Pining for P-Town

It's summer and the world is heating up, terrorists are causing fear in airports in real life and snakes are causing fear on planes in the movie theaters, and I am thinking about P-Town.

That's Provincetown, Cape Cod. The little funky town where my mom and her parents would decamp from New York City, where she spent all her childhood summers, and then where my sis and I spent ours. We stayed at 535 Commercial Street, known to us as the Kibbutz (and about as close to one as I've ever come). Aside from my grandparents, who had rented a small apartment right on the water there year after year, was Roz Roos, who held a famous literary salon in New York, Al Jaffee, of Mad magazine fame, Art Bloom, the clarinetist who taught Woody Allen (but he was better known for having the best door to play hand ball) and Chaim Gross, artist. My mom threw a birthday party for my sis, August 12, and the entire Kibbutz would turn out. Often, we were the only kids there. Even though it wasn't a typical type of birthday party for a kid, it felt terribly glamorous and Carolla always got so many presents she never seemed to mind.

For two kids who spent most of the year shuttled between divorced parents and daily life with a very protective mom, P-Town was our playground for a few glorious weeks a year. Where the kids left the house at sun up and didn't come home till after dark. The water lapped the piers and usually once a summer some storm would rip the staircase that led down to the beach straight off. The staircase was about 10 steps down to the beach, and the tide came in so high we could start swimming from the steps. Then went out so far we could run and play tag on the flats for miles.

We collected shells, sand crabs and minnows, stubbed our toes, begged for empty cigar boxes from the 5 and dime and scrounged for forks that fell through the cracks of the restaurants on the pier next to ours. It was P-Town where I first saw the Wizard of Oz (my sister was so scared by the wicked witch my mom had to leave early and buy her ice cream), where I discovered the stark beauty of the dunes and had my first date. (I was nine. He was 10. He took me to the drive-in. His mother drove.)

I read today in the New York Times that everyone, and hey, myself included, is avoiding summer vacations these days. But noone would if they had a time like we had in P-Town.