Loose Leaf Notes

Biz Stone, tech-nik, blogger, and author of “Who Let the Blogs Out,” hung out at Nantasket Beach, the beach of my hometown peninsula, Hull, Massachusetts. In the first chapter of his book, while describing how he and a friend started the web hosting site, “Xanga,” Stone writes: “We hung out after school, we went to Nantasket Beach on weekends. We spent a summer demolishing houses with shovels. Don’t ask.”
That was not the first time I was reading a book and got a complete surprise when the author mentioned my hometown. “Change of Heart,” by Claire Sylvia, is a fascinating memoir about a woman who received a heart transplant and then began to feel that she took on the dreams and memories of her donor who died in a motorcycle accident. So fascinating was the premise – that the heart is much more than an organ that pumps – it was used as the basis for a movie, “Return to Me,” starring Minnie Driver and David Duchovony.
“When I acquired a new heart, I also acquired a new rhythm, new impulses, new knowledge, and new questions,” Sylvia wrote. I was enthralled with the idea and immersed in reading the story when she shocked me by casually revealing that she was living in Hull for the summer.
Hull is definitely a place on the map. It’s where the summer home once owned by John F. Kennedy’s mother’s family is still standing. JFK’s older brother was born in Hull, and JFK himself, as a Congressman, spoke at the dedication of The Memorial School in 1948, the school that was to later be my and my sibling’s elementary school.
At one time, Hull was known for its amusement park, Paragon Park, which featured what was once purported to be the largest roller coaster in the world. Also once a part of Hull was the Surf Ballroom where Sonny and Cher and other popular entertainers performed, and where my siblings and I learned to do dances with names like the Boolagoo and The Philly.
Most recently, Hull was on the map again, for being the home of “Napster” headquarters, the renowned online music service that originally featured peer to peer file sharing and has since relocated to California. Hull was described by Joseph Mann, author of “All the Rave: The Rise and Fall of Shawn Fanning’s Napster,” as “blue collar Hull,” and… “a 350 year old fishing town halfway back to Boston from the Cape.”
I remember Hull for its clams and horseshoe crabs, its neighborhood games of relieve-eo, the tower at Fort Revere, and the great views of Boston Lighthouse. Apparently, Hull will be remembered by some for being home and/or hangout to computer hackers and programmers.
Maybe in a future post I’ll tell you about running into Aerosmith’s Steven Tyler while shopping in Hingham, the next small town over from Hull.