An Independent-minded calendar of arts and events for Outer Cape Cod

Advertise in the Indie.

Reach more readers from Eastham to Provincetown.

Unchained news for Outer Cape Cod

The Provincetown Independent

Let us bring you the paper.

Your subscription supports real community journalism.

eastham

     Free Senior Workshops From Castle Hill 

    By

    The spring session of Truro Center for the Arts at Castle Hill’s “60+” program begins this week. The free virtual workshops are open to residents of Provincetown, Truro, Wellfleet, Eastham, Orleans, Chatham, Harwich, and Brewster who are 60 years of age or older.

    Vicky Tomayko teaches “Relief Printmaking in the Home Studio” on Tuesdays and Thursdays, 10 a.m. to noon, from April 13th to 29th. Students will learn how to make woodcuts, linocuts, and collagraphs. If cooking is more your thing, Katherine Alford, former vice president of Food Network’s test kitchen, teaches a workshop on Thursdays, 3 to 5 p.m., from April 22nd to May 20th, skipping May 6.

    Sign up for the lottery at castlehill.org, or by calling 508-349-7511. Participants will be notified of admittance on Friday, April 9th.

     

    Covid Relief Fund Recipients Announced

    By

    The Mass. Cultural Council has announced the recipients of the Covid-19 Relief Fund. It awarded grants of $1,500 to 781 artists, humanists, and scientists, $1,171,500 in total.

    Twenty were from the Outer Cape. In Provincetown: visual artists Ramón S. Alcoléa, Karen Cappotto, Anastasia Egeli, Akiko Jackson, Chet Jones, and Gaston Lacombe; comedian Kristen Becker; multidisciplinary artist Andrew Fitzpatrick; filmmakers James Kubesch and Fermin Rojas; and, for theater, Robert DiVincenzo, Christopher Kosiavelon, and Michael Sottile.

    In Truro: visual artist Donna Mahan and, for multidisciplinary arts, Stephanie Rein and Vanessa Vartabedian.

    In Wellfleet: visual artists Megan Hinton and Julia Salinger.

    And, finally, in Eastham: musician Billy Hardy. Congratulations to all.

     

    STEEPLE CHASE

    Chapel in the Pines Has Its Crowning Moment

    Community preservation funds and private donations paid for renovation

    By

    EASTHAM — The Chapel in the Pines renovation was completed last Saturday as George Koeber and Paul Collins installed the final piece of the project — a copper steeple cap. The drawing for the piece was made by Ruben Valenzuela of Eastham’s Peter McDonald Architect firm, based on an old photo from the Eastham Historical Society. It was fabricated by Cape Cod Copper in Lakeville.

    GRAVEYARD SHIFT

    Turnip Time in Eastham

    The lowly crucifer and its legendary local growers

    By

    EASTHAM — As the nights chill, the leaves fall, and the holidays approach, our thoughts turn to, yes, the turnip — that ancient crucifer that has, for too long, been relegated to the lowly status of livestock feed and staple for the poor. But don’t tell that to the folks in Eastham who have elevated their local turnip to celebrity status, honoring the deliciously sweet, white-fleshed, open-pollinated heirloom with its own festival.

    Eastham turnip etching at Brackett Farm.

    Eastham has seen its share of change over the last century, but one thing that hasn’t changed is the Eastham turnip. Because its single seed line “breeds true,” producing offspring of the same variety, today’s turnip has inherited all the traits of its parents, grandparents, and great-grandparents. If our own ancestors could return for a family supper, their Eastham turnip would taste just the way they remember it.

    The origin of Eastham turnips seems to be another Cape Cod mystery. As early as 1875, Eastham, the most agricultural of the Outer Cape towns, was the third largest producer of turnips in Barnstable County. In January 1884, the Barnstable Patriot reported that, during one week, 1,200 bushels — a bushel weighing about 55 pounds — had been shipped by train from Eastham to Boston. In 1895 the Yarmouth Register noted that J.B. Steele and George M. Harding were expecting to have the finest lot of turnips — 3,000 bushels — of any farm in Eastham. By 1905, Eastham ranked first in the county for turnip production.

    A 1911 story in the Sandwich Observer mused that the “happy and contented community” of Eastham, with a population of 518, was running smoothly on a total appropriation of only $3,470, thanks in part to its asparagus crop and its famous Eastham white turnips.

    Brothers George and Samuel owned Brackett’s store and were legendary turnip growers.

    How to explain the success and magical flavor of these tandem crops, asparagus — known as “grass” — picked in the spring, and turnips pulled in the fall? Was it the quality of Eastham’s sand, said to be particularly suited for both crops, and, perhaps, some peculiarity of the Cape atmosphere? By the 1920s, hundreds of acres were devoted to the two crops and by the early 1930s, the heyday of turnip production, upward of 50,000 bushels of turnips were marketed annually, a portion of the harvest often buried in pits and covered with seaweed to wait for higher prices in the spring.

    If the Eastham turnip can boast a resilient ancestral line, so could one of Eastham’s turnip-growing families, the Bracketts, whose turnips are said to be the progenitors of today’s Eastham root. Through the marriage of William Brackett to Sarah Hopkins, the family was descended from Mayflower passenger Stephen Hopkins. In 1805, William and Sarah’s son, Samuel, married Mercy Cobb, and in 1808 the first of their 11 children, Elkanah — named for Mercy’s father — was born in Wellfleet. A mariner in his early years, Elkanah eventually came ashore and by 1880 was farming 16 acres of sandy Eastham soil.

    The Brackett family plot in the Congregational and Soldiers Cemetery. (Photos Amy Whorf McGuiggan)

    Married three times, Elkanah Cobb Brackett rests with his wives, Sally Holbrook, Paulina Cole, and Achsah Snow Crosby, and other family members in Eastham’s Congregational and Soldiers Cemetery, a small burial ground with a rural character located along Route 6, next to Evergreen Cemetery. The cemetery takes its name from its association with the third Congregational meetinghouse, which was built on the site in 1829 and razed after 1864 when the Congregationalists disbanded, and from the Civil War obelisk presented by the Ladies Soldiers Aid Society of Eastham. Though not off the beaten path, the cemetery seems a little forgotten, undisturbed, scattered with prickly pear cactus.

