My Recollections
By Pete Norgeot - Class of 1958
Flying Window Shade?
"Our math classroom was right over the Shop entrance where deliveries were made. The teacher had left the room about the time the Coca Cola delivery truck had pulled in.
I found that the cord to the window shade (remember how tall the shades were?) just above the truck would reach it, so I made a noose and snared a bottle of Coke in a case. I was trying to pull the bottle up when the truck driver got back in the truck and left. It was quite a sight to see the truck, with the window shade flapping in the breeze, as it departed the parking lot."
I found that the cord to the window shade (remember how tall the shades were?) just above the truck would reach it, so I made a noose and snared a bottle of Coke in a case. I was trying to pull the bottle up when the truck driver got back in the truck and left. It was quite a sight to see the truck, with the window shade flapping in the breeze, as it departed the parking lot."
Response to Jay Schofield Regarding a Soccer game with Harwich:
"Your story about Buddy King was interesting. I didn't remember that but I do remember when we were playing Harwich (Neal Nevin was goaltender and Paul Oliver & I were the defense). Everyone knew Buddy's reputation as a fighter so when he led the charge toward our goal, his path was directly at me. I fully expected to get run over but he dribbled the ball a little bit too far out in front and I leaned into it and drove right between his eyes. It knocked him down. I figured that when he got back up I was toast. Nope. When he got up, he turned around and headed back up-field. You could hear my sigh of relief all over town."
"Your story about Buddy King was interesting. I didn't remember that but I do remember when we were playing Harwich (Neal Nevin was goaltender and Paul Oliver & I were the defense). Everyone knew Buddy's reputation as a fighter so when he led the charge toward our goal, his path was directly at me. I fully expected to get run over but he dribbled the ball a little bit too far out in front and I leaned into it and drove right between his eyes. It knocked him down. I figured that when he got back up I was toast. Nope. When he got up, he turned around and headed back up-field. You could hear my sigh of relief all over town."
Lunch room disruption?
"Shop teacher Mr. Collins was very liberal in letting students work on their desired projects. For some unknown reason, he approved my request to bring into the shop the engine out of a 1939 Ford 4 door sedan I had bought from Johnny Freeman.
He oversaw my installation of adjustable tappets, Wiegand aluminum heads, Offenhauser triple intake manifold w/ 3 Stromberg 97 carburetors, and a set of headers.
He even allowed me to test-run the engine when it was complete.....at noontime. Remember where the shop was? Right! Immediately adjacent to the lunch room. Do you know how much noise a "hopped up" engine makes without mufflers? Right.
Do you know how much smoke and exhaust fumes on a newly started "hopped up" engine there is. Right.
Kids at lunch were gagging, coughing, and generally freaking out. I guess the lunch ladies weren't too happy either but.....Mr. Collins said it really ran well.
Try that today."
NAUSET BEACH - PART 1
If you lived in or around Orleans, you spent a great deal of time at Nauset Beach. Every one of us who did have incredible memories of the time spent there.
Some Nauset Beach Facts:
There used to be more than 600’ of sand between the admin building and the drop-off to the water. (now there is less than 25’) Depending on whether you wanted to drive toward Eastham (north) or Chatham (south), you could drive your buggy/vehicle directly out of the main parking lot. Or you could use the Smith Road entrance to go south using the back way (Pleasant Bay side).
Because there was a great deal of beach, there were two sets of tracks. One for going out, and one for coming back. Locals all knew that buggies/vehicles coming back ALWAYS had the right of way. It was presumed that the folks coming back had some type of issue (emergency, medical, etc.) because sane people never left the beach.
Highway Surveyor Fred Mayo rigged a drag (modified from use on town ballfields) to keep the tracks as smooth as possible. He would leave it in the parking lot and, if it was there, someone going out would tow it behind them to their destination. Someone coming back would tow it back on the other track. It worked incredibly well.
I joined while in High School. My MBBA # was 57
Some of my Nauset Beach recollections:
I joined while in High School. My MBBA # was 57 - Hurricane Carol in 1954 – Brother Skip & I misinterpreted the calm in the eye of the storm for the end of it, and got our mother to take us to Nauset to do some body-surfing in the big surf. She took us and dropped us off. We had a great time for a half hour or so, bleeding from everywhere as the waves repeatedly drove us into the bottom. We never noticed the wind picking up until we saw our mother running down the beach waving her arms to get out of the water. The back end of the eye had passed and the wind built up to 115 MPH. The salt water healed the abrasions pretty quickly.
