After the car tour around the Cape I still had over four full days to relax, write, read, dine out, and have interesting conversations at both the inn and in town. I suppose this is what people call a vacation. (!!!) The last time I went into some detail about conversations with interesting people I’d met was in Tahiti on the Paul Gauguin. Given the diversity in Provincetown, it might be of interest to do so again.

Meeting People at Dexter’s Inn   The Inn, which I found through its website, was small and cozy, hidden away on a back street. It wasn’t as grand as some nearby Victorian mansions that had been converted into B&Bs, but it served my needs just fine. It had a large upstairs sundeck as well as a downstairs shaded pergola and garden. It was on the sundeck on a sunny but chilly late afternoon where I had a great, lengthy conversation with a young couple, continued some days later in the garden. He was from South Africa, which I just visited last year, so we had a lot to talk about there. She was from New Zealand, and I talked about my travel there earlier this year, including my stint on NZ television. They had both been living in London for ten years, he working in a bank, she teaching in the East End. Now they were touring the US and planning to go to NZ to settle down. They had wanted to include Cape Cod in their trip, and specifically stated that they chose Provincetown because of its diversity, a point I found very interesting.

They had lots of interesting things to say, but particularly memorable to me was his refusal to rent a car in the US because we drive on the wrong side of the road. He’d ridden in the front passenger seat in US cars, and found it all much too disorienting. I can understand his position, especially since I’ve driven in the UK and Ireland “on the wrong side of the road” myself (left side, right-hand steering), but found it particularly amusing since he was a big, powerful guy who had even done bungee jumping in South Africa, but didn’t even want to think about trying to drive on the right with a left-hand steering wheel. In fairness to his feelings, I did tell him about my “tyre puncture” / flat tire when I hit a kerb / curb while driving down the A30 towards Land’s End, overcautiously hugging the left side, as well as my “doorknob shifting” (2001/2).

In the Inn’s “Keeping Room” one morning I met two interesting gay women from Houston, a couple, who had just gotten in late the previous night. One woman does medical work in a Boston hospital, so they’ve been living there for a couple of years now. Given driving conditions on US6 in Cape Cod, even in the shoulder season, and given the current construction on the Sagamore Bridge squeezing traffic down to one lane in each direction, and given that they’d left Boston not only during rush hour, but Friday at the start of a weekend, it’s a wonder they’d made it to P’town at all—and they had to leave to go back Sunday evening. I wonder if they’re back in Boston yet. (Cape Cod needs its railroad back!)

[As an aside at this point, I’d like to say that I don’t like the word “Lesbian” as being much too special a word to distinguish a sub-group. The word “Negro” in my mind was the same type of word—not derogatory in any way, but just too, too over-specific. We dropped that word from regular use, and I think we should do the same with this word. I particularly dislike the phrase “gay men and Lesbians”. It should be “gay men and women”, or, if the context is clear that you’re including both, simply “gays”.]

Also in the Keeping Room one day I met an interesting older woman who was in early for the Tennessee Williams Theater Festival the following weekend. She taught theater at the University of the South in Tennessee, affiliated with the Episcopal church; the school is popularly known by the name of its town, Sewanee (located NW of Chattanooga, about 1/3 of the way to Nashville). Her late husband, an Episcopal minister, had always wanted to be transferred to Sewanee, and she felt it ironic that after his death, she should have found work there, without him. I commented that the official name of Sewanee, “University of the South”, has such a “Gone With the Wind” sound to it, and so she explained its founding, which was indeed pre-Civil War. The Episcopal church was given the land in 1857 with the stipulation that classes had to start within a decade or the land would revert to the original owner. Then came the disruptions of the Civil War (1861-1865), but in 1868 the university did manage to open with nine students and four faculty members. It can be so informative to speak to people when traveling.

Dexter’s Inn has been run for thirteen years by three partners, all of whom were involved in theater earlier. Dennis and John A are a couple, living in nearby Truro. This being Massachusetts, they’re married. John Q is a colleague and friend, who stays at the inn during the season, and has an apartment in midtown New York off-season. I’d first gotten some back-story from Dennis about theater in general and the Inn. When I met John A, it turned out he’d been a stage manager for many years all around the country, and internationally as well. Apparently, in more recent years, I learned, there is a cluster of managers backstage who divide the work that John had been fully in charge of a decade ago. When I mentioned I’d seen Ethel Merman when she came back in her later years to do “Annie Get Your Gun” in New York (2005/3), John told me some personal anecdotes about her. When I mentioned seeing Carol Channing touring in Tampa in “Hello Dolly”, but didn’t remember just when that was, John turned to Dennis to ask “When was it that Carol took her show on the road?” We discussed dining in Tampa and New Orleans, and, when on the last day it was time for me to get the ferry and, rather than my walking as on arrival, John offered to drive me, the subject of my trip to Japan came up. Well, did I ever find out then about when they were in Japan with a show, how nice it was there, how much they enjoyed the food, how much I’d like it. I do get into such nice conversations.

