Time, It Marches On

The picture seemed innocuous enough. A family posted a photo on Facebook offering an entire cottage worth of furniture and household goods for free. "Cleaning out Cottage" read the handmade sign.

I almost skipped over it, but the address caught my eye. 8 Carver Road, Brewster, MA is a touchstone for me. It's the place where I took my first steps as an infant, where my wife and I honeymooned, where my first child took her first steps. Besides my current home, it's the most important piece of real estate in my life story.

Curious to know about the giveaway even as a part of me already knew and didn't want to acknowledge the facts, I texted my Mom to ask if she was aware. She was, and in fact had just been there in the days prior. "They're tearing down the cottage in Sept to build a home". And I sat there wistfully for a minute.

I suppose a bit of backstory is necessary at this point.

The little cottage at 8 Carver Road (943 square feet - I mean it when I say little) was built as a fishing shack in 1907. It was improved a bit by the time my great-grandfather Lawrence Moore purchased it in 1938 (little Easter egg there for people who've long wondered about the derivation of my middle name). Over time, the small cottages in the neighborhood were joined by larger beach homes, and a community called Brewster Park Club was established.

From 1938 to 2012, my mother's family spent most of their summers in that quiet beach community. The cottage sat on a double lot, so there was plenty of room to run around for kids. The front porch overlooked the ocean, and the smells from the fabled Brewster Flats mixed with honeysuckle to create a smell that sticks with me today. It was a two-minute walk to the community beach, and a one-minute walk to tennis courts and a playground.

The Brewster Store was a short drive from the park. As a kid, that meant penny candy. As an adult, good coffee, pastries, and a copy of The Boston Globe.

The cottage, which was called The Mooring in a nod to the family name, had three bedrooms, each equipped with a pair of twin beds. It had one bathroom and a glorious outdoor shower, a narrow but functional kitchen, a washing machine (but no dryer - that's what a clothesline is for), and a sitting room where we watched a lot of Red Sox games.

There were summers in my youth where I spent as much as a month at a time in Brewster. The cottage is my single most persistent memory of growing up. Later, my wife fell in love with it, too, and we spent weeks there together before and after having kids. Fried clams at JT's, chowder at Cobies, ice cream at Kate's, Brewster Whitecaps games at the local elementary school, long walks on the flats, laughter on the floats in the swimming area, leisurely paddles on a kayak along the shore, scraping our feet on the barnacles on the jetty, chasing hermit crabs in shallow water, marveling at dragonflies, taking down the flag and folding it every night like my grandfather taught me, shopping days in Chatham, and so many more staples of my past.

The sunsets at BPC, man. Spectacular.

Several Gheorghies have spent time in The Mooring's modest confines. I've got a great picture somewhere of Whit's first-born and my own recoiling with screaming laughter as he lifted a steamed lobster from a pot in the kitchen. They must've been around four years old. Dooger and his family came out to see us at least once, and Dave dropped by, as well.

Nine years ago, my grandmother told us that she was planning to sell the place, so we should make a point to get there one last time. My cousin and his then-fiancee joined us, and we cooked up a plan. We approached Nana and told her we'd like to buy it. 

"You can't afford it," she told us. We protested, offering to prove to her that we could. But like the good, stoic New Englander she was, she wouldn't budge. I think she was worried about creating divisions in the family, as her sister's kids weren't in on the plan, and even though my cousin and I would've kept the house open to the whole family, Nana held firm. She and my grandfather are both buried in the cemetery that runs alongside the front of the park, a stone's throw from the place they loved so much.

The Mooring sold for $725,000 in 2012. Zillow says it's worth $1.3m now.

I met the family that purchased it last summer. They seemed lovely. They have three boys in their teens, and they adore the place. But as it turns out, they're planning for a future where their boys will have kids of their own, and 943 square feet ain't much room for multiple generations.

And so, sometime this autumn, 75 years of my family's history will be bulldozed, and another family's memories will add a new chapter. I'm sure the new house will be gorgeous, just like the one next to it, which underwent a similar transformation about a decade ago. It is the very definition of bittersweet.

Time does march on. But gosh did it slow down when I was at that wonderful little cottage. I'll miss it more than I can tell you.