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Starting last Sunday, the Truro Community Kitchen began serving hands-free takeout meals curbside to those in the community most in need, weekly from noon to 2 p.m. at the Box Lunch at 300 Route 6. Deliveries are available. Pictured here is Box Lunch co-owner Julie Grande behind the counter and helper Mira Stancheva packing a bag. To make a donation, go to the kitchen’s website at trurocommunitykitchen.weebly.com. Send questions to [email protected]. (Photo Nancy Bloom)
PROVINCETOWN — The Ptown Covid-19 Task Force came together a month ago as a channel for volunteer energy to help deal with the coronavirus. The pandemic creates challenges across many different dimensions, and the task force is organizing to help with several of them, including an increased need for counseling, a need to serve vulnerable neighbors, and a potential need for health care workers.
More than 100 people have signed up to serve, and the task force hopes to organize them ahead of any sudden need.
One of the task force’s initiatives is a volunteer stress support line, which was activated last week. People facing emotional challenges, anxiety, or stress can call 508-309-5848 from 11 a.m. to 7 p.m. and receive free support from mental health professionals over the phone. Those who would just like someone to talk to regularly can be paired with a buddy, a trained volunteer who can check in with daily calls.
Another team is focused on the physical needs of isolated neighbors — grocery shopping, delivery of prescriptions, even dog walking. These simple tasks are made complicated by the asymptomatic virus. Ensuring the safety of volunteer and beneficiary is paramount, and the medical team used CDC guidelines to develop specific protocols for service.
“How to enter and leave a store, how to pick up a dog or leave groceries — we train our volunteers for that,” said task force coordinator Alison Dwyer. “We also give them PPE [personal protective equipment] kits and training on how to use them.”
The task force developed an association with the Medical Reserve Corps of Cape Cod, partly to help safely screen new volunteers. Both groups aim to organize medical professionals to be able to step into any urgent gaps should they develop.
“The medical team is led by Dr. Scott Adelman, a retired cardiologist who lives here part-time,” said Dwyer, who is a nurse practitioner. “We can serve to the limits of our licenses. That could be staffing a testing site. It could be supporting another agency that calls us.”
“The best possible outcome is we organize all this stuff, and no one needs it,” said Lise King, who helps with administration and communications for the task force. “Rather than a last-minute emergency rush, we felt like, let’s create a bench, get everyone trained and staged, so that if the need does arise, we’re ready to help.”
“We have a great network of support agencies in Provincetown and Truro, which is wonderful,” said Dwyer. “We are preparing to support the support systems, if they get overwhelmed.”
General information is available on Facebook @ptowntaskforce or to volunteer, email [email protected]. For assistance, call Rita Paradise at 508-826-8439 or Michael Brown at 774-994-1650.
This week, the Independent offers dispatches from readers with a strong Cape connection who are living in other areas of the U.S. that are currently the hardest hit — places we hear about and think about daily.
Manhattan
Eve Becker, a writer and teacher, lives on the Upper West Side with her boyfriend and 20-year-old cat. Her 89-year-old mother lives a mile and a half away, her son about a mile uptown. Becker has visited the Cape during the summer since 1965, and spent a year in Wellfleet in the ’90s. “It’s the place I love most on the planet,” she says.
New York City has become eerily quiet. “No honking horns. No cacophony of voices. No street drills. More bird sounds. And every few minutes, a wail of sirens,” she says. “People I know have gotten sick and died. A friend who survived the illness had to say goodbye on FaceTime to his partner, who did not.”
She lives with constant anxiety. “It’s my son who I’m most worried about,” Becker says. “His definition of disinfecting and social distancing is different than mine. And his neighborhood has more folks living on the streets and grocery stores that are not cleaning and disinfecting carefully. This disease knows no class boundaries, but when the count is tallied, those on the bottom will no doubt be our greatest losses.”
Becker has nevertheless seen much to give her hope. “I’ve had many empathetic exchanges with strangers as we swerve out of each other’s paths — supermarket clerks, people on the street, neighbors whose names I didn’t know until now,” she says. “During this crisis, as during 9/11, people are making an effort for the greater good.”
Including one of her own students. “He’s home from college and started an organization called Invisible Hands to help bring groceries or medication to the elderly,” she says. “He now has over 7,000 volunteers working for him.”
Becker’s message to those of us on the Cape: “Stay home. And keep practicing acts of kindness and compassion.”
Brooklyn, N.Y.
Nora Herting lives with her partner, Vishal Desai, in Brooklyn. A founder of the graphic recording firm ImageThink, Herting also teaches in the summer at the Gestalt International Study Center in Wellfleet. “I have come to love Wellfleet and the Cape — each year I extend my trip to be longer and longer,” she says.
Pre-pandemic, Herting and her staff were frequent business travelers. No more. “We decided to let staff work from home, and within days, New York had shut down completely,” she says. “And with that, my company’s 2020 goals and strategy were upended.”
Herting is seeking new ways to keep her staff working. “Helping people connect, communicate, and engage is more important now than ever,” she says. “On March 19, we hosted our first webinar on keeping people engaged in virtual meetings.” But she is worried. “The small businesses that add the color and personality to our city” are suffering most.
Life in New York is constantly shifting. “What feels comfortable one day — like riding the subway, going to the store, or ordering takeout — no longer does the next day,” Herting says. “It’s like the world is slowly growing more dim and small.”
