Wellfleet’s Turmoil
To the editor:
I read last week’s front-page article about Richard Waldo’s resignation as Wellfleet town administrator with sadness. Once again, the town’s municipal affairs are in turmoil.
What do we need to have our confidence and civic pride restored? How do we move forward and cast off our current cloak of community-wide depression? Winter’s worst months have not yet begun.
Kathleen E. Bacon
Wellfleet
A Too-Tall Tower
To the editor:
As northbound motorists on Route 6 make the big bend around Blackfish Creek and Drummer Cove, no matter the time of day, the season, or the prevailing weather, they get a million-dollar view in our seaside town. Often there is a string of cars pulled off to the side as folks try to capture a photo of a spectacular sunset over the marsh.
But before long, just ahead they will see a 21-foot-high replica of an iconic Paris landmark. [“A Boulangerie Will Have Its Eiffel Tower,” Dec. 21, page A4.] That seems a bit out of place — except, perhaps, at one of the miniature golf courses along Route 28.
That the tower will be next to a French restaurant is, of course, coincidental. It is not a “sign,” apparently, not meant to attract attention. It is just a lawn ornament that the owner wishes to display.
I applaud the folks of PB Boulangerie for their great success. The bistro with its attractive sign out front has been a good addition to the town. I wish it could stay that way, because it has been a keen example of an enterprise acclimating to the community that supports it.
But now it will become a case of an entire community having to acclimate itself to the desires of a single individual. The term “community” no longer applies.
At a time when the country is experiencing cultural confusion at best and cultural upheaval at worst, we should be concerned about these incremental changes that affect the character of a town.
I wish he could have found a smaller tower.
Edward S. Ebert
Wellfleet
Saving the Province Lands
To the editor:
I found Paul Benson’s article “The Province Lands’ Narrow Escape” in the Dec. 28, 2023 issue [page A6] profound and true, but there were a few omissions.
My late husband, Robert W. White, was working for the Division of Waterways in the Province Lands after his Navy time in World War II when he first saw the dramatic plans for the land and surrounding area. He had enjoyed the area as a boy, and working there later, often on horseback, he appreciated it even more. He was appalled by the plans for swimming pools, a golf course, and homes priced at $200,000 — a king’s ransom by the standards of the time.
Bob’s dad, a fire chief and rescue squad organizer, and his uncle Bill White, a former selectman, along with many others, had to stop this madness. Bob called Tip O’Neill, the Congressman from Cambridge, and asked him to help notify as many public officials as he could about to this preposterous plan. (O’Neill had wanted Bob to come to Boston to work at the State House, but Bob didn’t relish wearing suits and ties every day and declined.)
All those who are credited in your article jumped in as well and worked feverishly to make sure it didn’t happen. It matters not who did what first, but there were people behind the scenes in the same team effort.
There were also businesspeople and lawyers who would have gained financially and fought to proceed with the plans. The us and them, as usual.
The efforts of all working together were what defeated it.
Rachel White
Provincetown
The Cast of Casablanca
To the editor:
Re “Here’s Looking at You,” Ed Miller’s excellent introduction to the New Year’s Nostalgia edition [Dec. 28, page A2]:
I can add one additional reason why the film Casablanca had such “everlasting immediacy” and was so “entirely about the present.” It wasn’t only that, because the script was constantly being rewritten, the actors “weren’t sure how the story would turn out.” The actual lives of many cast members were very much like those of the characters they portrayed in the film. They had literally run for their lives.
Paul Henreid (Victor Laszlo) was a popular leading man in Germany before being designated an “official enemy of the Third Reich”; all his assets were seized, and he fled to Britain. Hungarian-born Jewish actor Peter Lorre (Ugarte) also fled the Nazis, first to Paris, then to Britain. S.Z. Sakall (Carl) fled his native Hungary for Britain in 1940; all three of his sisters, as well as his wife’s brother and sister, were subsequently murdered in concentration camps. Conrad Veidt (Major Strasser) was a German actor, newly married to a Jewish woman, who defied Goebbels by declaring himself a Jew on his union papers, thus banning himself from appearing in further films. He, too, emigrated to Britain.
Paul Greenspan
Wellfleet
A New Year’s Gift
To the editor:
Thanks so much for our wonderful New Year’s gift — your Dec. 28 edition. Every article was interesting, informative, and beautifully written.
I especially enjoyed “The Province Lands’ Narrow Escape,” the sad account of the sinking of the S-4, and the debate over P’town sidewalks. Paul Sullivan’s article on the ’90s had me searching the photographs for images of old friends now long gone. And “Long Story Short” is framable!
Once again, the Independent shows all the other papers how it should be done. Happy New Year from a “washashore wannabe.”
Lyle Timpson
Highland Lakes, N.J.
