Category Archives: Sense of place

North Unitarian Church in New Bedford, Mass. part two

Second in an occasional series of posts about North Unitarian Church in New Bedford, Mass.

Samuel Louis Elberfeld was minister at North Unitarian Church in New Bedford from 1919-1923. The Web site of John Elberfeld, his grandson, has an abridged version of one of Samuel Elberfeld’s sermons. It is a pulpit-pounding, fire-breathing, Unitarian social justice sermon — one of those social justice sermons that is supposed to make you squirm and feel very uncomfortable. So of course I can’t resist posting the abridged version here… Continue reading →

Autumn watch

Out, as usual at this time of year, about an hour before sundown. I went out behind our building to look at our little raised bed of Swiss chard. The cold snap of the past few days has pretty much conquered the chard. One or two plants were still standing up, but the rest had fallen over, and the leaves had a dull look, no longer the bright shiny yellow-green of early this week. I planted the seeds too late, and even though it stayed unseasonably warm up until a few days ago, there weren’t enough hours of daylight to allow the plants to flourish. They never got much bigger than three inches tall. Late last week, Carol said we could eat them even though they were small. Lulled by the weeks of warm weather, I decided to wait. And now the plants are pretty close to dead.

I got to the Fairhaven side of the harbor, and walked into the parking lot of the motel right off Route 6. I was walking towards a black pickup truck when I saw a small head peering over the hood at me. It was a Mute Swan. It had extended its neck all the way up, until it was nearly five feet high. When I got around to the other side of the truck, there was its plump white body waddling around on big black webbed feet; its neck, incredibly long when sticking straight up, accounted for about two thirds of its height. I walked past it quickly — Mute Swans can be aggressive, and I didn’t relish the idea of having an absurd-looking bird pecking me in the chest. I walked down to the edge of the parking lot, and there, squinting into the setting sun, I saw a flock of Buffleheads — the cold weather had finally driven some of the wintering waterfowl to the ocean.

On the way back, I walked through the park on Pope’s Island, startling a couple dozen gulls into flight. They settled down and fluffed out their feathers. As I passed the little playground in the park, there was a used condom lying on the ground, torn and disintegrating. I thought, What a hell of a place to have sex, so cold and bleak. Then I thought, Well maybe that condom has been there since summer when it was warm. Then I thought, Even if it was warm, it’s still a hell of a place to have sex. Much better to have sex in a nice comfortable bed.

I paused briefly to watch a reefer ship being unloaded at the Maritime Terminal. A couple of people were standing around, maybe on break, dressed in coveralls and hardhats. I remember those first really cold days of late fall, when you’re working an outdoors job — it was always tough for me to get used to it. Then after a few days you get accustomed to it, and it feels good. I miss working outside in winter. True, when it gets really cold, well below freezing, it wears you down. Even then, it’s better than sitting indoors all winter long, except for the hour you can steal to get outside and take a walk.

Sky

Between one thing and another, I didn’t get outside to take a walk until it was almost four o’clock, and already getting dark. It was windy, and overhead dark clouds were blowing across the sky. As I got down to the waterfront, the sky cleared out in the west, and across the harbor suddenly the town of Fairhaven was all alight, the towers of the Congregational church and Town Hall and the Unitarian church, a big white ferry docked at the Steamship Authority maintenance terminal, all shining bright against the dark clouds. I looked up, and the bottoms of the clouds were being lit up here and there with rosy light. I walked down to Merrill’s Wharf and along the New Bedford side of the harbor all was in shadow, except the smokestack at the old power generation plant, and a big American flag flying over one of the housing projects glowing redly. The light shining on Fairhaven faded out. The clouds overhead glowed orange-pink, then pinkish-gray, then they were just gray. I walked back home, and I could feel the cold air coming in, and I took big deep breaths of it — dry cold air from the north sweeping out the damp, warm, moldy air that has been hanging over the city for days. I could feel myself coming alive again with the new air, and I hoped for snow. It was nearly dark by the time I got home.

