Nervous Nellie’s Jams and Jellies – Deer Isle Maine

This was possibly the most bizarre destination I have ever ended up at. It’d been suggested by several people, and of course the Internet, but no one had much to say about it, just that I needed to go. On this particular occasion I ended up with quite a carload, my mother, a cousin, and my great-aunt. We had five hours to waste so I suggested we go to Nervous Nellie’s. All of them looked at me blankly, “Suuuuure, we can go buy some jam…?” So off we went!

First off let me tell you the area it’s in is picturesque Maine seaside, absolutely beautiful, and there’s so many things to get happily distracted by including a series of high end galleries. Then there’s Nellie’s which… is so far from that scene it might as well be its own planet. When I drove in my mother didn’t want to get out of the car, “This looks scary!” She yelled, pointing at a heap of rusted metal lying haplessly in the woods. I made her get out. I always do. Besides everyone else was already bounding out.

Here, instead of the cute little jam shop I expected there was an entire Wild West village, run by an army of fronteirsfolk who happened to be made of scrap metal, recycled miscellany, and clay. They were both fascinating and terrifying, somewhere between sweet whimsy and an apocalyptic hellscape. And there was everything… a general store, a saloon, living quarters, a jail. Oh, we had fun in the jail, burbling to a couple who’d apparently made this a destination whenever they got bored. Very sweet people. I thought it was just a little mock village but this thing kept going and going and going. By the end I found myself out in the woods staring at a dead knight being loomed over by a dragon, a plywood castle half completed in the background. The Wild West town was more Whimsical but by the time I got to the knights and the dead Viking, being sent off in a half decayed boat, everyone was getting lightly unnerved. In fact the creatures drawing the wagons and carts had gone from quirky to “Soooo…. that last tab of acid is what did it, huh?” Clearly this artist had as many voices in his head as I do (which I can truly appreciate!)

I love places that encourage the desire to play in everyone from small children to the elderly. It just really brightens my day, but this isn’t even mentioning the jams! They really do have jams! And jellies! Preserves! And chutneys! All of which are free to sample at the little shop on crackers, or if you’d like to pay for a scone there’s a sweet little cafe sitting area to enjoy. Of course I sampled everything and ~~SWEET AMBROSIA! It was like the food of the gods!~~ it was DELICIOUS, easily the best jam I have ever had. Seriously, this jam didn’t need a tetanus-friendly amusement park to sell it, but I wasn’t complaining! Ended up with a jar of Blue Razz and Strawberry Rhubarb. It took all of my power not to eat it straight out of the jar on the way home. My mother didn’t resist temptation and ate it on a biscuit she got a gas station for dinner… SIGH.

Anyway, this is going to be a highly suggested destination from here on out for anyone who loves the quirky, bizarre, and downright delicious.

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July 13, 2018 1

Worcester’s Possibly Salacious “Turtle Boy” Statue

I lived not far from Worcester for a few years and always heard these faint whisperings about the city’s unofficial mascot, something that had caused so much local speculation that it continues to divide the innocent from the cynical. Officially it’s called the Burnside Fountain which is topped with a statue titled Boy and Turtle. Colloquially it is often referred to as just Turtle Boy. It is a piece of art so contentious in its form and so muddled in its creation that it leaves audience both scratching their head and giggling. One of my deepest regrets of moving out of the area was the fact I never found the time to see the inspiration for so many lewd jokes, unsolicited commentary, and less than honorable mentions. When I found myself once again in Worcester helping a friend run errands I knew what I had to do. I had to find Turtle Boy.

I’ve seen photos online but nothing quite brings it home like seeing it in person from all sides. It leaves little to the imagination, which is a bit shocking considering it’s a publicly displayed piece of art adorning the park in downtown Worcester. The more Puritanical residents maintain that it depicts a boy riding a turtle and is supposed to imbibe, “innocence, joy, and rebirth.” Those of us less adept at cognitive dissonance are of the opinion that it depicts a far less savory subject matter. In fact in online forums it’s gotten some notoriety as “The Turtle-Fucking Boy” where one local has gone so far as to call it Worcester’s unofficial monument to bestiality. This is a life-size piece and if you visit it you can look the turtle directly in it’s anguished face. As one internet commenter lamented, “That is not the face of consent.”

