Allen VanNoppen
It was September 1986, or thereabouts, and I was living in Boston, working in the furniture business. Hurricane Gloria was crawling north up the east coast, having crossed the Outer Banks of North Carolina, Maryland’s Eastern Shore, New Jersey, and Long Island.
Gloria was heading for Boston. It was a weakening Category Four hurricane.
I was single (with proposals dutifully issued … and pending! … from the future The Beloved), living in a Yuppified community called the Constitution Quarters on the grounds of the Charlestown Navy Yard, smack on Boston Harbor. The USS Constitution was docked there.
Established in 1800, this majestic campus of huge historic brick buildings served the United States as a working war-time naval shipyard until 1974 when the spaces were divided into a National Park and a residential complex.
You could walk to the Union Oyster House in downtown Boston. Most of the residents were Downtown Boston Yuppified Yuppies, mostly single, in their late 20s and 30s, all ready to break out for an end-of-the-day romp in their own 1980s-style Yuppified sundown manner.
(My apartment, was a tiny, tiny thing that had one window. It looked out across Constitution Quarters’ swimming pool to the Harbor. I didn’t spend much time looking out the window. If memory serves, I didn’t spend much time even in the apartment.)
Before we get to Hurricane Gloria, let’s digress and describe the typical 1986 Boston quintessential Yuppified Yuppie: Young; ambitious; working in finance, law or consulting; sporting tailored suits with Filofax in hand; rushing between VERY IMPORTANT meetings and flashing their AmEx at trendy spots; always in pursuit of the Next Big Thing.
Breakfast would be a bran muffin from Au Bon Pain. Lunch might be a power salad from Legal Seafood. This crowd loves their seafood, especially oysters, shrimp cocktails and clams casinos. But when the sun goes down and the Ray Bans get pocketed, the Good Times roll with gusto.
I was a southern boy who wore off-the-rack Seersucker suits (way out of place in Boston) and worked in furniture sales (certainly not law). I didn’t own Ray Bans, either. But I had gusto in spades. So I fit in. Especially after sundown.
Back to Gloria. Beware and take cover, weather people warned. Especially along Boston Harbor and a fashionable area known as Back Bay.
For the Next Big Thing-seeking, Gusto-pursuing, young-and-single and therefore fearless-and-foolish Yuppified Yuppies at Constitution Quarters, with its docks extending into the Harbor, it was showtime.
Word went out. Hurricane Party on Pier 14. Constitution Quarters had its own Beer, Wine and Spirits store (of course it did!). Its inventory vanished in a blink.
Pier 14 extended about, and this is a guess, 100 yards into the Harbor. It offered unobstructed views of the Boston skyline, the USS Constitution, and Logan airport. Boat tie-up cleats lined the edges of the sturdy pier.
And soon, there were dozens of Yuppified Yuppies garbed in L.L. Bean rain gear crowding the end of the pier. With loaded coolers. And rope.
Rope to tie themselves to the pier. The Gusto Factor.
Gloria made landfall in Connecticut. In coastal New Bedford, MA, the storm surge was six feet. Out on the very windy, wild and wet Pier 14, it was Storm Central. Several robust participants tied portable chairs to the pier, and tied themselves into the chairs. Coolers were tied down, too.
You don’t want to be in a hurricane tied to a pier in Boston Harbor without a sidebar cooler loaded with refreshments of the especially refreshing kind.
If the Yuppified Yuppies were looking for The Next Big Thing, they were about to see it.
Because out of the residential complex walks this dude, in a bright yellow rain suit and wearing a hockey helmet (the Bruins, no doubt). He’s lugging a five foot-long (my guess) canvas package behind him. Mr. Hockey Helmet stops just before the pier, drops his package, kneels, opens it and starts assembling something.
His yellow suit flapping like crazy, Hockey Helmet spread things flat on the ground, pinned them down with his knees. We couldn’t see too clearly but it looked like he was putting something together. There were flashes of bright colors and what looked like shiny tubes.
He got our attention. Through the whipping wind and sideways rain, we watched him intently, enjoyed our refreshments, shot the breeze (so to speak) and wondered, What the Hell….
The gizmo had some aspects poking up a foot or so. Hockey Helmet crawled atop of it, fiddling.
Incidentally, weather records show Gloria’s winds in Boston were 81 MPH, but they were measured hundreds of feet above sea level.
Hockey Helmet slithers towards the back of the thing and appears to us thoroughly refreshed and tied-down observers to CRAWL UNDERNEATH.
It’s a HANG GLIDER! In a hurricane! That is Yuppified Gusto if there ever was any. We start cheering (not that he can hear us). He raises the craft keeping the nose into the wind and planted on the ground. It stays put.
Our gusto explodes into a riot of (thoroughly) refreshed whoops and crazed gestures of encouragement. We are on our feet (except for the Yuppified tied into chairs).
We see the nose of the craft rise just a smidge and in a snap the contraption bursts airborne, sailing backwards about eight feet off the ground, Hockey Helmet twisting like a YoYo. He crashes about 50 yards back.
Hockey Helmet emerged unhurt from twisted wreckage and stood and took a bow. We applauded. He promptly joined the Yuppified and we noticed he was not lacking in his own refreshing refreshment intake.
Hurricane Gloria’s glided into Canada and then out to sea. Fortunately, none of us were with her.
Allen VanNoppen may be reached at 828-445-8595 or allen@thepaper.media.
