Wheels

Hello, again, my Friends,
Well, here we are, once again on the brink of High Season. I've gotten to enjoy summer here, just as I enjoy every season, (well, Winter was a bit marginal this year, I must admit), the ups, the downs, the spectacle and the beauty. After all, let's not forget where we live. I never imagined, when I was younger, that I would live somewhere where I'd feel compelled to thank The Goddess every day for the glorious place around me. Maybe that sounds a bit over the top, but on my honor, it's true. Every minute here should be cherished.

Still, we're not perfect, and who wants to be, really? Such a heavy responsibility! There must be some flaws, else how would we recognize the perfections? Some years ago I recognized a few of those flaws in an article I wrote for LIP Magazine. I reproduce it here, at the risk of sounding like a crabby old woman, (which I sometimes am), but also in the hope that somebody, somewhere will take it to heart and be more careful.

Wheels
By Phoebe Otis
The summer season is here. I know this because today I was nearly run down by a cyclist going the wrong way on Commercial Street.

Each year, it seems, it takes me one or two close calls before I remember to look both ways when venturing across the "boulevard of broken limbs", as I like to call it. Each year I get angry, wondering what kind of madman would challenge all odds by speeding headlong into a jam-packed crowd of pedestrians and moving vehicles.

I have studied the faces of these bike jockeys and I can find no common characteristic. They come in all shapes, sexes, sizes, ages, colors and sexual persuasions. They are year-rounders and they are visitors. They are as diverse as Provincetown herself, having in common only the suicidal urge to run the gamut of Commercial Street backwards at high speed.

Some employ noisemakers: horns, bells and whatever. Others simply yell: "GET OUT OF THE WAY!" Still others come deadly silent into our midst, relying upon us to somehow sense their approach and clear a path.
They zip through town like angry bees, scattering tourists right and left, terrorizing dogs and seniors. Mothers whisk strollers aside and hand-holding honeymooners break their clasps and run for cover. They often travel in pairs. Just when you think you've safely avoided disaster, you get sucker-punched from out of nowhere by a second biker.

And the bikes themselves? No slender 10-speeds here. The bikes today are more like the old two-wheelers of my childhood, but with today's technology. These are sturdy machines, made for hard use. I'm sure the tires don't really have teeth, but they would certainly leave an interesting pattern on anything they ran over. Like my foot.

Speaking of feet, roller skaters and skateboarders shoot through the crowds too, winding around cowering bunches of sightseers and playing chicken with the cars. Handicap ramps all over town have become launching pads for individuals with wheels attached to some part of their bodies. Some are even motorized, which brings up an interesting point: when does a person on wheels have to observe the traffic laws? Of course we all know no one here is going to ride a bike according to traffic laws. That would mean toiling up and down the hills of Bradford Street, instead of sailing blithely eastward on Commercial.

I don't like getting mad about this. I remind myself of my old lasa apso, who detested anyone on wheels of any kind and hurled herself, snarling at whomever dared roll by her. I have actually fantasized about a stout stick thrust into those Ben-Hur chariot-like whirling spokes, though I doubt I would do that. No, that's right. I wouldn't do that.

I guess I could get a bike and join the fun, but to be honest, I've never particularly enjoyed bike riding, a fact that no doubt obscures some of the charms of bucking the flow on Commercial. I know the vast majority of cyclists are careful, safe riders. Many people, bless them, walk their bikes in the downtown blocks. Probably the fellow dodging tourists on his Huffy is late for work, or only has 15 minutes to catch the bank, or is hurrying home to catch the birth of his first child. We all think we have good reasons, don't we?

Let's try to make it through the summer unscathed, shall we?

What a week! Saturday night I finished my book. It's at the proofreader's now, and I had my first meeting with the artist who is doing the cover today. It's hard to believe I finished it. Whatever happens now, that fact remains, and to me, it's a plus. Hopefully, you will all love it and buy many copies. I'll let you know when it comes out. Ha! That's good! First me, then my book.
I'm in a writing group with Hilde Oleson. We meet each Tuesday at the library to read our work, listen to others' work and talk about writing in general. Actually, this group has been a great help keeping me busy on the book. Anyway, each week Hilde gives us a prompt, which is something to write about for next week. Last week's prompt was "Childhood Lies." Here's what I wrote:

Childhood Lies

Do you mean

Lies I told as a child, or

Lies I was told, as a child.