She and Desai mostly spend their days at home. “We turned the living room into a yoga studio and are both working on writing projects,” she says. “I feel that we have been abandoned by the federal government and left to fend on our own. It’s scary, and it makes me angry.”
Yet she hasn’t lost faith that New York will prevail. “I can’t wait for the reunion we will all have one day,” she says. “The city will come alive in an incredible way.”
New Orleans, La.
Crash Pechukas-Simonian grew up in Wellfleet, where both his parents and his younger sister remain. He is currently living in New Orleans with a roommate. Before the Covid-19 crisis hit, he was working as a waiter and enjoying the freedoms of his first year out of college.
“When the mayor reduced restaurants to only takeout,” Pechukas-Simonian says, “a number of us were out of work. A typical day now is limited to the confines of my apartment.” Initially, he followed the news of the outbreak closely, but he has learned to “get out of that space” and find distractions, such as reading, writing, and taking his dog, Clyde, for a stroll around the barren blocks of uptown New Orleans.
“The apprehension comes in waves,” he says. “For me, it’s the uncertainty that brings the greatest fear. How long will this last? When will I be able to see my family again? How will I support myself? We’re just taking it day by day.”
Pechukas-Simonian is critical of the federal government’s response for being “retroactive rather than proactive,” he says. “I had a friend visit New Orleans in the middle of January, and we were talking about coronavirus then. Two kids with iPhones had that intel, so I can only imagine the information in national security intelligence briefings. At Mardi Gras, thousands of people gathered shoulder to shoulder in the streets — a field day for a pathogen like this.” He hopes the crisis will be a “wake-up call” for all of us.
Manhattan
Stephanie Cooper, an artist and translator, and her architect husband, David Cornelius, were renting an apartment in Manhattan when the crisis hit. Cooper also shares a home in Truro with family and has been living there on and off her entire life.
“Truro is my only constant,” she says. “It’s what I think of when I think of home. New York is not my city, but I’ve been an observer of it for several years. It is a city of tremendous energy, tremendous numbers, and a resilience and optimism that I think will help it now.”
The couple decided to leave when it was “impossible to avoid crowds,” she says. For the past week, they have been self-quarantining in a rental off Cape before returning to their Truro home.
“While it seemed that sheltering in place would create a bounty of time for unfinished and new work,” Cornelius says, “that has yet to materialize. Instead, we are finding stores that do delivery, remotely checking on friends and cherished institutions, and sanitizing, sanitizing, sanitizing.”
Cooper and Cornelius hope to support the local community here once they return. “I’ve been talking with friends about starting a mutual aid society to share resources and information and provide moral support to one another,” Cooper says. In the meantime, the couple send a message of hope.
“Take refuge in your home, stay in touch with your community, know that you are not alone,” Cooper says. “It’s spring, and it’s beautiful. It’s terrifying.”
I’m writing this on the eve of the one holiday that has inspired us to sustain a kind of religious ritual at our house: Passover. The seder, which was a tedious affair when I was a child (except for the explosive horseradish on matzo, my favorite part), has evolved in our family into an open-ended improvisation on the themes of freedom, slavery, history, myth, racism, injustice, hope, and, most important, food. And wine.
Many features of even the most traditional Passover seder are oddly moving: the dipping of spring greens into salt water, having to put a roasted lamb shank on the table, leaving the door open so that hungry strangers might come in and partake of the meal, and the central role that children play in the proceedings, with the youngest asking the enigmatic and essential four questions. Why is this night different, indeed.
It’s become quite popular to adapt and reinvent the seder for modern times. The haggadah, or book of prayers and instructions that guide the seder (when I was a kid, it was the Maxwell House edition, of course), must now exist in thousands of forms and revisions.
This Passover will be remembered for a different kind of question. How do we celebrate freedom, hope, and community in isolation? The essence of the seder, gathering family, friends, and visitors to tell stories, break the “bread of affliction,” and exchange blessings, is forbidden.
The storytelling on Passover revolves around the exodus from Egypt, and I’ve always found that one of the most gripping parts of the tale is the ten plagues that God inflicts on the Egyptians to get Pharaoh to change his mind and free his Jewish slaves. At this point in the seder, the plagues are named, one by one, and each guest spills a drop of wine on her plate to symbolize the Egyptians’ suffering: the rivers turning to blood, frogs, lice, wild beasts, blighted livestock, boils, a hail of fire, locusts, darkness, and, finally, the horrific slaying of the first-born.
This year the idea of a plague is no longer an ancient story. It is the central reality of our lives. If we were able to come together for our favorite festival meal, we wouldn’t have to try to imagine the Egyptians’ anguish. The haggadah says that each of us should feel as if we ourselves had been there in Egypt in the time of slavery. Now I understand what that means.
We cannot gather around the table this year for our seder, but when we can resume the rituals that connect us to each other they will have a new depth of meaning. And even in isolation, we can still tell stories.
To the editor:
On Jan. 20 a 35-year-old man in Washington state returned from visiting family in Wuhan, China. He became the first person in the U.S. to be diagnosed with coronavirus. On the same day the first case of Covid-19 was reported in South Korea. They immediately took action. Why did our president not act? Why has it taken so long for our government to act?
By the end of February, the World Health Organization had shipped 1.4 million Covid-19 tests made by a German company, as the CDC struggled to produce a test that worked. Our government refused the German-made tests. Why?
