Westboro Baptists, Welcome to Marblehead

For reasons best known to themselves, members of the infamous Westboro Baptist Church of Kansas chose to visit Marblehead to pollute the funeral of Chris Piper, the first Marbleheader to die of hostile action since Vietnam. I suppose they thought of my town as an easy mark, a bastion of East Coast pinko liberalism. At any rate, their contingent was rather understaffed, four or five by the best accounts, and not exactly equal to the far-from-friendly (and largely Republican) crowd. The locals surrounded them so effectively that the little TV coverage had to show file footage of other Westboro Baptist festivities.

I was hoping for a squaling*, but it seems that custom has died out. It was apparently replaced with excellence, grace, and this purely coincidental ability of town residents to place themselves between the Kansas vermin and the TV cameras. The other coincidence is that every time the Kansas scum reared back for a chorus of "Faggot Soldiers" or whatever, the Marblehead Police Bagpipe Band happened to pound out something appropriately militant. When you consider that this band is audible from a mile off, you get an idea of the competition.

I've put in my .02 elsewhere on this blog about the stupidity of visiting antiwar sentiments, whatever their motivation, on those who fight the war. I wonder how the administration enjoys having this quinessential part of the Republican "base" breaking ranks with the neo-Conservatives. After all, if God wants to punish the U.S., it follows that he's punishing those who resist the punishment of God, like Bush, Rummy, et. al. Poor Rove: how many ambitious grey eminences have thought they could control fanaticism? As I recall, most of them ended up being swallowed whole by the mobs they created.

I also wanted to see the Kansans try conclusions with the Marblehead that is more than the stereotype.

The town has had a reputation as a posh retreat on a scale with Newport and the Hamptons. It is more an upper middle-class suburb, with the usual increasing number of pretentious McMansions. Many of the newer residents stay as close to the town line as they can, seldom attend town meeting, rarely go downtown ("Old Town" to you furriners), and think the harbour would be more attractive without boats in it. Those who own what the older locals call "boats," call them "yachts."

This nouveau-riche Riviera was built on sterner foundations that are not quite dead. It has not one, but three, unofficial levels of citizenship. The lowest are the "residents," people who weren't born in Marblehead (or these days, of Marblehead parents) and who live there just for the tony address. Next are the "natives," who can claim at least three generations of local ancestry and have assimilated the local values. (Northern New Englanders like myself, and Maritime Canadians, occupy a precarious mezzanine off to one side of the native category: we're not as bad as those New York people as long as we behave ourselves and don't put on airs.)

Then there are the Old Marbleheaders. They don't live on the Neck. Mostly, their houses and occupations are modest. They can afford to live in the town because their real estate passes through the family for ten or twelve generations, rarely coming on the market. Old Marblehead families are those that have been in town since before the Revolution (most since the 17th century), defending the nation before there was a nation. Although they don't make a big deal about it, they take their patriotism straight up, and only fools disregard that.

It was their ancestors who, as privateers, supplied Washington's army in the siege of Boston. They rescued the Continental Army at Long Island, ferried it across the Delaware at Trenton, and many served the length of that war on land or sea. In the next century, over 100 died in the Civil War. Today, they are as a varied a group as any, but you don't want to mess with them. When their forebears put "Dont Tread on Me" on their banners, they meant it. The slogan is still there.

Sgt. Chris Piper was an Old Marbleheader. One of his ancestors served even before 1775, in the French and Indian War, and someone of his line has been in the country's uniform in every war since.

The VFW that marched to his grave and stood at his graveside is composed largely of Old Marbleheaders and native townies, and includes veterans from WWII down to the present fighting. The local police and firefighters who marched in Piper's funeral procession (and "escorted" our Kansas vistors) are mostly native-born. All but the newest and shallowest residents come to respect the thorny pride and insularity that is typical of Old Marbleheaders, even when it is a pain in the ass. Today that pride, all four centuries of it, was on display at its best. It paid no more heed to the flies that blew in from Kansas that it did to the local variety at the dumpster outside Barnegat Seafoods.

Marblehead is the only town I know of to have a town anthem. The lyrics (below) make hokey reading, but Old Marbleheaders take every word very seriously. Their loyalty to family and town transcends most other considerations. That alone may have allowed the Kansas crud to leave town in one piece.

I'm sorry we had to skip the squaling, though. It would have been a more fitten send-off for an Old Marbleheader than a bagpipe band.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
*Squale, v. (dial., Marblehead, Mass.) To greet unescorted strangers with a shower of rocks, fish heads, and horse dung; often accompanied by the doggerel verse, "Rock 'em/ Sock 'em/ Squale 'em 'round the cunnah!"
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Marblehead Forever

(To "The Lily of the Valley", English Melody)
Rev. Marcia M. Selman

1st Verse
The men of old were heroes, who fought by land and sea,
To preserve their homes from tyranny and shame.
And, enrolled among the bravest, writ high in history,
Stands old Marblehead's beloved and honored name.

CHORUS

Then Marblehead forever! God bless the good old town!
May she never shame her noble ancestry!
She was first in Revolution, was first in '61,
And from all dishonor we will keep her free!

CHORUS

2nd Verse
The men of old were heroes, but they are in their graves,
And 'tis ours, their sons, the battle now to fight!
When our homes and altars tremble before the greed of knaves
Who assail the cause of country, home and right.

CHORUS

3rd Verse
Then rouse we at the summons that rings in Freedom's call!
'Tis our battle, sons of men whose blood was shed
'Neath her banner in the old time! Let life or death befall,
We'll defend the flag in good old Marblehead!

CHORUS