- Towing Skip – Skip had a 1947 CJ-2A Jeep which I would drive and tow him in the surf on his water skis. The Jeep wasn’t terribly fast but would tow him along at 40 MPH. His long legs allowed him to lift one leg, then the other to “step” over incoming waves. Pretty cool. I didn’t water ski but I had the hood of a 1947 Ford which I rigged with a tow point. I would turn it upside down and sit in it while Skip would tow me down the beach. I could then shift my weight and head out into the water which was also pretty cool until the abrasive sand wore down the hood ornament leaving three holes through which the water, hitting with force commensurate with the speed, would force me to bail out.
- Junior Lifeguard – Also in 1954, I worked at Nauset Beach as a “Junior Lifeguard”. The real lifeguard was a guy named Stan Kasanovich. Stan looked like, and was built like, Johnny Weissmuller who played Tarzan before Ron Ely. He was a big sucker. I had essentially two jobs, first, to roll out the 600’ of boardwalk so people wouldn’t burn their feet and, second, to assist Stan in taking the water temperature daily so it could be marked on the chalkboard so people would know how cold it was. One particular day, unknown to me, Stan had already gone down to the water and taken the temperature. He discovered it was quite cold. When I finished with the boardwalk, I went with him down to the water. He handed me the thermometer and threw me in. It was 47°. I did not stay in that water very long.
NAUSET BEACH - PART II
Some more of my Nauset Beach recollections:
- Repairing buggies - When I was a senior I literally lived on Nauset Beach in the summer. The truck I had put together for towing on the beach had big, tall tires which left lots of clearance underneath. The beach sand was always warm and soft so I slept under the truck. It also kept me dry when it rained. Since I was just a kid, the older fishermen and their families took me under their wings. They fed me and gave me advice. In return I worked on their beach buggies. Many of them back then had old bread trucks or something similar. They weren’t designed for beach driving so they broke a lot of axles and overheated their cooling systems a lot. They also bent their tie-rods trying to turn their big tires and wheels too sharply to get out of the tracks. I straightened tie-rods and reinforced them. I replaced axles, re-aligned front ends, did tune-ups, fixed flat tires and towed them off the beach if necessary. No money ever changed hands but a lot of lasting friendships were made.
- Airplane Removal – When I was seventeen I bid $100.00 to remove a wrecked Cessna 180 from Nauset Beach at the privately owned Old Harbor Coast Guard Station. Believe it or not I actually got the bid.....and actually accomplished it (with help from Tommy Dennison and my trusty truck.) It’s kind of a long story (all true though) and if you are interested, you can click here to see the details.
- A chance to make some money? - While traveling the beach one night, (details are quite fuzzy as to who was with me and exactly where we were) We happened on a very large Atlantic Bluefin Tuna at the water's edge. It wan't moving but was still bleeding. We were fresh out of flashlights so we couldn't tell if it was from a "ship strike" or a shark bite. Recognizing the value of one of these giants, we quickly decided to tow the critter to the parking lot, then get it to a dealer. Towing on the beach wasn't a good idea for several reasons but that's what we did. I drove as slowly as I dared to avoid unnecessary abrasions to it's body. When we got to the parking lot, someone said we had to gut it and cut off the head before a dealer would take it. Someone said he would go home and get the tools to do that. He must have lived closeby because he was back in no time.....with a chainsaw. Do you have any idea what kind of mess a chainsaw leaves when cutting the head off a giant? It wasn't pretty. Then, of course, there is the disposal issue of the remnants. That wasn't a problem either.....they got thrown into the closest 55 gallon drum rubbish barrel in the parking lot. Someone asked (we were getting a crowd by then) if the remnants would smell much after the sun had parboiled them for a day. It was the general consensus that we wouldn't be there to find out. We then transported the fish to Veterinos, a dealer, in Barnstable Harbor. Veterinos would leave a door unlocked for fishermen to drop off their catches at night. That's what we did, then headed home to cleanup. Like all things which are too good to be true, so was this. The dealer said the fish was loaded with worms (couldn't see THEM at night) and had no value. Well.....we tried.