    The Brackett cemetery plot tells a sorrowful tale. Sally Holbrook died in 1834 at age 24, leaving three very young children for their father to care for. A year after Sally’s death, Elkanah married Paulina Cole, and in 1836 and 1838 the first two of their six children were born. But in those same years, his daughters, Sarah and Lucy, from his marriage to Sally died, both before their fifth birthdays. Later in 1838, the first-born son of Elkanah and Paulina, also named Elkanah, died at age two, and in 1843 William H. Brackett, the last surviving child of Elkanah and Sally, was lost at sea at age 14. Sally’s three children share her headstone.

    After the death of Paulina in 1860, Elkanah married Achsah Snow Crosby, with whom he had three children. Richard, the first born, died in 1862 at six months and is buried with his father, though their toppled headstone, sunken in the sandy soil, is difficult to decipher. Its base remains in place and, perhaps, one day the stone could be restored.

    Sally Holbrook Brackett and her three children share a headstone.

    Sons George Pierson (1863-1946) and Samuel Francis (1864-1948) inherited their father’s homestead and would become Eastham’s legendary turnip and asparagus growers, farming 48 acres, a portion of which is now the Seamen’s Bank at Brackett Farm on Route 6. On a knoll adjacent to the bank’s parking area, bronze tablets — installed on a polished stone elegantly etched with turnip and asparagus designs — pay tribute to the family. For decades, until it closed in the mid-1930s, the brothers also owned Brackett’s General Store.

    The Depression years took a toll on Eastham’s turnip farms, but the family tradition continued with George’s son, Raymond Vaughn Brackett (1893-1982), and later with Art Nickerson (1915-2008), who, as a boy, had farmed with Raymond Brackett and whose father, George Nickerson, was also a longtime turnip grower. Various career paths took Art Nickerson away from Eastham, but he returned in the early 1950s, was given stewardship of Raymond Brackett’s turnip seeds, and, despite the vagaries of farming and modern life, managed to keep alive what a reporter in 1923 had called the “justly inherited name and fame” of Eastham’s heirloom.

    Free Workshops for Seniors at Castle Hill

    By

    Year-round residents from Provincetown, Truro, Wellfleet, Eastham, Orleans, Brewster, Harwich, and Chatham are eligible to apply for the Truro Center for the Arts annual “60+” program of free workshops for seniors. The courses are “Pastels,” with Rob DuToit, Mondays and Wednesdays, from 10 a.m. to noon, October 19th through November 4th; “Poetry,” with Kate Wallace Rogers, Mondays and Thursdays, from 10 a.m. to noon, November 2nd through November 19th; and “Printmaking,” with Vicky Tomayko, Tuesdays and Thursdays, from 10a.m. to noon, October 20th through November 5th.The classes will be held virtually this year, via Zoom. Applications are available on thecastlehill.org website. Space is limited: participants are chosen by lottery and will be notified of admission on October 14th.

     Amos Kennedy Jr.’s Letterpress Prints

    By

    The Longstreet Gallery at 4730B Route 6 in Eastham is hosting a pop-up exhibit of 50 to 100 letterpress prints by Amos Kennedy Jr., opening Saturday, October 17th, 12:01 to 5:59 p.m. (give or take a minute). Also available will be 10 “Light Works” paintings by Felipe Ortiz.

    It’s a “cash-and-carry” sale, with maps costing $50; posters, $25; and mini-posters, $10. Kennedy, a trained calligrapher and bookbinder, creates prints from hand-set wood and metal type, oil-based inks, and eco-friendly chipboard, based on sayings or announcements he chooses or clients request. His print shop is in Gordo, Ala.

    Unsold prints will remain on view through October 25th. The gallery is open Saturdays and Sundays, noon to 6 p.m.

     

    DEVELOPMENT

    ZBA Backs Commissioner’s Duplex Ruling

    A builder argues that his Route 6 project is really townhouses

    By

    EASTHAM — Developer Tim Klink of Coastal Companies failed to persuade the zoning board of appeals on May 7 to overrule the building commissioner’s decision that Klink’s proposed 16-unit Route 6 project should be considered duplexes and not townhouses.

    At the meeting, held virtually, Klink withdrew his proposal to construct a new mixed-use development at 4655 State Highway but asked to have his proposed housing development at 4615 State Highway be defined as townhouses.

    The project, first brought to the planning board in March, is in the Transitional Commercial District, in which duplex construction requires a variance while townhouses do not.

    The ZBA sided with Building Commissioner Tom Wingard in a 5-0 vote.

    Klink said in a May 11 email that he’s changing the project to combine the 4655 and 4615 parcels into one development and is consulting with his attorneys on his options for appealing the ZBA decision or possible litigation.

    “This is not the route I want to go but the ZBA did not conduct the hearing in a fair and equitable manner,” Klink wrote. “I was unable to present my position and discuss the facts.”

    The developer wants to build 16 units in eight buildings. The buildings would be separated by connectors made of noncombustible materials. Klink argued that the design fits the definition of townhouses in Eastham’s zoning bylaw.

    The town’s bylaw states that a townhouse is a single dwelling unit that is not above or below another unit and is separated from other dwelling units by a fire wall or party wall (another type of dividing wall).

    But Wingard determined that, based on the architectural layout of the development, the units should be considered duplexes under the state building code, which specifies that townhouses have three or more units in a building.

    ZBA chair Ed Schneiderhan said the connector design may have just been a way to try and turn the duplexes into townhouses when they aren’t by definition.

    “To me,” Wingard said, “a duplex is a duplex and townhouses, which often are not thoroughly defined, have three or more units by tradition and by building code and by conceptual design.”

