The Bridge View Grill

We repeatedly dined at the brand new Bridge View Grill in Bourne.

Located at 100 Trowbridge Road, it occupies the spot formerly known as the legendary Trowbridge Tavern.

Our staff has repeatedly dined there, and even done some drinking. The new owner spent a year gutting and renovating the place, and opened in August.

There are very few known benefits to "hanging around with a website editor who is allergic to shellfish," but one of them is "He'll buy you clam chowder so he can take a picture of it." The dark chowder color comes from bacon, I'm told.

The Emily Post Book Of Etiquette tells the reader that white wine goes best with an All Buffalo Chicken dinner.

The only member of our staff who is culinary-proficient enough to write food reviews is working in Maine this autumn. I am incapable of it. For every food critic who smells wine before drinking it, there's a guy like me who shovels down nachos by the fistful.

Therefore, we're just essentially doing a visual menu. Otherwise, the reviews would be like "This was yummy." If pressed, I would resort to stealing Bret Easton Ellis food review styles from Patrick Bateman. "It's a playful little dish."

We were pleased to see Bourne-themed drinks on the menu. Our only complaint was that mainland Bourne was under-represented. We would add the Buzzards Bay B-52, the Sagamore Beach Sidecar and the Bournedale Bellini. We would also add the Gray Gables Gimlet.

I have a friend who has a worse diet than I do, to the extent that he to this day complains about the time I brought over a pizza with green peppers on it... in 1989. He didn't have to worry about this one, I ate it all myself. 

Just in case you think that I eat nothing but fried meat...

If you pester hotel employees for pictures of their dinner, you have to settle for take-out Prime Rib shots.

When the Fish in your Fish and Chips is too big for the plate, you've almost always found a good restaurant.

The garlic bread was served on a different plate, we just laid it on top of the chicken parmesan so we could zoom in closer. I'm a rotten photographer to start with, and it only gets worse when pretty girls are bringing me rum.

My man Hardcore Logo likes stuffed quangos, so your allergic photographer was able to get a pic of one. If my shellfish allergy isn't funny enough for you, know that your photographer was an orphan, very poor, very large, always hungry... and that he lived between a clam bed and all the lobsters he could dive down and catch, and could consume neither.

There's a Thanksgiving Sub hiding under the gravy and the fried onions.

Sometimes, Stephen forgets he's a photographer, eats half the meal before remembering that he was supposed to take a picture of it, then tries to fool the editor by zooming in.

We would heartily recommend that you go with the BVG's Pub Fries, which are spicier than regular fries. Note that Southerners look at you funny if you put seasoned salt and vinegar on fries, which is a very New England thing to do. Also note that your author loved Andy Capp's Pub Fries as a kid, to the extent that he sent a threatening email to Borden Foods when they were discontinued.

I like to keep the elements of Shepherd's Pie apart until they meet in my tummy. There's a good reason why Stacey generally writes the food reviews.

The BVG has daily specials aimed at professions. They have discounted food on various nights for soldiers, emergency responders, teachers and service workers. I showed my Salvation Army badge to get the military discount, took the teacher discount even though the last class I taught was like 2005, and said "I'm broke, so this is an emergency" to get the emergency responder discount.

Come on down and try it out. Be sure to mention Cranberry County Magazine to get absolutely no discount at all.

The Pride Of Baltimore II In The Cape Cod Canal

A reproduction of the Baltimore Clipper style of topsail schooner, the Pride Of Baltimore II sailed through the Cape Cod Canal on Saturday.

The original Pride Of Baltimore sank in a 1986 gale, all hands lost. Pride II is a memorial ship. She has sailed 200,000 miles and hit 200 ports in 40 countries.

The Army Of Two

America has produced some tough folks, people like Wyatt Earp, John Henry, Mike Tyson, Chuck Norris, LT, Sasha Banks, Batman... 