Testing and retesting: that is how the northern Italian town of Vò, with a population of more than 3,000, identified and isolated infected people. They stopped the spread of Covid-19.
Many say the U.S. has one of the best health-care systems in the world. So why are we still waiting not only for Covid-19 tests but also for the protective gear our health-care workers and first responders need?
As a long-term AIDS survivor, a cancer survivor, and 66 years young, I feel susceptible to getting the Covid-19 virus. I want to get tested. Everybody needs to be tested to know if they have it so we can do what is necessary to stop the spread of this pandemic.
Where are the tests?
Stephen Kovacev
Truro
To the editor:
A couple of years ago, I encountered on the side of a friend’s refrigerator “A Message From Hopi Elders.” I found it deeply moving.
In these difficult times, it came back to me, so now I am passing it on to you.
We don’t know the actual author, and some question the attribution. For me this does not dim its wisdom.
A Message From Hopi Elders
You have been telling the people that this is the Eleventh Hour; now you must go back and tell the people that this is the Hour. And there are things to be considered…
Where are you living?
What are you doing?
What are your relationships?
Are you in right relation?
Where is your water?
Know your garden.
It is time to speak your Truth.
Create your community.
Be good to each other.
And do not look outside yourself for the leader.
This could be a good time! There is a river flowing now very fast. It is so great and swift that there are those who will be afraid. They will try to hold on to the shore. They will feel they are being torn apart and will suffer greatly.
Know the river has its destination. The elders say we must let go of the shore, push off into the middle of the river, keep our eyes open, and our heads above the water.
See who is in there with you and celebrate. At this time in history, we are to take nothing personally. Least of all, ourselves. For the moment that we do, our spiritual growth and journey comes to a halt. The time of the lone wolf is over.
Gather yourselves!
Banish the word struggle from your attitude and your vocabulary. All that we do now must be done in a sacred manner and in celebration. We are the ones we’ve been waiting for.
Tom Weidlinger
Angels Camp, Calif.
The writer is author of The Restless Hungarian, reviewed in the Independent on March 12.
To the editor:
Thanks for the vital story on the T-paper shipment [“Mercy Cruise Brings TP to Provincetown,” April 2, page 3]. One little detail: Eddie Ritter’s dory will lead the flotilla of transport boats, and the first delivery will go to those who are unable to get their water turned on.
Jay Critchley
Provincetown
Wagner and Mozart
The Metropolitan Opera continues its daily streaming of live performances from the past through April 19. Each day, from 7:30 p.m. till 6:30 p.m. the next day, a different opera will become available for free. From Thursday, April 9, to Friday, April 10, for example, a 2013 production of Wagner’s Parsifal is free, as is a 2018 performance of Mozart’s Così fan tutte from Sunday, April 12, to Monday, April 13. The easiest way to access the free operas is to search for “Nightly Met Opera Streams,” which is a page on the Met’s website: scroll down to the schedule and click on the opera of the day.
Napi’s Collection
The Provincetown Art Association and Museum is closed to the public through May, but its newest exhibit, “Director’s Choice: In Memoriam: Napi Van Dereck,” curated by PAAM CEO Christine McCarthy, is on view virtually. It’s a well-presented, glorious selection of works from the collection of Helen and Napi Van Dereck, all of it historic Provincetown art, which are being shown in honor of Napi’s recent passing. To access the exhibit, go to paam.org under “Exhibitions.” You can manually scan through the exhibit or download the Lingar app.
There Will Be a Quiz
For parents with kids who are curious about science, the Center for Coastal Studies is offering a generous selection of quizzes (on the ocean), games (matching hatchlings), experiments (on coastal erosion), and online presentations (babysitting baby squid) on its website, coastalstudies.org. To find “Online Activities for Kids,” click on “Connect and Learn” at the top of the home page.
P’town Call-in Q&A
Local government can be elusive during the current shutdown, but the Town of Provincetown has scheduled a “Call-in Question and Answer Session” on Wednesday, April 15, from 7 to 8 p.m. For updates, go to the town’s Facebook page and click on “Events.”
More Art Online
Provincetown artist Derek Macara and his friend Charles Flint have set up a thoughtfully interactive art show on view through May 2 called “Shelter: A Virtual Exhibit of Provincetown Artists.” It’s easy to navigate and the art can be observed up close. To get to the exhibit, go to kunstmatrix.com and do a search up top for “Derek Macara.”
Happy Drive-by Birthday
Here’s a message from the Town of Truro’s Recreation & Beach Dept.: “We can’t imagine trying to celebrate your special day in isolation. Which is why the Town of Truro would like to offer to have our Birthday Caravan drive past your Truro address to wish them a happy birthday. This program is open to Truro residents or children attending Truro Central School.” To sign up, go to truroma.myrec.com, click on the “Programs” icon, then “Birthday Caravan.”
Virtual Music Lessons
The Wellfleet Public Library’s website, wellfleetlibrary.org, is being reworked, but if you scroll down the home page, you’ll find a heading for “Artist Works” in the bottom left. Click on it, and you’ll be linked to a video gateway for self-paced music lessons by respected artists, from Classical Mandolin to Jazz Piano, Hip-hop Scratching to Bluegrass Vocals.
