To the whistlehouse
Like the President, one of whose constitutional duties is to report to Congress “from time to time” on the state of the Union, I pledge to report from time to time on forts in Maine.
This weekend Hilary and I visited Fort Williams in the coastal town of Cape Elizabeth. In its heyday, Fort Williams guarded a narrow channel from the ocean into Casco Bay. During wartime, mines were laid in the channel, and large guns defended against minesweepers.
Battery Henry Hobart housed such a gun during the Spanish-American war. The weapon was shipped to Pearl Harbor during WWI, and little remains of the battery today—a few bits of foundation, some crumbling steps, and what looked like a weapon mount.
Battery Erasmus Keyes, built in 1905, has fared better, and one can explore its dark chambers and ascend to an upper level that overlooks the channel. The graffito “SLIM ANUS” is painted on its outer wall, a reference to an Eminem lyric, and more generally to lower-class US white males’ obsession with sodomy.
A path leads from Fort Williams to Portland Head Light, a lighthouse commissioned by George Washington in 1790. This path—the “Cliff Walk”—is sponsored by Gus and Marjorie Barber (not Garber), and it is lined with memorial benches, most still half-buried in snow. One bench is dedicated to Captain John Libro and Myrtle Libro, a duo that belongs onomastically to the domain of Thomas Pynchon.
A whistlehouse stands on a cliff before the lighthouse, and a sign warns of the noise.
The lighthouse itself has a small, triangular window one story up through which is visible a gingerbread house.
A large bell—PLEASE DO NOT PUSH BELL—acknowledges the lighthouse’s 1901 entry into the U.S. LIGHT-HOUSE ESTABLISHMENT, and a faint, stippled inscription on the bell indicates its weight.
A plaque notes that Henry Wadsworth Longfellow regularly walked from Portland to visit the keepers of the Head Light, and speculates that it inspired his poem, “The Lighthouse.”
Thus concludes my report.
This weekend Hilary and I visited Fort Williams in the coastal town of Cape Elizabeth. In its heyday, Fort Williams guarded a narrow channel from the ocean into Casco Bay. During wartime, mines were laid in the channel, and large guns defended against minesweepers.
Battery Henry Hobart housed such a gun during the Spanish-American war. The weapon was shipped to Pearl Harbor during WWI, and little remains of the battery today—a few bits of foundation, some crumbling steps, and what looked like a weapon mount.
Battery Erasmus Keyes, built in 1905, has fared better, and one can explore its dark chambers and ascend to an upper level that overlooks the channel. The graffito “SLIM ANUS” is painted on its outer wall, a reference to an Eminem lyric, and more generally to lower-class US white males’ obsession with sodomy.
A path leads from Fort Williams to Portland Head Light, a lighthouse commissioned by George Washington in 1790. This path—the “Cliff Walk”—is sponsored by Gus and Marjorie Barber (not Garber), and it is lined with memorial benches, most still half-buried in snow. One bench is dedicated to Captain John Libro and Myrtle Libro, a duo that belongs onomastically to the domain of Thomas Pynchon.
A whistlehouse stands on a cliff before the lighthouse, and a sign warns of the noise.
The lighthouse itself has a small, triangular window one story up through which is visible a gingerbread house.
A large bell—PLEASE DO NOT PUSH BELL—acknowledges the lighthouse’s 1901 entry into the U.S. LIGHT-HOUSE ESTABLISHMENT, and a faint, stippled inscription on the bell indicates its weight.
A plaque notes that Henry Wadsworth Longfellow regularly walked from Portland to visit the keepers of the Head Light, and speculates that it inspired his poem, “The Lighthouse.”
"Sail on!" it says: "sail on, ye stately ships!"A second plaque reads:
And with your floating bridge the ocean span;
Be mine to guard this light from all eclipse.
Be yours to bring man neared unto man.
IN OBSERVANCE OF GREATER PORTLAND’S 350TH ANNIVERSARY, WE REDEDICATE THIS UNIQUE LANDMARK TO THE ASPIRATIONS AND ACHIEVEMENTS OF THOSE WHO CAME BEFORE US AND TO PRESENT AND FUTURE GENERATIONS WHO WILL CONTINUE ITS PROUD HERITAGE.A large group of dark-haired school children approached the lighthouse as we were walking toward the road. In the parking lot was parked an oversized GMC van belonging to the RUSSIAN EVANGELICAL CHURCH, WESTFIELD MA, which is coincidentally the city in which I grew up.
GEORGE BUSH
VICE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES
JULY, 1982
Thus concludes my report.
posted by Carl at 8:40 PM
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