The first couple of nights I was at the Inn, it was midweek in shoulder season with only a few guests. Then the next night, before it filled up again for the weekend, for that one night, I was the only one there. When I stopped in to the Keeping Room for sherry, John Q sat down and we had a great conversation. It would be fun to say I interviewed all these people I’m mentioning—and that is actually the effect that this report is having, I suppose—but in reality, we just enjoyed a nice conversation. Or, put it this way--we interviewed each other. I told John Q about my travel, such as to South Africa, Siberia, Antarctica; about my interest in languages; and about Eden Bay. At first, he modestly said he had been a hairdresser, so I assumed he’d worked in a corner salon. But then I got out of him more precisely what his work had been. He had been a theatrical hairdresser, and, as it turns out, also a makeup artist. He told me about working on the film Kate and Leopold (2001), which is the first time I’d ever seen Hugh Jackman. Then I got it out of him that he’d worked on the Cosby show, and Saturday Night Live, and also recently, the Kennedy Center Honors. I learned how he’d gotten into the business, and how on occasion, he’s called back out of retirement to do a job. Take a look at the Filmography of John Quaglia on the Internet Movie Database (IMDb).

I asked how he learned period hair styling, and he said he just taught himself from pictures. As I was leaving to go back upstairs, I said he should write his autobiography, telling about his experiences and the people he’d met. He answered archly “Well, if I do, YOU”D be a chapter”. Now what did he mean by that?

Earlier, John told how, as an innkeeper, you have to be all things, including a psychologist, and the story he told, seemed to me to be the quintessential story about Provincetown diversity. One time he came across one of two women who had arrived the previous day sitting alone in a corner of the Keeping Room crying her eyes out. He asked what was wrong--and there was nothing wrong. The woman was just overwhelmed by the fact that Provincetown was the first place that she and her partner had come to where they could walk down the street holding hands and no one would think anything of it.

Meeting People on the Street   Walking in town one evening on the way to dinner, just as I turned into Commercial Street, I heard German being spoken. Apparently an older German couple was surprised that two younger men they had just bumped into knew German—one was American and the other was a Swiss from Basel now living in Vienna. I know all this because as I passed them by, I stopped and also broke in in German, which really flabbergasted the older woman. We just chatted for a minute. Also, I found out another time that one of the guesthouses near Dexter’s Inn named, interestingly enough, since it’s my travel motto, Carpe Diem, is German-run.

Meeting People at The Mews   I had checked out my list of restaurants and had eliminated some, including one listed high in Zagat, and which was recommended to me personally twice while I was there, but there was just nothing on their menu that appealed to me. I did find four restaurants I liked, all walkable on or near Commercial Street, and one that particularly appealed was called The Mews a bit towards the East End. Its food is considered New American, and Zagat correspondents called it upbeat and refined, which is exactly what I found. Their rating was outstanding, 27 for food, 25 each for décor and service (out of 30), ratings which I fully agreed with, so that, of my seven nights in P’town, I ended up coming to The Mews four, always dining at the bar. The last night I had a surprise when she handed me my bill and told me my cocktail was on the house. Among other things, as an appetizer I enjoyed a Stilton & Walnut Spinach Salad so much I had it twice, and Lobster Dumplings in Miso Sauce. As a main course I enjoyed a pesto pasta, a chicken curry, and listed among bistro fare, a great BBQ Hamburger with bacon. They deserve their 27, and for the service they deserve their 25. There was beautifully carved wood paneling around the room that, I was told when I asked, had been taken from a building that was demolished in Newark NJ. With the water view and this elegance, it deserved its 25 for décor. In addition, the prices were in line with other places I went to.

Sitting at the bar, I was able to get into lots of great conversations. I talked to a couple from New York—she said they lived in the East Village, yet he worked in Albany—who were interested in my Nine Eleven experiences. I appreciated his condolences about Beverly. When they left, a very interesting older woman from Boston sat down. She had a house nearby on Commercial Street and came to P’town all the time. In Boston she now had a condominium, but she and her late husband used to have a house in the South End, a neighborhood I love, which we discussed. She was particularly adamant about her interest in P’town’s diversity.