Youth Film Fest Deadline
Local filmmakers may find social distancing to be a severe obstacle, but obstacles are just a springboard to creativity (in theory, at least). Why that’s important: the deadline for entries for the Wellfleet Preservation Hall Youth Film Festival is April 30. Filmmaker applications are available online at wellfleetpreservationhall.org.
As the number of new COVID-19 cases grows daily and the Outer Cape braces for the coming wave of severe illness, now expected to peak in mid-April, two local residents who are recovering from coronavirus disease agreed to describe their alarming symptoms in interviews with the Independent this week. Their stories show the swells of both fear and kindness coursing through the community.
A recent study suggests that 40 percent of the population in every community will be infected with the virus in the next year, and 20 percent of those infected will require hospitalization. Both patients who spoke about their illnesses considered going to the hospital but decided against it.
Shoshannah DeVries-Dibble, 43, grew up in Eastham, graduated from Nauset Regional High School in 1994, and now lives in Orleans. She had traveled to Costa Rica and Vermont in the first half of March. Bob Keary, 40, a bartender who lives in Provincetown, had also traveled in early March, to New Orleans, before being sickened by an outbreak that some local residents insisted was being overhyped.
“It’s real,” said DeVries-Dibble this week as she began to feel better, “and it’s scary.”
On Monday, March 16, she had just returned from her two-week vacation and she needed to catch up on errands, but she felt utterly exhausted.
“I was worried I was getting the flu,” she said.
At first she had none of the telltale respiratory symptoms of COVID-19, but she has severe asthma. “I was petrified I would get sick,” she said. “I was Purelling everything.”
She consulted her doctor at Nauset Family Practice, who was confused, she said, by the absence of breathing difficulties. She would never have received one of the severely rationed tests for the virus if not for her high-risk status and her recent travel, DeVries-Dibble said.
During that first week, she suffered from a high fever, headaches, and joint and body aches. She took Tylenol and aspirin every four hours and lay under a weighted blanket for relief.
After a week, her COVID-19 test came back positive. The next day, the virus hit her lungs.
“It was a small dog sitting on my chest,” she said. She always keeps a nebulizer and inhaler nearby, and she needed them badly that day.
The next day, her respiratory problems were acute. A friend who is an I.C.U. nurse at Cape Cod Hospital advised her to pack a suitcase and go there.
“But I really wanted to stay home,” she said. “I didn’t want to be cared for by nurses who were caring for everyone else.”
She battled rising fear.
“By the way, if you panic with breathing problems, that makes it so much worse,” she said.
Both her children, Zoe, 21, and Logan, 19, quarantined themselves at home with her. Test results on Monday confirmed both children had it, though their symptoms were very mild.
On Thursday, March 26, DeVries-Dibble felt “a little wave of better,” and then on Friday her fever broke.
She posted her diagnosis on Facebook to warn her friends that this is real, and it can get really bad. Friends from high school remembered her asthma and called her when they heard the news.
As of Monday, she was still receiving food, medicine, and visits from friends. They spoke to her through her glass door.
“It’s like I’m an animal in a zoo,” she said.
Her doctor cleared her to go outside again on Monday because her fever was gone for several days and her first symptoms were so long ago. Her children are quarantined until April 2.
She still wonders, “How long are people going to think I’m the plague?”
From Talk to Lockdown
Bob Keary traveled to New Orleans for a friend’s birthday on March 12. While he was there, the country went from talking about coronavirus to locking down.
Keary said he watched police drive down Bourbon Street honking and telling people to go home.
“It got really scary,” he said.
Keary was among a circle of 20 to 30 people who went to different events related to the celebration. He shared a house with 15 friends; none of his travel companions has become sick, he said on Monday.
When he returned to Provincetown on March 16, everything had changed. Restaurants were serving takeout only. Though he felt fine, he and his husband decided to self-isolate and left their house only to get food or walk on the beach.
On Friday, March 20, Keary woke up with fever, chills, and body aches.
“It was sudden and it was bad,” he said.
Dr. William Shay of Outer Cape Health Services, in regular contact through phone and email, did not order a COVID-19 test at first because Keary had no respiratory symptoms. But over the weekend he started to cough, lost his sense of smell, and became short of breath.
“I couldn’t make it up and down my stairs without getting winded,” Keary said.
On Monday, March 23, Dr. Shay swabbed him in the parking lot of the Provincetown OCHS clinic.
The results came back positive Wednesday night.
“It was sort of comforting to have that confirmation, I guess,” Keary said.
Keary said he has never been so sick for so long. His fever lasted nine days. He had two days of severe nausea; he couldn’t even sip water.
“I could hardly breath,” he said, “and I had no appetite.”
A regimen of Dayquil, Nyquil, and Tylenol kept his pain down.
When the vomiting with fever and sweats got overwhelming, he considered going to the hospital. His doctor advised against it unless the fever topped 102 or “you really cannot breathe and you cannot stand up without losing breath or balance,” Keary said.
Living in Provincetown, Keary has watched as Facebook metastasized with hateful posts about second-home owners bringing the virus here and other finger-pointing.
“I have sick friends who are afraid to say anything,” Keary said. “And I thought, this isn’t right. You shouldn’t feel afraid to admit you’re sick.”
He hoped that by posting about his own illness, people’s better natures would emerge, and they did.
“Everyone — year-round and part-timer — offered to help,” Keary said. “That to me is really Provincetown. Not what you’re seeing on Facebook.”
