random thoughts – Day 1,297 – (Thursday) – Jack at Night

Behind
 the watermelon.

In On the Road, Jack Kerouac said, “Everybody goes home in October.” On the first weekend of October the Lowell Celebrates Kerouac organization hosts a festival in Jack's hometown with poetry, music, and other events. Tonight there was a “Jack at Night Walking Tour.”

The walk started and ended at The Worthen House Café, which, according to its website, was “established in 1898 and serving as a tavern ever since,” with notable patrons including Edgar Allan Poe and Jack Kerouac. Notable characters on our walk included a man from Belgium and one from Wales, both in town for the Kerouac festivities, and a watermelon quarter (a whole one was not available). 

About a dozen of us gathered for the walk, which went up Merrimack Street to the University Bridge, then over to The Grotto. Initially, the watermelon was held aloft like a tour guide's flag. 

We paused across the street from the library where Jack Kerouac hung out when he skipped school, outside the building that was one of his favorite movie theaters, and across from the church that was the site of his funeral mass.

At the site of the former
Watermelon Man Bridge.

We paused at the river where the old Moody Street Bridge once stood, known as the “Watermelon Man Bridge,” and site of a scene in the novel Doctor Sax where a man carrying a watermelon fell and died on the bridge. The bridge was torn down when the University Bridge was built, and there were some very strong opinions expressed about that as we stood there. 

In honor of “the Watermelon Man,” now believed to be William F. Mulgrave, documented in the Lowell Sun as falling and dying on the bridge in July 1932, the walking tour had the watermelon. It was lobbed into the river from the center of the University Bridge, in honor of the Watermelon Man and Jack Kerouac and Doctor Sax.

The Stations of the Cross, The Grotto.

From the bridge, we headed to the Grotto, with the Stations of the Cross and a giant crucifix next to the Merrimack River and behind the former Franco-American School. The Grotto also figures into Doctor Sax, and is where the characters were returning home from when they came upon the Watermelon Man. 

It was a spontaneous event for me, having read about it just today, and I've wanted to go to The Grotto for a long time. It took only about a second of mental debate to choose a real life walk on a beautiful evening over the treadmill at the gym. One of the women from Book club was there, and it was great to see a familiar face. It’s the second time I’ve bumped into her in a week outside book club. I met another Tammy, which was fun.

This spontaneous going out thing can be fun once in a while. And there are other Kerouac related events all weekend. I’m just bummed I missed the memoir writing workshop on Monday night which I could have attended had I known about it before today. Danggit.