On another evening, I spoke quite a bit to a woman who, with her husband (who was talking to someone else) was so enamored of P’town that they were vacationing in a dune shack. I had heard about these simple houses out on the dunes, and saw a book in a bookstore about them, so I gave her a “full interview” on the subject. Apparently some of these dune shacks are better equipped than others, and they had one of the better ones, but all are primitive. There is no electricity, but gas lamps. There is an outhouse. You can shower, but warm water is heated during the day in a roof cistern, and the water passes down back and forth along the roof in tubing so the sun can heat it up. When you’re out of hot water—you’re out of hot water. I’m not sure what cooking is like, or if they even bothered. She said they had flashlights with them to get back, which would take some forty minutes. I’m sure they can’t park nearby, so that means hoofing it by flashlight through the dunes. She says dune shack rental is very popular—they had to wait two years for a rental to come through, and some people wait for five. It was a captivating lifestyle, but all I can say is “better them than me”.

My last night I met these two younger guys. They were both accountants in Montclair NJ, but also had their own house down Commercial Street in P’town, which they drove up to for visits as often as they could. One was a regular accountant, but the other was a forensic accountant, which sounded very interesting, so I again went into “full interview” mode. He didn’t do forensic accounting investigating businesses as I had expected, but rather in divorce situations, looking for hidden funds. I asked him how he gets started, and he says, you just talk to people, who have a lot more to say than you’d think, and they give him lots of information. We talked quite a bit about New Jersey, and they were interested in the history, such as the Swedish settlement and the East/West Jersey story.

There was an odd coincidence. I’d just met last summer at my sister’s garden party two guys who liked to go to Paris, and elsewhere in France, and who were interested in learning more French. Well, these two accountants liked to go to Paris, had gone to the south of France on the TGV, and were frustrated that, with all their trying, French was coming very slowly. At least I was in a position to try to give them encouragement to keep working at it.

With these more upscale, sophisticated experiences, I can contrast just one other. One of the other restaurants I went to had decent seafood, but was described to me by those who recommended it as not being too fancy. Well, I’d say it had a mass-market atmosphere. I enjoyed my meal pretty much, and was talking to people at the next table. A pleasant younger couple from Philadelphia left, and was replaced by an older couple from Pittsburgh. She told me they’ve been coming to the Cape for thirty years, and always stay at a place in Orleans. They both said they loved this seafood restaurant and others in Provincetown, and kept coming back again and again. When I asked them if they liked P’town so much why they just didn’t stay here in town, he said something to the effect that it was because of all the craziness. This was of course, also a code word, perhaps one to counter “diversity”. Well, you do get all types.

Catamaran & Acela   After a week it was time to leave, and on a bright, sunny day, the catamaran ferry took me on an invigorating ride back to Boston. Entering the harbor, I was brought back to the only other time I sailed into Boston harbor, in November 1971. We had just completed the first half of our sabbatical in Europe, and had gotten on the Yugoslavian freighter Tuhobić in Genoa for a long, eleven-day rather rough crossing to New York. But longshoremen in New York were on strike, and we put in instead to Boston, where we were bussed the rest of the way. This sunny September arrival contrasted with the bleak November arrival then.

The walk to South Station was just as pleasant, and I again spent some time in the Acela Lounge, but the one in Boston is inconveniently designed, and also one flight upstairs. Still the Acela trip was a pleasure, with a nice meal, drinks, and a New York Times. I also got a lot of writing done on this relaxing travel day.

Epilog   That travel day was a Tuesday. Just three days later, on Friday, I happened to look at the website for the ferry company to get some information, and I had a surprise. There are some four round-trips a day between Boston and P’town in this season, and there was a large message in red at the top of the home page that on that very day, the 7:30 PM trip returning from P’town to Boston was being cancelled due to rough seas and being replaced by a bus. A bus! And going the whole way round through the Cape—at the tail end of rush hour—and on a Friday evening before a weekend.

My first thought was to the joy in P’town I’d read about in 1873 when the Old Colony Railroad had finally arrived, starting service between Boston and P’town. Not only no more stagecoaches, but no more concern about crossings on rough seas. (!!!) But now the rails are gone, the rough seas still appear, and they put on buses do the trip. Isn’t that almost the same as stagecoaches?

On the other hand, Thoreau said that during autumnal storms is the best time to visit the Cape.

Then afterward, my mind moved back even further, to 1620. Wasn’t it a storm, and rough seas, that brought the Mayflower to the Cape instead of to Virginia in the first place? And that was in November, the same dreary month in which we’d sailed into Boston harbor in 1971 after our own rough seas? And five weeks later, wasn’t it another storm and rough seas that turned back the Mayflower a second time, so that they ended up relenting and settling in Plymouth? Cape Cod’s spiral layout, and most particularly the curlicue ending in the sand spit, Long Point, facing Provincetown, is no accident. What goes around, comes around—most literally.