While visiting it I couldn’t help but melt into a puddle of my former twelve year self, giggling, and pointing, and yelling. “OH MY GOD!” No matter how you decide to look at it, and what it may or may not depict, you can’t help but wonder whhhhhhy does it even exist?! The story of Turtle Boy is a long one, filled with gaping holes of knowledge, that will leave even the most adept historian deeply unsatisfied. On the other hand, if you’re one for a sideways glance and a bit of dry humor, it could make for an entertaining read so here it goes:

Samuel Burnside was a well known lawyer in the town of Worcester whose family became quite well respected for their humanitarian efforts. After his death his daughter Elizabeth Burnside gave $5,000 to the city to create a drinking fountain in his memory. It was 1905 and the purpose of the fountain was not to satiate the needs of humans but rather to keep local horses and dogs well hydrated on their rounds. The water bowls on the basin are made in two heights for the ease of these beasts of burden. What Elizabeth probably neglected to mention as she was commissioning this work was that it really oughtn’t depict anything particularly racy, in case, God forbid, her father’s memory be forever linked to the carnal lust of one teenage boy for sea turtles…

The fountain was designed by Henry Bacon, the same guy who later went on to make the Lincoln Memorial in Washington DC, but the bronze atop of it was left to Charles Y Harvey who enthusiastically took the job believing it’d be his masterpiece. And that’s where this story takes a delightfully dark New England turn. You see he only got to work on his masterpiece for approximately a week before he claimed to hear voices commanding him to kill himself. Some claim these voices came from the work itself, perhaps even from the traumatized turtle’s defiant beak. And on January 27, 1912 he was found on the banks of the Bronx river having slashed his own throat open with a razor. He did not survive. Sherry Fry was then asked to finish the piece, “According to Harvey’s original design.”And so he did. Or didn’t. It’s really hard to say because I can’t for the life of me envision anyone sculpting a scene of such vibrant turtle rape. Personally my suspicion lays on him – did he in fact create the vision of Charles Y Harvey, which could have been deeply disturbed to begin with, or did he apply some less than proper poetic justice for some other reason? Perhaps he knew Harvey, or the guy the fountain was dedicated to, and wanted to embarrass them after their deaths or maybe he was pulling and elaborate stunt on the city of Worcester. Or maybe it was some sort of inside joke… in the end it doesn’t matter because everyone involved in the project still managed to get the statue set up and displayed to the public but there are more than just a few rumblings to suggest that they too saw what we see today – one such clue is the fact the statue never had a public ceremony when it was installed. Instead they probably put it up in the dark of night and left it there to see what would happen. People may have whispered and muttered but the statue was allowed to stay and in fact started to work its way into local folklore. It even was moved once to a more populous location and was even stolen in 1972 by unknown vandals who later returned it.

It’s an uncomfortable work and an even more confusing story behind it. Perhaps this is why it’s not only dry and out of use it’s also rotting without any plans on restoring it. After one hundred years it still stands, oddly victorious, sending some sort of message to someone… but we’ll likely never what that message was or to whom it was meant for.

And to end my little story here is me – unable to maintain a straight face as I pose with the strangest monument I have yet to see.

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February 24, 2018 5

Meeting House Cemetery and Ruins – Marlborough NH

Today I had to go to Marlborough and decided to let the GPS drag me down some back roads. I am so happy I chose to do this instead of going the way I knew! I ended up on a dirt road in the middle of nowhere (which is always a nice thing for me) and when I passed a cemetery that looked like it was full of old slate stones I couldn’t resist. Oh! This cemetery had the most character of any slate graveyard I have been in! Whoever was carving those old stones must have had quite the personality! I got to see all the usual designs – cherubs, urns, weeping willows, but with so much added extra flair it was unbelievable. Odd swoops and swirls, intricate geometric designs, and even one which had a 3-D face. Totally bizarre! But how wonderful!

To add to my joy there was a perfect view of Mount Monadknock from here, a ton of adorable mushrooms springing up, the largest Old School outdoor crypt I have seen in this area (with SEVEN rooms!) and adjoining the cemetery there was the ruins of the old meeting house and the crumbling foundation of the town pound, which I must say was also enormous, historically speaking. Marlborough must have been an epicenter at some point. I was amazed. It’s a tiny town today, mostly populated by trees – so much so my GPS wanted to get me home on an old logging road. I denied this. Didn’t want to die up there. In any event this was a happy little detour for me and my poor mother who I was dragging along for the ride. I made sure to buy her an ice cream afterwards, a belated birthday celebration…. ice cream and a cemetery…. We’re an odd bunch.

