I’m trying to remember spring cleanup, but with the way the weather was this past summer, it was hard to separate the two seasons. Regardless, with the onset of colder weather prompting a change in Sofie’s wardrobe, and dogs being more inside now (with attendant vacuuming), it is definitely time to clean house. Definitely before the season gets away from us, and the onslaught of presents at Christmas.

A lot of mental housecleaning, too. Maybe not enough for a full column, but still worthy of pondering.

If the goal of the Bridge Street Parking plan was not to make money, but to discourage parking, it did. If the goal was to discourage Lighthouse Beach attendance, it clearly did not. If the goal of charging admission at beaches is to recover costs associated with maintenance (i.e. life guards, beach patrols, etc.), then there seems to be an amazing disconnect – revenue is down at Harding’s Beach because people want to go to Lighthouse Beach.

Harding’s is remote. Lighthouse is close to town. Harding’s has plenty of parking, and charges. Lighthouse has limited parking, but has some Rube Goldberg system for out-of-town beach goers. To maintain Harding’s takes a beach rake and life guards. To maintain Lighthouse it is going to take $100,000 for a very involved beach patrol system. And I, like many, many other people, would rather go to Lighthouse Beach even if not allowed to swim, than go to Harding’s and be able to.

So why not try to recover the cost of maintaining this very popular destination through parking fees?

* * *

There was a strong chord of dissonance sounded recently with rejoicing that the U.S. did not win the Olympic bid for 2016. I say “the U.S.” because Chicago is, still, part of the United States. I don’t care whose hometown it is, or what kind of political feather this would be in someone’s cap.

This is the Olympics, and the United States not only has every right to be considered equally – it is against our nature as Americans not to compete when given the chance. But worse, by rooting against the bid, Americans were rooting against home field advantage for our athletes. Never mind that our Olympic teams will now have to travel to another continent to compete, with their attending families – American families – having to bear the costs of overseas travel.

It’s about our athletes. Anyone bother to ask them what they wanted before running down our Olympic bid?

* * *

Whenever Afghanistan jumps into the public consciousness again, I’m reminded of Rina Amiri. During the winter I wrote my novel “The Bostoner,” I was up in Cambridge and Rina was one of my roommates. She had been a member of the Afghan royal family that was forced to flee in the ‘70s, and had eventually grown up in the Bay area. I recall a few conversations with this Kennedy School scholar about the then-new movement coming out of Pakistan – the Taliban – and her feeling she might never return there. And I recall her idealism, on United Nations Day, asking me to support the United States, under Bill Clinton, refusing to pay the full dues in light of clear patterns of waste and corruption.

It was probably a few short months after the U.S. invasion eight years ago that she did indeed return to help with the formation of the fledgling Afghan government and to especially work on women’s issues. She’s written in the Boston Globe and been on NPR since then, which is always a kick for me to encounter. And now, with the President seriously considering how to proceed in the region, I see she is now Senior Advisor to the U.S. Special Representative to Afghanistan and Pakistan, Richard Holbrooke.

This has always personalized Afghanistan to me. When you share a kitchen with someone, it makes it hard to accept that they cannot return to their country, under penalty of death. You then take some pride that the intervention of your country allowed them to return safely to theirs, to work for the welfare of their brutalized countrymen and women. More recently, however, a feeling of shame rises when we in this country, especially those who so value human rights, seem to willing to abandon a whole nation because a determined – but small – and violent faction is giving us the equivalent of a bloody nose.

It should not come as news to anyone claiming a broader international perspective that the work of the world is not done in a season or two. There is no shame in abandoning governments we have previously allied with, but what of their people we asked to believe in America?

Are our ideals so malleable? Are we so fickle? Are we, in the final analysis, just tourists with tanks?

“We do not have a housing problem.  We have an income problem.”

I was glad to hear this coming from Chatham Selectman Sean Summers recently.

In 2001, the first meeting I attended as a newly-minted selectman, outside my own board, was for the affordable housing committee.  I had always been proud of Chatham’s support for efforts to retain its working families.  It stood in such stark contrast to the out-of-town stereotyping that CHATHAM = RICH = CONSERVATIVE = HEARTLESS SNOBS.

However, over the years I’ve seen plenty of the housing for working people in town get redeveloped into high-end second homes, little by little, with little if any regard as to the cumulative effect on the community.  “What difference is just this going to make?” goes the argument.  This is how a town dies.

Meanwhile, as housing costs doubled, tripled, I saw wages stagnate and even fall.  More and more of the town was being covered in living space, and less and less of it was intended for or within reach of the people who lived and worked here.