However, none of them turned back 200 of the world's best Marines. I'm not sure if Sergeant York can claim those kind of stripes, or even Captain America. In even his silliest movie, Arnold Schwarzenegger didn't try to sell himself as being capable of taking on 200 elite Marines.

So, naturally, this feat was performed by two young girls from Scituate. They were unarmed, of course. They had no backup, and may have been raped or even hung as spies if they lost. As is generally the case when two girls decide to make a stand against 200 Marines, they used Fear as their weapon.

The War of 1812 was very unpopular in New England, and we discussed seceding from the US over it long before the Confederacy made it fashionable. This meant little to the British, other than an opportunity to perhaps drive New England out of the war if they made life hard enough for them.

Understand that Massachusetts was the first colony to send the Brits packing in the Revolution. We had already attacked British soil in Canada. The British had been chased with their tails between their legs from Marshfield, one town to the south, in the previous squabble almost 40 years earlier. There was no love lost, and the British Navy wasn't going to use the kid gloves when they decided to send a raiding party ashore in Scituate, Massachusetts.

Her Royal Navy spent quite some time smashing up Massachusetts ports. We were known as a haven for pirates/privateers, Falmouth, New Bedford and Wareham were torn to shreds by the British Navy in this war, and they had already whipped up on Scituate a few times. Scituate had ships stolen and burned. The British had shown up off of her shores in the summer of 1814, demanding provisions under the threat of more ill treatment.

The local militia assembled, and the British never came ashore. They never went away either, but the militia did. The Brits heard about this (Marshfield was heavily Loyalist when the Revolution started, and some holdovers may have been giving information to the Limey sailors) and prepared to pay Scituate back for not providing the provisions.

Keep in mind, the scholarship of this story is limited, and really good superhero stories tend to grow with time. This is especially true in areas with lots of fishermen. We're just going to give you the basic legend, and leave all of that further-study stuff to the reader.

In September of 1814, the British Navy made their move on Scituate. A ship, La Hogue, dropped anchor about a mile off of Scituate Harbor. They loaded the barges with Marines and started rowing towards the town. They had raided Scituate three times before, but had never come ashore, limiting themselves to burning/stealing ships. This time, they were coming to burn the town.

They chose a stealth approach, rowing towards isolated Old Scituate Light. Their luck was better than they could have hoped, as the lighthouse keeper (Simeon Bates) was away with most of his family. Only his wife and two daughters stayed at the station, and they were the first to see this less-musical British Invasion coming.

Rebecca and Abigail Bates were no weak sisters, however. They knew that the militia had dispersed, and that there was no way to get them assembled before Scituate was set aflame. Their home, a very valuable lighthouse that treacherous local shipping was dependent on, was probably the first thing that would be set aflame when John Bull got the matches out. They would also be the first young girls that 200 marauding sailors would get their hands on after a long time at sea.

There then commenced what I would say may have been the coolest teen-girl chattering that ever happened in America (I'm thinking hard on this, and can't get past 90210), and the two sisters decided that the British raid would be getting no further than them.

They chose an Audio defense. Grabbing a fife and drum, they hid behind a dune and started making a racket. History disagrees on who was playing what instrument, but they played loudly as they walked back and forth behind the dunes. Maybe they snuck a peek over the dunes now and then, or maybe they just put their heads down and had faith in the plan.

We do know that they played "Yankee Doodle" over and over.

As the Brits got closer to shore, there were five sounds they could hear. One was the ocean, one was the rowing, one was their officers' exhortations... and the other two were a fife and drum. Fifes and drums meant "Militia."

Two hundred British marines (I am making that number up based on a force that they used for a similar attack on Wareham) are nothing to trifle with, but even they couldn't stand up to what could be 1000-1500 men, all familiar with the territory, all crack shots who have to shoot their own supper a lot and who have had months to prepare for just such a siege. The British turned around and ran like scalded dogs. OK, they were in a boat, so they didn't technically run, but I don't have a metaphor for Rowing. "They had to Row like Versus Wade".... OK, I have nothing.