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CEMETERY:

RUINS:

August 30, 2017 0

The International Cryptozoology Museum & Other Random Sights of Portland Maine

On Saturday night I had gone to pick up my friend Katherine at Old Orchard Beach. She’d attended a wedding earlier that day and invited me to have dinner with a bunch of the wedding guests and various friends. I figured why not. I drove in around six o’clock and the town was BUZZING. I had been here off season before, when all the rides are shut down and the whole town is a deserted vision of the apocalypse… but on season? WOW. There were so many people!! And noise! Shops bustled, bars boomed, restaurant were full, and the rides were whirring. Parking was a nightmare and I had to be guided into a spot by a sweet old lady – thankfully and coincidentally it was right next to her hotel!

Anyway, dinner was lively with a wonderful bunch of very sweet and passionate people who were very kind in welcoming me into the group. At some point conversation meandered into what Katherine and my plans were for the next day. We were planning on going on an adventure but where to… I suggested the cryptozoology museum which got this reply, “That place is just two big rooms and one guy following you around them because he REALLY BELIEVES in Bigfoot.” Both Katherine and I agreed that this less than raging endorsement made it all the more tempting so the next morning, after having a good bye breakfast with the same group of people, we left for Portland.

Portland is a sweet little port city, not nearly as much of a tourist town as Old Orchard Beach. I had enjoyed walking its streets before but now it was nice to return to a different portion of the city. My GPS led me to where the International Cryptozoology Museum used to be, but not knowing this I placed the Prius in a nearby parking garage and we started to walk. Portland is a city of very mixed architecture – some which appeared very Dutch, some which looked like Lego bricks, and others which seemed more relevant to Maine. I took a few snaps here and there. Katherine kept herself entertained finding ninja’d stickers posted throughout the city reading fiercely critical liberal sentiments. The graffiti seemed almost sweet and added another layer of entertainment but where was this bigfoot museum?? Nowhere to be seen. We stopped in a used bookstore instead and oddly it had a map to the new location of the cryptozoology museum which was a seven minute car ride. So off we went to reclaim the car… only to find the parking garage would not let us out. I tried paying for my ticket but the machine kept spitting out my card, not telling me why, and asking me to re-insert the ticket. I was at a loss but with no one behind me I backed out of the toll lane, parked again, and found a machine inside to pay. With this new pre-paid ticket the toll gate actually worked. FWEW!

After driving to the shore we parked in another lot we thought was close by not knowing if we’d find anywhere closer. Parking mistake #2. We ended up walking and walking and walking. We found a greyhound station. Was it in the greyhound station?? No. More walking, across the tracks, we finally found a set of buildings with a food truck parked out front… a deep fried peanut butter and jelly food truck…. “After we go through the museum we should eat there.” “Agreed!”

We spent way longer than we should have continuing to walk around all these unmarked buildings to find nothing. It was getting annoying so we circled back to the food truck and finally found Bigfoot standing around the side of that building, guarding a chicken shack and a brewery. It was a scene that was just so Maine.

We both went in and it’s a two level (but still two room) museum filled with just the most goddamn bizarre things… The bottom floor was for sea monsters and various beasts which was capped off with a five foot tall plastic ninja turtle for no reason I could see. In the display cases there were Fiji mermaids, labelled as hoaxes, but smattered aside things like a GI Joe standing next to a stuffed beaver with a plate reading, “Do giant beavers still exist?” It was completely mental. We were both getting quite a kick out of this place and I was so happy to experience it with a friend instead of going alone as I had planned a few months back.

Upstairs Bigfoot stood with all his associated kin including a display case full of baby dolls which had wads of hair glued to them… baby big foot? And why did I find the red-headed one all the creepier?? There were casts of footprints, random artifacts, and things I think were clearly sold to a shmuck on ebay for shits and giggles like a random rusted out light fixture from some town which had a cryptid incident. Whhhhhy? Just why! Here too was a whole wall dedicated to the museum’s founder. Little cultish – still funny. Totally worth the trip… if you’re a little off in the head like we are.

PS the deep fried S’moares from the food truck, made with New England Fluff, was to die for!

