Mermaids not the mythical kind

Reports of mermaids off Tenean Beach have been substantiated but they are not buxom young ladies with fish tails plying the tides.  We took a detour to Tenean Beach this morning to investigate.

Young ladies are in the surf but they are lithe, little things with dancers' bodies, two legs and all, and terrestrial without a doubt.  A local Dorchester dance academy (the teacher in charge asked that the institution remain unnamed) is training its students in stamina and mind over body techniques.  Apparently, the very cool waters of Dorchester Bay in mid-April make a better setting than the studio.  "Take your work in the field," is a lesson my art school professors always exhorted.  If it's good advice for painters it must be good for dancers.

Yes, there are young women in Tenean Beach's waves nowadays.  No they are not the mythical mermaids that have haunted many a young Dot swain's fancy as he has walked the shore on moonlit nights alone.

Picking up another torch

When Mary Smith-Jones dropped her torch for Larry Storch in 1976, she had developed a taste for hobnobbing with Hollywood celebrities. No one knows how she finagled it, but all evidence and people's recollections around her Dorchester, Mass. neighborhood point to an illicit affair with recently deceased actor and gourmet, Dom DeLuise.

I asked Mrs. McMurphy about the rumors and she confirmed the loose talk on the street. "Oh yes," she said, "Mary always had an eye out for the star power. She was attracted to those Hollywood types like a moth to a flame. Storch and DeLuise weren't the only ones who got caught in her web. There were others. I always liked Dom, though."

Had Mrs. McMurphy ever seen Dom DeLuise in Dorchester? "No," she admitted, "Mary was uppity. She always thought Storch dropped her because she came from the Dot and he didn't like picking her up at her mother's place on Sudan Street. Her mother kept house like a ditch digger, so you can't blame Mary for thinking this way. She wouldn't bring Dommy here, she would always meet him uptown at the Parker House or at the Locke-Ober. Dommy liked the Locke-Ober, he had a special table all to himself. He always paid, like a good gentleman. Mary, she could never afford to go to either of those places on the paycheck she earned at the Lenox Cleaners in Fields Corner."

How did anyone know she was dating Dom DeLuise on the sly? "Mary told everyone," Mrs. McMurphy said, "Everyone who would listen, at least."

Curious about Mr. DeLuise's appeal, I watched the movie 'Fatso" in which he starred in 1980. It's a charming, delightful, little comedy. As the title and Mr. DeLuise's physique would lead you to suspect, it the story of a fat man. You know what? Looking at this in 2009, the main character doesn't look very fat at all compared to what I see on the street every day. Check it out:

Dottywood

I passed Mrs. McMurphy on the way to work this morning while she was smoking a Pall Mall on her front porch. I stopped to discuss how late the recycling truck had been last Friday when she pursed her lips and pointed across the street. "That's Mary Jones-Smith," she said, "Look at how she's aged."

The woman across the street, carrying two shopping bags from Shaw's Supermarket, did indeed look to be in her 60s. She was about 5'6" and seemed to weigh 175 lbs. She was huffing and puffing under the weight of her groceries. "I never wave hello to her anymore," Mrs. McMurphy said, "I haven't for thirty years, since she went all Hollywood on us."

"What do you mean?" I asked.

"Mary was a pretty girl when she was younger. In 1973 she started dating a Hollywood actor who was shooting a commercial here in Boston, I think it was for Shawmut Bank. Anyhow, the two of them became quite an item until he broke it off. She went to California a few times and he flew into Logan nine or twelve times a year. I think he ended his courting during the Bicentennial. He would stay downtown in one of the hotels but come calling for Mary every day at her mother's place on Sudan Street. They would go to Castle Island and he would buy her two hot dogs. Oh, she used to brag about that. Mr. Big Spender! Two hot dogs at Sullivan's! Back then they probably cost a quarter a piece! She looks like he took her there for every meal and she ate two hot dogs every breakfast, lunch and dinner every time he was in town and didn't stop when he left. Look at her... what a fine figure gone to waste."