I write this in the aftermath of our last town meeting.  But I raise this not to talk about the failure of affordable housing amendments to pass.  Rather, there’s a more important impact on Chatham’s housing that did pass – sewers.

Just as town water coming to a neighborhood allowed houses to be built on lots without regard to the proximity of a septic system to a well, by addressing our wastewater needs, we face some very serious side effects. With sewers, homes can now be built without worrying about the impact of their septic systems on the environment.

Yes, in years past we’ve seen a bylaw amendment enacted that would prohibit greater building on a lot that is newly sewered than was allowed prior to its sewering. But then, we’ve recently seen that Dunkin Donuts is not fast food, and an attempt to push poor families into our industrial zone (established because such uses were incompatible with residential areas).  There is a very human urge to fully exploit a public convenience when given the opportunity to make a private profit.

Hence, density will increase.  It is necessary to plan for the impacts, yet we seem stymied by a system that the public perceives as too closely affected by large property owners in town, and driven pell-mell towards a goal of 10 percent affordable housing so as to fit into a one-size-fits-all mandate by the state. In other words, not just doing the right thing for the wrong reason, but looking as if it was being done it for all the worst reasons.

There are many good reasons to assure that working people can live here.  Continuity.  Stability.  Fairness.  Hope.

But sadly we’ve continued to address just one side of the equation: lowering housing costs to match what our current local economy pays.  There seems to be no effort whatsoever to improve and diversify the economy.   Any talk of it seems to have the greatest thinking of the mid-20th century behind it, “General Motors is not going to build a factory here.”  That’s no news flash.  As if heavy industry is the only solution to improving a local economy.

Our national economy is changing.  We need to adapt.  We’ve heard time and time again that young people – whose education we’ve spent good money on — are leaving the Cape because they want more than waiting tables, swinging a hammer or making beds.  There are plenty of expensive, gorgeous places in this country where smart people move to start businesses because they are encouraged by these communities.

Meanwhile, there just seems something very wrong that two of the largest employers in town are Chatham Bars Inn and town government.

If asked, most people here would agree that any healthy town needs more balance in its economy and its people.  Educationally, we’re not a backward town by any measure, but there seems to be mulish unwillingness to look any further than addressing state mandates with short-term fixes.

We should not be looking to solve the problems others say we have.  We should be planning for what is inevitable (a rapid growth in density), and for what we all agree is a public priority (a way people can afford to live here).  If we start a public dialogue now, we might just be able to come up with some creative solutions, perhaps many small ideas, that can put us back in charge of our future.

With the first of the daffodil shoots foolishly poking out from the until-now frozen earth, Sofie and I have returned to the back yard for our major activities.  Clearing the sleds from under the blue spruce.  Trimming back the weaker of the branches on the pear trees.  Making a final decision on the location of that next thornless blackberry bush.  Picking up remnants of dog toys, and rescuing those still intact from the inevitable mower blade.

It is a time for spring cleaning.  Having spent the fall and winter on a creative project, I am faced with the myriad tasks that must be done — best be done now, than to be discovered in the summer in a panic.  Where is the tent?  I thought we had charcoal in this closet… somewhere.  The bicycle pump, you say?  I know we have two of them.  Try under the Christmas lights.

Not to even get into boat-prep issues.  That’s a column unto itself.

As described a few months ago, when working alone outside, podcasts like American Public Media’s Marketplace keep me company.  It has really kept me on top of business and economic issues just as they are at the forefront of public consciousness.  So it is an astounding contrast, too, the degrees to which some public officials seem to be far, far behind the curve.

There appears to be a complete unwillingness to see the current economic conditions as anything more than a departure from the norm.  Something that will “gotten over” in the matter of a few months, rather than a major correction — by that term meaning we now quickly return to the way things should have been all along.

This is not a departure down; rather the recent prosperity was a departure up.  Consumers stopped saving anything in the past decade and borrowed too much.  Optimism to spend, as recently prescribed by a sadly-misguided County Commissioner Bill Doherty, is not going to pull us out of this situation.  Toxic assets will become safer when all borrowers actually pay their debts off — first.

The sad reality is that plenty of service-based businesses were founded here and nationwide, based upon increasing affluence.  We have come to realize that much of this affluence was an illusion.  For example, buyers were willing to pay $2 million for a second home on the Cape because a) the value of their 401k was expected to only increase, b) the Cape house could always be rented seasonally at a high rate, and c) the buyer’s primary residence would fetch a high price when sold for the inevitable retirement here.

Now two of those legs have been kicked out from that three-legged stool (and the third may be just as illusory).  Optimism had brought the home price to a level as unsustainable as the rest of the economy.  As reality sets in, the price has dropped to a truer value set by that smaller pool of buyers who still possess the resources to purchase.