***I apologize for any missing photos and galleries as I continue to work getting Catching Marbles fully migrated to a new host. Please come back soon for restored photos and thank you for your patience!***

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SIGHTS OF PORTLAND:

INTERNATIONAL CRYPTOZOOLOGY MUSEUM

August 22, 2017 3

Mutter Museum – Philadelphia PA

I had a friend living in Pennsylvania who offered to show me around Philadelphia so I took her up on the offer. I got up early and drove to Philly where I found her text messaging me in front of the station. Traffic forced me away from her before I could yell out the window and I spent the next three rounds circling the block to regain contact. She jumped in and I set off to find parking, which was really easy.

Katherine had planned a visit to the Mutter Museum, which is a museum of biological oddities, originally intended to educate physicians-to-be. It’s not real obvious from the side walk but Katherine had been there before. We walked in, paid our admission, put on our little visitor tags and continued on. I had wanted to visit the Mutter Museum since I was 11 or 12 and saw a segment on TV about it. Here you could see a plaster death cast of the first famous Siamese twins, Chang and Ang (I’m hoping I remembered that right.) Also was their pickled uni-liver. Other things I had already known about was a ginormous bowel from someone who literally died of constipation, the skeleton of a giant and a dwarf, and a bunch of drawers full of things surgically removed from people who had swallowed them. Who knew safety pins and campaign buttons were that tasty! It said most specimens were extracted from people under fifteen years of age. Well let’s hope so! I can’t imagine at sixteen little Johnny’s friends are egging him on to eat big sweater buttons.

The museum was full of other things that were just as fascinating. There were skeletons of Siamese twins, all babies, the rib cage of a woman who warped her bones wearing a corset, many pickled babies with birth deformities. There were spines bent and fused at odd angles from people with kyphosis. That scared the hell out of me, having the condition myself I hope I don’t end up that way!

There were castings of things that could happen to your eyes… gruesome things… like a splinter to the eye, cancerous growths, extreme conjunctivitis. Even more horrifying was a collection of antiquated gynecological tools that would send any sane woman screaming for the hills and what I can only describe as a baby scooping spoon. They also had surgical tools, embalming tools, and a brain slicer, which looked disturbingly similar to a bagel slicer. One poor man had a cast done of his face with a weird horn-like growth jutting out of it. There was a skeleton of some poor teenager whose muscles and ligaments turned to bone and fused him in this horribly awkward position. Then there was the case full of skulls. I’m not sure what the intent of the display was but each skull had its ethnicity and manner of death labeled. We were horrified to find a thirteen year old who had committed suicide “after a discovered theft.” What kind of theft would warrant that reaction?! The wording to many of these were trite and outdated and in some ways even comical. One read, “Hydrocephalic imbecile.” Another read something like, “Attempted suicide, lived for 15 more years but was never cured of melancholy.” My favorite was, “At 70 attempted suicide, died 10 years later at age 80.” I wondered why attempt suicide at 70? Hell, he’d been lucky to live that long in the first place…. Still the bone structure was different depending on age and to some degree ethnicity. There weren’t many women, there were a lot of suicides, one murder, several executed prisoners, really the people whose bodies were not cared for after death during the time.

I saw just how much the human body can put up with… bones broken and fused in awkward ways, a ninety pound ovarian tumor, bottles of tape worms, a skull and a femur suffering bullet wounds and the most shocking of all were the syphilitic skulls, one didn’t even have a face anymore, it was completely eaten away. How anyone could have lived that long with such a horrific condition I don’t know. At the end was a special exhibit, a soap mummy and a bunch of presidential stuff… including a presidential tumor! And a piece of John Wilkes Booth. Just a bit yucky…

Then there was an art exhibit… I mean how could you top the fetal dance macbres that were already in the display cases out with the actual human specimens? Well! There was a great deal for abstract art using wigs and old medical supplies and hypodermics… there was also a comic, in a brilliant pink, describing in vivid detail human menstruation. I couldn’t read it… quite frankly I don’t want to know my own cycles in quite so much detail… This was the entrance to the gift shop, which was a hoot. It was tiny but hilarious, a book case flaunting titles like, “1001 Ways You Can Die.” There were more poster, pens that looked like hypodermics, two-headed gingerbread men cookie cutters, and a bin full of germ-inspired plushies. A magnet found it’s way home with me, how could I not get a souvenir?

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May 17, 2011 0