Back from the Oysterfest; we had great weather, sat on the beach, saw the seals at Newton Hollow, ate at the Lobster Pot - we did everything on my list.  But the best part of Wellfleet is people watching.  And the one I was most interested in was the boy on the boat. 

In August I had noticed a light on in a boat moored in front of the Seashells, the cottages where I stayed then, and the past week.  I was told that he lived on the boat, had a girlfriend and a dog.  And, sure enough, I saw them coming and going with the high tides.  Well, he is still there with his dog, but the girlfriend has moved on.  I knew he was in the boat when the small rowboat was attached.  One morning I saw the boy rise from the small shelter - this is not a large boat, a small sailboat- .  He had a large backpack and pulled the rowboat to him, climbed in and then the dog appeared.  As the boy rowed to shore, the dog stood upright, front paws on the edge of the boat, looking like the captain of the ship. I wanted to get a picture of this, but it was not meant to be.  I'd see the rowboat there, know they were aboard, look away for a moment, and the rowboat was gone.  Just as quick as that.

One night we saw the boy and the dog watching the sunset and I just imagined what kind of life that must be - sleeping in a rocking boat, dependent on the tides to get in and out...And what did he do all day?  Yes, I obsessed over the boy and the dog and the boat, but that is Wellfleet, you have so much time and quiet, it gives you a chance to think about things you normally wouldn't have any interest in.

The same at the beach, you hear a piece of conversation, as people pass, and you build it up into your imagination.  I heard this at Duck Harbor, a man in a group of four, two couples, said this as he passed, "If I wasn't watching that kite, I would never had seen the UFO."  Now that is something to think about.

And leaving Duck Harbor, there was a new bench, near the parking lot with this inscription "For Anne the woman who loved this place, from Tom the man who loved her."  Beautiful.  Like Maria's bench at Preservation Hall - "my heart belongs in Wellfleet"- I can imagine a stranger reading that and wondering about Maria and her love for a small town on the Cape.  Well, back to reality.  I haven't even thought about the boy and the dog for three days,

Last Saturday was the street painting, a lot of fun, and best of all, Regina's street painting made the front page of the local paper.  She did the Little Mermaid, Atticus did Alice in Wonderland, I did the Grasshopper from the Grasshopper and the ants, Henry and Sabra's friend Sue did a dinosaur, Sabra did a colorful crow, and Laura did the Owl and the Pussycat.  We were all in a row, and got a lot of attention, especially Sue with the dinosaur for little boys and Regina with Ariel for the little girls.  Everyone called my grasshopper a cricket, and by the end, I was even calling him a cricket.  A really good family day, and Regina is already talking about doing little red riding hood and the wolf for next year.  This was a favorite one of Maria's painting.

Now we are getting ready to go to oysterfest.  Timmy has packed three different colored jackets, so when he goes oyster hunting the shellfish warden doesn't recognize him....No, the guy this morning was wearing a black jacket, this one has on a white jacket.  We're only gone a week, and already we've packed almost everything we own.  That's the excitement of vacation...and you know you are going to forget something. 

Went to Maria's grave today and it was gorgeous.  It is a beautiful fall day to begin with, and Ria and Patty's flowers, zinnias,  marigolds, large and small, are still putting out blooms, and have more buds to come.  The flowers were full of bees, all kinds, and butterflies, small yellow and white ones.  It was so peaceful to sit there, watching the flutterby's (as Timmy says they once were called) and listening to the buzz of the bees.  I have bulbs to plant on Mr. Brown's grave in Wellfleet, something we do every year, and a pumpkin from Tony's garden.  Mr. Brown has the original stone that is now on Maria's, so that's the connection.  It's an old, old graveyard, and although we never get to see the spring bulbs, I bet they're something else.  Just to see a pumpkin on one of those old forgotten graves is worthy of the effort. 

So that's it - street painting over, Wellfleet and oysters and Mr. Brown coming up.

I was only 38 when I became a grandmother, but looking back, I think that is the perfect age.  At that time, I had no knee problems, could keep us with any kid and had enough energy to push a carriage into Tivoli.  Maria and family lived with me, upstairs in the Bird's Nest, so I was able to spend lots of time with them.  And those first grandchildren of mine were entertaining...I remember one time pushing  Rachael in the carriage into town, Jer beside me.  We hadn't even reached the bridge crossing the creek into Tivoli, when Rachael starting screaming her head off.  I kept pushing the carriage, hoping the movement would calm her down, but no luck.  Jer stopped and stared at me, incredulous that I hadn't thought of it..."Nurse her Loggy," he said, "just nurse her".  He knew how to shut her up.  Maria nursed Rachael for years, finally stopping, to the kid's surprise.  "Just let me look at them," she said to Maria, sadly, "just let me look at them" like a dieting person might want to see one more ice cream sundae.

