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Where We Live:
We live on Cape Cod...that's in Massachusetts in the Northeastern USA. Our town is Chatham, a beautiful community that still retains the charm and flavor of the old-time Cape Cod. Our home is just two blocks away from the main street of our town, and just three blocks from the ocean. |
Lighthouses of Chatham | |||
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Chatham, Links About Our Town | ||||||||||||||||
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Melody and "The Great Chair" |
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| The Chatham Bars Inn here in Chatham is decorated most festively each Christmas, both outside and inside. They have a truly magnificant chair that is brought out each Christmas which we have nicknamed 'The Great Chair". It is a VERY large sized elegant chair as the picture shows with it's dark mahogany wood and plush red velour upholstry. This past Christmas season, we were at the Chatham Bars Inn for a holiday party where I snapped this picture of my wife, Melody, sitting in that chair...she is dwarfed by that chair, especially with her petite size. |
Chatham Light - In Christmas Trim |
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In recent years, it has become traditional that The Chatham Light be decorated with a large evergreen wreath for the Christmas Holidays. The picture above was taken about a week before Christmas and shows the large wreath hanging below the glassed light area.
It is here, by this Lighthouse that residents of Chatham gather each New Year to pose for the annual Town Photo. Depending upon weather conditions, many hundreds stand at the base of the Lighthouse while their picture is taken by a photographer looking down from across the street while raised some 25-30 feet in the air by a cherry-picker. This is a news event that also brings other photographers. taking their pictures from low flying aircraft as they fly over the crowds below. Such pictures are generally published in the next day's issue of the Cape Cod Times newspaper. I took this picture with my Fuji DX-10 Digital Camera and downloaded it to my WebTV as an attached Email picture, It was then "saved" to my WebTV Scrapbook and used here for all to see. |
Greetings from Chatham - 28 Feb 2000 |
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This is a picture of John taken here in Chatham on Monday morning, 28 February 2000. The picture was taken by a video camera that is mounted on the roof of a marina/boat yard building here in Chatham located in a very picturesque area called Stage Harbor. The marina is named "Stage Harbor Marine" . The video camera there takes a series of 5 pictures several times a day which are put together as a composite so one can see the panoramic view of the Stage Harbor area. These pictures are put into the Chatham Stage Harbor Cam Web Site [see link in listing above] that anyone can access by computer or WebTV over the Internet. One of the special features at the "Chatham Telcam" web site, is that twice a day, the video camera focuses on a bench in the pier area and takes a picture of the bench [and anyone who is sitting there]. The picture is posted in the web site and remains there for one week until it is replaced with a new picture taken the one week later. On Monday morning, 28 February, I stopped by and sat at the Bench and had my picture taken. I was to give a WebTV presentation at the nearby Yarmouth Senior Center that afternoon, and thought it would be neat to bring up that Chatham web site and look at the "Bench Cam" and there show the class who was sitting there. Well, during my class presentaion on Monday afternoon, I went to the Chatham Telecam web site and brought up the Bench Cam picture for that morning and to my disappointment, the [my] picture had not yet been posted. Later in the day it was....after my class was over. I went to the web-site that evening and down loaded the picture to my computer, saving it as a picture file. I then sent the file to my WebTV and have now included it as part of our Web Page. So, here's that picture....and a "HI" from Chatham. |
Our Home - February 2000 |
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Here's our neat traditional expanded full Cape Cod style home. It is very centrally located as we are just 2 blocks from the "Rotary" to downtown Chatham. On the other side of our block is located the Fire and Police Departments, the Depot Elementary School, The famous Chatham Railroad Museum, the Community Center, and the Community Tennis Courts. Next block over is the Veteran's Field where our famous "Chatham A's" play their Cape Cod Summer League baseball games. We are just two blocks from the 9-Hole Chatham Links community golf course. And, we are just three blocks from the majestic old Chatham Bars Inn which overlooks the outer North Beach and Bars that face the Atlantic Ocean. And, we are just four blocks from the Chatham Fish Pier where we can get local fish fresh off our own Chatham fishing boats...and that is FRESH fish!!
Our house was built in 1948 and has a finished upstairs with a full back dormer. Here are two bedrooms and a full bath. When sleeping upstairs, it is so nice to hear the rain on the roof. Downstairs, we have a very large Master Bedroom in an "El" at one end of the building with bath and lots of closets. Our Pine-paneled "front-to-back" Living room is so comfy when the fireplace is lit and there is just a faint odor of the burning wood., There is also a Dining room, an eat-in Kitchen, a Family Room and a 1-car attached Garage....and, a Basement. The house has oil heat for the winter, but for the summer we have the natural Cape Cod air conditioning as it cools enough each night that we sleep under a light blanket then. |
Our Livingroom Fireplace |
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Our livingroom is paneled entirely in wide board Knotty Pine. Shown here is our fireplace with the mantle decorated for Christmas. On the hearth are copper kettles that came from my grandparent's summer home in central Norway. Also, to the left, is a hand-hammered copper tray-table and lamp which also came from my grandparent's home in Norway.
Both of my parents came from the same small coastal town in southern Norway, Sandefjord, where they grew up together as childhood neighbors, friends and sweethearts. Both came to the "States" and became citizens, but never lost the close ties to Norway. As a child growing up, Norwegian was spoken in the home. I recall a trip back to Norway in October 1936 where we spent 6 months visiting, staying in my mother's parents home over that winter. When we returned, I [at 5 years old] spoke both English and Norwegian...and my sister [at age 3] spoke only Norwegian as she had forgotten all the English she knew. |
Our Livingroom |
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| Shown here is one corner of our livingroom that has an antique early american writing desk that was a gift from my Aunt some years ago. The painting on the wall is entitled "The Dice Players" and shows three fishermen around a table playing dice. It was a painting that my Dad always admired in my Grandparent's home, and after it came to the USA to my parent's home, it was one of his dearest pleasures. |
Our Livingroom |
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Here is another view of the livingroom with a sofa that faces the fireplace. Over the sofa is a painting done by a Norwegian artist, Skramstad...who is infact a distant relative. It is a dark painting done at that early morning time in the late Fall or early Spring where the fog still blankets the ground and the first rose-colored light of day is just becoming visible in the sky. It is typical of the woodland beauty that yet exists in many parts of Norway.
It seems to me that everyone in Norway is related and that may not be too unusual as it is a small country whose population has lived there for thousands years. I recall a trip into central Norway I took with my parents in 1957 where we stopped at a small restaurant in a tiny rural town. My Mom, after about 5 minutes conversation with the waitress determined that we were related!! |
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