The Boston Marathon

Chapter 1

The Boston Marathon

Two men were running along Commonwealth Avenue in their underwear. The second runner was about 50 feet behind the leader, but he seemed to be running his own race, completely ignoring the one ahead. As I was watching, a third runner came into view quite some distance behind the two leaders.

I grabbed a jacket on my way out through the front door and ran the quarter mile distance to where I had seen the runners. The first two had disappeared up the long hill which leads to Boston, but the third man was right in front of me as I came to a stop at Commonwealth Avenue. Then I noticed that he had a bicycle and rider going beside him. As I watched, the rider took a large sponge from the pail hanging on his handlebar and squeezed it right over the runner’s head, drenching him from the top of his head down to his toes.

Before this third man disappeared over the long hill leading to Boston, several more men appeared, accompanied by their bicycles and riders, and soon they too disappeared over the hill.

As no more runners were in sight, I walked home to find my mother was just frying some eggs for brunch. She told me that it was Patriot’s Day and a holiday on this 19th of April and I had been watching the Boston Marathon which was held every year on this particular day.

I was just 3 years old at this time, and I saw two more marathons before we moved to Long Island in New York State. In all three Boston Marathons, there were less than 100 contestants., and I am amazed that there are now thousands of men and women running in this event.

“The Jeermons are Coming!” Whales in War

On August 8th, 1918 I became 5 years old while we were visiting my grandparents in East Dennis on Cape Cod. Their house was perched high above Sesuit Harbor, allowing a good view of the beaches on both sides.

One morning, when the tide was almost completely low, I saw what seemed to be two large boats stranded just below the high water mark. I ran to find my grandfather to tell him what I’d just seen. He said he knew what they were, but he would not tell me until we got down there. All six of us, including both grandparents, my parents, my younger brother Rich, and I soon set out on the quarter mile hike down to the beach. Walking downhill, we could not see the water until we rounded the last turn and then everything came into view. 

Two black whales were just lying on the beach several hundred feet from the water at low tide. At first I was afraid to get near such huge animals, but when I saw them motionless, I walked gingerly around each of them. They were at least 30 feet long, and their heads pointing toward land were about 5 feet thick.

My grandfather touched one them and said, “He is still alive. Come over and feel him!”

The skin felt like fine sandpaper, and there was no slippery scum such as is found on all small fish which are completely covered with scales. Rich and I climbed each whale starting at the horizontal tail and ending at the blowhole on top of the head. The sandpaper texture of the skin was very secure footing, and the flesh twitched each time we took a step. 

(Many years ago I heard that every navy and all the shipbuilders in the world were trying to duplicate this sandpaper surface so that all small boats, large ships and especially submarines could go through water at greater speeds with less power. If they have solved the problem by now, they are keeping it a close secret).

A couple of days later the whales appeared to be dead, and my grandfather hacked off a few steaks from under the layer of blubber. I was standing at the head of the whale while the operation was being performed. Suddenly there was a series of explosions coming from the direction of the Cape Cod Canal. I jumped off the head oto the soft sand and ran toward my mother screaming at the top of my voice, “The Jeermons are coming! The Jeermons are coming!”

My grandmother made an awful stench in the kitchen while frying the whale steaks in what she called a spider. Although they were very tender, nobody swallowed a single mouthful because it tasted very oily and gamey. 

Ernest J. Banks

Ernest Banks (1873-1933) was the 7th and last child born to Cyrus King Banks and Abigail Works Banks. I must have seen him on an earlier trip to Goose Rocks Beach with my parents, but I will never forget meeting him during the summer of 1917, or 1918. 

It was in a dark room lit by two kerosene lamps where I was introduced to Ernest’s radio. It consisted of an open topped pince box about 10” high and wide, and it must have been almost 3 foot long sitting there in the front room of the beach cottage. Two heavier wires extended from the contraption down to the floor where they were clamped to an automobile six volt wet battery. The front panel of the set had about six large dials. Smaller dials, switches and phone jacks took up most of the remaining space. 

Ernest put on a headset, and the other three were offered to my father, my brother Rich, and to me. Squealing noises came to my ears while the tubes inside were warming up. Finally we heard voices from far away fading one moment and then coming back.

I think we hear about tex stations that night--mostly talk, but two or three had music. The next morning when I looked inside the set, I saw a maze of jumbled wires, radio tubes, condensers, tuners, and capacitors all hooked up to B, C and D dry cell batteries.

Ernest had built the whole set by himself, sending away to several places for plans and parts he needed. As I look back it seems so strange that radio existed at that time in a house which had no electricity, no bathroom, a cast iron cooking stove, and a hand pump in the kitchen sink for water.

In the summer of 1925, I was put on a Pullman car in New York and sent to the beach. That was the summer when I got to know Ernest. All the previous winter he had been building a thirty foot power boat in their large barn in Biddeford. He had it hauled to the Saco River just below the Pepperell Dam. As soon as it was launched, he got onboard and sailed five miles to Biddeford Pool, and then five miles of ocean to arrive at Little River before the tide started to go out. His sisters, Nellie, Hattie and I were waiting as he came ashore on the west branch of the river right next to Ivory Emon’s Boathouse.

An hour before high tide the next day he took us all out for a spin to Timber Island, over to the Western Rocks, amd nearshore all the way back from Batson’s River.

Ernest was not one to remain sitting about for long. Three days later we again walked to Little River to see him off on a two month’s voyage to Bar Harbor about one hundred and fifty miles to the northeast. 

A year or two later he sold that boat as he had built a twenty foot open sailboat in the meanwhile. He took me out sailing and fishing many times that year. He could handle all the sails singlehanded, and he had a smaller sail near the stern which he would set up on days when the wind was lower.

By 1926 or 1927 he’d become fed up with staying at Goose Rocks. The telephone company had put a pole on the Banks property to service their next door neighbor. It could easily have been put on the other property, but the utility would not listen. Ernest broke up his old row boat for kindling wood for Nell and Hattie, got on his bike, and never came back.

He was not unprepared, building a cottage on Little Ossipee Pond near Waterboro Center. He had bought a small peninsula on the far side of the lake where he had a good sized cottage along with a boathouse containing a rowboat plus and eighteen foot speed boat with a sixteen horsepower outboard motor. The fishing was very good in that pond and he spent most of his summers there.