The Cape Air Surprise
To the editor:
Cape Air’s discontinuation of air service between Provincetown and Boston [“Cape Air Drops 6 Months of P’town Flights,” Sept. 12, front page] was a surprise and a concern for me.
Having flown on Cape Air many times using its 10-flight coupon packets, I’ve generally had positive experiences. It wasn’t unusual to have the counter agent at the Provincetown airport call and recommend that I come and catch an earlier flight to avoid some impending bad weather.
This past year, the relatively cost-effective coupon packets were discontinued, and the per-flight prices were raised considerably. Cape Air personnel told me that was due in part to the increased costs of attracting and retaining pilots.
Not having air service in Provincetown from November to May leaves few options for getting to Boston. There is no ferry service. One can drive to and from Boston’s Logan Airport. There is infrequent bus service from here; there are more options from Hyannis, but sometimes those present significant complications and other costs.
I hope town leaders, airport officials, and Cape Air management can find a creative way to restore a level of service that provides for better transportation options in and out of the summer season.
Jim Vesper
Provincetown
‘Let the Market Decide’
To the editor:
As an occasional Cape Air traveler, I empathize with the Outer Cape residents who, without intervention, will lose their Provincetown-to-Boston airline service this winter.
Two solutions are available, one litigious and the other economic.
Litigation is the more contentious, because suing Cape Air for breach of contract would tarnish a 35-year amicable relationship.
An economic solution would let the market decide. Cape Air could raise fares to a level that would eliminate the revenue loss caused by low winter ridership. If losing some passengers because of higher fares resulted in revenues below break-even, Cape Air would be wise to absorb the modest financial loss, considering the value of maintaining the loyalty of its Outer Cape customers and longstanding goodwill with Provincetown.
The November deadline gives the airline and town ample time to negotiate an equitable resolution.
Ronald A. Gabel
Yarmouth Port
The Unforgettable JB Browne
To the editor:
Your obituary for John O. Browne [Aug. 29, page A17] was heartwarming; I would like to add a few comments.
JB stood out in a crowd because of his many God-given gifts. Most of all he had a heart that could overlook so much of the ugly stain we inflict on our beautiful Earth.
He very early offered to pose for me. I was always looking for that quintessential fisherman, as Mr. Charles Hawthorne did many years before.
When the Patricia Marie went down in October 1976 with all hands, the town was in total shock. I have never seen grief on such a large scale. Having fished for two years, I knew all the crew members. I went to my studio, grabbed my largest canvas, and started “painting out” my personal grief. I called JB, and he came over and started on a series of daily sittings.
There is JB, his right hand is open, and his eyes are saying, “What can I do to help?” That painting started our long relationship. It is now in the town’s collection, thanks to the generosity of Kevin McLaughlin. Its being hung next to Hawthorne’s masterpiece The Crew of the Philomena Manta remains the most honored moment of my life.
It was hot the day I did my last painting of JB. I had to stand for the upper half of the six-foot canvas, and I was tired. I wanted to call it quits, but JB wouldn’t hear of it. “Keep painting,” he said. So, I hung on to my chair with one hand and blocked in his unforgettable face.
Finally, the standing pose was too much even for JB, and we stopped. I’m convinced he knew it would be his last time in my studio.
The painting will stay as is, like Franz Schubert’s “Unfinished Symphony.” John O. Browne and I will meet again on the Incoming Tide.
Salvatore Del Deo
Provincetown
‘Preserve the Beauty’
To the editor:
The Letter From the Editor in the Sept. 5 edition [“An Endangered Landscape”] seems to be a confusing distillation of Kai Potter’s talk at Wellfleet Preservation Hall about his nature writing with an even more confusing conclusion of your own.
You seem to lionize the thoughtful government purchase of some 43,000-odd acres for permanent preservation in the National Seashore and yet damn those who want to limit wholesale construction of “affordable” housing, which threatens the beauty of what John Kennedy’s regime gave us.
To delight in the 43,000 preserved acres and yet advocate more and more housing on the fragile remaining land is confusing at best and disingenuous at worst. Why should we now engage in doing to the remaining Cape land what Kennedy’s foresight has kept us from doing to the whole?
Building more “affordable” housing is not a solution and will ruin the Outer Cape. Only increased wages will cure the housing problem and will be cheaper and far less environmentally damaging than will be any future building. We need a campaign to convince folks that workers need higher wages.
Let us take the gift given to us by Kennedy’s short term as a hint that the less building of any kind on Cape Cod the better. Just because some got here before others does not make us selfish for wanting to preserve, as did the U.S. government, the beauty that is here.
Dan Katz
Truro and Westport, Conn.