Devin Sean Martin contributed reporting to this article.
WELLFLEET — Deirdre Oringer hadn’t sewn in ages. But when her daughter, Alita Pedley, who is an emergency room nurse in Bellingham, Wash., posted a pattern for face masks created by nurses, for nurses, Oringer thought, “I can do that.” Using social media, Oringer rounded up fabric and sewing machines and got to work. She gave her first set to those serving meals at the Fox & Crow Café’s Common Table.
Even as she is making them, Oringer knows these masks are not what her daughter really needs. Medical professionals working closely with patients who have COVID-19 can be protected from tiny virus-carrying droplets by N95 respirators, made from special materials and designed to form a tight seal around the wearer’s mouth and nose. And the country is running low on them. That shortage is real at Cape Cod Healthcare, owner of the Cape’s two hospitals, according to a statement issued on Mar. 25 by Michael Lauf, the company’s CEO.
The pattern Alita posted was for a mask designed to cover the higher-grade N95 masks to help prolong their useful life, Oringer explained.
Last-Resort Wear
Lauf’s statement noted that while the hospitals would prefer donations of medical-grade masks, hand-sewn masks are being accepted as well.
Cloth masks “do not provide adequate protection for medical staff,” according to the Johns Hopkins School of Public Health website’s COVID-19 page. “Cloth masks should be used only as a last resort if medical grade masks are not available,” it advises.
The World Health Organization and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention both say there’s no point in healthy people wearing any kind of mask unless they are taking care of someone who may be infected with COVID-19 — that is, for self-protection.
Studies of influenza pandemics have shown that when high-grade N95 masks are not available, even surgical masks protect people “only a bit more than not wearing masks at all,” according to a March 29 New York Times report.
At the same time, some doctors are suggesting that healthy people should begin to wear masks if they have to be in close proximity to others. The idea is that, even though masks are not as effective as hand-washing or social distancing, they may be better than nothing for situations where those precautions can’t be taken.
We Can Do It
The real reason to make and wear the masks may not be medical. Some people hope homemade masks will stop ordinary citizens from hoarding masks that medical workers need more desperately.
For those who sew, making masks is an outlet for the desire to help. Susan Jordan’s Orleans custom sewing business, Susan’s Workroom, closed when Gov. Charlie Baker ordered nonessential businesses to cease operations. But she had industrial sewing machines and fabric on hand. A friend cut the patterns and, Susan said, “I just put myself into production mode.” Her masks are going to Fontaine Primary Care, part of Cape Cod Healthcare.
Mary DeAngelis heard from a friend who was making masks in Truro, but in need of elastic. That idea awakened a sense of purpose for DeAngelis, a fashion designer who lives in Provincetown. She envisioned a brigade of seamstresses in town forming a production line.
When social distancing requirements thwarted that idea, DeAngelis got out her scissors anyway. “I immediately thought of my flannel pajama bottoms, and how I could use their elastic waistbands, but also their bird, puppy, elephant, and flower patterns,” she said. She is working to make 25, the number of masks Seashore Point has requested. “I had quite a few pairs of pajamas, but now I’m onto a friend’s shabby chic couch cover and a neighbor’s denim dress from the 1940s.”
Jessica Nandino, the nurse who posted the pattern Oringer found on Instructables.com, accompanies her instructions with an acknowledgment that the evidence on the effectiveness of cloth masks is not encouraging.
Instead, she wrote, “I believe these masks may demonstrate our protest.” Her point is to show the power of community to spring into action where neither the free market nor the government are doing so.
“We will make a statement, when all across the country, medical professionals start showing up to work in fabric masks, sewed by members of their community, from of a hodgepodge of fabrics in every color,” Nandino wrote. “The act of wearing this mask could become a visual representation of the sacrifices we are making and our unwavering dedication to care for others in their time of need, regardless of the most recent constraints of the terribly broken system we work within.”
Last week brought the stunning news that Terrence McNally had become a victim of COVID-19 at age 81. This was a man who had survived decades of AIDS, as well as his own personal battle with lung cancer. He was a warrior gay role model, a true theatrical lion. Terrence seemed indestructible. His passing brought to mind his luminous sense of joy in Provincetown in the summer of 2018.
I vividly remember standing on Ken Fulk’s back porch, the harbor shimmering before us, handing the very first Provincetown American Playwright Award to Terrence. As the new artistic director of the Provincetown Theater, I saw a fresh page in our history being written.
“How proud I am,” Terrence said, “that Provincetown is reclaiming its incredible role in American drama.” Referencing the original Provincetown Players, he continued, “Those people knew there was much more to America and Americans to write about, and that theater should reflect it. That it all began right here, I find so powerful. It’s almost inexpressible. The arts feed us and make us a better planet. Something I have dedicated my life to.” And, indeed, he had.
Like many, I had grown into adulthood dazzled by the multitude of Terrence’s plays and musicals — Master Class; The Lisbon Traviata; Lips Together, Teeth Apart; Frankie and Johnny in the Clair de Lune; The Ritz; Ragtime; and others. I felt as if Terrence was a close friend, when, in truth, we were but casual acquaintances.
That is, until he came to receive the PAPA.
This event, of course, came on the heels of hosting Terrence and his husband, Tom Kirdahy, at the opening of his masterwork, Love! Valour! Compassion!, at the Provincetown Theater. Nervous much? Not at all.