I asked who her boyfriend was. Mrs. McMurphy told me, "It was none other than Larry Storch! Can you beat that." I couldn't. My only brush with Hollywood fame was when Robert Vaughn told me to keep the change after he bought some cat litter when I was a cashier at my hometown supermarket.

"Can you believe Larry Storch fell for her?" Mrs. McMurphy continued. "If he could see her now he'd thank his lucky stars. Well, she got uppity after rubbing elbows with all those celebrity types they used to hang out with and now I won't have anything to do with her. Larry Storch! Personally, I always preferred Ken Barry, myself."

Can't put a face to the name? Investigate this and prepare to be entertained. Mr. Storch is in the upper right hand corner. Mr. Barry is the male in the bottom half.

Turkey patrol

I met with the Edison Kid in the apartment he shares with his mother and sister on Edison Green in Dorchester, just south of Dot Ave's intersection with Columbia Road. Edison Green is the street's name as well as the name of the park that the pavement surrounds, and it is the name of the apartment building that makes up the hypotenuse of this quintessentially, strangely shaped Boston street. I vote in that that building. The street runs in four directions. You won't find that in Oklahoma City.

The Edison Kid is fourteen years old and he asked that I keep his secret identity anonymous. Because he is a minor I agreed. He wore a domino mask a-la the Lone Ranger and the Two-Gun Kid while we spoke, though his family's name was prominently written on the mailbox by the front door I knocked on to gain access.

"I'm going to keep turkeys out of the park," the Edison Kid told me and he said it like he meant it. What does he have against turkeys? I told him I hadn't seen any turkeys in our neighborhood and that I walk about just about every day, keeping tabs on what's going on in our shared jurisdiction. "I think the turkeys will eat all the hickory nuts in the park," the Edison Kid replied. "If they do that, the squirrels won't have anything to eat. There'll be no turkeys on Edison Green while the Edison Kid is on watch."

I'm no turkey biologist but I always thought turkeys eat grubs and forest dander. "No, no," the Edison Kid corrected me, "They're scavengers. They'll eat anything that isn't nailed down. They're the goats of the bird world. They're opportunists. They'll even eat tin cans if they have to."

I asked the Edison Kid how he meant to drive the turkeys away. He was wearing a pork pie hat that was a few sizes too large, and he pulled it down so the brim touched the top of his mask. "I'll show you," he said and then he marched into his bedroom to come out again armed with a wrist rocket slingshot. "Is that legal in Massachusetts?" "Sometimes a vigilante doesn't obey the letter of the law," he replied.

"What's your ammunition?" I inquired. He reached into his pocket and shook a 25-cent box of Boston Baked Beans. "Any baby can buy candy," he told me. "I buy these beans for shot. They won't kill the turkeys and they won't give 'em lead poisoning, but they'll scare the bejeezus out 'em and keep 'em out of Edison Green."

Feral turkey sightings have been on the rise in Boston recently in the most improbable places but so far they haven't been seen in North Dorchester. Is the Edison Kid responsible? He admits he hasn't seen any himself but he is on the lookout. Turkeys beware.

Tomatoes and clams

We hesitate to use the word Clamato in the title since this word is trademarked by the Mott's company, currently a wholly owned subsidiary of the Dr. Pepper Snapple Group. Food historians have long stated on the record that clamato, in lower-case, untrademarked, generic parlance, was invented by two Mott's food scientists in 1966 in Hamlin, NY. Yes, this is the same Mott's that makes the wonderful. triple-purified apple juice children love so much.

Local lore doesn't discount that Mott's was the first company to commercially market clamato, but the idea that a mixture of clam juice and tomato juice had to be invented by white-coated eggheads in a corporate laboratory rankles the sensibilities of long standing Dorchesterites. Farragut McWhistler, who has lived in Port Norfolk all his life, and I were discussing this at the Mud House in Neponset the other morning. "My dear, sweet mother used to muddle clams in a mash of tomatoes and put it in my bottle," he said.