Words and Sentences
To the editor:
Re “Diagraming for Democracy” [Letter From the Editor, Sept. 12]:
In middle school, part of our eighth-year English studies was a course in orthography. I loved that little orange orthography book and got really excited diagraming sentences. I liked the architecture that was created by lines drawn under words and the “offshoots” extending from them.
I’d need a quick refresher to be able to diagram a sentence these 63 or so years later.
Thanks for the reminder.
Frank Barringer
Provincetown
More Trouble in Truro
To the editor:
My jaw dropped when I read about Richard Pask’s difficulties in getting his wife’s death certificate [“Grief Redoubled by a Death Certificate Delayed,” Sept. 5, front page].
My mother, Meredith Bradford, died at her home in Truro on April 13 of this year. I desperately needed her death certificate for the same reasons that Mr. Pask needed his wife’s. I could not access her bank account to pay her bills, open a new account in the name of the estate, file a life insurance claim, manage her tax obligations with the IRS, or access her credit report to look for liens.
I repeatedly contacted the Truro town clerk with zero response. This went on for almost a full month. In desperation, I reached out to Town Manager Darrin Tangeman and told him I could not begin to express how difficult this was making my life. I honestly just do not understand it.”
The clerk finally mailed the death certificate to me on May 17 after Tangeman spoke with her, but it was rejected by the probate court because it had not been completed correctly. I did not get the correctly certified death certificate from the town of Truro until July 12 — 90 days after my mother died.
I understand that there are many additional duties required of town staff, but it is cruel to leave the issuing of death certificates as the lowest back-burner priority and then to complete them incompetently.
More than one person at Truro Town Hall needs to be tasked with this vitally important obligation. Ignoring and torturing already grieving family members is unacceptable.
Mariah Bradford
Wellfleet and Walnut Creek, Calif.
An ‘Insensitive’ Photo Choice
To the editor:
Every year I look forward to the Provincetown Carnival parade: the costumes, the makeup, the performances, and the floats are always so creative. I imagine that it takes hundreds of hours of hard work by everyone involved to produce it.
When the Aug. 29 issue of the Independent came out, I hoped to see a spread of all the fabulous costumes I saw at the parade. Instead, there was only one photo on the front page. Inside, you published photographs of “revolutionaries,” including one that stood out to me and made me viscerally upset. It showed a woman with a huge Palestinian flag, a sign that said, “no pride in genocide,” and a shirt with the words “stop arming Israel.” [“Carnival’s ‘Revolution’ Theme Tests the Edge of Vacation Fantasies,” Aug. 29, page A8.]
Although I believe that everyone has a right to their thoughts and opinions, this was not the time and place. As a Jewish mother of a gay son who got married to his wonderful husband on Oct. 7, I have a bittersweet feeling about that day. This kind of rhetoric should not be welcome at a parade.
The Independent had a choice about what to print. You could have had a photo spread of creative costumes, floats, and drag queens giving toys to little kids. Choosing to display this photo instead was insensitive.
I hope next year the Carnival parade will continue to be filled with fun, with awe and joy only, and that you will choose to print photos of the Carnival Parade in all of its glory.
Rhonda Skloff
Truro
OCHS’s Cash Squeeze
To the editor:
I wish to add to what Sam Pollak reported in last week’s article about staff departures at Outer Cape Health Services and clarify my comments quoted in that story [“Outer Cape Health Restructures as It Loses Top Staff,” Sept. 12, page A5].
I said that a current regular medical provider told me last month that medical and other routine supplies were not consistently available because reportedly OCHS was not consistently able to meet its cash flow requirements.
Cash flow squeezes are typical of the summer season at OCHS as a result of the volume of supplies and staffing required to meet the high demand for patient care during these months. Full reimbursement for these services does not arrive until months later in the fall. If as reported OCHS suffered a $2 million shortfall last year, that would likely make it more difficult to meet cash flow requirements now.
I admire and commend the OCHS staff for their dedication and completion of another season providing excellent care to the best of their ability.
CEO Damian Archer is correct that community health centers statewide are awaiting promised additional reimbursements and economic support from the state as the shortage of primary-care staff requires overtime and other increased expenses.
Sally Deane
Cambridge
The writer was CEO of Outer Cape Health Services from 2009 to 2016.
Letters to the Editor
The Provincetown Independent welcomes letters from readers on all subjects. They must be signed with the writer’s name, home address, and telephone number (for verification). Letters will be published only if they have been sent exclusively to the Independent. They should be no more than 300 words and may be edited for clarity, accuracy, conciseness, and good taste. Longer pieces (up to 600 words) may be submitted for consideration as op-ed commentary. Send letters to [email protected] or by mail to P.O. Box 1034, Provincetown, MA 02657. The deadline for letters is Monday at noon for each week’s edition.
