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Dennis Minsky

    THE YEAR-ROUNDER

    My Hoary, Helmeted Head

    Happy to live in a town where everyone rides a bike

    By

    When I was in my early teens, in Pennsylvania, I worked: I had a paper route, was a stable boy, did door-to-door sales, and I saved my money. Finally, I had enough for a brand-new bicycle. I chose the top of the line: a Schwinn Corvette. I think it cost me about $70. It was a beauty, and I zipped around the Harrisburg streets, and through vacant lots and woodland paths.

    When I hit 16, though, it was time to grow up. I got my driver’s permit, and I never looked back. A kid on a bike was just a kid. A kid in a car was on the way to being a man. I could pull up onto a girl’s front lawn on my bike, or I could pull up in front of her house in a car: no contest.

    Eventually, I got my license and inherited the family’s 1955 Chevy, and I was off. Despite a handful of accidents, I kept my license and kept to the road. I drove all over town and out of town. My poor bike was left in the basement to gather dust.

    Fast forward a few years. I arrived in Provincetown. I first came on the bus to Hyannis and then hitchhiked (the late John Lisbon picked me up) to Provincetown, because my Austin Healey was in the shop, as usual. So, I was carless for a time. But here was Provincetown, where grown adults rode bikes! I remembered, many years earlier, my father gently (as he did all things) ridiculing a lawyer in Harrisburg for riding his bike to work: not a distinguished thing to do. But Provincetown was different. Everybody rode bikes here — old people, fat people, drunk people — everybody!

    I quickly acquired a bike with my meager earnings as a busboy at Ciro and Sal’s. I instantly reconnected to the joy of riding a bike, whether wheeling along Commercial Street or going out to the bike paths in Beech Forest and the dunes. There is something about the pace of the thing, something about being able to actually be in contact with the passing scenery (well, not direct contact) and passersby — the intimacy — and yet be moving a bit faster than walking, capitalizing on my mechanical advantage. It was practical and fun.

    I have had a few close calls — running into a hedge, wiping out in sand or mud — but nothing serious. Still, I am of a certain age, and have noticed changes in my reflexes and sense of balance (not good ones). I hear the stories of lives forever altered by bike accidents. But, no offense, those people wearing helmets have always seemed, well, just a bit nerdy, uncool. Maybe, out on the highway, but riding through town? The freedom of riding without a helmet, hair blowing unconstrained. A helmet seems like an imposition.

    Nevertheless, reality rears its hoary head. Vulnerability must be acknowledged. I owe it to myself and those who care about me. I have a helmet now and, though I am not in love with it, I am learning to live with it. Maybe, someday, it will be like a seat belt, second nature. Maybe I will not remember riding helmetless, as I barely remember smoking cigarettes, or some of my other early foolish activities.

    For over 50 years, I have lived in Provincetown, the town where everyone rides a bike, including the old, the fat, and the drunk. I am now flirting with all three categories. I still revel in the freedom.

    “Surely Joy is the condition of Life,” wrote Thoreau. Riding a bike is a kid-like thing to do; it can be practical, but it is most of all joyous. I sail down Commercial Street with a glad heart, wind in my (helmeted) face, so happy to be alive and to be here, moving through this place, and moving on.

    THE YEAR-ROUNDER

    Alleyway

    The place without a name, perfect for random excess

    By

    In every soul there is an alleyway.

    And every town has one: at least one place like this. Even in beautiful Provincetown, full of narrow winding lanes, lovely gardens, charming old houses, galleries, shops, and sandy beaches, you will find an alleyway.

    This one might be considered the underbelly of the town, if you tend to be judgmental. It is off the beaten track, not exactly a destination, except for those who seek it: this narrow passage between the Old Colony Tap and the Lobster Pot restaurant. Both are venerable establishments — although the “O.C.” is a bit shabby and tattered, with peeling paint and shed shingles. Some call it “Clam Alley,” but, like many real places, it does not actually have a name.

    alleyIt is visited mostly in the deepening shadows of the afternoon, or in the heart of the evening, or late at night, even after Last Call. It is just steps away from the busy center of town. Churning Commercial Street is at one end, headlights and bobbing heads passing by, preceded by their shadows, the Bradford bar and restaurant across the street. And at the other end, the harborside beach and the lights of fishing boats and MacMillan Wharf, and nearer by, the upturned dories, like prehistoric creatures, lying amidst the beach grass. The ghost of Eddie Ritter — or is it Eddie Ritter? — calls out.