Two very different things, I think.

Of course I told lies:

“It’s not my fault!” and

“Robbie did it!”

Among the most popular,

Though there were others.

I used to tell people

I was descended from gypsys.

I wonder now if anyone

Believed me.

But then, people lied to me:

 “Don’t worry, it will be alright.”

On the day my parents separated.

It wasn’t alright, not for a long time.

Or

“I’ll be back soon. You wait here.”

That one never fooled me,

After the first time.

So, do we lie because we are lied to?

We’re not born liars.

How does it start?

More’s the point,

Where will it end?

See you next week, all. Phoebe

Have you seen the hawks who circle the Stop & Shop parking lot? They're really wonderful. There seems to be a whole family of them and I find myself sitting in my car watching them while the ice cream I just bought turns to soup in the back seat. They are truly hypnotic...

If I could describe how you look, up there in the sky,
If I could draw a picture of you with words, tell the story of you,
Sailing on currents, your bodies motionless in the air,
Rising and falling like bits of charred paper on the wind,
If I could make clear the fun I know you're having,
The joy you're feeling, just being free,
Or the joy you give me, watching you,
If I could say these things and make another understand,
Then maybe I could call myself
A Poet.


Provincetown, May, 2015

The Worst Job I Ever Had

  What’s it like here in the winter? Well, for one thing, you have to be prepared to make a living in a variety of ways you may not have considered. One of my first jobs was at the Cold Storage on Commercial St. In spite of it’s name, it was not a place where ladies stored their furs, but instead a large building located where the Coast Guard Station is now, a building where frozen fish products were packed and shipped.

   “Dress warm,” the man who hired me warned.

   The temperature was the least of the unpleasant aspects of that job. From 8am to 5pm, we stood in a large, cold room before long wooden tables divided into sizing bins. A conveyer belt brought the fish, which we then consigned to its proper weight bin after (quickly) weighing each on a scale. A radio, tuned to a popular Boston station played the same “top twenty” songs all day for our entertainment pleasure, and we got a whole half an hour for lunch. We had to wear heavy-duty rubber gloves that turned our hands white and wrinkled and everywhere was the underlying smell of fish. The fish we were sorting during my time there was frozen rock lobster tails from South Africa, which I could never figure out since at the time selling just the tails of lobsters was illegal in this state, and anyway, why did we have to import frozen lobster tails from South Africa when we live here in lobster land? I never got a satisfactory answer to that one.

   The only good part of the job was the people I worked with. Having just arrived in town, I had very little experience with the Portuguese community, but that winter I met some of the greatest ladies I’ve ever known. There was Alameda, who had worked at the Cold Storage all her life, and never missed a day. Since I rarely completed a week at the place, I was very impressed. Helen had a similar story, except she’d gone away for ten years when she got married and moved to New Bedford. When she returned, widowed, she went right back to work at the Cold Storage. Nearly everyone there had started when they were still in school. They were a lively group, full of Provincetown stories, and able to find the rainbow in the darkest tale. Those ladies were what kept me working there as long as I did, and after I left we remained close friends.

   After I’d packed lobster tails for six weeks or so, Helen took me aside.

   “Look, darlin’,” she told me, “you don’t seem to be enjoying the work here. My niece has been working behind the counter at the Pharmacy, but she’s going off to collage. Why don’t you go see if you can get her job?”

   Thank you, Helen. Thank you. Some days I still say that.

   I watched from the street the day they closed up the Cold Storage. The electricity had been turned off, so there was no more refrigeration, and the place literally melted. It seemed the ice in the building was the only thing holding the structure up. A few days later the rubble had been cleared and what had once been a large part of the town’s history was gone. Sometimes I tell people that was the worst job I ever had, but when I remember the great stories and the laughter, I have to admit that’s far from the truth.

