Leap from the Mainland

Orleans’ U.S. Marine Concert Hits Sour Note

Posted on June 25, 2008 by Marianne Paskowski
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I’m reaching for the Advil.

Just got home from my first time attending Orleans’ annual U.S. Marine Drum & Bugle “Battle Color Ceremony,” and I am bummed.

No I’m very angry.

And I am not alone. Given that this is the fifth year of the U.S. invasion of Iraq, there was absolutely no mention of the more than 4,000 troops who lost their lives defending our land and freedoms. The fallen were once again forgotten, just like the media ignores the facts, and now again, echoed  at Eldridge Park.

Bad went to worse. The music came from pop culture, tunes you would hear at a bad wedding reception. Where was “Stars & Stripes Forever?”  Yet alone when the color guard came out, where was the recital of “The Pledge of Allegiance,” and the crowd joining in to reaffirm our country’s credo?

I felt uncomfortable, like I was surrounded by a bunch of Bushies who continue to defend a war they cannot possibly support, left alone defend.

It was surreal, at times. At moments,  honestly, I felt like I was in a Hitler Brown Shirt rally. That’s hyperbole, sure, but at least Hitler  fired up the audience.  This was akin to being amid  a sea of all white bystanders watching a  half time show  at a football game.

I am sure that was not the intent of the event’s organizers. I’m sure they do a lot of good work somewhere, but it didn’t resonate tonight, with me and others.

So speak out and demand better for next year. I don’t know how Orleans paid for this fiasco that was an insult at worst, or total lack of recognition at best,  to real patriotism

I watched the crowd. A lot of other people were not clapping on what was a picture perfect weather evening.  There were plenty of veterans in attendance, and I could see their disappointed faces.

Food for thought.

(Marianne Paskowski resides in East Orleans and writes about the television business for Los Angeles-based TV Week. She invites and welcomes reader feedback, the good the bad or the ugly.)

My Version of ‘The Shipping News’

Posted on May 30, 2008 by Marianne Paskowski
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One of my all time favorite books is the 1994 Pullitzer Prize winner for fiction, “The Shipping News,” by E. Annie Proulx.

It’s about a reporter working for “The Gaming Bird,” the local paper in the town of Killick-Claw, Newfoundland.

The town paper was hyper-local, announcing when the local diner would be serving up extra servings of tartar source. It’s a look at a local community most of us have never experienced or ever will.

I thought about that book tonight when I just finished reading the local Orleans section of the Cape Codder. The only story on the town’s page was the long awaited reopening of the gift house at the transfer station. Most Cape Cod towns would say it was the reopening of the swap shop at the dump, buy, hey that’s Orleans.

Orleans bears no resemblance to the down-in-the-heals town of Killick-Claw, but it is a small town, awash with its own quirks like the long awaited re-opening of the gift house.

I find that charming and that’s just one nuance of living full time in a small town  populated with sophisticated, educated people who have escaped from places like New York, like me, and are learning a new way, living side by side with real local Cape Codders who actually were born and grew up here. Orleans is  a changing ecosystem with old blood and new blood making for a vibrant community. Or that’s the goal in progress.

It’s been an entertaining stretch, all in all, except for a family of coyotes who decided to move here too and have ruined my nocturnal patterns.The Orleans police told me I have to live with nature. OK, I get it, coyotes have more rights than me.

Meanwhile, we caught a  great  comedy, a two-man show, “The Greater Tuna,” at the historical “Acacademy Playhouse” in Orleans. The theater seats 65 people and that weekday night before Memorial Day there were maybe a dozen people in the audience.

It was charming., and more satisfying that overpaying for a SRO Broadway show.

My husband Bob and I go out weekly with a group of friends I made at a course I had taken this past January at the Nauset Middle School. Each week someone recommends a different activity for the merry mob of seven and tonight’s adventure was the fish fry at the Elks Club in Eastham.

Being a New Yorker, I had never stepped foot in a place like that and I was not disappointed. It was a hoot.  For $8 apiece we had a great fish dinner, in a room abuzz with high-spirited groups of people looking for a bargain night out on the town.

So back to where I started this random train of  thought, “The Shipping News.”

Guess what? There were ample bowls of tartar sauce on the tables at the Elks Club. So off to sleep, if it’s OK with the coyotes.

(Marianne Paskowski writes about the TV business for Los-Angeles based “Television Week.” You can catch her blog at http://www.tvweek.com/blogs/marianne-paskowski/  She also serves on the Orleans TV & Telecom Comittee. She welcomes reader feedback.)