    On the right side of the alley is a row of ripe garbage cans from the ’Pot. On the left, a bunch of bikes drunkenly leaning against the wall, and sometimes a parked motorcycle. Underfoot are shells and cigarette butts; on either side, sprouted weeds lean in.

    This is an arena for drama: it is offstage for the Old Colony Tap inside. Through the sagging side screen door people spill out into the alley to pursue important conversations where they can be heard above the blaring (and excellent) jukebox (playing, perhaps, Santana’s “Black Magic Woman”); arguments are resolved, usually by lack of focus and inattention (rarely, with shouts and fists); joints are lit up and passed sloppily around, and cigarettes, too, since the indoor smoking ban; clandestine communications are conducted; occasionally the preliminary steps of assignations are initiated.

    Most sex, I am told, takes place on the darkened beach beyond, but, says one confidant, “There is nothing like getting backed up against the wall in the dark and getting ‘stranger kisses,’ not even knowing the guy’s name — maybe just the name of his boat.”

    For some, this is the place for the later stages of drunkenness, for stumbling and fumbling and falling down. One such stumbling fool, who couldn’t manage to light his own cigarette and apologized repeatedly, is told by my friend: “Enjoy that jag, buddy — you paid for it!”

    Oh, for the pre-pandemic days, for the old days of random excess and wildness and indulgence, to be young or not so young, to be alive and half-lit and enjoying the hilarity of life and good company on a beautiful summer evening in our own cocoon, in “Clam Alley,” or whatever you want to call it, to await — if you survived all this — the next great chapter of your life in Provincetown.

    THE YEAR-ROUNDER

    Almost Cut My Hair

    What is a haircut for, anyway?

    By

    PROVINCETOWN — I have not had a haircut in at least seven months. My hair is almost as long as it was 50 years ago. It doesn’t really matter; I don’t go out much, and not many people see me. Just a few of the people who do see me make a big deal out of my hair. Some have called it “Covid hair”; others have said that I look like a homeless person, or a hippie; still others said I reminded them of Einstein (my personal favorite).

    This all got me to thinking: what is a haircut for, anyway? Most women have longer hair than most men. Why is that? Well, you will say, to better differentiate the sexes, to enhance attraction and reproduction. But I must counter that there are far better features to differentiate the sexes (need I mention them?), and, besides, there are ravishing women with very short hair or no hair at all, and there are some very masculine guys with shoulder-length hair.

    So, why do most men get their hair cut? You will say, to look good. But what does “looking good” really mean? Who decides? How does this happen in a culture? How do we end up with a consensus of style? Who sets that trend? Certainly, men have not always had short hair. We do not have to go back to Biblical times — look at those locks on Jesus! — to see other standards.

    Presidents Washington and Jefferson had pony tails (and they powdered and pomaded their hair and sometimes wore wigs); later presidents wore it full about the ears (check out Andrew Jackson: a dead ringer for Rod Stewart), along with sideburns and beards. Only in the late 19th and into the 20th century did presidential hair styles begin to get shorter. (Our current president’s hair, which is beyond categorization, appears to require lots of product and care. He deducted $70,000 for hair styling as a business expense on his taxes, the New York Times reported.)

    I seem to remember reading that the first real shift to short hair on men came during World War I, when our soldiers had their heads shaved or close-cropped (for hygienic reasons), and many men during and after the war wanted to emulate them. I think there was a similar trend after World War II, when the crewcut was all the rage. And I certainly remember — indeed, took part in — the long-haired rebellion against society that began in the 1960s. Hollywood and popular music (the social media of the time) had great influence.