Yet too many of leaders in government, to varying degrees insulated from the gyrations of the private economy by the inviolate perks of public benefits, still fail to grasp three basic truths:

First, their constituents now have less money.

Second, that any money their constituents struggle to earn in these tough times should be saved.

And third, this is how it is going to be for a couple years, at least. As Olivier Blanchard, the IMF’s new Director of Research, told The Economist just last week, “We are closer to the beginning than we are to the end.”

Once this sort of mental spring cleaning — looking at what is actually around us, what we have and what we don’t, what still works and what is irreparably broken — hopefully will lead to some serious planning for the knock-on effects of what is being called our “Deprecession.”

For example, history tells us that in tough times, more shellfish permits are issued.  Yet the price of shellfish has stayed stagnant or even gone down, partly due to a lack of economic planning for increased supply.

Or with decreased household income, expect that many more local high school graduates will attending Cape Cod Community College (regardless of whether they were accepted to four-year schools off-Cape).  That means more 18 to 22 year olds here through the winter.  They will be needing jobs that provide a regular income.  Regular, as in a regular wage with regular hours, not seasonally tip-based gigs.

(Note:  They will not be needing housing.  They’ll be saving money by staying at home.)

These are but two examples, and are not the usual bad economy-homeless shelter-food pantry concerns.  The needs of middle class people who live here – yes, residents – are calling out to be addressed by our towns.  Now.

Nostalgia for the goods times won’t cut it, nor will unfounded optimism.  Spring is the time to re-assess.  And we need to get to work.

The most recent solution-in-search-of-a-problem championed by the local media is regionalization of government services. Sewers. Fire. Police. Schools.

Now, I am sure there are some savings that can be found when you have over a dozen municipalities occupying an area roughly the same square mileage and population as Jacksonville, Florida.

But the justification for regionalization now seems to be that this will help stem the tide of young adults leaving Cape Cod. Like maybe lower taxes? Or better schools because they’re bigger and cheaper? Sorry, I’m trying to play devil’s advocate here, but coming from a small town with a very low tax rate, by this reasoning we should have tons of young families. Instead, we’re the oldest town in the state. Maybe we’re just not doing it BIG ENOUGH?

This is how I summed up a query on Facebook, posted to friends who grew up on the Cape but have since moved away these two questions:  1) Why did you leave? and, 2) What would induce you to return?

The answers were not terribly surprising.  Not having any 4-year institution of higher learning in the area, many said they went away to school and then became ensconced wherever they were.  They liked what they found in the wider world.

It may sound heretical in this resort community, but yes, there are many, many other beautiful places in the world.  They are as much in competition with us for tourists as for that most locally-undervalued person - the full-time, year-round, wage-earning 25-45 year-old resident.

But, greater, was a theme of opportunity.  Specifically, one respondent answered why she left Cape Cod:

• a) Nowhere to work
• b) Nowhere to work in winter (yes, two things entirely)
• c) No career opportunities (see a and b)
• d) Its once cool austerity and grittiness has been replaced with cheesy gift shops and “quaint” cuteness imported from cities in an attempt to make it something it’s not
• e) Arts, shopping, etc.

She went onto explain, “I’ve lived in NYC for over 16 years. My living space is extremely small, my housing expenses astronomical and taxes are through the roof-BUT I have opportunity here — to make money, work in any industry (almost) I choose. Almost everything is accessible. I sorely miss the ocean, but the benefits outweigh the costs. Lower taxes and better schools would never entice me to move back. Even if housing were free, it would still make more financial sense to pay $90 per square foot and live some place where I could make a living. Simple as that.”

As for what would get her to move back:  “Jobs, jobs and jobs.”

Another friend who has worked both on and off-Cape (and likes performing those small town self-services like bringing his own trash to the dump), has the skills to earn much more elsewhere.  But the opportunities just aren’t there for his highly-trained spouse.

Talking directly to my concern, he observed, “Regionalization of services is a partial solution to budget woes, but it’s long-term and painful, and it’s not at all a reason someone moves to an area.”

Now, certainly this is an unscientific sampling, and I do not pass this off as representative of a cross-section of the Cape Cod Diaspora.  But they are for the most part well-educated, high earning, upstanding, responsible adults.  Just the sort of people you would want living next door, who on those rainy days when you get back from the supermarket and are trying to get everything inside, offer to lend a hand.  Or when the power goes out.  Or to check on your house when you’re on vacation.