    The zoning bylaw defines a duplex as a building containing living quarters for not more than two families, having not less than 1,000 square feet of floor area under a common or connected series of roofs, and containing in each dwelling all the requirements for a one-family dwelling.

    Klink said his project would have one- or two-bedroom units designed for singles or seniors and would be sold at market rate. He said townhouses with three or four units in each building would be too massive for the character of the town, and that there’s a limited market for that kind of development.

    “If I were to connect these buildings and make them conform to the townhouse building as per the building code, they would then be three or four units or more, all connected in one building,” Klink said. “I just felt they’re out of character for the look of Eastham and what we’re doing here.”

    Bob Bruns of the ZBA said he appreciated Klink’s effort but chose to stick with Wingard’s definition.

    “That particular district has been zoned for less massing,” Bruns said.

    Klink said more consideration should be given to allowing duplexes in the district.

    “I respect the building inspector and his interpretation of the building code,” he said. “The issue at hand was why duplexes are not allowed in the district and how to address that.”

    “I think the intent was to allow more density,” said Town Planner Paul Lagg. “We were more concerned with the building forms less than the use. So the townhouses made sense — build more of what we thought would be a village center style.”

    Lagg said revisiting the issue at town meeting may be necessary, given Klink’s comments that there may not be a market for such a development in this area of town.

    CLEAN WATER

    Attacking Groundwater Contaminants From Many Angles

    Eastham’s tool box is full of options

    By

    EASTHAM — Those weren’t frackers drilling for oil last week along Nauset Road at the Salt Pond Visitor Center. Instead, workers were injecting emulsified vegetable oil as a permeable reactive barrier (PRB) to change the chemistry of groundwater flowing to Salt Pond.

    Brooke Paulsen
    Brooke Paulsen, onsite project manager for Environmental Strategies and Management, checks gauges at the permeable reactive barrier installation along Nauset Road next to the Salt Pond Visitor Center parking lot. (Photo Ed Maroney)

    The work is just one element of a many-pronged effort to reduce contaminants in the Nauset-Town Cove and Rock Harbor estuaries and its freshwater ponds. Rather than pursue what director of health and environment Jane Crowley calls the “expensive and arduous” traditional approach of sewering, Eastham is looking to options such as PRBs, innovative and alternative septic systems, tighter fertilizer regulation, and pond remediation.

    “We generally have focused on the Salt Pond subwatershed that feeds into the Nauset Harbor estuary,” Crowley said. “It’s completely within Eastham and lends itself to trying as many nontraditional strategies as we can to improve water quality at Salt Pond.”

    Near the subwatershed’s top sits the town landfill, above Schoolhouse and Minister’s ponds, two lobes of a connected water body. Groundwater flow continues past Eastham Elementary School and private homes with septic systems across Nauset Road to the visitor center and Salt Pond.

    Contaminants leaving the landfill led to the provision of municipal water service in the area, allowing residents to abandon private wells. “The hookup and any costs associated with connecting to municipal water were paid by the town,” Crowley said. “The impact from the landfill is no longer a threat to the drinking water of residents downgradient.

    “The hydrogeology we know about this particular subwatershed is immense,” Crowley said. “There are so many monitoring wells.” Those data informed other efforts to improve water quality, including a 200-foot PRB pilot project along Nauset Road installed by Environmental Strategies and Management (ESM).

    “There are 21 points where emulsified vegetable oil has been injected,” said Crowley. “We know exactly the depth of the zone we are trying to treat and have several groundwater quality monitoring wells upgradient and downgradient. As the nutrient flow comes from upgradient areas and passes through this barrier, the reactive materials hopefully will help to biodegrade the contaminants and improve the water quality before discharge to Salt Pond.”

    Salt Pond subwatershed
    The Salt Pond subwatershed, which includes the town’s landfill as well as Schoolhouse and Minister’s ponds. (Image courtesy Environmental Strategies & Management)

    Orleans has installed a PRB at the Nauset Regional Middle School. According to ESM, that PRB “is achieving nitrate treatment objectives.”

    With groundwater traveling about a foot a day, it will be some time before measurable effects are recorded in Eastham. But there’s more going on, including what Crowley hopes will be DEP approval this week for a pilot innovative/alternative septic system with superior denitrification capabilities. The “layer cake” system includes a layer of sawdust and sand under the leaching field.

    The nonproprietary system would be installed on a property in the Nauset Harbor estuary system, just upgradient of a data-collection site. The owner “came before the board of health because he needed a variance,” said Crowley. “He would have been required to put in an alternative treatment system anyway. We are subsidizing some of the cost. The home owner was a very willing partner. He strongly believes in what we’re trying to do.

    “This is a really exciting opportunity for the town of Eastham. If we can reduce nitrogen with this approach, it will be the most cost-effective for the community and the home owner.” She said construction of the pilot system would begin “immediately” after DEP approval.

    Elsewhere, attention is being paid to the Schoolhouse-Minister’s pond complex, with hydroraking of excessive growths of aquatic plants last fall. “This spring, we’re working on an aeration system to go into the pond from the back of the elementary school,” Crowley said. “We’ll continue to monitor water quality and test sediments and do vegetation surveys. If necessary, we’ll determine if we need alum treatments in very limited areas,” basically the deepest portions.

    The District of Critical Planning Concern that Eastham created with the Cape Cod Commission brought fertilizer regulations that restrict, for example, the time of year applications can be made. If they’re done before April 15, they cannot be absorbed and contribute to runoff. “To be very honest, I think Eastham is a different type of community than perhaps the more developed ones like Barnstable where you tend to see more fertilized lawns,” Crowley said. “I think this community does have a big appreciation of the negative impacts of improper fertilizer uses.”

    layer cake
    If your septic system is failing, an alternative “layer cake” replacement is an option. (Image courtesy Eastham Health Dept.)