Doing double duty as director and actor in the show was an incredibly intimate experience. The daily delving into his story of gay men’s friendships brought me closer to Terrence than I’d ever expected. So, when we got to the opening night curtain call, and offered Terrence a bow, he jauntily made his way onstage to join the cast. In an act of spontaneous brotherhood, we surrounded Terrence for a group hug that ended with us throwing open our robes — the final scene has the characters skinny-dipping, so we were all nude beneath — and shaking our stuff at him. He laughed and laughed. We all did. Like everything in Terrence’s worldview of the American spirit, there was nothing to hide. As a citizen of the planet, bonding was a call to duty. In that utterly Provincetownian moment, he was very much our papa.
PROVINCETOWN — No clinical services to patients have been canceled since Outer Cape Health Services last week furloughed or laid off nearly half its staff because of lost revenue caused by the coronavirus pandemic.
Federally qualified health centers like OCHS are the “canaries in the coal mine” of the economic crisis caused by COVID-19, according to the Mass. League of Community Health Centers. Though it was not clear whether any other such centers in Massachusetts had announced staff reductions as of Monday, Atrius Health, the largest independent health care organization in the state, also made temporary cuts affecting about half its workforce on March 23.
In a conference call on Monday, Dr. Andrew Jorgensen, medical director of OCHS, said no clinicians have been furloughed or laid off. But many support staff at all three clinics, in Provincetown, Wellfleet, and Harwich, will be out of work, mostly temporarily, for an estimated four to six weeks, said CEO Pat Nadle.
“Today has truly been one of the hardest days in my entire career,” Nadle stated on March 25. “Making decisions that impact even one staff member’s life is very difficult.”
OCHS has furloughed about 70 of its 200 employees. They can return to their jobs when patient visits and revenues return to normal. In the meantime they can apply for unemployment benefits and health insurance through MassHealth, Nadle said. Others, including members of the management team, will work reduced hours, she said. There will be a small number of permanent layoffs — “enough to count on one hand,” she said.
Gynecology, behavioral health, radiology, and other services will continue for now, Nadle said. Dentistry and ophthalmology were suspended about two weeks ago at the recommendation of the governor, Nadle said.
Cape Cod Healthcare, which operates both Cape hospitals, had avoided staff reductions as of the Independent’s deadline. But in reaction to the lost revenue from canceled elective surgery, CEO Mike Lauf announced he would give up his salary for April ($78,000 according to the Cape Cod Times). The trustees of Cape Cod Healthcare said they would match that amount in a donation to the company’s foundation.
At Outer Cape Health, the reduction in patient visits is expected to create losses of $1 million a month, according to Nadle’s announcement.
The League of Community Health Centers announced on March 20 that clinics like OCHS (which get federal funding to serve poor and rural areas) are expected to see revenue drop by 50 to 70 percent during the pandemic.
Ironically, health care is taking a hit because, as people isolate, they postpone seeing their doctors. Community health clinic revenue comes mostly from patient visits. For hospitals, the top revenue streams are from elective surgery and cardiovascular surgery, followed by cardiology, neurosurgery, orthopedic surgery, and gastroenterology.
In order to adapt to the losses, OCHS is applying for grants, and should benefit from the recent federal stimulus bill, though Nadle said the amount of help was still not known.
Aside from the aid package, the government is beginning to help shift the immediate revenue picture. The federal government did recently allow Medicare to begin paying for telemedicine appointments. Private and state-funded insurance companies were ordered by Gov. Charlie Baker to reimburse immediately for telemedicine, Jorgensen said. But that did not happen quickly on the federal level.
Telemedicine, which now accounts for about 80 percent of appointments, could help stop the spread of the virus, and saves on personal protective equipment, which continues to be in short supply.
Ladies and gentlemen, the show is about to begin. Please leave your cell phones on full volume and unwrap the noisiest candies you have. Throw on some pajamas and pour yourself a “quarantini.”
If this is the new normal for the Outer Cape music aficionado, it’s a welcome compromise. As stay-at-home mandates and social distancing render it impossible for audiences to congregate at live performances, musicians across Cape Cod are live-streaming on the internet in order to share their talent.
In Provincetown, for example, Jon Richardson is hosting “virtual piano bars” on weeknights and Saturdays at 9 p.m. (Go to the Facebook page of Jon Richardson Music, check the schedule, and join the fun.) As viewers request songs in the comments section, Richardson, who is a veteran of the Provincetown piano bar circuit, regularly playing at Tin Pan Alley and the Crown & Anchor, engages his audience so artfully that he nearly erases the technological barrier. And though piano bars are seldom frequented by children, Richardson says he has tweaked his approach for the stay-at-home crowd.
“Piano bars are about creating community through music, and the goal of them is for everybody to sing along together,” he says. “What I am trying to do is create a similar atmosphere among people that are sheltering in place together and with their families.”
Other Cape Cod musicians streaming live on their Facebook pages include Peter Donnelly in Provincetown, Sarah Burrill in Eastham, and Sara Leketa in Hyannis. (Check online for times — virtual gigs tend to be announced fairly close to when they happen.) The Cape Cod Chamber Orchestra is hosting several streaming events on its Facebook page, including down-to-earth lectures with its conductor, Matthew Scinto, classical music-tinged games of Who Wants to Be a Millionaire, and a prerecorded concert of works by Joseph Haydn and Ralph Vaughan Williams.