Rally

About sixty workers and their supporters turned out this evening to attend the meeting of the New Bedford city council. The city councillors were planning to vote on a resolution urging the Eagle manufacturing plant to keep jobs in New Bedford, for as the New Bedford Standard-Times reported yesterday, “The labor union organizing a union drive at Eagle Industries says it has changed tactics and is now trying to keep the South End military apparel plant from potentially leaving New Bedford and taking with it 330 jobs.” Eagle is the company that took over for Michael Bianco, which was the company that hired illegal immigrants to work in sweatshop conditions, and that was shut down by Immigration and Customs Enforcement in March, 2007, in a raid that made national headlines.

Anyway, there we all were tonight, standing around in the chilly dampness in front of City Hall. Zach Lutz, the UNITE HERE! union organizer said a few words, Cynthia Rodrigues from the Central Labor Council named all the unions that were represented — UNITE HERE, Carpenters, SEIU Local 1199, AFT, UWUA, etc. — and I gave the invocation. But the important speakers, the ones we came to hear, were some of the people who work at Eagle Industries. One woman gave specifics of which parts of the factory have been shut down. Another woman told how she had been fired because she was considered disruptive, because she was helping organize the workers. A couple of them spoke in Spanish, while one of their co-workers translated into English. Everyone cheered them after they spoke, and you could see them stand up a little straighter at that — although I suspect those momentary cheers will be small comfort tomorrow when they’re back at work.

The mayor of New Bedford came out of City Hall, and told the crowd that he has contacted both U.S. senators from our state, and our U.S. representative, and they are all committed to making sure all 330 jobs at the Eagle plant stay in the city; then he left quickly for another event. Suddenly someone noticed that one of the supervisors from Eagle, a woman named Dana, was sitting in a parked car watching the rally, keeping an eye on which workers were in attendance. Someone from one of the other local unions (I think he was from the Carpenter’s Union) started chanting, Shame on Dana! and everyone took up the chant for a moment. A guy beside me muttered disgustedly, That’s where our tax dollars go — what he meant was: The only work that the plant gets is from the Department of Defense and they’re using tax dollars from government defense contracts to pay their managers to spy on their workers.

By then it was time to troop upstairs to the Council Chambers. Those who could squeezed in on the main floor, and the rest of us milled around outside the door or slipped upstairs to the balcony. I had to leave early for an event at the church — when I left, everyone was sitting there waiting for the Council meeting to begin, waiting for the city council to resolve to keep jobs in New Bedford, hoping that our city wouldn’t lose another 330 jobs just because the absentee owners of Eagle Industries decide they can get cheaper, more compliant workers at their plant in Puerto Rico.

Autumn watch

It has been peculiarly warm this fall, even warmer than you’d expect in this era of global climate change. The days are short and sunset comes at 4:30, but the air feels like late spring, not early November. Because it’s so warm, the wintering birds haven’t bothered to come to the ocean yet — they’ll stay inland as long as there’s no ice on the water.

There may not be many wintering birds on the harbor, but there have been a number of freighters coming into the Port of New Bedford. In the middle of the day, we heard a huge deep horn sound once down on the waterfront, and when we walked down to the waterfront in the late afternoon, we saw Brazilian Reefer (IMO 8300377), a big refrigerated cargo ship, berthed at the end of the State Pier. I looked her up online, and discovered that she measures nearly 475 feet in length overall — she took up the entire end of the pier, and even stuck out a little bit at each end. We stood for a while and watched as they unloaded the ship. Being a bird nerd I guess I’d rather look at wintering birds, but it was pretty good watching two of the four ten-ton derricks on a 475 foot ship unload fruit onto the pier where waiting forklifts scooped them up and put them into waiting semi trucks.

Voting in New Bedford

My polling place is the old New Bedford Hotel, now public housing. At 11:30, I walked past the people waiting to go into the Mo Life Food Pantry in the basement of the building, up the steps of the main entrance, through the door, and down the hall to the usual polling place. No lines. There was one person ahead of me at the table where the poll workers check you in.

“Address?” said the poll worker. The man in front of me gave his address. “Name?” she said. He gave his name. “You’re not on the list,” she said. “I’ve always voted here,” he said. “Have you moved recently?” she asked. “Yes, I moved last March,” he replied. The poll worker passed him on to another poll worker, who determined that the man had moved to another precinct, and thus now voted at another polling place. I waited five minutes while they straightened him out, but I don’t think that counts as waiting in line.