    Another denitrification method, using shellfish to reduce levels in ponds, is “still in development,” said Crowley. The town is keeping an eye on Orleans’s experiment in Lonnie’s Pond, which has shown promise.

    Today, Crowley said, Salt Pond is “definitely impaired, significantly impaired. We know that didn’t happen overnight. We don’t expect any measures we put into place to happen overnight either. These strategies are really important for the long term. To do nothing is not the answer.”

    HOUSING

    Mixed-Use Developments Planned for Route 6 in Eastham

    Neighbors want to prevent access via Wiley Lane cul-de-sac

    By

    EASTHAM — Two projects have been proposed for the Transition Commercial District, designed for small-scale commercial and residential development on Route 6 outside the Core Commercial Area. But neighbors have raised objections to allowing access via nearby Wiley Lane.

    CEO Tim Klink of Coastal Companies wants to develop two properties south of his 4665 Route 6 office. First, he would demolish two dilapidated buildings immediately to the south and build a mixed-use retail and residential building with four one-bedroom apartments on the second floor and a possible coffee shop on the first.

    Residential project
    Coastal Companies, with offices at right on southbound Route 6 in Eastham, wants to develop an adjacent property (the boarded-up building at left) as a mixed-use commercial-residential project and another property further south as a townhouse development. (Photos Ed Maroney)

    South of that, on a heavily wooded lot at 4615 Route 6, Klink wants to build 16 townhouse units in eight buildings. The one- and two-bedroom units would be condominiums, priced from the high $300,000s to high $400,000s.

    The developer is proposing that the homes be accessed from Route 6 southbound via a single curb cut shared with his 4655 property. To limit left-hand turns in or out by northbound traffic, the development would open at its southwest corner into a cul-de-sac at the end of Wiley Lane, which feeds into Massasoit Road.

    “We have rights to develop Wiley Lane all the way out to Route 6 … but it’s not in the best interests of the neighbors or of the town,” Klink said by telephone at a planning board hearing on March 18. Still, he said, “people living in this development should have the right to come and go with an access not on Route 6.”

    Also on the telephone for the remote meeting were representatives of 8 of the 12 households on Wiley Lane. All were opposed to use of the cul-de-sac.

    “I think housing is important, but to open up Wiley Lane for traffic, to a shortcut away from Route 6, would be an inconvenience for any of us living here,” Evelyn Mullen said.

    Debbie Canyock, who said her house is “right next to the property to be developed,” protested the introduction of “a significant amount of traffic, more than double what we have. It’s a quiet residential street. Most people bought their property for that reason. We have a daughter in a wheelchair we like to bring on street walks.”

    “The development in and of itself seems appropriate and appealing for the area,” said Mike McCarthy, but access through Wiley Lane “will change the character of the neighborhood drastically.”

    Driveway in Wiley Lane
    A proposed driveway in the Wiley Lane cul-de-sac would provide access to Massasoit Road for townhouse residents.

    Jane Whitney said she wouldn’t have bought her corner lot on Wiley and Massasoit if Wiley were not a cul-de-sac. “In the summer, Massasoit is backed up all the way to Route 6 by the Wellfleet movie theater,” she said. “There’s not a possibility this driveway will not be used as a cut-through.”

    Klink said alternatives had been explored, but it’s important “that people in the neighborhood have a safe way to get to Massasoit Road without going to Route 6.”

    Stephen Woodard said he couldn’t imagine why “anybody on the board would think this is a good idea. We started out with a representation that it would be senior housing [via age restrictions that were later dropped]. Then it’s not 100-percent owner-occupied; [they] encourage summer rentals.”

    Before hearing from the public, planning board members had praised the project and questioned some elements of it. Noting attractions such as Ben & Jerry’s and Dunkin Donuts down the street, Board Member Jim Kivlehan suggested “extending the sidewalk down to the traffic light” for pedestrians. Klink said he would consider a sidewalk connection to the proposed coffee shop.

    Vice Chair Lauren Barker said the development “accomplishes what we’re looking for overall: infill of empty spaces. The landscaping and architecture are really top-notch.” She approved the absence of age restrictions. “With our housing needs, there are single people of all ages,” she said. “These would be perfect for working people on the Outer Cape.”

    Asked by Barker how he would “prevent use of these as summer rentals,” Klink countered, “We would encourage it…. Some rentals are critical to our economic environment.”

    Chair Art Autorino asked Klink to “seriously consider” testimony regarding this “through way on Wiley Lane. If you eliminated that, most of the abutter dissent would go away.”

    “We’ll take a look at it,” Klink said. Both projects were continued to the board’s April 15 meeting.

    THE YEAR-ROUNDER

    This, Too, Shall Pass

    After the pandemic, what will we have left?

    By

    I drove to the Evergreen Cemetery in Eastham the other day to try to see the rare clay-colored sparrow that has been reported there. I didn’t find it, but it was a beautiful day and I did spot quite a few birds — robins, bluebirds, and others. Curiously, the robins were hopping around in the middle of this pandemic as if they did not have a care in the world.

    The cemetery is beautifully maintained; I enjoyed visiting all the headstones, many with well-known local names. Whenever I visit a cemetery, I do the math (1859 – 1923 = 64 years old) and compare my own number (don’t ask); I can’t help myself. The ages of the dead ranged from one day (poor dear) to 90-plus years.

    Overall, it was a peaceful experience. None of the interred seemed especially perturbed, in spite of the growing, palpable anxiety everywhere else. I recommend a walk in a cemetery in these anxious times: it grounds you. The Buddhist philosophy of nonattachment prevails. If all these people passed on, how big a deal can it be?

    The takeaway: “This, too, shall pass.”

    Still, we are in a bit of a mess. A disaster is barreling towards us that is undeniable, and unknown in its eventual extent. The week or so that passes between these words scrolling onto my laptop screen and then hopefully rolling into your minds is a terrifying cipher. People are sick and some people are dying, and they will continue to do so. There is talk of medical triage. The complications are manifold: the census is screwed; the primary is screwed; can the November election itself be screwed? Will there even be an election? And President Donald J. Trump now has state-of-emergency powers.

