A wet day for Hyannisports

Post by Grubb.

One of the thought adventures I have when I travel is to compare the landscape of my imagination with the actual terrain I encounter. It usually turns out that reality downsizes the take-away from I’ve read or seen in photographs.

Years ago, our visit to the Texas Book Depository in Dallas gave me an on-site perspective of JFK’s assassination, foreshortening my historical memory. Distances were shorter; it was compelling evidence of Oswald acting alone. Yesterday when we went by the house that Papa Joe Kennedy built in Hyannisport, I was prepared to get a glimpse of palatial splendor that my mid-school memory provided. But on closer examination, the house, like JFK, was not larger than life. The Kennedy compound seemed modest by millionaire standards. Granted it was beachfront property, but it wasn’t baronial, or even Beverly Hills. Cape Cod clapboard tucked behind a long fence, the unobtrusive house blended into the hood. Sure the hood was upscale, but no more so than Tesuque, or Menlo Park. My man, Jack, just another kid down the block…with his own sail boat and tennis court and backyard pool, but, hey, he’ll be playing nine at the golf club and maybe we can challenge him to a skins game…only today under the ceaseless rain it looks like that fantasy is a wash.

Yep, a constant downpour that the tail end of the hurricane dragged in. Even then, Hyannisport looked like a cool place to hang out. Biking, sailing, swimming, a very sporty life. Arbored country lanes, trimmed hedges, and fat-flowered hydrangeas nodding in the sea breeze, it’s a summer getaway town that is quite peaceful in the offseason.