Timmy and I took the kids everywhere, driving to Purchase to visit Sabra at college, and trips to all the local festivals.  I remember this time of year going to an Octoberfest in Rhinebeck.  These were the days before drunk driving became an obstacle to alcohol related activities.  Anyway, we were sitting at a big table, in the warm autumn sun, Rachael eating some German treat, and singing "In heaven there is no beer, that's why we drink it here".  The polka band started another song, and the leader yelled, "Everybody yodel" which nobody did, except Timmy, in a loud, loud voice, "Yodel e day e dee" or however anyone can yodel.  Rachael's  eyes were as big as those pints of beers everybody was drinking, horrified that she was with these people that everybody was staring at.  The people around us all laughed, and she relaxed.  I remember she sang all the way home, "in heaven there is no beer" so I guess she had already forgotten the yodeling event.

Autumn makes me sentimental, brings back a lot of memories, good memories of a young grandmother up for anything.

End of September, Timmy's birthday, he likes to recount that he was conceived on New Year's Eve, that his parents kept the champagne cork!  Anyway, I was remembering a September 30 back about 24 or even 25 years ago. 

Maria and her family and Timmy and I went to the Cape for a weekend.  We stayed at an old house, right on the Ocean Side, in Cohoon Hollow, on the road and steps away from the Beachcomber's Bar...the only ocean side bar in Wellfleet.  As I said, the house was old, has since been torn down and a bigger, one stands in its place.  It had a weird added on deck that you crawled out a window to get on, tiny steep steps that led to the bedrooms.  Rachael was less than five years old, Jer must have been nine or ten.  The house must have been used mostly by college kids, liking the location near the ocean and the bar.  I remember Maria opened the couch, a sleeper, and said, "Ma, don't open the couch...someone threw up in it".  Well that was the house, but the big remembrance of that weekend is Timmy's birthday, and to celebrate, he and Kevin planned a whole night of fishing.

Now fishing was never a sport that Timmy had enjoyed, whereas Kevin every year, got a fishing license and headed to Provincetown.  For this excursion, Kevin had organized a fishing tour for the two of them, and as it happened, Jer went along too.  The guide, a skinny man with a worn face showed up in his truck, his name was Pete L. and Timmy remembered that he had  told them that he had worked in Max's Kansas City in New York,  meeting a lot of hot newcoming performers.  I think Timmy said he played Opera music in the truck.

Anyway, Timmy and Kevin left, each with a supply of beer, Timmy had a case of Yuengling, and I don't remember why, but Jer, just a kid, went with them.  It was a long night for Maria and I, both worried about what was happening in that truck, on the beach and everything else, but mostly what was Jer doing.  Well, when they returned, it turned out that Jer had fallen asleep, so they left him in the truck, locking the doors.  But when they returned to try another location, they couldn't wake him up and were banging on the windows for what seemed forever.  They fishermen returned in bad shape, a night of drinking, no sleep, Timmy had his shoes off, and his feet were raw, probably from fish hooks, but who knows. The guys went right to bed, but Jer disappeared.  Maria and I searched the house, then ran outdoors.  I will never forget the sight of Maria running on the high dune, red hair flying in the wind, screaming frantically for Jer.  Just like the Maria of old, searching for her lost lover, the pirate Black Sam.  Anyway, I soon found Jer, huddled in a small corner of the dune.  I guess the whole experience had just been too much for him, and he had sought a peaceful spot to figure it all out.

I drove home that afternoon, Timmy laying down in the backseat of the car.  A strange birthday, a strange end to September.

I bought winter squash this week, first time it has gone "down" to $.99.  I used to buy it by the bushel from Mr. Rockefeller, when a bushel cost $5.00 and you had enough acorn and butternut squash to last a whole winter.  Mr. Rockefeller was a local farmer, an old guy that stopped his truck in front of our house the first summer we were living here.  He sold his vegetables freshly picked and at prices you would kill for today. 

I was used to this kind of sales, in Beacon we had Mr. Stanton, who drove a red truck with a loud horn.  He would park his truck, blow the horn, and the ladies of the neighborhood would come out to see what he had in his truck.  This was especially good for me when we lived at Beacon Street.  I had three little kids, and I didn't drive.  Mr. Stanton was a good businessman and kept candy and candy bars in the front seat to sell to children, so they would look out the window with joy when they heard his horn.  He also was kind to my downstairs neighbor, Helen, who suffered from a disease not yet named then....she couldn't leave the house.  He would even have a six pack of beer for her in the front seat.  Talk about convenience.  One year Helen and I bought a whole bushel of tomatoes from him to can....most of them were good, but the few bad ones made us leery when the jars exploded.  We complained to Mr. Stanton who just said, "You ladies must have done something wrong."

Anyway, I was glad to see a farmer at our new address and he told me I was one of his best customers.  I not only bought the two bushels of squash, but five bushels of potatoes for us, a bushel for Aunt Lillian and I always gave my sister Barbara a bushel of potatoes for her anniversary in October.  All winter long I would send one of the kids down to the cellar to get five potatoes and to pick out the squash I would cook for supper.