The media here on the Cape have failed its expatriate children by failing to ask them what THEY WANT.  Instead, powers-that-be have announced what they are willing to do: make local government more efficient by making it bigger.  I’m reminded of a quote from the movie “Contact” - “First rule in government spending: why build one when you can have two at twice the price?”

Specifically, and to its credit, The Chronicle has deflated the argument that there will be any reduction of costs by regionalizing Chatham and Harwich schools.  That there would be a greater benefit to students by more educational programs is, however highly dubious.  Perhaps marginally, but no serious claims are being made that SAT scores will jump, or we’ll be getting state of the art gymnasium or science lab.

Worse, the “big schools” idea flies in the face of reams of studies that suggest what parents and teachers want most, and the environment in which students thrive best, are small, neighborhood schools with low teacher-pupil ratios.  So even if the argument is that better schools will attract more families to move here, we’re offering a Chevy Suburban when the customer clearly wants a Toyota Prius.  They want smaller, not bigger.  More control, not less.

I am concerned that what really is going on is yet another lurch away from Town Meeting control of any budgetary issues.  When regionalized, a bill for the service is simply rendered upon the Town.  Voters on the floor of Town Meeting do not have the chance, as they do with a purely-municipal budget item, to pick apart the budget, item-by-item.  With regionalization, those who work for the larger bureaucracy serve a larger population — and thus, are accountable to virtually no one.

In essence, we would be going in the opposite direction of what is most desired by those we so righteously protest to help.  But if we are serious about returning to a more balanced community, welcoming those of all ages, the answer bears repeating: “Jobs, jobs and jobs.”

Read this and other columns online at The Cape Cod Chronicle.

Ginger likes her sweater.  I think. Now, I’ve never been one of those dog people who dressed up their dogs to look like little versions of themselves.  No leather jackets.  No sweatsuits emblazoned with a sports team logo. No doggy raincoats, with matching rain hat and rubber boots.  Come to think of it, since the buttons of the last one rusted off, I haven’t even owned a raincoat.  So that’s not exactly an accurate comparison.

But last Christmas, Sofie asked about a present for our two Cardigan Welsh Corgis, Ginger and Colby.  They are sister and brother, but from different litters, and have served not only as surrogate siblings to Sofie, but as comedy team, always ready for her amusement.  Used for herding cattle and ponies in Wales, the breed are working dogs that get a little antsy when they can’t keep an eye on us.  When Sofie was just learning to use a real bed, Ginger slept on the bed while Colby slept underneath.

So when Sofie expressed a desire – no, the expectation – that she should give them a gift for Christmas, it only seemed right. Standing there, in PetSmart in Hyannis, faced by all sorts of dress-up gear for the latest fashionable toy breed.

Oh, sure, they have short legs, but they are otherwise medium-sized dogs.  Colby’s head is almost as big as a German Shepherd and I’ve seen him turn things like femurs and brake handles into tiny bits in the blink of an eye.  So they clothing that caught Sofie’s eye were on the disappointingly small size.

The only thing we could be certain of was a pink and purple striped sweater.  Fully aware of Ginger’s gender, Sofie agreed this was just the thing. Colby could have an extra cow hoof in his stocking, to make up for it.  Nature provided him with a much heavier coat, anyway.

So on Christmas Day last year, I became A Guy Who Dresses Up His Dog.  It fit, which was a relief, I suppose — not like there was any other clothing we could exchange it for.  Ginger didn’t try to get out of it, she didn’t carry in mud and leaves from outside (any more than on her feet), and it didn’t shrink.  In fact, she seemed less agitated and more restful, which I chalk up to drowsiness – always a good thing in the other occupants of a writer’s home.

And then a couple weeks ago, we took a walk down to the Chatham Bakery, with Sofie handling Ginger’s leash like a pro. Because of the dog, we ate our Gingerbread cookies at the picnic table out front.  With all eyes at the booths inside the bakery looking out at us, it was clear I had become THE Guy Who Dresses Up His Dog.

Oh, the shame of it all.

It is just a long, slow descent into a world of rhinestone leash with matching collar and tiara, patent-leather Mary Janes, and fancifully-flowered sunhats.  I flash-forward to a day not too long from now, when I would be clipping Ginger’s claws and wonder if it would ruin her French manicure.

Really, this anxiety is all after-the-fact, of course.  As a father’s indulgence to his five year-old, the cost to my male pride was fairly insignificant.  You pretty much have to set aside all pretense when you have a child, more so with a daughter. Even more so as the single father of a little girl.  I can’t tell you the number of times I’ve left the house forgetting that just a little while earlier I’d had my hair done up.  Sofie’s insistence notwithstanding, pink barrettes apparently do NOT complement my eyes.

