"Cape Cod is not really a movable feast. It does not stay with you that way. It is not like Paris so much as like Lourdes. Being there is the important thing. It is more like a reliable dope connection: People keep coming back."
Discuss.
Sunday, April 25, 2010
Cape Cod
"Cape Cod is not really a movable feast. It does not stay with you that way. It is not like Paris so much as like Lourdes. Being there is the important thing. It is more like a reliable dope connection: People keep coming back."
Discuss.
13 comments:
Honey Bunny and I will be visiting the Cape the 2nd week of June visiting family and hopefully squeezing in a day of sailing. We were there once before we took up sailing and liked it very much, so we anticipate that we will like it much more now. Last time we took the ferry to Nantucket, this time who knows?
It's more like what? No comment
The problem with Cape Cod is that people do keep coming back, as a result it is overcrowded and overrated. I'll take Rhode Island's towns and beaches over the Cape.
I haven't been there for 60 years. Do you suppose it has changed any?
It was a chilly Sunday afternoon in Tiverton, Rhode Island. The blogger peered from his rain-streaked window, brooding wistfully about the little boat he could not, or would not sail in the depressing spring drizzle.
Desperate for something to blog about, he turned to the book that had fallen from his hand when he'd nodded off in the overstuffed chair in his study. It had opened to a passage about the seaside New England region he knew so well, where a plane had crashed 30 years before, changing forever the life of the young writer unfortunate enough to be aboard.
Had misfortune finally turned to opportunity for the struggling author and for the blogger as well?
Hmmm. Five comments in two hours. As I thought, Cape Cod causes a strong reaction in some people.
We do live about an hour or so from the Cape. We know a number of people who seem strangely drawn to it. I have a love-hate relationship with it myself.
The quotation is indeed from a book about a plane crash on the Cape. (The Google will tell you that.) It's a true story. However, the blogger was not brooding about not sailing and author was not struggling at the time of the crash. In context, the quotation is about the magnetic pull that the Cape has for many people, not specifically about how the author feels about it. Religion and dope are to be sure, minor characters in the story. Perhaps the Cape is the main character...
I found that Kalmus beach in Hyannis was a great place to windsurf, and the "Nautilus Motel" in Wood's Hole was a great place to spend the night before getting on the 6:00 a.m. ferry to Martha's Vineyard. I'm not an expert on Cape Cod, but I loved wherever I went there.
And try to forget about the dope comment, okay?
Ah, but isn't the Cape not just one thing to all, but rather varied and changeable? A sliver of just land with P-town and Hyanis and so many other different communities seems tricky for generalizations.
This post brings back so many memories. I spent many summers on the cape. My father and grandparents each had a trailer in the mid cape. It was a 3 minute walk to the beach. The trailers were perfect because they were so small you didn't spend any time in them during the day. I rode my bike all over town and to the arcade in the next town. My summers were filled with sunshine, swimming, and girls on vacation :) Almost two decades have passed since my last summer there. When I turned 16 some idiot bought the park, tripled all the fees, and ran the place like East Germany. My father and grandparents both sold after his first season as owner. Paradise lost :(
Another memory called up from the deep is when I was working for a landlord that owned half a dozen cottages grandfathered in to the national seashore. In about 30 years the state is going to buy him out, but for now it is an amazing retreat. At the end of the season he would take a crew there to shut them down the cottages for winter. My accomadations for the weekend was a simple two room cottage built from concrete block. It didn't need to be fancy because of where it was built. The group of cottages were spread out in a rough semi circle on a dune one hundred feet from the beach. I couldn't see the water from inside, but I could hear the waves. Being that close to the ocean is like being in another world. The rush rush go go insanity of modern life are lost as surely as if they never existed. The first night I returned to the cottage after toiling on top of a roof retarring it. I cleaned up and headed to the bosses cottage for dinner. When I returned home it was after dark. Looking out my bedroom window I could see a nearby light house. As I drifted off to the rhythym of the waves I dreamed that the cottage was my house. I lived an entire lifetime in that dream. Working hard days then returning to my peaceful cottage in the evening. There were walks in the sand and sailing trips to nearby beaches. I was vaguely aware that a great many things were absent...ATMs, traffic lights, deadlines, and time clocks. My dream life was so much simpler, but also so much more fulfilling. The next morining started out sunny but grew overcast and eventually descended into wind driven rain. We spent a few hours disassembling the staircase that led down the dune to the ocean and hauling the sections up to storage. Back at the cottage I took a nice hot shower and changed into dry clothes. I went to dinner knowing that it would be my last night in the cottage.
Thanks to my dad and grandparents for providing such a wonderful childhood experience. Thanks to Tillerman for letting me post chapter one.
TQ & I are going in October, can I get back to you then?
ps - anybody know if there's anywhere you can still rent dinghies in Cape Cod in October?
ps - bravo, Jbushkey...
Thanks Bonnie,
I was on the cape two summers ago and there was 3 places I found renting sunfish. One had a much better deal than the other two. I do not know if they rent in the fall.
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