For all the years I was away from Provincetown, one vision came to me whenever I thought of the place. No doubt everyone leaves here with memories and impressions, each unique to that person. For me, it’s a windless, fog-bound night, and I am standing on Commercial St, in front of White Wind Guest House at the corner of Winthrop St. I have no idea why my vision is always in this location. Nothing in particular ever happened to me there, while plenty happened in many other places around town. Still, it’s always the same, and there is always the fog horn. The soft call floats over the harbor to me through the cottony air, and I can feel the healing peace of Provincetown, even when I’m far away.  I don’t leave here so much anymore, and many foggy nights have found me listening for that soothing voice as I stand cloaked in damp night air, looking up at the halo around a blurry moon. To be able to do this until the end of my life is one of my most worthy goals, I think

Keys.

My nemesis.

My cross to bear.

The bane of my existence.

This may seem excessive, unless you are my wife, Betty. If you were, you’d know all about my private war with the little metal slivers. Poor Betty has been witness to more than a few key-related tantrums. I appreciate her fortitude. I don’t know why I’m so key-challanged. Probably some hideous childhood experience I’ve completely blocked out. Maybe it’s some kind of subconscious rebellion against locks and all they represent: distrust, exclusion, the need to protect. In my perfect world there would be no locks. No need for them. If we had no locks, we’d need no keys, ergo, we’d have nothing to lose, nothing to inspire crazy, frantic searching. No handbag would require dumping upside down on a rainy doorstep, nothing for demon holes in pockets to gobble into linings.

But, NOT!. In fact, there are more locks now than ever, when you consider those hateful passwords. Let’s not even go there.

I’ve tried everything to solve this. I keep my keys in only one place, I think I’m very careful about this, but sometimes I’m not, and they wind up somewhere ridiculous. And I wasn’t kidding about the handbag. I can stand there and go carefully through every pocket in the thing, not finding the keys, and then suddenly there they are, in the first place I looked. Mocking me. G-r-r!

For a while I had a keyless car. What a luxury! As long as I had the fob in my bag, the car would start at the touch of a button. It also unlocked itself upon my approach. Genius! Why aren’t they all like that? I’m lucky to live in a town where locking one’s car is the exception to the rule. At the risk of sounding like the old fart I seem to have become, I remember when we never locked our doors here, never mind the car, unless we were going away, or “off-Cape”. Now I lock my door whenever I leave the house, carefully putting my house keys in their own special pocket in my bag, confident they won’t be there when I look for them upon my return. Right now, in fact, I’m preparing to go out to the supermarket. After I locate my keys, that is.

TAXES

On 15 April, every year,

Most among us wipe a tear

As into Federal coffers seep

The meager coin we hoped to keep.

One third of every working day,

Our efforts will support and pay

For programs, arms or just because

It’s Washington. That’s what one does!

   It’s hard to write about taxes when I sort of agree we have to pay them. I realize it’s a necessary evil, and a rather small pill to swallow in return for the privilege of living in the good old USA…a small, bitter pill, nonetheless. Most of my life I worked in service jobs, starting with waitress (we called them that in those days.) in a coffeehouse to bartender, a job that definitely looked more glamorous than it is. I never made much more than minimum wage, (not counting tips, which we didn’t, in those days.) I also worked in show business, and did okay there, and that’s where I first became acquainted with our tax process. In show biz, you’re pretty much working for yourself, so you have to see to it you’re paying your quarterly taxes. Please believe me. I learned this the hard way, so I know.

   “Pretend it’s not your money,” a helpful friend advised. “Take one-third of whatever you earn and put it in a savings account. Pay your taxes out of that. Anything left over, you get to keep.”

   Great advice. By the time I took it, I owed $1500 to the Feds, (a gigantic sum, in those days.) That’s when I discovered the best people to owe money to are the good old IRS.  You can make almost any deal with them and as long as you send the money each month, even if it’s only $5 or $10, they’ll leave you alone. Eventually, I got it paid, and I never did that again.

   Now I’m “retired”, whatever that means. For me it means no more real estate, and no more property management, a job I’m delighted to turn over to my son, Duff. I haven’t stopped working, tho’, and I still pay taxes. I just mailed the checks off yesterday. It’s a strange feeling. I feel bad having to pay them and good about doing it, all at the same time. At least I know I’ve done my part to keep the lights on in Washington.