Kicked Off The Quarter

Poor Gloucester. It seems the only news Gloucester is able to hold onto lately is bad news. The city was due for some "good publicity" when the Fisherman's Memorial (Man at the Wheel Statue) was voted by the public to appear on the new Massachusetts quarter, but already that news has gone sour.

The Gloucester Daily Times reports: "Ignoring the wishes of 109,817 Massachusetts online voters, the federal government has rejected Gloucester's Man at the Wheel for engraving on the back of a series of U.S. quarters.

"Chosen in a landslide over hundreds of other sites in Massachusetts in Internet voting this spring, the Gloucester Fishermen's Memorial and its iconic image of the man at sea was deemed ineligible for the quarter program because it is not federally maintained, according to a Mint spokeswoman."

Democracy at it's finest...The feds won't even let us vote on what picture to put on a coin. The people had spoken. The Man at the Wheel was ready for his close up. Gloucester was ready for some positive attention. I admit in high school I used to make fun of the fisherman because, well, while other schools had cool mascots like tigers, falcons and bulldogs...ours was a fisherman who, on his off-time, made fish sticks (Gorton's anyone?). But I have to admit, I thought he was a good fit for the quarter. The stoic figure is a popular tourist attraction and holds a lot of meaning as he stands in remembrance of all those lost at sea.

I used to be able to affirm, "Yeah, I'm from the place they based/filmed The Perfect Storm," but lately it's been more like, "Yeah, I'm from the place where all those teenagers got knocked up," or locally, "Yeah, I'm from the place with bacteria-infested water." I guess Gloucester will just have to keep waiting for some good news.