Breaking The Sound Barrier

Staff Reporters Devon Lash and Elizabeth Kim joined me today on Day 11 of our series. We started our day at Norwalk Cove Marina and finished on Seabreeze Avenue in South Norwalk. Long day, long walk but I would do it again tomorrow. It’s a great way to see Norwalk.

READ: The story here

–Kathleen O’Rourke

As we near the end of our hike, we run into Jason Raftis, who was born and raised in Norwalk. He lives in Florida now but he came back to visit his house at 30 Shorefront Park. It was built in the 1920s by John Grouelle, the creator of Raggedy Ann, a character that Devon, a redhead knows well from her Halloween costuming days. Raftis said he found the drawings in his bedroom. The house fittingly looks like a Gingerbread house, he said.

We hit sand for a brief happy minute but the dunes sent us back to the road.

-Devon

We hit another dead end. Walking along Water Street, the finger docks aren’t connected and though we are about ready for a swim, we’re carrying too much money in equipment.

We are however intrepid reporters and aren’t letting a little barbed wire stop us.

-Devon

Proving again that Norwalk is a working waterfront, we run into a crew that is awaiting a 12x20x10 transformer that was originally shipped from Taiwan via New Jersey. Its ultimate destination is the power plant at Manresa Island.
A transformer basically takes energy from a power plant and stores it, said CJ Gagney, who works for Bay Crane.

As we approach the Stanley Stroffolino bridge toward Historic South Norwalk, it occurs to me that I’m the only one wearing this dorky Sound series T-shirt. Picture to come.

We think this striped bass has seen better days, though the fishermen said those big ones are plentiful on the banks of Veterans Park.

-Devon

Right now we’re halfway on our trek, which our editor informed us is halfway for the whole Breaking the Sound Barrier project.

Norwalk’s Veteran Park, by the way, is entirely manmade and is much more enjoyable with a cold soda from Overton’s.

-Devon

The oystermen agreed, a Long Island Sound oyster with a little hot sauce and lemon is heaven between two shells.

My mouth is watering just smelling the salty mollusk. After the oysters are gathered, they are hauled back and shucked, or cleaned and washed. The shellfish is sorted by size and bagged for destinations all over the country. As we arrived a 210 pound shipment was heading to a New Haven restaurant. The noise was terrific and one guy popped open an oyster with a knife to show us the fleshy insides.

We met Dixie Cutrone, a 85-year-old retired contractor who said he’s the oldest working oysterman. He said Grand Central Station oyster bar is the place in New York City for fresh shellfish.

“You slurp it down,” he said. “I guarantee you’ll like it.”

-Devon

We’ve hit the most interesting part of our walk thus far at Fitch’s Point, where we met Peter Libre and his family. For the past five years, they have been living in an energy efficient home which produces electricity with solar panels. Without amenities like AC and a clothes drier, the family of six consumes less electricity than they produce. With the surplus, Libre said he can plug in an electric car and run it for 10,000 miles.
Kathleen noticed Libre because he was using a rotary push mower. “I haven’t seen one of those since I was a kid,” K exclaimed. Lo and behold there were chickens too. Libre lives on the water because he loves to sail and kayak but he lives on a small carbon footprint because he said that health, the environment and the economy are all intertwined. The eye surgeon happily gave us a tour of his house as well as a taste of his blackberries and snap peas.

What has the experience taught him?

“That consuming more doesn’t make you happier.”