If MacMillan Wharf is the heart of Provincetown, then surely Lopes Square is its aorta, where thousands of visitors surge, pulse, and begin their journey into town. After their stays, […]
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Getting the Name Right
It’s about basic common decency
Many years ago, in that time before cell phones, I was driving up Route I-95 when a familiar voice came on the radio singing “With a Little Help From My […]
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The Aftermath
How will we react to the inevitable changes that are coming?
I am a United States citizen in good standing. I have voted in every election since I was old enough to do so, received an honorable discharge from the U.S. […]
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What to Do After Tuesday
We must continue to call things as they are
Dear Reader: I am writing to you from the past, specifically late October. If this column manages to get itself written, edited, and published, it will appear in the issue […]
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The Last Swim
A land animal considers the joy and solace of immersion
Have you ever heard someone say that they were sorry they went for a swim? Neither have I. Even those hypothermic individuals hauled out of the water during this year’s […]
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Robert Finch: An Appreciation
In his essays, the essence of the Cape Cod life
Walking with my dog on an East End beach one breezy, overcast afternoon, I encountered two young men engaged in a photo shoot, complete with props, just above the tide […]
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Matters of the Mind and Body
Can they remain in sync into old age?
Last night a young friend (almost 27) said to me, “I am an old soul.” Those words got me thinking. Not about the soul — God help me from ever […]
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Saving Land
The task is huge, and we are small
Somewhere in my disheveled archives sits a tattered yellow news clipping from the New York Times, circa 1980, that was pinned to the bulletin board over my desk for decades. […]
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Where Does the Eagle Fly — and Why?
How we spend our free time defines who we are
We were out at Race Point, looking over the flocks of shorebirds, terns, and gulls on the beach, when suddenly the mass of them rose into the air in their […]
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Too Late for Tea?
Provincetown is more than a gay resort, Hannah
As if Provincetown needed any promotion going into August, the New Yorker magazine published a short profile of the town by Hannah Goldfield, titled “Beach Boys,” in its July 29 […]
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The Recyclable Life Force: An Unformed Idea
What is it like to be a slug or a vulture?
Walking on the East End beach at low tide with my 11-year old granddaughter, I pointed out the rivulets of groundwater streaming onto the flats. All the water in the […]
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Truro: It’s Not Provincetown
Taking stock of the best that each town has to offer
Lately I have been trying to imagine what it’s like to live in Truro. Really, I have no idea. Although I have been next door, in Provincetown, going on 60 […]
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Lawrence of the Dunes
Remembering a man who lived life on his own terms
I imagine Lawrence Schuster as a child in 1950s Pennsylvania being asked “What do you want to be when you grow up?” and answering, with steely blue eyes and a […]
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Ancestors and Descendants
Shadows of the past and our unknowable future
My father was born near the end of the 19th century (1897); I arrived near the middle of the 20th (1945); my four grandchildren, early in the 21st (between 2005 […]
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Living in Three Dimensions
We drive cars, fly in planes, and mostly live indoors
On the way to the beach, I passed a trellis festooned — indeed, overpowered — by English Ivy. Let’s call it a hedge. I had to stop, because emanating from […]