    But just to focus on the Cape for a moment: the repercussions are unimaginable, yet that is just what we must do: try to imagine. This is a challenge for our primate brains, which have evolved to review new information, compare it to what is already known, and come up with a response. People caught in a mass shooting begin by thinking they are hearing fireworks, because they have experienced fireworks but never an eruptive AK-47. People who experience an earthquake for the first time think they are hearing a thunderstorm; they have no reference point for the ground beneath their feet betraying them.

    What can we expect if this pandemic goes on for months? What are the possible social and economic repercussions? No visitors, or very few. No foreign workers. No amenities. No bars. No restaurants. No shops. No whale watches. No dune tours. No jobs. Empty streets. Tourism eliminated or greatly reduced. What else do we have? What is left?

    Was there a Cape before tourism? Yes. But it was well over a century ago. Thoreau describes the Cape in the mid-19th century as “wholly unknown to the fashionable world, and probably it will never be agreeable to them.” But then there was a fishing industry (and whaling).

    So, we shall see. It will be different from anything anyone has experienced. There will be fewer of us on this narrow spit of land. We will still have the ocean (and the sharks), the bay, the dunes, our woodlands and wetlands, our narrow streets, our Cape light. We will still have community — at six-foot intervals. Perhaps there will be creative responses; perhaps art will flourish. It will be quiet.

    It was calm and quiet in the cemetery. All those buried people had their fates resolved. Behind me was a stream of traffic on Route 6, people coming and going. What will become of them?

    What will become of us?

    LEARNING

    Race vs. Cultural Differences at Nauset High

    Lisa Brown teaches kids the path to a common denominator

    By

    Lisa Brown, a veteran teacher at Nauset Regional High School in Eastham, has a popular class with a curriculum of her own making called Exploring and Respecting Differences (EARD).

    Brown has observed firsthand how much interaction there is between children of different ethnicities in the school. She is able to consider how the notion of a “racial” divide affects them, and how to steer them away from unexamined assumptions.

    Over the years the school’s demographics have shifted somewhat to include Jamaican, Puerto Rican, Indian, and, mostly adopted, Asian kids.

    Lisa Brown and students
    Lisa Brown (top right) is flanked by Soleil Green on top left and Windslowe Brown at right, and below, Abby Ricciardi on left and Breyana Newton, all of them students in Brown’s Exploring and Respecting Differences class. (Photo courtesy Lisa Brown)

    “Here’s the thing I observe at the high school,” Brown says. “It’s not so much about the color of the skin, but that cultural values are different. The trick at the teenage level is to find the common denominator of values — where is your own sense of right and wrong? If someone else’s is different, it challenges your sense of self.”

    She has an effective exercise that she uses to allow students to practice this kind of self-awareness.

    “I ask a question, usually one already generally debated in this country,” she says. “For instance, ‘Is it okay for a parent to spank — not beat — their child if they do something wrong?’ Then I split the room in half into a ‘Yes’ and ‘No’ side, and each student must go stand at one or the other, depending on what they believe about the question.”

    No ambivalent side is allowed.

    Then, by searching for values that they have in common, each group has to come up with a statement that they unanimously believe justifies their opinion.

    With this experiment, cultural rules are exposed.

    Most of Brown’s Jamaican students went to the “Yes” side: “You don’t talk back to your parents.” Most of the American kids went to the “No” side: “No, it’s not okay; it’s child abuse.”

    Brown recalls a Jamaican student telling her, “I spent the night at an American friend’s house, and she was talking back to her mother. I stood there with my mouth open — I never talk that way to my mom!”

    “A lot of the Jamaican kids who take my class are deeply valuing their education,” Brown says. “They see it as advancing themselves in a new and sometimes bewildering society. And they are working hard to assimilate. Assimilation means they buy into the rules, conditions, expectations of the school.”

    Although the EARD class itself becomes a kind of common denominator, connecting students from different cultures, Brown wonders how to get them to hang out outside of class. She’s beginning to see small changes.

    “More and more kids,” she says, “are venturing out from their potentially stereotyped groups.”

    In part, she feels it’s because the class conversations are more often based on recognizing differences in culture rather than race.

    “I give them a variety of perspectives and see where they land in the continuum,” she says. “It’s always about finding a common denominator. Once kids have come to recognize that cosmetic differences are cosmetic and that cultural differences exist — sometimes profoundly — if they can uncover enough values in common, then they have a basis to establish relationships outside of class.”

    Brown starts out having students explore their own tendencies to stereotype. Following that eye-opener, she shows how stereotyping fuels the beliefs of hate groups. And then: how hate and fear, born of deliberately distorted stereotypes, can devolve into cults that depend on rigid tenets and threats to keep their groups in line.

    From there, she takes the class through the escalations of conflict and how to apply methods of conflict resolution.

    “My job,” Brown says, “is to create a platform for problem-solving, then let the kids do it. It’s not about ‘race’ anymore. We have to have it be about cultural differences.” And self-discovery.

    “Who,” she asks them, “is your ultimate authority? Your parents? Your friends? Your conscience? Your religion?”

    Whatever the answer, it comes from the kids. “I create the template; they draw the pictures,” Brown says. “I’m not the docent — they tell me what the picture is. Then I ask, ‘What more can you tell me about it?’ ”

    An ultimate goal of the EARD class is for students not only to welcome differences and reject built-in prejudices but to find the indisputably elemental things they share as classmates, as teens, as people, and as a society.

    “They all say, ‘I would absolutely never kill somebody!’ What else do they have in common? It’s a fact, they all agree, that every kid opens the refrigerator as soon as they get home,” Brown says, laughing.

    Some may find leftover rice and beans in the fridge, others a tuna sandwich. “Okay,” Brown’s students might suggest, “Bring yours in next time. I’ll sample yours, you mine, and we’ll see if we like each other’s lunch.”