He said his mother had gotten the recipe from her mother-in-law, who's maiden name was Everett, and who had inherited this bit of baby-rearing wisdom from that side of the family living at Port Norfolk for generations. "Dorchester Bay little necks make the best broth for a baby," he continued, "I believe I have lived as long as I have because I was weaned from my sweet mother's teat with a nip of the sea by way of the garden." I asked him what he thought of bottled clamato available in the Stop & Shop on Morrisey Boulevard.

"I don't care for it much," he said. "I make my clamato myself, with no extra ingredients, the way my family always has. I know I'm not supposed to go shell fishing in the Bay, the Commonwealth forbids it, but I've got a clam rake and I wake up early before the sun comes up. I'm not bothering anyone and I know most of the fellows in the harbor patrol. We leave each other alone, just wave, ask how things are in general, and no sir, I haven't seen anything illegal going on in the Bay."

Mr. McWhistler cleared his throat. "The way I see it, I've been eating Dorchester clams all my seventy-three years. I don't see a reason to stop now. I don't muddle them with mortar and pestle the way my mother did. I use a food processor and I make my clamato year-round. I can buy store-bought tomatoes any time of year in the supermarket. They aren't as good as the garden variety, but winter leads to lean times and you take what you can get."

I asked Mr. McWhistler if he ever sold his clamato. "No, I don't. It's illegal to go shell fishing for yourself let alone to pawn the clams off on a buyer. I figure I'm not hurting anything but my own robust constitution (he pounded his chest) and the law knows this so they leave me alone. If I sold the clams and somebody got food poisoning, the cops would be all over me in a minute. I like to keep my nose, as well as my arteries and gut, clean."

I asked Mr. McWhistler if I could taste his product. He replied, "Sorry, sonny. That's against the rules. I only make this tonic for myself. It's a shame I can't share it but the rules are the rules. If you want some genuine Dorchester clamato you'll have to make it yourself. Be advised, though, Boston Harbor Management regulations forbid it."

Our coffee finished, I walked Farragut McWhistler to his car parked on Neponset Avenue. "It's too late in the morning to go clamming now. Too many people can see you. If you want to rake up a mess of clams off Tenean or Malibu Beach, the sky has to be pitch. I'm going across Neponset Circle to Ups and Downs and then I'm going home. I always drink my clamato before I go to sleep and then when I wake up in the early hours. It keeps me young, I tell you, but you have to make it yourself to get the full effect."

I don't own a clam rake but Mr. McWhislter's constitution seems to be resilient enough that there may be some truth in his testimony of the rejuvenating powers of Dorchester Bay clam meat, especially when mixed with tomatoes grown in Dorchester soil. As he says, he has been supping on this since he was in the cradle. I have a lot of catching up to do. Maybe I'll just take my vitamins.

Morrissey

Rumors are flying around Dorchester that the doleful darling of 1980s college radio may be making an appearance at Tom English's postage stamp-sized stage at the end of March. Word on the street is that Morrissey, former front man of The Smiths for those with long memories, and who is performing at the new House of Blues on Landsdowne Street, will be making an appearance in the Dot the following evening. The older hep cats in the neighborhood are all in a slather to hear the voice that expressed their ironic, youthful alienation.

Morrissey is scheduled to appear at the House of Blues on March 29th. There don't seem to be any tickets still available and maybe that is what has started the current swirl of hearsay, all of it speculative. After all, if our man is staying more than a day in Boston, wouldn't he make a pop-in and performance at one of Dorchester's humble yet classy neighborhood hot spots? Tom English's fits the bill. Its the kind of stylish dive that would appreciate his presence and probably a bit of impromptu crooning. He will not only be accepted, he will be loved.

None of this report is substantiated beyond speculation overheard while playing the deer hunt video game at Tom English's. This tap room is located at 957 Dot Ave, a short walk from the JFK/UMASS station on the Red Line (helpful hint: head inland and turn left on Dot Ave). Tom English's offers Pabst on tap, convection oven pizzas and sandwiches, and hearty camaraderie. If you go there on March 30th, you may see a special show or you may just have a special night whether any cult celebrities show up or not.