On Martha’s Vineyard, the husband-wife duo Seán McMahon and Siren Mayhew, who perform as Workman Song, are hosting “Social Distance Sings” from their living room. (Go to Workman Song’s YouTube page, scroll down to “Uploads” at the bottom, and you’ll find a selection of live-future and past-recorded streams.) Untethered to a microphone, the pair perform with energy and enthusiasm. At touching moments, their young daughter sings along or dances with the abandon of someone truly unaware of her audience. “The dynamic you see onscreen is very much our authentic family dynamic,” McMahon and Mayhew explain via email.
It’s not only concerts that have gone virtual. The Cape Conservatory, which serves over 1,200 students of all ages, has switched over from in-person to online music lessons. Interim Director Jackie deRuyter says that despite some initial skepticism, the undeniable success of virtual lessons has inspired them to offer one-off lessons to new students. If you’ve been dying to learn the cello, now might be the perfect time. (Register at capeconservatory.org.)
While the Cape has much to offer musically, one of the pluses of streaming is that geography is less of an obstacle and we are more connected to the wider world than ever before. National Public Radio is a great way to explore; it has a comprehensive list, updated daily, of streaming concerts of every genre from around the globe. You can find it at npr.org; on the website’s home page, search for “list of live virtual concerts.” NPR also offers concerts of its own, streaming live and recorded. To sample them: on the home page, click on “Music” and, in the drop-down menu, “Live Session.”
Limited access to high-speed internet across the Cape makes these concerts and lessons inaccessible to some. There are issues for performers, too: coronavirus has sent a financial shock wave through the musical community, and though many of the musicians mentioned here use a virtual tip jar, it is challenging, if not impossible, to make streaming concerts as economically viable as live ones.
In response to this issue, American roots musician Monica Rizzio, who founded the nonprofit Vinegrass Organization (vinegrass.org), has started the Cape Cod Gig Relief Fund. The fund is intended to provide weekly relief — the equivalent of one lost gig — to musicians and audio engineers affected by the pandemic. Within hours of launching, the fund received over a dozen requests for assistance. During Rizzio’s streaming kickoff concert, “Tune In Shut Down,” on March 26, the organization raised $1,600 to add to a starting pot of $5,000. Expect more virtual concerts from Vinegrass in the coming weeks.
Many would argue that live performances possess a gravitas untranslatable when conveyed electronically. But at a time when human connection is hard to come by, virtually experiencing live concerts can offer a feeling of closeness and genuine intimacy. All from the comfort of your couch.
Virtual Painting Classes
When looking for virtual distractions on art, there are myriad pages to surf — galleries and museums from here to Timbuktu — but not much that is new or crafted for the current crisis. One impressive exception are the free painting classes being offered by Provincetown artist Cynthia Packard online. Go to the Facebook page for Cynthia Packard Studio and you’ll find Virtual Painting Classes scheduled on Fridays and Sundays at 1 p.m. through April 26. “Set up your easels, set up your paints, and take your mind off the news for a few hours,” the post says. The sessions are interactive.
Scavenging Photography
Another interesting diversion is the Cape Cod Art Center’s Photography Scavenger Hunt. Go to capecodartcenter.org and find the categories for this week’s “hunt,” which is really an online exhibit. Submit one entry per category. Entries are posted online, and a first prize is announced weekly.
Online Art
The Provincetown Art Association and Museum hasn’t started up any online classes at press time, but they have compiled a useful list of online resources for artists: go to paam.org and type in “art resources” in the search slot.
Hightown Update
We’ve watched them film a faux Carnival, we’ve seen the trailers, and now we have a premiere date for the Starz series Hightown, about a hard-partying lesbian federal Marine Fisheries Service agent in Provincetown who finds the body of an addict washed up on the town beach and sets out to investigate the opioid underworld. For those who have a cable package that includes the Starz channel, the series will become available on Sunday, May 17. The rest of us will just have to get the Starz app and subscribe, or wait till the series can be rented or purchased.
Capt. Awesome
For the couch potato naturalist in all of us, Cape Cod Learning Tours is offering Tea Time with Captain Awesome, a free talk on the marine environment that starts weekdays at 2 p.m. and lasts 30 minutes. These discussions are guaranteed to be “lively,” sometimes include hikes, and are scheduled till this “beer germ blows over.” Go to the Cape Cod Learning Tours’ Facebook page and sign up.
Theater Class
The Cape Playhouse in Dennis is offering free master classes on their Facebook page on Mondays, Thursdays, and Fridays at 1 p.m. The most recent one was “Life as a Scenic Artist,” led by Amy Brooks, and suitable for ages 9 to 16.
Pandemic History
The Truro Historical Society is putting together a “scrapbook” of the COVID-19 crisis called “Reflections on the Pandemic: Truro 2020.” It has put out a call for stories and photos to [email protected]. For submission guidelines, go to the society’s website, the Highland House Museum Facebook page, or trurohistory on Instagram.
Virtual V.F.W.
On Tuesday, Jay Critchley announced that he will attempt a virtual “opening” for his Provincetown V.F.W. building art project, for which dozens of people have contributed artifacts and memories, this Friday, April 3, at 8 p.m. The building is set to be torn down by the town. To join in, Critchley said to go to the Provincetown Community Compact’s Facebook page, where you will find instructions for group streaming.