I got my ballot and went into the voting booth. In the next booth over, I could hear a conversation between a younger man and an older man. “That says Obama,” said the younger man. The older man grunted. “Do you like Obama?” said the younger man. The older man said something like, Who are the others? The younger man read through the list of presidential candidates. “Obama,” grunted the older man. “OK, mark it here. U.S. Senator is next,” said the younger man, “so do you like Kerry?” Again, the older man wanted the whole list of names read off, but this time the older man didn’t want to vote for any of them. “Congressman,” said the younger man, “Barney Frank.” “I like Barney Frank,” said the older man. “Then mark it right here,” said the younger man. By this time, I was done voting, so I left the voting booth, being very careful to not look at who was in the booth next to me.

A poll worker checked me out, and I fed my paper ballot into the scanner. The scanner has a digital display showing how many ballots have been cast, and after my ballot went in it read 402. I usually vote in the late morning, and usually there have only been a hundred or so votes cast by that time.

Autumn watch

Thursday was the last day of our neighborhood farmers market. It was sunny, windy, and cold. The farmers from Mattapoisett weren’t there; “They said they had nothing to sell,” said Mary, the farmer from Dartmouth. Mary told me about the cafe she’s going to open in Fall River, where she’ll sell her baked goods. “Will you sell produce and eggs?” I asked. “Well, maybe some eggs,” she said. Carol and I bought apples, turnips, squash, and eggs from her. We said goodbye to Mary until July, and then we walked home in the bright sun, talking sadly about how we will miss the farmers market.

Although the farmers market has gone for the year, some of the winter residents have finally begun to return to New Bedford harbor. As I was walking to Fairhaven today along Route 6, I noticed there were some four dozen Brant along with the usual flock of gulls and Mallards that feed where a big culvert drains into the harbor. I stood there in the sun for a while, ignoring the four lanes of traffic rushing along behind me, watching those four dozen small geese who had finally arrived at their winter residence from wherever they spent the breeding season.

Autumn watch

On Monday, I noticed that there were no fishing boats moored at the wharf next to the Maritime Terminal building. When the big reefers come in, this is where they tie up to offload whatever perishable cargo they’re carrying. I kept on walking down the waterfront, and as I was standing on State Pier, I could see a good-sized ship slowly coming through the hurricane barrier. Since it was a nice sunny fall day, I decided to stand there and watch it come into New Bedford harbor. A police boat raced down the harbor to escort the ship to its berth. When the ship got close enough, I could make out the name on her bows: Nova Zeelandia. The tug Miss Yvette was attached to her stern, and the tug Jaguar circled around her bows, occasionally tooting its whistle at the big ship. One of the water taxis sped out towards her, presumably ready to take one of the officers to the Customs House. The swing-span bridge swung open, and I watched long enough to see the tugs and the police boat escort her through, while the little water taxi sped after them all, trying to catch up.

Yesterday evening at about ten o’clock, Carol and I were driving back into New Bedford across the harbor on Route 6. We passed the Nova Zeelandia, all her lights on, still unloading her cargo at that late hour. It looked like they were unloading boxes of fruit — perhaps oranges or clementines from Africa (you can track her position on this Web site, which shows her leaving Morocco sometime before 11 October, and passing by the Azores). Forklifts were running back and forth, and several tractor-trailer rigs were backed up to the wharf, ready to take on pallets of the fruit.

We don’t seem to have many of the big ships coming in during the summer, but one of the signs of autumn is the return of the reefers, offloading fresh fruit for New England markets.

Pictures of Nova Zeelandia here and here.

Autumn watch

The alarm went off this morning, and I staggered out of bed to shut it off. It seemed so dark that I was sure the alarm had gone off early. When I checked it, the alarm was set at exactly the same time it is always set for; but now the sun is rising late enough that I’m finally aware of it.

The wind blew ferociously all day, whipping leaves off trees, and coming around the side of tall buildings to slap you in the face. Carol and I went for a walk today, and we decided that wind was just too bitter to walk along the waterfront; so we walked up around the railroad yard instead, where it’s a little more sheltered. Even then, the cold north wind made us put our heads down, and tuck our hands in our pockets.

Tonight, we’re supposed to get a hard freeze, our first hard freeze of the year. Being close to the ocean moderates the temperature, but eventually the cold weather settles in here, too.