The house my family called home in Gloucester, a 14 room house built during the great depression, was more like a fortress than a house. It was a massive three story structure, 150 feet across the front and 60 feet deep on 3.5 acres on the Atlantic Ocean. It was built of granite blocks that were about 3 foot cubes. The list of amenities included a formal ballroom, potting room, and an artist's studio that was two stories high with a glass ceiling. It was a great place for get-together's for the 14 to 20 young people that gathered two times a month for the four months of the summer.
There were the teen-agers and early 20 year olds who came from all social strata in the area from the son of a man who raised thoroughbred race horses to a fellow who was a lumper, shoveling the fish in the holds of the fishing boats. Being a lumper is a well-paid, but thankless, smelly, and dangerous job.
On the Saturday before the "fest," the guys and girls would go to Ipswich at low tide and dig at least two bushels of clams. We brought the clams back to the "Stonehenge" on Atlantic Road, and put them into the large wash tubs filled with ocean water and baking soda. We left the tubs in the basement to let the clams clean themselves over night.
The following day, at least of eight us would would put on wet suits (the water is frigid), get enough ocean water to fill several large buckets, and cut a couple of pieces of large kelp to add to the pot.
We'd put the pot holding about 50 gallons of water on the stove, throw in a hand full of bay leaves and a couple of tins of paprika. We'd turn on the four burners under the pot, then head across Atlantic Road to free dive for lobster. We had constructed a large fishing net in a truck inner tube which we anchored where we were diving. We dove in pairs. one chasing the other catching, until we had at least three dozen lobsters, mostly in the 2 to 3 pound size.
With three to four pounds of melted butter we we would sit around drinking beer for the rest of the afternoon into evening.
We ate varieties of clams, from raw to cooked on a small charcoal fire in the fireplace in the artist's studio. We ate clams and lobster until we almost burst. Does it get better than this, really? BTW none of us were over 21, the legal drinking age in MA. None of us got really drunk and rowdy. We just enjoyed the good eats and the company of the others.
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