school where the nuns and priests reinforced that idea for the children to take home to their parents.

Those few who met with management were told how things were being done for their own good.

Only the Unions said things need to change.

So people met on neighbor’s porches and in neighbor’s parlors and talked about all these ideas.

And decided to strike.

But the timing was bad, management was broke, and the mills closed. No longer was there money to invest in the credit union.

But, somehow the people and their culture survived. The woman working the desk, who was about our age, told us that when she went to school the nuns still taught half the day’s lessons in French.

And today you can host your own event here.

Is that success?

TTYL,

Linda

According to a handout from the site, “Established 1793, Lowell’s Boat Shop is the oldest continuously operating boat shop in America and is cited as the birthplace of the legendary fishing dory.”

The dory’s bottom is very narrow.

It’s sides are high and made from wide planks.

It is an economical boat to produce. It was even more so back before OSHA when painters, paid by the boat, turned them hull up and poured buckets of paint over them.

When the runoff paint dried on the floor, the floor became very uneven.

Fisherman used long lines with many drops with a hook on each drop. Look closely and you can see the line running in front of this sign with drops just to the left of the A and the right of the W and &. You could store a lot of that line in the half barrel looking thing in the boat.

The construction of the boat meant it actually became more stable as you hauled in more fish–good for foul weather trips home.

And foul weather we’ve had so that was important to the fishermen.

TTYL,

Linda