Samizdat

Foursome: Fire, Brimstone, Neighbors & Homeless Bank Robbers

Four Short
In No Particular Order

By Jeff Blanchard

1 - The Fire

Pop Quiz, Sports Fans: So what do you think the official position is on the mysterious Halloween fire at the Brewster Sand and Gravel operation off Freeman’s Way, near the gaping hole in the earth across the street from the Captains Golf Course?

A) Investigators are working with Scotland Yard to get to the bottom of the Oct. 31 blaze?

B) Fire marshals are working with the NSA to see if an arsonist might have been captured on a satellite video of the scene?

C) It is being chalked up as one of those things, probably never to be solved, an open case forever.

C. According to a spokesman for the Brewster Fire Department, by the time the firefighters were done knocking down the blaze, and the building with it, with the help of a front-end loader, there wasn’t much left to investigate.

As of today, three weeks after the fire, which occurred in the six-week window between the day Brewster Sand and Gravel got evicted and the time they were scheduled to move, the state fire marshal had yet to issue a written report on the matter despite an on-the-scene investigation shortly after the storage building caught fire, or was torched.

So that’s that.

Nothing else to see here.

Move it along.

2 - The Brimstone

Two hundred and thirty-one years after the Colonists declared their Independence from the Church of England, and 195 years after the locals beat back the British in the Battle of Rock Harbor, a little space on the municipal bosom of Brewster, Massachusetts, has been set aside for the Anglican Communion Network.

In a stunning (to me) co-mingling of church and state, one that apparently has eluded the detection of any and all who would be a critic, the Episcopal splinter group has become a tenant of the Town of Brewster, using the Council on Aging space in the Old Town Hall on Main Street as the base of their Anglican Resurrection.

"They have group meetings," said Town Hall Thursday. "I know they have to have insurance, because we started requiring that of all renters, but beyond that, there isn’t much I can tell you."

Over the summer, when the Anglican sandwich board first went up in front of the historic building next door to the Brewster fire department, it blended in with the other signs, for directions, for the arts and crafts shows, for the water department and the COA and the Flex Bus. Few noticed. No one called to complain or inquire.

By the time that I called [on behalf of capecodtoday.com, but don’t blame them] to ask what the heck was going on, it had been several weeks already and the Sunday "group meetings" were by now a regular thing.

Selectman Dyanne Cooney explained that the board didn’t want to discriminate by disallowing the "group meetings" just because it was a group with known religious associations.

According to Wikipedia: "The ACN is a theologically conservative network of dioceses and parishes working toward Anglican realignment with the key issue of adhering to traditional, orthodox Christian doctrine on subjects such as the infallibility of Scripture and sexual morality (especially regarding the ordination of non-celibate homosexuals and the blessing of same sex unions), particularly in the US."

In other words, the church benefitting from the town’s open-mindedness is itself not as open-minded as the church from which it has separated, thus becoming homeless.

Lucky for it, however, that in Brewster the church has found an agreeable partner, no matter the great traditions of the UU down the street, no matter the population that skews tolerant, no matter that it is operating in what has to be considered by any yardstick of reasonable objectivity, one of the gayest places on earth.

"We don’t control the space," said Town Hall Thursday. "The COA controls the space, and frankly, you’re the first person who has made an issue out of it."

Well, as long as they are just group meetings that happen to take place on Sunday mornings, and not actual church services, because of course that would have to happen in a church, and not the old Town Hall....

....and as long as everyone who set sail for the New World, stuck it out, rallied, revolted and went to war to keep the Church of England the hell out of their lives is actually by now dead and gone, I guess I can go along with it...it can’t hurt come judgement day, right...

...my tax dollars at work...

...can I get an Amen?

3 - The Neighbor

I got a new neighbor recently, and couldn’t wait to tell the world because of who he is. Hint: When he writes novels loosely based on powerful characters, he goes by the name Anonymous.

That’s right. Joe Klein is living around the corner, and it’s kind of a kick. He had a quiet debut at the library, but I didn’t go. I found out he was the one spending all that money on a renovation from a friend. Then drove by his house to make sure. He wasn’t home.

He was, however, in the New York Times two Sundays ago.

He had this to say about Hunter S. Thompson. "Hunter Thompson was always much more, and sometimes a bit less, than the sum of his ribald public persona."

What a nice turn of phrase, I thought for a second and then decided maybe I was being too nice because I loved Hunter...always much more, and sometimes a bit less....

Huh. Always much more, sometimes less.

Always more. Sometimes less.

Then I decided that it must be a literary allusion of some sort, feeeyouuuuuu, over my head.

Joe Klein’s book on Woody Guthrie is as good as it gets, I have been assured, by no less an authority than the guy who mans the books at the Swap Shop...

And so, like a good neighbor, I will check it out....always as I am interested in furthering my learning, sometimes...and as long as Mr. Anonymous knows that this literary allusion business ain’t gonna get him very far around here...if indeed he ever does come out of his Anonymity.

So far, the mail box just has the address.

Anything changes, or he has a yard sale, you will read it here first.

4 - The Homeless Bank Robbing Scratch Ticket Millionaire Probation Violator

Best line so far in the massive press coverage of Timothy Elliott, the 55-year-old homeless guy who robbed some banks, got out surprisingly quickly, then won a million bucks on a scratch ticket in Hyannis, before the long arm of the law decided he should appear in court on December 7 to address his probation violation on the gambling score, i.e., the lottery ticket, which was never a problem as long as Elliott was losing:

"A telephone number for Elliott could not immediately be located."