Why Is This Night Different?
Of the many plans undone by the coronavirus, Passover 2020, which begins on the evening of Wednesday, April 8, will confront significant obstacles when it comes to groups having seders. The Cape Cod Synagogue has been live-streaming Shabbat services on its website, capecodsynagogue.org, every Friday evening at 7:30 p.m. As for hosting and attending a virtual seder, one useful resource we found was Seder2020.org, powered by One Table.
On March 19, the Truro Select Board signed a formal proclamation declaring a state of emergency. The 10 “whereas” clauses of this proclamation noted, among other things, that the governor had declared a state of emergency nine days earlier.
The proclamation called for “immediate public action” to minimize the spread of disease in Truro, but it didn’t say anything about what such action might be.
The board remained silent on that question for another eight days, when, together with the board of health, it posted a message on the town website, titled: “CORONAVIRUS: A Pandemic Dilemma That Demands A Particular Introspective Thoughtfulness From All Of Us.”
The particular introspective thoughtfulness that Truro’s leadership offered was not actually addressed to anyone here in town, who might have been wondering, in this time of crisis, what was happening to town government and how to get accurate information about the virus, the police and fire departments, the rescue squad, the senior center, the school, the transfer station, local health agencies, and local providers of food and medicine. No, it was addressed entirely to people who weren’t here, telling them in no uncertain terms not to try to come.
The boards wrote of “an influx of people fleeing urban centers,” seeking a safe harbor. “While in normal times our town would be welcoming visitors,” they wrote, “these are not normal times. Because of both the real and perceived threat of such a population surge, we write to discourage this crisis-generated influx of people.”
The message continued: “If people come from off-Cape, away from their primary care physicians, and become ill, they will be dependent on emergency room aid. They will also be burdening our on-call rescue personnel. We are operating our firehouse and rescue squad with off-season staffing. Barnstable County does not have the medical resources of an urban center and the influx of population will put an undue burden on medical services which exist to serve our year-round population.”
This, in fact, is probably not true. A recent study by the Harvard Global Health Institute appears to show that Cape Cod Hospital may be better equipped to deal with the expected flood of COVID-19 patients than hospitals in Boston and New York.
But that’s not the point.
We live in small towns and our leaders, who are also friends, are mostly volunteers. It’s easy to criticize their errors in carrying out a difficult job.
But the virus is here and will infect many of us. True thoughtfulness would have meant giving everyone, year-rounders, part-timers, and visitors alike, life-saving information on proper self-isolating behaviors and how to stay connected at the same time to town services and a caring community. To ignore that and focus attention instead on fear of outsiders is not public service. It’s malpractice. Truro’s government must do better.
To the editor:
“Seeing the elephant” is an expression that means “gaining experience at a significant cost.” Its origins in the U.S. are often attributed to early 19th-century exhibits of circus elephants, and this Americanism became prominent in literature, culture, and westward expansion.
An exhibit titled “Seeing the Elephant” at the Civil War Museum in Kenosha, Wis., explores another use of the expression. Soldiers used it to describe their first experience of combat. “These guys were excited and expecting glory,” the museum’s website notes, “but when they got to battle they found chaos and mayhem, and they weren’t too anxious to ‘see the elephant’ again.”
Now we are gaining experience at a significant cost, with an unknown and lurking threat. Our routines are disrupted and redirected. We have digital connections to each other, but they are not the same connections we are used to.
Few of us living now have memories of other times of shortages and restricted communications and movement. But they learned to cope with it all and persevere. Coping is also gaining experience at a significant cost.
The experiences of our predecessors instruct us to persevere as they did, and to become an even more perfect Union.
John R. Dundas
Truro
To the editor:
Indivisible Outer Cape is looking for ways to serve the community during the current health crisis. Our mission is protecting democracy and equality for all, our health, and our environment. Using our network of allied organizations and our contacts with the other Indivisible groups of our region, we are helping to disseminate information and to organize responses to specific needs.
Despite the challenges of the COVID-19 crisis, we are still working to provide people with ways to stay politically active. In line with our 2020 Vision plan, we are supplying “Activism to Go” kits for people to complete at home during this time of social distancing and shelter-in-place orders. We will also be experimenting with “Activism to Go” delivery.
We are extremely concerned about the effect this crisis will have on our elections and are gearing up for action to mobilize for fair and safe elections, including nationwide voting by mail for November. You can read about our plans on our website: indivisibleoutercape.org.
Laurie Veninger
North Truro
To the editor:
My father was born early in 1909 in Orleans, where his father, Reuben J. Marvel, was the town doctor. My father, Reuben J. Marvel Jr., and his father were among those who went out to Nauset Beach in the summer of 1918 to watch a German U-boat shelling a tug that was running along the shore, and he saw at least one of the only hostile shells that struck American soil during World War I.
They left Orleans to come to New Hampshire in 1923, leaving behind my Aunt Bertha, who had married one of a long line of Freeman Hatches from Eastham. During World War II my grandfather came out of retirement and went back to Wellfleet to stand in for that town’s doctor, who was (I think) off in the Navy.
My father died in May 1998, and because he was so young at the time of the U-boat incident, I’ve suspected that he may have been the last surviving witness. If any of your readers know of others who were on the beach that day who outlived him, I would be grateful if they would drop me a line.
William Marvel
783 Davis Hill Road
Center Conway, N.H. 03813
