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Photo Vincent Guadazno
Tony Leonard, Marie Taves, Peter Taves and Susan Leonard (left to right) carry the banner for the F/V Jimmy Boy in the Blessing of the Fleet procession Sunday. |
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Boat banner revival stirs memories
Sally Rose
BANNER STAFF
Last year as she was watching the Blessing of the Fleet procession on the pier and only two banners were being carried to represent the former fishing fleet, Susan Leonard felt an ache in her heart — “saudade,” she described it in Portuguese, a cross between sorrow and a longing for something that’s missing, she explained.
“I saw Mike Coelho carrying the banner for the [F/V] Michael & Amy with his son and grandson,” said Leonard. “He was there basically by himself. … I was so sad. It was so minimal in relation to the fleet’s history. How could that be the last vestige of what it was?”
In the past, from the 1940s through the ’70s, fishing families proudly carried their banners in the Blessing processions.
“Saudade” (pronounced sow-dahd) is a Portuguese word that is considered by many to be untranslatable. It is described on one website as “A yearning so intense for those who are missing, or for vanished times or places, that their absence is the most profound presence in one's life. A state of being, rather than merely a sentiment.”
For Leonard, a local chiropractor whose father and grandfather fished the one-time prolific waters around the end of the Cape, it was perhaps more of a sentiment, but one she decided to do something about.
“I took it upon myself to try to revive interest,” she said, to have it be something long-timers could connect with, and a way for other, later wash-ashores to learn more about the town’s fishing history.
Leonard put a call out to locals to dig out their fathers’ and grandfathers’ old fishing banners and participate in the Blessing procession. “The people who actually knew where their banners were were very enthusiastic,” she said.
Leonard herself couldn’t find the banner for her late grandfather Capt. Fred Salvador’s boats, the Michael Ann (now the Chico Jess) and the C.R. & M, so she asked Towanda de Nagy to make one for both. Leonard’s young cousins, Kelsey Trovato and Emma Silva (Salvador’s great grandchildren), carried it in this year’s procession.
“As a kid I couldn’t wait till I was old enough to march in the procession,” said Leonard.
This year she and her brother, Tony, carried the banner for the Jimmy Boy, which was the boat on which her late father, Anthony Leonard crewed for nearly 30 years. The captain of that boat, Joe Roderick, 82, couldn’t participate this year because he’d just had cataract surgery.
“It was very emotional [carrying the Jimmy Boy banner],” said Leonard, especially because the Monday after the Blessing was her father’s birthday.
Apparently, it was emotional for others as well. As the procession cornered onto Standish, Leonard said she saw an older woman who went to school with her father put her hand to her chest as the banners went by and she heard from her a sharp intake of breath. And then she heard another say “Oh my god, this is the past.”
“The response from people who grew up here was exactly what I’d hoped for. You could see, it really struck them, it really hit home,” said Leonard. “It is a terrible loss [of lifestyle]. … [The fishing industry] was what drove this town. … We don’t really have to let it disappear.”
Former fisherman Michael Coelho, who now runs a Beach Point motel and cottage colony, agreed.
“It was really nice to see the old banners,” he said, adding that several of the old boat banners were given to the Heritage Museum. “These boats have a lot of family tradition behind them, it really brings back the guys. … These boats all had big crews, there were waiting lists of guys trying to get on these boats.”
Coelho and his two children carried the banner for his boat, the Michael & Amy, named for them. “I was once told that you never name boats after your wife, only your children, because the name of your wife might change,” he said, laughing.
A total of six banners were carried in this year’s procession. And Leonard already is seeking more people to participate in next year’s Blessing procession, hoping people will search their attics and basements, where those old banners might be packed away. Something also is in the works so that current fishermen can get banners for their boats, she said.
“[Reviving this tradition] is a way to honor all those guys, [and it’s] in recognition of where we all come from,” said Leonard. “There are all kinds of reasons that the fleet is so much smaller than it was, but it is really a success story too. The success part of that story is that the boats were not necessarily handed down. Those children had the benefit of going to college and having a different, [less physically arduous] career.”
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Jul 1st, 2004