Salem Massachusetts

And I'm in Salem, actually a quite lovely town, and it was a beautiful day.

Eating always takes priority for me and I filled the rear tire with air via my portable compressor, the noise of which I'm sure my neighbors at the Clipper Ship Inn found pleasurable at 7 A.M., and tooled down to old town Salem.  I was surprised at how much activity 7 A.M. brings to what I thought would be a sleepy little town. People and traffic scurried hither and yon and the street parking meters, which were everywhere (no designated motorcycle parking I could find), were generally full.

Salem feels bigger than small, though still charming, the old houses well cared for and the people I've met have been chatty, very nice, not witchy, at all. Other than the tacky business names, there were many "witch"-related names such as the Ice Screamery and Witch City Cycles, Salem's vibe entailed what I'd consider normal for an active coastal city with a strong tourism bent. Of course, the town is old New England, which means the streets are small, the cities laid out akin to onions, tiny rings in the center that expand and run into other blooming onions that were growing towns that eventually run into each other and create the occasional five-way intersections with similar or the same street names that don't quite run together properly.

I took the Cross Country to Cycles 128, a family-owned motorcycle dealership that's in Beverly, Massachusetts, about 4 miles away. The service people were exceptional. The nearest Victory dealership belonged in New Hampshire, about 40 miles away, and as I run a specific set of tires for the bike, Bridgestone Exedra G series, the aftermarket touring tire that most Honda Goldwing riders prefer (the bikes share the same tire sizes), I knew taking my bike to the Victory place would entail a two tire replacement, front and back, most likely, as the Exedras are radials and it might be tough to match. So, I took a chance and headed over to Cycles 128, a Honda (as well as Triumph, Kawasaki, etc., but not Victory) dealership in the off chance that they might - just might - have the Exedra G704.

I should've played the lottery today as the dealership did have one, only one, of the tires I needed in stock, a special order that someone hadn't picked up, and though running a full bay in the garage, the one tech guy who knew the Victory platforms had availability and could change it. Two hours and $350 later (thank goodness it's only money) and I trundled down the Essex bridge to an amazing view of the harbor that opened onto the Atlantic, an infinite range of adventure ahead.

Later that day, my phone had died, out of battery. I had been on a call, texting with my family, texting with the next AirBnB hosts, and using GPS extensively. Where was I? I looked around. Beverly, Massachusetts. I knew I was close. I pulled the bike next to an older man sitting on a bench, turned down the music.

"Are you from around here?" I asked.

"Yah," he said.

"Great. My cell phone... ah... it died and I'm trying to get to Bridge St."

"Okay."

I wait a moment. No response. "Can you tell me how to get there?"

"Sure," he said. "You want to avoid the pahk." I assumed he meant "park".

"Okay," I nod.

"So, here's what you do. You go down this street. It's Essex."

"Right," I said.

"You go aways and you come to a sign that says Essex and it will take you to Gloucester. Don't take that one."

"Don't take Essex?"

"Not that one, but this one."

"Uh huh."

"Right before you see the sign, there's a street. It's called Drimbal Ave. Take that one to the right but it's short. And then you take Essex but to the right not the left."

"Okay. To the right, not the left. Got it."

"Then you'll run into Bridge St. It will be right in front of you. That's the Essex Street you want."

Most of the morning had been spent getting the bike fixed and I spent the early afternoon being the consummate Salem tourist heading over to the allegedly haunted colonial mansion House of the Seven Gables made popular by Nathaniel Hawthorne's famous 1668 novel and several movies.

After that I drove to Salem's Witch Museum, gandered about but didn't take the tour, instead walking among the magic shops or shoppes, respectively, filled with brooms, wands, witches' hats, dragons, crystal balls, Harry Potter paraphernalia, books on potions, love spells, bad spells, good spells, wicah, druids, all sorts of magical treasure, none of which I purchased, of course.

I stopped for lunch at a Mexican comida for tacos, surprisingly good and certainly not what I expected in witch-central Salem.

And then I found Carl (or Karl?), the proprietor of New England Magic, a younger guy but certainly a knowledgeable reference about all things magical but most especially the Salem witches and their 1662 story, the fourteen that had been hanged, none burned as most imagine, that most witches were charged with civil not criminal offenses which meant banishment, not outright hanging, but banishment pretty much meant death as one lost all property and found oneself alone in the woods with no means. I had imagined, and secretly hoped, that the witches had actually been early suffragettes, looking to free themselves from the harsh Puritanical ogres bent on moral legislation. These women would be heroines, martyrs even, for a greater purpose.

After talking to Carl for about half-an-hour I conceded that the hangings were less about social mores run amok and more about property rights. A woman in the 1600s couldn't own property but she could inherit it when her husband died. Women outlived men almost 20 years at the time and that made it possible for a woman to have two husbands who died and she would have a lot of property. Apparently, if someone, say a land-owning woman, were convicted of being a witch and was either hanged or banished, the two adjacent property owners, not the woman's family, would inherit and split the land so as is often the case, especially in the land of plenty, follow the money.

Ah well.