These Days

A small sign above the doorway reads, “Welcome to the edge of civilization.”

Cuzzin’s Bait and Tackle stands discordantly on what is now the busy suburban corner of Ocean Avenue and Germantown Pike in Quincy, Massachusetts. Built as the home of Gordon’s SeaFood by Seamus “Bull” Gordon in 1933, it purveyed many a fried clam, filleted mackerel, and swordfish steak before the proprietor closed his doors in 1966. He retained the commercially-zoned piece of property which became, in sequence, a beauty shop, an antique store, a realtor’s office, another beauty shop, and a lawyer’s office. No one, however, could fully eradicate its fishy ancestry, not a quite a stench, but a subtle musk of mudflats and brine. Now, it has accumulated five decades (or should it be “decayeds”) of shabbiness.

In 1982 the squat building became home to Cuzzin’s Bait & Tackle, a business owned and operated by Bull’s son, Lewis, known ubiquitously around Quincy as “Cuzzin.” During the holidays he sells Christmas trees from Vermont. He’ll sharpen knives and scissors anytime. From October to April, this is a place for the neighborhood degenerates to hang out and get discreetly drunk. From April to October, however, this is the starting line for men (and, increasingly, women) who go to the sea in search of sport, food, adventure, and spiritual connection. It exists anonymously in a neighborhood that has forgotten its proximity to the Atlantic.

The cosmetics are non-existent, unless you count peeling paint. Signage (“Blood worms, $.25 each,” “We have sand eels,” “Frozen Pogies”) is hand-scrawled by the proprietor. There is an ample, unpaved parking lot that holds only Cuzzin’s shopworn GMC pick-up. The basic structure is sound and refuses to fall down. These days, none of the customers object to the whiff of fish and the sea.

On a sunny April day a man of middle age stands before Cuzzin’s Bait & Tackle. The forsythia is in bloom and the world is rejoicing at its freedom from winter. White clouds scud overhead joyfully, oblivious to the incessant traffic.

And the feeling is mutual.

The man is paralyzed, as if he has stepped into wet concrete that has now hardened around his ankles. He wears custom-made Italian loafers that he proudly tells people cost him over $400. He does not look a likely candidate for the purchase of blood worms or sand eels.

Arthur Gordon, “Artie,” “Art,” and “A.G.” just doesn’t get it. At 52, of medium height, with well-coifed, but thinning gray hair, he has recently completed his eleventh, and perhaps, final movie. As the writer, director, and executive producer of My Mother, My Lover, My Wife, and, now, My Sales Manager he has laid one of the biggest bombs in Hollywood history. His sin? Political incorrectness in the first degree. He crossed the line and is paying the price. Single-handedly, he galvanized the feminists of America to bring their collective wrath upon his balding pate.

Now he stands, immobilized, before the rundown structure that launched an equally modest family legend. He has come home.

The Gordons came to Boston by way of Nova Scotia in the mid-1800s. By the turn of the century they were well established as accountants and actuaries and dentists in Dorchester and South Boston and started coming to the Quincy shore for aquatic recreation. At first these were manly affairs, the men staying in simple camps that accommodated expeditions to hunt ducks, catch flounder, or dig clams. Bull and his three brothers, including Artie’s father Bruce, weren’t consciously aware of it, but they were continuing a tradition that had been lived by generations of Wompatuck Indians before. As the Gordon boys grew older, they began to bring their girl friends on their salty excursions. Their camps became gentrified, a great place to spend the Roaring 20s. Then, the girl friends became wives, and there were lots of little kids. Then the kids grew up and had kids of their own, including Artie and the little red head who everyone called Cuzzin.

There, two generations in a paragraph. Back up.

The Depression came. All jobs were lost. Just like that. The Depression was the Middle Ages for its generation. But it was also the darkness from which was seen the light at the end of the tunnel. We fought in the Big One, and afterwards everyone came home and was prosperous. The ones who were entrepreneurial became rich. Back up.

Bull started going to the local docks where the Portuguese fishermen of Hough’s Neck worked out of small shacks. He couldn’t afford to buy their fish, but he convinced them if they would consign him their catch, he could sell it in Boston for more than they could make wholesaling it themselves. It worked, and Gordon Sea Foods was born. Before long, the business needed a building to store and refrigerate the fish and shellfish, and Bull found the location at the corner of Ocean and Germantown.

But the best laid plans went awry as the 30s became the 40s, and with the passage of time the shallow waters of Quincy Bay became increasingly polluted. The delicious, sweet clams from the nearby mudflats required several days of purification before they could be consumed. With that much cost added in transportation and processing it became more desirable to buy clams from the open waters of Ipswich to the north. The Portuguese fishermen gave up and disappeared. Now Bull had to drive into Boston to the Fish Pier where the deep water boats docked.

Since he had a building containing fish and shellfish, Bull decided to sell some directly to the public, and since the people were going to eat them eventually, he might as well give them the option of immediate gratification by frying them on the premises.

Listen to the Grease

Listen to the grease, lads. She’ll tell ya everything. She’ll tell
ya when to bring the basket up, when to give it a final shake,
when the onion rings are turnin’ the color of sand, when the
scallops are gettin’ tough, and when it’s time to bang the haddock onto the rack.
She’ll tell ya if the clams have grit, or if the batter’s too cold.
Listen closely and she’ll tell ya if ya should be frying foods for a
living or joinin’ the service. She’ll tell ya if the girl you’ve got
your eye on will end up lookin’ like her mother, or if your old
Dad is right about anything a’tall.
Listen up, lads. The grease holds the secrets, and she’ll give
‘em up if you treat her right.

Seamus “Bull” Gordon, 1961

Bull became pretty damn good at frying. “Listen to the grease” became his stock answer whenever asked how he managed to get such a dry, crisp crust without losing the tang of freshness in the flesh of haddock, cod, flounder, smelt (in the fall), clams, scallops, and shrimp. (For the record he also sold mackerel, pollock, striped bass, and the occasional swordfish or halibut if someone got lucky. He also fried potatoes and onion rings and served a cole slaw and tartar sauce that he made fresh each morning.)

Bull’s fish and chips were the best in Boston. On Friday nights and summer weekends the line for take-out would spill around the corner. The few tables were jammed. The place sizzled. As Artie and, eventually, Cuzzin became teenagers they were pressed into service manning the fryers, listening to the grease, barking out orders so that the fried morsels from the sea could be consumed while they glistened with heat.

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Sandy Beach’s Pre-season Checklist


Flies, numerous, sharp and organized so that you can find them when you need them?
Tide chart highlighted?
Time off from work arranged with the boss?
30” minimum size marked on fly rod?
Waders fully water-proofed?
You’re ready. Go out to the back yard and practice, because they’re on their way, heading towards Provincetown and a hard left towards Boston Harbor.

–Sandy Beach, from The Boston Globe