Gloucester-Salem-Exeter

7-27-06 EXETER: We are in Exeter, NH at Phillips Academy awaiting the premiere of the play in which Anna is performing. We just finished dinner with Anna and Lisa Fagin in cutsy downtown Exeter. Yesterday we left Thetford at 9AM and arrived in Gloucester, MA mid-morning for a seafood lunch. Our B&B was adequate, old, cluttered and with almost no water pressure for the shower. There were blueberry muffins for breakfast.

The whole of Cape Ann seems to be a granite pluton. Outcrops are widespread. Gloucester is old, run down, tacky and historic. There are lots of colonial houses, federals and Victorians. Many houses are re-done with vinyl siding and asphalt roofs. The seagulls are everywhere, brazen and noisy. We walked for miles after lunch, saw the working waterfront with lots of fishing and lobster boats, up the hill were all the old places and a nice museum/historic house, Cape Ann Historical Museum, that we visited this morning after the blueberries. Later in the afternoon yesterday we went to the Sleeper-McCann House. It is a century-old 45 room extravaganza put up by a Boston designer, most of the rooms have different decors and dedications, some are copies of European rooms, castles, colonial reproductions, and whatever. Most of the rooms are tiny and claustrophobic, but it is a fascinating place and also has a small and pretty garden. Dinner was at Woodman’s, a famous lobster shack in Essex that does a huge business. Then we watched the boats in Gloucester harbor until dark.

After the blueberries and the museum today, we went to Salem and visited a repro three-master, “Friendship”, the House of Seven Gables and Hawthorne’s birthplace, and the hostoric part of downtown before meeting Anna in Exeter. Salem is an upgrade from Gloucester, but still many historic houses are repaired with the tacky modern materials and/or converted to small apartments. Sorry, dear reader, if that sounds too snobby, but I prefer places like Woodstock, VT where the old houses are all pampered and coddled. Thetford tonight.

Review of the Premiere to follow.

7-28-2006 VERMONT: Anna’s was excellent in her one act play. She was a social worker dealing with an abusive mother who wanted her child back. It is a difficult subject and was well acted by the two principals and got big applause from a mostly student audience.