In Memory of Lucy; The Cape Really Cares

Posted on April 5, 2008 by Marianne Paskowski
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Trust me.  I’ll get to the headline, but instead let me ease you and mostly me into this blog. It’s  a story I pass on from my real estate agent here who told me  what exactly was that one turning moment in life that  prompted her to move here  to what was then her second home. She was a dyed in the wool New Yorker, like me.

Sue had long vacationed here but continued to work in bustling Manhattan. One day she climbed up the stairs from the 66th Street subway entrance and had her moment of reckoning.

She witnessed hundreds of people walk around or just step over a man who was writhing in the streets, apparently suffering a heart attack, seconds away from the Lennox Hill ER facility. Nobody gave a rat’s ass about him.

That’s why she moved here years ago without looking back. I’ve thought about her story often, and that leads me to share one of my most positive, loving experiences I’ve had here.

It’s related to health care and in this particular  blog, a story about  my departed dog.

We just commemorated the one year anniversary of the premature death of our beloved five year old Yellow Lab Lucy.  One day here, 72 hours gone. She was a victim of Lyme nephritis, kidney failure, a disease that is felling more canines on the Cape. And it goes without notice, had she not had a routine blood test. Scary stuff.

Unlike that poor man writhing on a busy street in Manhattan, Lucy, and we, by extension were not ignored.  We were, instead,  embraced by the community. A team of vets in Eastham and Dennis, and their staffers,  were with us every step of the way.

I even got a condolence card, after the horror, from a friend of a friend, who has now become a friend, who I didn’t really know until  last year.

There’s more to this tale. Two weeks after having to put Lucy down, I finally got up the nerve to call my doctor’s nurse Mary to get a referral for a breeder. I didn’t expect to hear first hand from my doctor, John Shackelford at the Fontaine Medical Center in Harwich, even though we had often talked about our dogs. He has a Yellow Lab, too.

I couldn’t believe when he called me back that same night and  we talked for a full hour, no meter running, about how I was coping. I wasn’t, at all.  Our older Black Lab Sammy, then 11, and still alive, missed his pal.

Bob, my husband,  and I were numb. On the phone, Dr. Shackelford urged  me to just cry on his shoulder, something I resisted but finally did.  It’s OK to cry, I’ve learned. He encouraged me to get another Yellow Lab pup. I did not want to do that. But we soon did.

Maizey is now one year old, the new kid on the block. And I never would have taken that step without the encouragement of our vets, Dr. Schackelford, and Nanny Jill, our wonderful dog sitter.

So to tie a bow on this ribbon, I have to say I have really  found Cape Codders to be embracing, warm, caring people, despite their sometimes outwardly stoic ways.

Glad I’m here. And a special thanks to all who helped. You rock!

{Marianne Paskowski writes about the television business for Television Week at http://www.tvweek.com/blogs/marianne-paskowski./ She also, now  blogs  hree about her transition to the spit of sand from East Orleans. She welcomes your comments. Just hit the comment bar, and jump into the conversation!}

Don’t Run Back, or Do, It’s OK

Posted on March 21, 2008 by Marianne Paskowski
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I am not a whiner. God, do I sound like Richard Nixon?

Maybe a little. But I  was a little taken back when I ran into an old friend awhile ago who owns a business on the Cape who was surprised to hear that we still lived here, we, being my husband and I,  being wash-ashores from New York,  now here full time in  in Orleans for almost three years. He said, people like us, just can’t take it. Hmmm.

I’m now really beginning to wonder, hearing firsthand a lot of  stories about how difficult it is for Baby Boomers to adjust to the Cape. You know what? It can be. So far, I think I’m doing it, but I have my moments.

I admit it, I still run back a lot over the bridge, but not as often as before, as I am gradually building a new  life here on the spit of sand with new friends. Face it, this a strange place to live, if you’re 30 or 55, from over the bridge.

There, I’ve said it. And I just gave seniors and natives more fodder to disdain wash-ashores, who should be the future of the Cape but are not so sure they want to be. Think about that you geezers who disdain us so much. We don’t disdain you.

I’ve been asked the question many times, “How are you adjusting?” It next came from a woman I met at a hairdresser appointment in Orleans.

Kevin, my hairdresser, who’s also from New York, introduced her to me and that was my first moment of really understanding that this move might not be that simple. She was also from New York and she absolutely, initially,  hated her new life in Brewster. She was very lonely.

She ran back to New York every weekend to her old life, before she finally became involved in a theater community in her new town. She’s happier now.

She’s not the only one with a similar story of shock and awe and chaos and confusion about this stage of life. I met another woman who moved here to work full time who found herself driving back over the bridge every weekend  to visit her grown children who were living their own lives and were beginning to resent her constant presence.