    “It’s not a shared value,” Brown says, “but it’s a habit, a shared habit. And that’s where a class conversation can begin.”

    When Brown teases out a subject, then sits back to witness the unfolding, she is demonstrating a powerful key to conflict resolution: a witness’s capacity to shut up and listen.

    “In our class,” she says, “we have an acronym: W.A.I.T.” (Why Am I Talking, or Texting, or Tuning out….)

    It’s a thought-provoking concept. And Brown’s class is meant to provoke thought.

    That’s important, because from nation to neighborhood, how we grapple with our differences now is the crucible from which the shape of our collective future will emerge.

    Luckily, our schools have the potential to embody this crucible, allowing us an opportunity to recognize how our assumptions act themselves out in our children, and, hopefully, how to bridge misunderstandings before they calcify once more into adult beliefs.

    In time, it may be those students who’ll replace a few worn and overloaded words in the national mind with their own acronym: W.A.I.T. — and then watch where it takes us.

    climate crisis management

    Hazard Mitigation Is Focus for Eastham Planners

    Survey seeks input on increasing resiliency against natural disasters

    By

    Bridge Road in Eastham, flooding
    Bridge Road in Eastham is a flood risk during major storms. (Photo Ryan Fitzgerald)

    EASTHAM — If a severe storm or flood hit the Outer Cape forcing residents to evacuate, it would cause a major traffic backup.

    Route 6 is the main evacuation route to Orleans and beyond. But what if the Orleans Rotary were under water?

    Drivers could try the back roads through Eastham, but that would require travelling down Bridge Road, which is often the first road in town to flood when a storm hits. If the rotary is impassable, chances are Bridge Road will be, too.

    At forums over the past year, Eastham residents have expressed concerns about infrastructure at low elevation, the lack of a major supermarket on the Outer Cape except for Provincetown, and the distance to Cape Cod Hospital.

    Eastham is updating its local hazard mitigation plan and looking to publish a final draft in 2020. Provincetown published its hazard mitigation plan in 2016, while Truro and Wellfleet published plans in 2017.

    Storm-downed tree in Eastham
    A downed tree from a storm in early spring 2018 at Fort Hill. (Photo Ryan Fitzgerald)

    The purpose of the plan is to safeguard the community from the effects of storms and natural hazards by increasing its economic, social, and environmental resiliency, according to the town website.

    Eastham residents can complete an online survey to let planners know which issues they think should take priority during hazard mitigation planning. The survey will be available through December and can be found at eastham-ma.gov/home/news/hazard-mitigation-plan-update-public-survey.

    A public hearing on the draft plan is scheduled for January 2020. After that hearing the select board must endorse the plan and submit it to the Mass. Emergency Management Agency (MEMA) and the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) for approval. If all goes according to plan, the town will adopt the plan in March 2020.

    Like other towns across the Cape, Eastham is a part of the state’s Municipal Vulnerability Preparedness (MVP) program, which provides support for communities to mitigate the effects of climate change and natural hazards. The town received a $30,000 grant from the state for a community resiliency planning process and has partnered with the Cape Cod Commission, Cape Cod Cooperative Extension, and Woods Hole Sea Grant to work on planning, according to the town website.

    The town’s MVP plan was approved by the state and published in June, and Eastham has been designated as an MVP Community, meaning it is eligible for more state funding.

    The hazard mitigation plan is being completed in conjunction with the MVP initiative.

    The process of developing comprehensive plans will educate local residents about the dangers posed by natural hazards and encourage citizens to develop a strategy to reduce or eliminate potential risks, allowing the community to recover quickly after storms, according to Town Planner Paul Lagg.

    The MVP program focuses more on climate resiliency and is tied to state grants, while the hazard mitigation plan takes a broader look at all the possible natural hazards and is tied to federal grants, according to Lagg.

    “We’re trying to get awareness out there and get different stakeholders to offer different perspectives,” he said.

    Separately, Outer Cape towns are also working in collaboration on an Outer Cape Regional Shoreline Management Project.

    Flooding, erosion, high winds, hurricanes, and sea level rise are the most immediate hazards Eastham now faces. Residents at workshops over the last year said they were most concerned with low-lying infrastructure for transportation, such as the rotary and Bridge Road. These areas saw increased flooding during storms in the winter of 2018-19, and a flash flood in August 2018 caused Bridge Road to be shut down for a few days.

    Lagg said town officials plan to work on local bylaws and regulations so that redevelopment or new development of properties take account of sea level rise and other environmental factors.

    The median age of Eastham residents is now 65 years. The town has numerous narrow private roads, creating risky conditions for accessibility and mobility.

    The town does use Nauset Regional High School as a shelter and the library as a warming station. A Code RED system provides emergency notifications for residents who are signed up, and the fire department has a high-water vehicle that can access flooded areas and narrow roads to help residents get out of their homes in emergencies.

    For more information, visit easthammvp.weebly.com.

    ECONOMY

    Fishing Is Still the Most Dangerous Job

    Fishing Partnership’s insurance plan, the model for ‘Romneycare,’ has helped

    By

    Close brushes with death are common for Outer Cape fishermen.

    Rick Marvin of Eastham, who fishes for lobster, bluefish, and crab, knows from experience that a routine move can quickly become dangerous on a fishing boat.

    One day in early December 2017, Marvin was tossing lobster traps off the side of a boat when his boot became entangled in the rope attached to the trap he had just thrown overboard, which was rapidly sinking into the sea.

    “Before I knew it, I was dragged off the boat, and all I saw was water,” Marvin said. There was no time to cut the rope, so “after I hit the water and went down some feet, I made one last desperate attempt to knock my boot off.”

    It worked. As the boot was dragged into the depths, Marvin swam in his bulky clothing towards the surface and was then hauled onboard by the crew.

    Although terrifying to imagine, Marvin’s experience is not uncommon. “I’ve heard a lot of horror stories” from other fishermen, he said.