    I have been comfortable with my own hair only in the second half of my life. As an angst-filled teenager, I could not get my hair to take on the look I desired. Its texture could be described as bushy, full, wavy, curly — anything but straight. First, there was Elvis, whom I idolized. I used Vaseline straight out of the jar to get that slicked-back, almost greasy straight black hair that was his. It worked for about an hour.

    Then came the Beatles: their floppy mop tops were all the rage. When they shook their heads in choral ecstasy, every hair responded, like those of the beautiful women in one of those shampoo ads on TV. I wanted that, too. I used a hair straightener from a jar with directions in Spanish. I think it was basically lye. I had scabs all over my scalp, but every hair fluttered when I flipped my head. But my hair grew back in its original form.

    It was Bob Dylan who came to my rescue: the disheveled look was finally in.

    Styles come and go, and we live in their stream. It is not only ephemeral things like hairstyles, but thoughts and opinions as well. I am old enough to remember when civil rights for some people was a new idea (at least, in the mainstream culture); when it seemed natural that women be secondary in so many ways to men; when gay people were thought to be at best unfortunate and at worst a threat to society; when the vulnerabilities of our planet and our precious environment were not even on the horizon.

    Those were different times, but not so long ago. Now we are here. What comes next?

    In the meantime, I am going to let my Freak Flag Fly.

    THE YEAR-ROUNDER

    Confronted by Caring

    Reminders of how Provincetown responded to earlier crises

    By

    “A man who carries a cat by the tail,” wrote Mark Twain, “learns something he can learn in no other way.”

    I have shelves and piles of books in our home, and I visit one or more of them daily, now with so much more time to read. But the worldwide pandemic that surrounds us tends to put anything I gain from them in stark perspective: it is real life that is providing all the lessons.

    A friend has tested positive for the coronavirus. At this writing, his symptoms are mild, but it is cause for concern. I have been repeatedly texting and calling him, apologizing for my intrusiveness. I just can’t dodge the anxiety. I am confronted by the fact of how much I care about him. It reminds me of the days when our children were small, and we would repeatedly sneak into their bedroom at night to see if they were still breathing.

    We have been calling friends, some distant, some from long ago. We have been reaching out, on the phone, online. “How are you?” now seems a freighted phrase. “Stay safe” has special meaning, as if the words themselves can protect.

    This danger brings relationships to the fore. We have taken our friends for granted. Think about the phrase “take for granted”: we have granted to each other the status of friend, forgetting in better times what that meant. It means caring.

    Beyond friends and family, we have a community, and it, too, is besieged. While there are no exact analogues, there will be many attempts to find parallels to this pandemic. Of course, the horror of the AIDS epidemic comes immediately to mind. Provincetown became a center for the afflicted; it still is. Further back, mid-19th century, smallpox was the scourge.

    Those two crises illustrate a stark difference in the reaction of our townspeople over the years. Victims of smallpox were isolated in a “pest house” out past Shank Painter Road; even their bodies were shunned, buried in a little graveyard with only 14 numbered stones. It is still there, near Duck Pond, overgrown.

    But in the 20th century, Provincetown became a sanctuary for the beleaguered victims of the new unknown AIDS virus; people flocked here from all over the world for comfort, or to die in a caring community, or, later, to learn to live with the virus. Lauren Ewing’s sculpted memorial next to Town Hall celebrates the compassionate attitude of our town, along with the tragedy of the disease. I am proud to live in a community that is synonymous with caring.

    This caring takes many forms. Most affecting is the group of people who are making masks. It is wonderful, really, that each works in her or his own space, making a small cloth accessory that may afford a modicum of protection — probably not so much to those on the front lines of fighting the virus, but perhaps to those of us who are making the necessary forays out into the unknown, to Stop & Shop, or wherever we absolutely have to go. There is scant evidence of their effectiveness beyond “better than nothing” — although there is debate about this in the scientific community. These flimsy pieces of cloth are akin to talismans: invoking safety, warding off the evil spirit of Covid-19. But to be given one, to hold it in your hands, is to experience the love of a fellow being, to be part of a community.

    “Only connect!” wrote E.M. Forster: “Only connect … and human love will be seen at its height.  Live in fragments no longer.”

    Amen.

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