She finally joined groups on Cape and resisted the urge to run back home every weekend. I was really moved when she said she felt like she was feeling “parental abuse,” but she got the message from her son-in-laws.

I  also  know others who have not taken the leap and probably will not.  A couple I met at the gym who thought they were ready to finally move to their long-time second home in Eastham. She’s was trying to wind down in the mortgage  lending business.Then the subprime loan aftermath hit her. Ugh.

On top of that, her husband lost his job and felt depressed  and fought with her about the full time move to Cape Cod. He’s OK, he got another job, but they’re still on the fence about moving here, especially during these difficult economic times. Bottom line, they still live in the Nutmeg state.

Perhaps the most poignant Boomer story I have is from my dog sitter, who tells me about a couple who moved to Orleans full time, but both went back recently to their full time jobs in Connecticut, worried senseless  about their finances. Who in the hay wouldn’t  be in these economic times? Anyone get a job in Orleans recently? I doubt it.

So let’s talk about some real coping skills here. First, the Cape has absolutely no capabilities to offer retirees who want to work, any kind of meaningful employment. You have to strike out on your own and earn money like I do from Los Angeles.

Second, don’t sweat health care.I actually have better medical care here than in New York with top notch Park Avenue doctors. That is a big plus. Cape Cod Hospital is one of the top 100 hospitals in the nations.

So here’s my challenge to you, and I kinda of feel like I’m writing in the dark here, with so many seniors having no computer skills, let alone knowing what a blog is, or how to respond Let’s be more embracing of the Baby Boomers and the X generation, the future of the Cape.

And while I’m at it, the Chamber of Commerce should be more savvy about these shifting demographic changes, like Boomers moving to the Cape. If they don’t get this right, there will be more folks, given the strength of our numbers, leaving back over the bridge, than tourists coming here.

But that’s OK, we’re all in flux. And that’s OK. Personally, I’m gonna sign up for a couple of more courses here. The one that really interests me is horse back riding. Feel I need to get back into the saddle.

So share your stories, as some of you have, and don’t let me be a lone voice in the sand.

Leap from the Mainland

Posted on February 22, 2008 by Marianne Paskowski
Filed Under Mainland | 4 Comments

Plunk, plop, fizz, fizz oh what a relief it is. Or is it?

Hardly, says this blogger who has had her Alka Selter moments.

They began instantly when as a second home owner, two and a half years ago, we made the big move from the mainland to what was then our second home on Cape Cod.  I was only 55, a mere kid, not knowing that I was moving to the oldest town in the Commonwealth, population wise, Orleans. Yikes, I’m a journalist, you think I would have checked this out.

So now what?  After all, we moved here, virtually knowing very few people, to a resort community that offers few, if any, opportunities for professional people who still want to work. I still write for an outfit in Los Angeles, yes for money, but from here. Sure, telecommuting has its virtues, like writing in your bathrobe. But there’s a huge downside, that I never thought about and that is isolation.

Guess what I learned? I am no Thoreau.  Keep your pond, you hermit.  I want human contact.

So I struck out with a vengeance in Orleans, to be more positive and embracing.  I joined a town committee, (More about that political quagmire later)

Then I signed up at a gym. And most recently, I signed up and met a wonderful group of like-minded travelers who are taking a course “Too Young to Retire,” offered by the Nauset Middle School in Orleans. You would be amazed at what bubbles up in those sessions.

One woman, a widow, we affectionately call our hussy, is a regular on online dating services, and has had some great experiences. She’s teaching others, not me, I’m married, the ropes.  Go, Pat, go, we love you. Another, John a lonely widower, joined the Nauset Newcomers group, he’s having the time of his life.

Beyond class, we regularly network in buddy circles each week and hang out and help one another cope with where we are in our lives and careers.

We are mainland baby boomers who all question our decisions about how in the hell we came to the conclusion to settle here. Like why didn’t we go to a college town like Dartmouth  and have exposure to age diversity and professional services?

Still, we basically like the small town life in Orleans and the opportunity of knowing a lot of people on a first name basis.

So here’s the call to arms. We all want more than the Lower Cape presently offers for baby boomers.  We can make it happen by pooling our resources and contacts. I’m seeing it now, thanks to this class.

So jump in and share your thoughts. Take the next leap.

Marianne Paskowski blogs about television from what is now her full time home on Cape Cod. While in New York she was vice president, editorial development for Multichannel News and Broadcasting & Cable. She continues to write about the business for Television Week,.