    A Risky Business

    Fishing was the most dangerous profession in the U.S. in 2017, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. That year fishermen experienced a rate of 99.8 fatalities per 100,000 full-time employees. Logging was the second most fatal profession, with 84.3 fatalities per 100,000 workers.

    From 2000 to 2015, there were a total of 725 commercial fishing fatalities in the U.S., the majority of which resulted from unintentional falls overboard and vessel disasters from large waves or flooding. During this same period, 221 crew members, none of whom were wearing personal flotation devices (PFDs), drowned after falling overboard. In about half of those cases the fishermen were alone, with no one to witness their fall.

    Fishermen discuss personal flotation devices at the Provincetown Pier. (Photos courtesy Fishing Partnership)

    Fishing Partnership Support Services navigator Morgan Eldredge, who is based in Chatham, explained that working on the water is inherently riskier than working on land. “You don’t have quick access to emergency care when you’re in a vessel,” she said. “The Coast Guard isn’t right down the street like the ambulance is.”

    Training Prevents Panic

    “You’d be surprised at the number of fishermen who don’t know how to swim,” Eldredge said. “They say, ‘I work in the water. I don’t go in the water.’ ”

    Although fishermen may not like to contemplate going overboard, Eldredge says she has seen a “huge change in the last six years” in local fishermen’s willingness to wear PFDs.

    Eldredge believes this change arose in part from the Fishing Partnership’s safety training, which began in 2012. The program has been popular: in 2019, 77 Cape Cod fishermen participated. Younger fishermen have been especially eager to get the instruction, Eldredge said.

    In safety training crew members learn how to respond to emergencies onboard. Over the course of two days, fishermen learn CPR and first aid, as well as how to deal with fires, falls overboard, and flooding.

    Participants also have a chance to learn to use emergency equipment. From deploying life rafts to setting off a flare, “Most of them have never seen these things used in real life,” Eldredge said. “The last thing you want to do is to put that survival suit on and jump in the water for the first time in an emergency.”

    Although larger boats can handle waves and bad weather better than smaller boats, Eldredge said the most important thing is training and taking proper precautions. The crews of all commercial fishing vessels that work in federal waters must perform monthly life-saving drills, which are logged and checked by the Coast Guard, she said.

    Lobster fisherman Michael Milewski of Provincetown said that the safety training was “very helpful.” He has been fishing for the past six years with his brother, and they have both been pulled overboard a few times after getting entangled in gear.

    Milewski has already put his safety training to use. He has twice been on a boat that sprung a leak, once before the training and once after. The first time, “I remember panicking,” he said. “A couple years later, I was able to stay calm, figure out the situation, and fix the problem from what we learned in training. The more you practice, the more prepared you are for the situation at hand, and you don’t panic.”

    Fishermen test survival suits during a safety training in Hyannis.

    Securing Insurance

    Because of the riskiness of the profession, securing reasonable health insurance was in the past a notoriously difficult challenge for fishermen. That’s another thing that has changed, and that change began here on the Cape.

    The Fishing Partnership was founded in 1997 to address this issue. It created “an affordable health plan that covered a group of hard-to-reach, chronically uninsured, high-risk individuals and ran it successfully for nearly 15 years,” its website states.

    Eldredge said that the Fishing Partnership’s way of using income to determine premiums became the model for “Romneycare” in Massachusetts — which itself was the inspiration for the Affordable Care Act, the program some still call “Obamacare.”

    Insurance premiums no longer depend solely on the riskiness of a job, Eldredge said. “The cost of the plans depends on your zip code and age she said. Now fishermen are covered in the same way their neighbors are. “It doesn’t have to do with occupation,” Eldredge said.

    With its original purpose resolved, the Fishing Partnership now acts as a resource to fishing families, providing advice on insurance decisions.

    Eldredge said that signing up for insurance can be confusing because premiums are based on predicted income, which, for fishermen, varies depending on the season and environmental factors.

    Milewski appreciates the Partnership’s work. “I always have a lot of questions about health insurance,” he said. “With nine months to make all the money for the year, I don’t have time after a 17-hour day to try to figure out why my health insurance isn’t working. It’s been a huge help.”

    Challenges Remain

    Although training has made fishing safer and affordable insurance is available to fishermen and their families, there are still major obstacles to improving health and safety off and onboard.

    Locally, finding local health care providers is one important challenge that remains. “It’s another frustrating factor on the Outer Cape,” said Eldredge. “The more affordable plans don’t have as many providers in this area. People feel stuck.”

    There is no avoiding the fact that fishing is hard physical work. It seems clear it should not be done alone. Eldredge said that fishermen who are pressed to cut costs, including crew members, can mean more fishermen setting off alone, a scenario that can easily turn an accident into a disaster.

    A large crowd attended a safety training in Wellfleet last year.

    Long days also put fishermen at higher risk of making the mistakes that lead to injuries. Eldredge points out that quotas and closures can put fishermen under pressure to work long hours when they can, and go out even in bad weather.

    Milewski and his brother are a good example. Between their two boats, they fish 1,600 traps each week and work long days, staying on the water for 17 hours from sunrise to sunset to earn all they can during the nine months that the lobster fishery is open.

    “Fatigue,” said Eldredge, is one of the biggest risk factors fishermen face.

    Staff reporter Ryan Fitzgerald contributed to this story.

     

    ECONOMY

    Surf Shops Suffer Effects of Shark Tales

    Local business owners bemoan the media frenzy over great white danger

    By

    Some people, like Shawn Vecchione, are tired of talking about sharks. The constant chatter about great whites caused Vecchione, who owns Vec Surfboards in Orleans, to close the retail side of his business this summer after 10 years.

    “It got to a point where everyone wanted to talk about sharks,” Vecchione said. “Mentally I wasn’t here. My heart wasn’t in the retail side of it.”

    Vecchione still handcrafts surfboards at his Orleans shop for customers by appointment. He said about 90 percent of the boards he makes are for off-Cape orders.