Time passed and Mr. Rockefeller began to show his age and then his weekly visits stopped.  When he died my kids were afraid to tell me, they thought it would be too depressing for me, and I did miss him.  Years have changed how we live, the store Adams is the closest thing I can place next to Mr. Stanton and Mr. Rockefeller.  But, it's not half, not a quarter as good as facing the man who grew the vegetables that you were buying to feed your family.  Farmer Markets are fun, but not as exciting as hearing that horn, looking out the window, and seeing the back of the truck loaded with freshly picked vegetables.

Labor Day weekend, the end of summer, how does it happen so fast?  Back from Cape Cod, the wisteria on the Bird's Nest has grown tendrils three feet long, Maria's grave is a mixture of flowers, sunflowers that are tall as I am, cosmos, pink and white, also tall, zinnias -large and small, marigolds, the same, large and small.  The plants are so thick that today a rabbit was hiding among the flowers and I didn't see him until he ran out when I watered.

Cape Cod's two weeks flew by - the first week with Sabra and family, Maureen there until Wednesday.  O'Leary's yearly visit, the girls prettier than ever, John and Debbie carrying cases of beer for us.  This year Samuel Adams, Maureen favored the blueberry summer mixture and both Maureen and I enjoyed the fundador in bed so much that the bottle was emptied way too soon.  The second week Diane, Kathy, Sarah and year old Orson filled the cabin - Orson exploring every corner but my bedroom.  Considering that he might feel the presence of a ghost, I tried to coax him in, and after I did, it became his favorite spot to explore, finding the Anisette [fundador replacement], opening it and spilling it on his shirt.  Just like licorice.  Like every kid he loved the beach, sand and waves.  We all did.

The water was wonderful, warm and very swimmable, we had a full moon, and the first night there we had fireworks as Wellfleet celebrated its 250 birthday.  Beautiful fireworks sitting on the beach, right in front of the cabin.  Lots of seafood from Hatches, lobsters, clams, steamers, smoked bluefish and the big scallop surrounded with roe.  Also, Sushi and really good pizzas, and clam chowder from the Lighthouse that got an A+ from Diane, Kathy and me.  But back to reality.  People three days this weekend as Bard's students return, another sign of the passing of summer.  In less than a week I'll be on Sabra's porch watching Henry get on the school bus.  Well, I do have Oysterfest to look forward to in October.  The way things are going, it will be here before I know it.

Just back from a trip to the Tivoli thrift shop.  Stressful, completely different from what it used to be, even a few months back.  Years ago, the thrift shop was a fun place to go - most of the people in Tivoli were on tight budgets so it was a great place to find kids' clothes, a really nice, cheap dress for a wedding, tablecloths, and more than once, Christmas gifts.  We all knew each other, and would hold up an unusually ugly item, or a sexy item, and everyone would laugh and comment on it.  It was leisurely, you took time, going through the clothes, books and toys.  No more.  Now it is filled with dealers, frantically making piles to resell, examining labels, not worried about size, it's not for them, it's all for how little can I pay for this, and then, how much can I resell it for.  It doesn't matter that the thrift shop is run by the church, it's all money, money, money.  The ladies that used to work the desk knew everyone by name, and if you held up a shirt with missing buttons, or a stain, it could be repriced.  No more, shirts and blouses are identified in some unknown way to me.  I thought it was a shirt I held in my hand, she called it a blouse, and the price doubled.  However, the dealers are welcomed warmly and they can get the prices down.  Sabra says bag day is worth while, but I think the greed would overwhelm me, people cramming things tightly in overstuffed bags.

It's like what happened at the yard sale we had last week.  Every year Tivoli has a yard sale day, the whole town fills their yard with everything imaginable.  Our piles were like everyone else, clothes no longer fitting, toys out grown, dishes from the cellar, you name it.  Most of the people wandered through, picking up some things.  And then three men came into the yard.  They went through a box of books, one pulling out a device that he checked each of the books with.  Then they went to the toys, again checking the hand held device.  "What are they doing?",  I asked Sabra, and she explained that that device was telling them the value of the book, or the toy.  "You see them all the time at book sales, Ma", she said.  "They're dealers and they're looking for buys."  One game had them really excited and it was on the free table.  One looked a little embarrassed when he picked it up and said, "Now I will have to buy something".  They were most interested in the games and I heard one say, that is was missing only three pieces and they could find another game that had those three pieces and it would be worth....try as I could I couldn't hear the amount.

Later that night I was thinking about the device, technology, how in a yard in Tivoli you were connected with the internet and could find a resale value on E-Bay. Years ago Maria had found a Beatles game at the Red Hook thrift shop.  It was a colorform, you remember, they would stick on a page, and could be rearranged over and over again.  Well, after she bought it, she looked on Ebay and one like it was selling for hundreds of dollars.  She did sell it at a nice profit (I  think it cost her a dollar) but she donated money to the thrift shop after she was paid.  That was the joy of it.  You didn't really know what was the worth of what you were buying, so you bought it and then looked it up.  What a shame we've lost it.  What a shame the thrift shop changed.