I did go for a ride today with the intention of supporting the coffeneuring challenge riders still at it.  Today’s ride took me to Mattapoisett, on the southern coast of Massachusetts. When I got to the end of Brandt Island road, I began thinking about what fun we had here one day a long time ago. The story is later on in this post.

I made my way back to Fairhaven to do my daily shopping for tonight’s meal.  Did I ever mention that I’m the cook.  Well I am, and always buy food for cooking the same day.  Especially the vegetables and breads. Speaking of cooking.  My favorite food show is on PBS and it’s called, “I’ll have what Phil is having.”  Watch one episode OnDemand and I’ll bet you too will put it one your favorites list.

During the ride I went off road with my pseudo off road bike.  I have a 700×25 tire on the front and a 700×33 on the rear.  You see, the bike is in transition to winter.  I got home about the same time as wifey who you may know from yesterday’s post, is an extreme animal lover. She had forgotten to stop by and feed the feral cats and asked me to go back and do that.  I was tired and almost drove the three mile round trip.  I did come to my senses however, and rode there.  They were waiting patiently and every now and then one would take a peek.

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Brandt Island. The Story

Way way way back, around 1970  I learned about Brandt Island.  It was abandoned, had a mansion that had been destroyed in the hurricane of 1938.  The story was that none of the family members survived, nor were any of their bodies found.  A few of us had visited this place once before after hearing “the stories”.   One summer night, under the influence of some decent blunts, I’m sure, we decided to return to show one of our gang the place.  On the way, this very dark, cloudy, windy night, I told the stories to the kid who had a vivid imagination and was making his first visit to Brandt Island.

Years ago a teen couple walked out to the island and disappeared.  During the search of the island, the authorities sent a diver to look around.  He never surfaced.  More divers were sent into the bay and found nothing.

Police were stationed on the island overnight to guard the place.  When the detectives returned the next morning. One officer was missing and the second was found sitting up against a tree.  His hair had turned white as snow and he had gone completely insane doing nothing but stare into space wide eyed and mouth agape.

Over the years, it was said that people walking their dogs tried to lead them onto the island.  The dog’s would cower, cry, yelp and refuse to step off the causeway onto the island.

Back then the causeway had been destroyed by at least two hurricanes and was never rebuilt.  In order to get to the island, we had to make our way across the causeway over large rocks, and cement slabs that were once the road and now sat askew and at difficult climbing angles.

After hearing the stories on the drive to Brandt Island, the new kid did not want to leave the car and walk across the causeway.  The four of us said, “that’s fine. Stay here by yourself”.  We walked away and he figured that was worse so he began to make his way to the island well behind us. What he didn’t know that there were actually five of us making the trip with him.  The four in the cab of the car, and one in the trunk, dressed all in black and wearing a long trench coat.

The kid thought he saw someone on the causeway behind us and began to get excited. He told us we were being followed and we laughed it off and assured him there was nothing to worry about.  On the island, he saw the thing again and his excitement began turning to fear.  He got loud and kept telling us we were being followed.   That’s when we gathered in a circle and began a seance.  We started chanting in ancient tongue and he began to panic.  We tried to coerce him into joining the seance and he started yelling, “what’s wrong with you guys? Your all possessed”. We began chanting louder and calling the new kids name.  Miiiiiike,  Miiiiike.   Our monster had made his way to the high ground about 30 feet away from and above us.  He stood tall, opening his trench coat wide and began moaning.

The new kid was now in full panic and began running back to the car.  The monster started to run after him while we chanted louder and louder, Miiiiike, Miiiiike.   As he was running Mike tripped and fell forward, as he landed on his stomach, his feet were still running in the air above him.  He was wearing boat shoes with white bottoms.  When the monster saw this, he thought is was so funny and began laughing.  When Mike heard the laugh he recognized it immediately.  He jumped up, ran to the monster Ronnie, gave him a huge hug and said.  “F*** ,  Dam, am I glad to see you.”  The rest of us joined them and we all had a story to tell almost 50 years later.