Exact records for the Battle of Scituate are hard to find. The girls both lived to old age, and would tell their story for anyone who'd pay a dime to hear it. Stories may get embellished that way. It's tough for a skeptic to debate a living, breathing Primary Source.

Likewise, the British have no record of the encounter. Very few men who wanted to advance in Her Majesty's Navy (I don't know if they had a Queen at the time, I just like saying "Her Majesty's Navy") reported back to the crown that "Well, your Majesty, we were going to burn Scituate, but my 200 toughest Marines got scared off by a couple of teenyboppers pretending to be Jethro Tull." Career suicide.

(Editor: References to the aborted raid on Scituate exist in the journals of some British officers)

American soldiers have been in some tough spots. Little Round Top was defended by a bayonet charge against an enemy who had guns. The Battle of the Bulge had Americans surrounded in a snowstorm by Hitler's best troops. The Minutemen gathered on a town square and stood toe-to-toe with the world's best light infantry..

The Bates Sisters have them all beat. Two unarmed girls went to war against a veritable boatload of British Marines. I wouldn't touch those odds with a six and a half foot Pole, and neither would Rob Gronkowski. It matters not... the girls ended the day in possession of the battlefield.

The Bates sisters and their victory were not lost on military historians. General John Magruder used similar deceptions in Virginia during the Civil War. It even came full circle, with the Chinese using whistles to intimidate when attacking Americans in the Korean War. Some even say that the Vietcong used a similar strategy at Khe Sanh.

The Bates sisters did it better, though... and they have a sign to prove it.

Music hath charms...

Cape Cod Surf Check: Hurricane Dorian

Hurricane Dorian wasn't far offshore, so we headed out to see what sort of waves she was throwing our way. All storms are girls, even ones named Dorian.

Sagamore Beach was where we ended the South Shore Surf Check article and started the Cape Cod Surf Check one.

We gambled on some high tide South Shore destruction (Cape Cod, especially the Outer Cape, gets better waves, but the South Shore builds right on the high tide line, and it makes for better Surf Check photos... generally) and lost, so we weren't on the Outer Cape at high tide. This delay gave the seas more time to build.

Someone wet the bed

You sacrifice some closeness shooting from up on a sand cliff, but you get a Seagull view of the incoming surf.

Eastham is always a good place to shoot some surf.

The surf was rough, piling up, no slow rollers. We saw one surfer, and he was beached.

This could have been worse, as Dorian was still quite powerful. There was an astronomically low tide, and Dorian was far enough offshore.

The whole vibe was "nor'easter." It was even sort of chilly.

Winds were tropical storm force.

I want potato chips.

It's cool having a famous house, unless it's famous because they show it on the news when they talk about beach erosion maybe swallowing up a house. Still, cool f***ing house...

Truro, btw...

By the time we got back to Sandwich, the seas had calmed. There was nothing left to do but go to The Drunken Seal.

South Shore Surf Check: Hurricane Dorian

Hurricane Dorian was south of Nantucket, but close enough for fringe effects like rain, wind and rough surf. 

We got out early (6:47 AM high tide) to see what was what.

We started off in Duxbury, because things tend to get wrecked there. I don't know who planned their wedding for today (see video below), but I wish them all the best.

Duxbury was saved some damage by A) an astronomically low tide, and B) the timing/placement of the storm and high tide.

If you leave your stairs up for even the fringes of a hurricane, you sort of deserve this...

I tore down this backboard with a 360 tomahawk, then we were off to Marsh Vegas.

Sorry about the blurry tower, but the wind was gusting with some tropical storm force.

No surfers were out, and we went to ten beaches between this article and the Cape Cod one, so we would know. This was rough, choppy surf, the slow rollers will arrive later.

Rexhame is where the North River used to empty before her course was altered during the Portland Gale.

Off to Plymouth we go, a bit past high tide...

Off to Cape Cod...