Ernest Newton Dickinson, journalist, saxophone player and fisherman who hit the Cape Cod beaches at 4:00 AM, died on January 16, 2021 at Seashore Pointe in Provincetown, his home for several years. He was 101 years old.
Ernie was born on St Patrick's Day, 1919, in New London, CT. He was raised mostly by his aged, eccentric grandfather, Thomas Newton Dickinson, who remembered the Civil War. They lived in a large Victorian house in Mystic, CT. When young Ernie complained that there was nothing to do grandpa would point to the Mystic River and say go a-fishing.
In high school, Ernie trained to be a boxer, taking the name Dickie Boy Dickinson. In his first big fight he took on Pig-Sticker Stanton. Shocked, Ernie raised his arms in victory and immediately retired. He said "the word was the big guys from across the river wanted to take me on."
After graduating from Trinity College in 1941, with a BA in English, Ernie hitch-hiked to Chicago on route to the Pacific Ocean and San Francisco. He remembered going door to door down one side of the street and getting bread with peanut butter while another young traveler got jam, and they made sandwiches. On the way home, the freight cars were so frigid that he asked to sleep in a city jail in Montana.
During World War II, he served in the Army and Navy and was honorably discharged from both. That this dual military service would have entitled him to two honor guards at his funeral was not lost on Ernie.
He worked for several newspapers, including the Hartford Courant and Patent Trader in Mount Kisco, NY. He also worked for the public relations firm Ruder and Finn. Various assignments during his long career in journalism ranged from reporting on Parliament to interviewing Tallulah Bankhead. He covered the circus for a week, playing a clown and watering the elephants.
He and his wife Lorraine moved from their home in Chappaqua and became what is known as “wash-ashores” in North Truro in 1991, having vacationed there for many years. She wrote for the Cape Codder and when she died, Ernie took over writing her Cod Capers column. A lover of dogs, he disliked cats until a calico stray kitten appeared. When the cat refused to leave, Ernie eventually wrote a popular book, The Companion Cat: How to Live Up to a Cat’s Expectations and Get it to Live Up to Yours, and appeared on The Today Show to demonstrate how he had trained Georgie to walk across a tight wire.
He began playing the saxophone at 85, and thereafter began playing harmonica. Shortly before his death, Ernie was taking ukulele lessons. He was regularly in the audience at jazz clubs in New York City. Ernie also practiced ice dancing and earned the bronze in competition.
He loved fishing – fresh water, salt water, hole-in-the-ice fishing, clamming – and once caught a 50-pound striped bass at Longneck Beach.
Ernie is survived by his daughters Irene Goff of Vienna, Maine and Ann Scalley of Wellfleet, five grandchildren and his wife Georgia Dullea of New York City. A son Tom predeceased him.