Lenny Federico and the Swap Shop.
by Tom Keer
For the longest time there was always a red Vespa scooter parked next to the shed near the entrance way to recycling center. It was owned by Lenny Federico, a summer resident who, during the year, worked as a teacher in a suburb in the center of the state. When school adjourned in June, Lenny traded his inland digs for the coast. A Cape Cod summer is tough to beat, and to afford lobster rolls, beers at the Pearl, and dancing at the ‘Comber meant he’d have to work. Lenny rode his Vespa to his job at the Transfer Station. A lot of towns don’t have Transfer Stations, but it’s really just a formal name for the Dump.
Whenever I’d see him I’d razz him about the scooter. The way I figured it, Lenny needed a motorcycle. A bad-ass classic like a Shovelhead would be perfect for turning heads on the one street that ran through town, but he could go a different route. He could get a racing bike like a Ninja. I could see him pulling down the tinted visor on his Shoei helmet and laying a patch when the rubber on his rear Metzler grabbed asphalt. Anything would have more juice than his 98 cc 2-stroke, and if he got a real bike then he’d need riding leathers. I can see his club insignia now: the Wellfleet Transfer Station Motorcycle Club. His mascot could be an oyster.
Part of Lenny’s job description was to oversee the Swap Shop, a small, rickety shed perched in between a pile of recovered nylon commercial fishing nets and the hard plastics bin. The Swap Shop was a building that was about 150 square feet and made from repurposed materials. The 2 x 4’s, plywood sheets, windows, and a door were salvaged from the demo pile, and it was as sturdy as recycled could be. You couldn’t find a right angle anywhere, but the weathered cedar shakes upgraded the exterior which gave it a worn, seaside panache.
The Swap Shop took donations of any items that still had a bit of life left in them. Some shelves were full of donated coffee makers, lamps, or books while tables held kitchen items and other bric-a-brac left behind by summer folks. If you found something to your liking it was free, and that friendly attitude made it somewhat of a social center. It was buzzing during the summer season.
The bullish, not piggish, assortment of rods from the Swap Shop.
On a hot, August day I ran into Lenny in between the glass and cardboard bins.
“You might want to go into the Swap Shop,” he said.
“Why is that?” I asked.
“Some guy dropped off a bunch of fishing tackle the other day. Said his father used to fish but now is too old to go. He needed the space in the garage to store some patio furniture at the end of the season.”
“Anything good in there?” I asked.
“You’d know more about them than I would,” he said. “But there were a lot of rods, some boxes of lures, and a bunch of other stuff like that. I’m not a fisherman so I don’t know.”
Old rods never die; they just go on to catch new species of fish.
Old rods never die; they just go on to catch new species of fish.
Maybe the unique shape of a fishing rod makes it stand out from, say, a cast iron skillet, but I saw the stack right when I walked through the door. I walked past the apple crate full of vinal 33 LPs, walked past the toaster ovens and chipped coffee cups, and lustfully smiled at the dusty corner. There was a Sewell N. Dunton trolling rod, a heavy split cane gem with agate guides that had been made in the western part of the state. The company was formed out of the Montague Rod Co. ashes, and from its rough appearance it looked like it worked over some bluefin back in the day. There were a few beastly Fall Run surf sticks custom wound on 13-foot Lamiglas blanks. Behind the shorter boat rods were a dozen tip ups and a rusty ice auger. The old man must have been practically creative for he attached a rectangular box to a pair of fiberglass and aluminum Rossignols from the ‘70s. Everything about this guy said he loved to fish.
It’s rare when you find what you were hoping for, but there they were: rod tubes. Some were made from fiber, others were metal, and one short one was covered in saddle-stitched leather. They had familiar logos, and you’d recognize the names. Granger. South Bend. Edwards. Orvis. Horrocks-Ibbotson. I had to dig back in my memory to remember that the HEH was for a double taper 5 and an HFG referred to a weight forward 4. But those were good. It’s always better to be bullish than piggish, so I left a bunch for someone else.
Jim and Carolyn do more than just find classic rods; they also like to catch fish.
Giving away tackle must be an emerging trend, ‘cause I told that story to my friend Jim and he mentioned he’d been seeing the same thing as well. Last year he gave me a classic 1960’s Fenwick Fiberglass. The slow action rod was missing its extension butt which didn’t matter. It was designed for a 12 weight but casts a modern 9 weight like a demon. I use that rod for striped bass and bluefish on the flats or albies and bonito on the edge. If you like the super-fast and super stiff sticks that currently are in vogue then this classic action wouldn’t appeal to you. But it still fishes as good now as it did back then, and there’s a lot to be said for that.
The Fenwick has caught a lot of gamefish. This nice striped bass is one of them.
“People love to go to that swap shop,” Lenny once said.
“It’s open three days a week, and whenever it’s open, it’s always busy. It’s like the local watering hole. Do you remember the Andy Griffith television show? They always hung out at the barbershop, Floyd’s, but none of them ever really needed a haircut. They just went there because all their buddies were there, and they could shoot the breeze and have coffee.”
What could be better than an east wind, a rising tide and an onshore bar? If the bass or blues are in then not much.
There was an east wind the other day, and I figured that if there were any fish around they’d be pushed up tight to the beach. I pulled on my boots, and as I walked down the sand I wondered if the original owner ever used it here? Yeah, I figured he did. Maybe not on this specific spot, but I’m sure he wouldn’t have been that far away.
