THE PEOPLE I MEET # 9

I met Allysa and her daughter Elizabeth in Plymouth, MA while trying to find my way back to Boston...I had just finished running video tape down to our crew in Plymouth and gotten myself turned around...I asked her first how to get out of Plymouth and second how close I was to Plymouth Rock...She said she'd show me.

I followed in my car down Water street and up to the granite portico that protects it I wondered what it would look like when I saw it...I had heard the legendary story of how the pilgrims stepped on the rock as they stepped off the Mayflower into their new land...
Allysa told me it used to be a lot bigger than it is today...The townspeople of Plymouth had chipped off pieces of the rock and sold them to raise funds for the town...They must have been in dire straits because it is now barely the size of a bean bag chair...She then told me about how the rock has been moved all over town...First it was moved about 100 yards to the East to be closer to the Mayflower's replica...then it was moved to the center of town...Finally it found its way back to this; the original location of the rock...But it didn't make the journey around town unscathed...it split in two during one of the moves and is now partially held together by concrete...
I saw a statue across the oldest street in the United States, Leyden Street, that honored the women pilgrims (above). Allysa says she doesn't like that statue because it doesn't depict the type of woman who would have survived the harsh conditions that were faced when arriving here...She prefers the statue in Brewster Gardens (below). She likes it because she thinks it makes the woman seem more rugged...