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Articles about Sandwich, MA
Sandwich Hollows: a course with character
Turning off the service road that leads to Sandwich Hollows Golf Club, you understand why the Town of Sandwich built a municiple golf course here, saving a prestige property from proposed development.
Recently we asked Jesse Schechtman, the Sandwich Hollows Pro, what makes the course unique. He replied that it has characer, noting that the course is never boring. The golfer starts out with an opening 494-yard par-five hole that is very reachable in two. The stone markers show the design of the holes, from tee to green. White and red markers are on both sides of every fairway, making for good speed of play.
Most of the greens are quite small, the largest being on the par-threes. There are also elevataed greens. Bunker signs are mostly to the the left and right in front of the greens, with very narrow openings to the flag demanding accutare approach shots. Some of the bunkers have a fringe of Cape Cod Beach grass, adding a nice touch of ambience. There are very few fairway bunkers, and a few holes have no sand hazards. The 18th had a very unusual obsssacle : a large tree smack in the middle of the golfer's approach shot to the green. The green was once on top of the hill, with the tree 250 yards away from the flag. Due to poor growth on the steep back, the green was changed but the tree remained, providing frustration similar to what predsident Eisenhower faced when he tried to hage a tree that he hit too often removed from a course!
On the eight hole, an elegant mausoleum with a bell tower catches the eye. The building and land beneath it are still owned by the first owners of Sandwich Hollows. Samuel and Ethel Volpe are buried beneath the altar.
The par-four ninth hole starts out with a tee shot to a narrow fairway, with a drop off to the left. Then, the fairway opens with an approach shot to a small elevated green without any bunkkers. This hole offerss a chance to score well befofe the back nine. As you walk or drive up the hill, the snack baar is located nearby.
Arriving at the back nine, you can see the hills and hollows of Sandwich. The 14th par-five has a great elevated tee and a downhill then uphill fairway to a diamond-shaped green, surrounded by large front bunkers. Number 17 is one of several dogleg holes on the course, with a setttp uphill climb leading to the small green. Climb a litle more to the 18th, and then it's downhill all the way. Besides the famous tree we spoke of earlier, there is hidden water to the right, about 100 yards from the green.
Sandwich Hollows has an excellent driving-range facility. Jane Frost, rated one of the top 100 teachers by Golf Magazine, conducts a school at Sandwich Hollows. After a round with such character, a visit to the course's restaurant/bar to take in the great views of Cape Cod Bay is a must.
Story by Jan and Tom Martin from Golf Cape Cod.com
Writer Kathryn Kleekamp
Elegant and slim in black pants and a sleveless white lace blouse, Kathryn Kleekamp gazes out the keeping room window of her home in Sandwich Village. A commercially successful oils artist, she considers her new life as a writer. With the recent release of her first book, Cape Cod and the Islands: Where Beauty and History Meet, Kleekamp is moving cautiously into uncharted professional territory marked by book signings, reviews, interviews, and speaking engagements.
"I remember that expectation always runs ahead of performance," she says, smiling as she turns to the interviewer.
Others are far less reserved in their reception of the handsome sea-blue, hardcover book. It offers a multi-textured perspective of Cape Cod's past and present through beautiful original paintings, archival photographs, a rich historical tesxt, and recipes for such culinary delights as cranberry tart and beach plum brandy. Online news editor Walter Brooks enthusiastically describes Kleekamp's 176-page book as "the ultimate photo-journalism book about Cape Cod."
Tomatoes to remember
I have had my heart broken several times. There was Teddy Rosevelt's great-grandson, whom I met at summer canp. We made out in the barracks library, my very first kiss, filled wtih static and thunder and awkward, fumbling hands. Come fall, I sent letter after letter, but he never wrote a word.
Then there was the boy with the intoxicating Nautica cologne from the junior high soccer team, and then Bryan and Nick and Pete all at once in the ninth grade. And finally, my high school boyfriend of three years, who told me he wanted to marry me and promply left for college in Seattle with another girl. Young love can be a tortuous time.
But then last summer, there was my tomato plants.
On a bright, sunny day in the middle of August, the afternoon of the 16th to be exact - a torrent of ice crashed down on me from the sky. With it went my tomato plants, all flattend fruit and bleeding seeds, and my heart broke all over again.
I had nursed those plants since March. I had dropped their seeds-heirloom Amish pastes and tiny Sungold cherries-into the planting tray, tucked them safely in with soil, and made sure they never wanted for water or light. I'd tansplanted them come May, hemmed them in with cages, and even tied up their branches when laden with fruit. The tomatoes were days from ripe- hours even - still in transition from green to ruby, firm to juicy, tender to sweet, when the hail arrived.
As with every failed romance, there was only so much to be done. I picked myself up and began to collect the pieces. I gathered the hard, green fruits, brushed the ice from their skins, and turned the rest over for compost. I hauled my basketful of survivors to the kitchen sink and dailed first my mother, then my grandmother for advice. What to do with a bushel of green tomatoes on an icy August day was beyond me.
My grandmother paused on the phone, then picked up her recipe book and reached back another generation, so far down the family tree things were still measured in bushels and pecks. There, in my great-grandmother's scrawl she found what we both were looking for. "Your great-grandmother, Maw-Maw, made pickled green tomatoes that are out of this world, she said. "Go copy the recipe down, and be sure to serve them with cold roast beef."
There was something sort of lovely about the process that ensued. My grandmother read to me from her mother's script, and I copied the recipe down in my own. I hung up and turned to sweat over the stove, translating peck to pounds and rooting trough the cupboards for white mustard seed and allspice.
Whle I waited for the tomatoes to cook, I sat outside on the porch, watching the sun re-emerge and the hail slowly melt against my toes. I called my mother again, and then my sister. We talked about the weather and my leveled garden and what cut to use for roast beef.
I have never met my great-grandmother, but I could just about feel her out on her porch that day, chatting with my grandmother about the very same things. I wondered what she looked like, how she sounded, and why she'd started making green-tomato pickles in the first place. I decided that perhaps, just maybe, a summer storm might have inspired her, too.
After all, sometimes pickles and cold cuts are the best way to make do. You can't control the way life changes, not even when it's breaking your heart.
Story by Elspeth Pierson
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