We all mark time in different ways. For me, it’s the dry cleaner.
I have been dropping off clothes to the same dry cleaner in Hyannis since a week or so after I moved here full-time in 1974 – that’s 50 years ago.
Two things strike me here: One, the dry cleaner is still in business, although it changed hands last year. And, two, I have lived on Cape Cod for 50 years. Having moved here in my 20s, that makes me surprisingly old, and, frankly, surprised that I’m still living here. Has Cape Cod become home? It was never what I intended.
I moved here for my first job in journalism, at what was then the Cape Cod Standard Times, an afternoon paper. I expected to stay for a couple of years, then move on to a big metro, win a Pulitzer, write a couple of books, do the talk show circuit, and become a pundit. But life had other plans, and I never got around to leaving. I worked, married, raised three children and have yet to win a Pulitzer, although obviously I’m happy to pontificate on almost any topic.
This might be the point where you expect me to wax poetically about the Cape 50 years ago.
And, yes, I sometimes miss the sudden peace that fell immediately after Labor Day; the camaraderie of village life (I lived on one Main Street and worked on another); the robust coverage and competition of local journalism; and the small-town services – the dry cleaner once opened after hours so we could retrieve my son’s tux for a party. But life back then was not simpler, it just had fewer choices. There was no “remote work,” the Cape was just “remote.”
If you wanted entertainment in the winter, you invited people for dinner or hit the movies at the then-shiny Cape Cod Mall. Yes, there was a women’s club or garden club in almost every town, and church suppers, bingo, community theater or square dancing almost every night – but that wasn’t exactly what we 20-somethings were into. There were bars, of course, but the food scene was, shall we say, quiet, in the off-season. Thank god for the $5.99 roast beef special at the Old Yarmouth Inn.
And yes, the Cape was less crowded – it had about half its current population. It also had half the opportunity. The summer season was a short and intense 10 weeks, and the economy dropped like a stone in September. If you had a steady year-round job, you probably worked for a utility, a town, or the hospital. In winter, the unemployment rate could soar to 15 percent, and the Cape’s annual average income was the second lowest in the state.
And see if this sounds familiar: There was a shortage of year-round rentals, so many workers and even families camped or couch-surfed from Memorial Day to Labor Day while their seasonal cottage was occupied by tourists.
So, you’ll excuse me if I don’t wax nostalgic about the good old days. I’ve come to like the security and diversity of a less-seasonal economy. I like seeing my neighbors’ lights in February. I like eating at a good restaurant in the off-season. I like having more options for shopping, healthcare and education. I like that we have welcomed people from all over the world, their food and their cultures, and that we are better at recognizing the contributions of local indigenous people. I like that we continue to be a safe place for the LGBTQ+ community.
I know all is not rosy. I complain about the traffic. I bemoan the struggles of traditional industries like fishing and farming, and the income disparity between year-rounders and the seasonal residents who insist on building McMansions. Our approach to sea rise and climate change has often been slow and parochial. And I detest the smug NIMBYism, small-town thinking, old-fashioned zoning, and silo-ed approaches that hamper imaginative solutions for long-standing problems like housing. Sometimes I just want to scream, c’mon Cape Codders, it’s not 1974 anymore.
But it gives me hope that the Cape remains an extraordinary place that’s valued by so many creative people. And even after all the development and change, I can walk a half-mile from my house and overlook Cape Cod Bay, the marsh and a blue heron or two. Or I can walk into a dry cleaner where they know my name and feel that, after 50 years, I’m home.