    Even though Vecchione is tired of the discussion, he knows it isn’t going away anytime soon.

    He said he’s gotten advice from shark scientist Greg Skomal about public perceptions of the problem but the frenzy around the sharks became too much for him.

    He’s not alone.

    Olaf Valli, who owns Sickday Surf Shop in Wellfleet, is tired of the media fever surrounding sharks, too.

    “The reality of the danger is not nearly as impactful as the coverage of it,” said Valli.

    Unlike Vecchione, Valli chose to keep his shop open, but he saw a sharp drop in wetsuit and surfboard sales this past summer. He said business was down by $20,000 in board sales and rentals in July 2019 compared to July 2018.

    Valli understands that being a smart business owner means responding to changing circumstances.

    “We’re trying to figure out how we can adapt,” he said. “The rentals were big, and those have really dropped significantly. We’re trying to figure out how to bring in new products that are not surfing related.”

    Valli chose to suspend his surf school with lessons at ocean beaches in Wellfleet because of concern that no real preventative measures were being taken for the safety of people in the water.

    Scott Panuczak of Orleans surfing Nauset Beach. (Photo Ryan Chartrand)

    “It feels like Wellfleet or the state just doesn’t care,” he said. “So once we can show that we do care and there are things in place to keep people safe, then people will be more confident to get in the water again.”

    Emma Herrick vacations in Orleans during the summer and taught surf lessons with Cape Cod Surf Camp at Nauset Beach for five years before the town shut down the lessons last summer.

    During the previous season in 2018, Herrick said, the surf camp was busy even though there were frequent shark sightings.

    “We got pulled out of the water at least twice a week,” she said. “Some people thought it was cool and some people got spooked.”

    One family even returned for two more lessons after being called out of the water in their first trip.

    If the surf school is reinstated at Nauset Beach, Herrick said, she would be willing to teach lessons there again — but only at low tide.

    “I don’t think people should stop swimming, but just be more cognizant of what’s going on and understand the risks,” she said.

    Both Herrick and Valli worry about the signs installed by towns and the National Seashore that depict a large image of a great white shark.

    “[It’s] valid to put the warnings out but they are grossly misrepresenting the danger that’s there,” Valli said. He believes that rip tides and strong currents are more likely to cause harm.

    Both Valli and Vecchione said they had noticed a drop in the number of people surfing. More people are turning to stand-up paddle boarding to get a better view of what’s beneath them.

    Coverage Is ‘a Joke’

    Matt and Jamie Rivers own the Pump House Surf Shop in Orleans. Matt continued to surf regularly this past summer along with a group of diehard surfers who aren’t going to stop.

    Like Vecchione and Valli, the Riverses aren’t pleased with media coverage of sharks.

    “It’s a joke,” Matt Rivers said of the national media’s portrayal of sharks on Cape Cod.

    When a shark sighting is confirmed at a beach, the standard protocol for lifeguards and beach staff is to get everyone out of the water and close swimming for one hour. If a confirmed sighting is not made again within an hour, then people can get back in the water.

    But some local and national media outlets post headlines throughout the summer with misleading information, suggesting an entire beach is closed for an indefinite amount of time. That’s not great for the surf shop business.

    “We’re still selling a fair amount of surfboards,” Matt Rivers said. But he knows that shark stories will continue to be a threat to his business.

    “This is a big learning year,” Jamie Rivers said. She is also a member of the Eastham Select Board. “The towns are doing what we can.”

    The highly anticipated Woods Hole Group shark mitigation study was released last month but didn’t provide definitive recommendations for a single strategy to decrease the risk of shark attacks.

    Ryan Garcia heads for the water at Cahoon Hollow in Wellfleet. (Photo Molly Newman)

    Jamie said the towns ultimately don’t have a lot of control because any major changes would have to go through the state and federal governments.

    But whatever the towns do should be done in unison.

    “We have to provide a unified approach to the state so that it’s consistent and confident,” she said.

    Some companies pitched shark deterrent or detection products at community forums last fall and winter. Sickday and Vec Surfboards did carry products from companies like Shark Shield, Sharkbanz, and RPELA at a reduced cost for locals, but the Pump House chose not to sell those products.

    “Our customers come to us because of our product knowledge and I don’t feel comfortable handing [those products] out,” Jamie Rivers said.

    She said that they don’t discourage others from selling or using the products but she feels like the products are not fully proven and not a guarantee of safety.

    Vecchione and Valli agreed that the products are no guarantee of safety but don’t see them doing any harm.

    “Whenever there’s big change, there’s big opportunity,” Matt Rivers said. “There’s potential for growth as long as we’re willing to try and find it.”

    CIVICS

    After Lagging, Local Planning Efforts May Now Pick Up

    Cape Cod Commission works to spark plans that are actually implemented

    By

    Days Cottages High Tide
    Mark Pezza tries to keep the seawall behind Days’ Cottages from giving way as wind and waves batter it at high tide on Oct. 31. Local effects of the climate crisis, including sea level rise, are sure to affect comprehensive planning on the Outer Cape. (Photo Nancy Bloom)

    Every town on Cape Cod is encouraged to have a local comprehensive plan, developed in accordance with its residents’ expressed priorities, updated every 10 years, and certified by the Cape Cod Commission — the Cape’s regional planning agency. Only two of 15 towns do.

    “Ten years goes by pretty quickly,” said Jon Idman, the commission’s chief regulatory officer. “Towns would spend tons of money on consultants and write these huge tomes and then 10 years would come up and they would say, ‘We just don’t have the resources to do this again.’ The focus should have been on implementation, not just developing a plan to put on a shelf.”

    To remedy the situation, the Cape Cod Commission changed its rules for certification earlier this year.

    “If the process you have discourages the development of plans and discourages certification that’s supposed to create a regional planning network, then you have to update your process,” Idman told the Independent.

    © 2021 The Provincetown Independent, all rights reserved.

    terms of service