When your correspondent was last seen wandering around downtown Plymouth, he hadn’t made it north of Town Hall and realized his job was not yet done. There was much more to be explored, much more for a newcomer to discover. But before we head beyond Town Hall, there’s at least one gem south of there […]
Author Archives: Peter Zheutlin - Independent Correspondent
Posted inCulture
Nathaniel Philbrick’s ‘Mayflower’ takes on new meaning for this newcomer
In January 1621, 14-year-old Francis Billington – who arrived on the Mayflower the year before – scrambled up a tree atop Fort Hill in Plimoth, known today as Burial Hill, and gazed to the west. He claimed to have seen “a great sea.” The sea, it turned out, was a 269-acre pond, known ever since […]
Posted inCulture
The wanderer: A newcomer discovers some of what downtown has to offer
When I moved to Needham in 1988, I took a walk downtown to familiarize myself with the place and wandered into Harvey’s Hardware, an absolute miracle of space utilization. It seemed to have every widget and doodad even vaguely hardware related in a space about the size of a broom closet. If you were looking […]
Posted inCulture
‘We’re the last part of Plymouth anyone thinks about’
My last column detailed an ill-advised and unsuccessful mission to drive to Saquish with two large dogs in a small, two-wheel drive convertible. Saquish is a small, orphaned piece of Plymouth at the southern end of Duxbury Beach, accessible overland only by a rudimentary road. Though it can take as long to drive to Saquish […]
Posted inEnvironment & Health
Saquish: So close, yet so far away for most
As a newcomer to Plymouth, I’ve been studying maps of the town as I try and get my bearings. I’ve long been fascinated with maps, and especially geographic oddities. For example, only two counties in the United States have discontiguous parts. Norfolk County, Massachusetts is one. Brookline and Cohasset are both part of Norfolk County, […]
Posted inCulture
A retired lawyer walks into a comedy club…
Gary Levine wants to make you laugh. “I woke up the other morning and Sue was sitting on the side of the bed, staring at me,” he says as he, his wife Susan Htoo, and I sit down in their Pinehills apartment with a pitcher of Cape Codders. “I said, ‘Good morning, what did I […]
Posted inNew to Town
‘I’m getting the lay of the land’
A year ago, living in a charming old house in Dover on an acre of land, with a beautiful swimming pool, and gardens that were nothing short of spectacular, I never imagined that today I’d be living in an apartment in the Pinehills. At 71, I never saw the divorce coming but come it did, […]