Still, I’m looking for Colby to redeem the male-ness around here.  Christmas may have come and gone, but the sales are just beginning.  Big black leather collar with plenty of spikes should do it — something coyote-busting.

Yet, it is not that easy, when considering Sofie.  Such an accessory would put an end to her near-hourly hugs that squeeze the pulse out of him. I’m more worried about the underside of her mattress getting torn up.  We might have to pull it back a little.  Aviator sunglasses?  Nah.  A shoulder holster?  Might work.  A black Led Zeppelin T-shirt?  Not bad.  But I draw the line at rhinestones.

Over a dozen years ago, when I was on a research trip to Vancouver, BC for “The Bostoner,” friends invited me to a dinner party. At some point in the evening, I looked down and realized I was the person out of the six seated at the table who still had food on my plate. While everyone else had been eating, I’d been talking.

Quickly, I apologized for gabbing on so, and dug into my food. Our hostess quickly dismissed this by saying, “Oh, no, it is all very entertaining.” Then she turned to her other guests, explaining, “You see, he comes from a cold, dark little land where all the people have to get them through their miserable winters is to tell stories to each other. They’ve developed quite a gift for it.”

How’s that for an image of the Cape? I would have nearly bit my fork in half if there hadn’t been a fair bit of truth to this. Spinning yarns, fish stories and more than good-natured ribbing are hallmarks of those who have spent a good deal of time here.

Part of it is that history goes back a long way here, relative to the rest of the country. Some families have been here for well over 300 years. The first hundred would have been accompanied by a single book, the bible, for diversion. That leads to a great deal of invention outside of that medium.

Then there’s the relationship with the sea. There’s always something unexpected happening out on the water, which means something to talk about. On the other hand, while one is working, talking can make the time go faster. When clamming with Jamie Bassett, we’d get to analyzing some movie or changing the lyrics of popular tunes to reflect clamming culture, when all of a sudden Scott Eldredge, our patron, would forbid us from speaking another word.

We would look up and realize our chatter was causing other diggers to creep closer, to hear what we were saying. That’s a compliment to our entertainment value, but when you’re working a productive flat, the last thing you want is close company. This pre-dated waterproof headsets and iPods.

Then, of course, there’s the fact that when the world comes to stay with you for the summer, they want to know about the place. That can lead to stories. Many is the young local who has found himself invited to a rather posh cocktail party with his survival dependent upon his ability to talk entertainingly about what growing up here was like. More than likely, our real estate industry seems to have used this approach as a business model.

We tell good stories. For the most part, we don’t need to make anything up, either.

I was reminded of this yet again during a documentary scouting trip to the North Shore. Returning to thesubject of “The Bostoner” - the Columbia Expedition of 1787 - it begins with another great storyteller, Captain John Kendrick, who grew up on the shores of Pleasant Bay. One of the expedition’s two vessels, the sloop Lady Washington, was supposedly built on the Essex River. So I found myself at the Essex Shipbuilding Museum, interviewing their researcher, Justin Demetri, while two other of Chatham’s native sons were working at telling the story. Even though they are using the latest technology, Matt Griffin as cameraman and Chris LeClaire as set photographer were doing no different than generations before them.

Setting the scene. Telling stories about the sea, ships and the people who sailed them. Me, I just yak away with whomever is put in front of me. It takes real talent to step back, assess the situation, and focus on exactly the best way to convey what is really going on.

The technology of digital imaging, through still images or video, certainly allows users to go from neophyte to semi-pro in the matter of weeks. But there is no software program for talent. There is no hi-tech gadget or web site that confers creativity upon the user.

This homegrown resource is unique, and for the most part, completely overlooked and uncultivated. At best, young, talented and creative people are told they should leave to pursue their craft. Any other place this side of the Middle Ages would be falling all over themselves to find ways to staunch the brain drain. Yet a few hang on.

Let’s not kid ourselves, though. They remain for their own reasons, not ours. Our storytellers are willing to continue here not because of how we have preserved this place, but despite our inability to do so.

Here’s a practical lesson that the current incarnation of our Charter Review Committee can take from last week’s election:

Back in the spring of 2000, I had the chance to do a book signing aboard the tall ship Lady Washington during its stop in Redwood City, south of San Francisco. The vessel is a replica of the junior partner of the Columbia Expedition, which left Boston 221 years ago on trading voyage and the first-ever American circumnavigation of the globe. Holding a promotional event here for my historical suspense novel, “The Bostoner,” was fitting since the story revolved around the original’s commander, Captain John Kendrick of Orleans and Harwich.

It also gave me the chance to catch up with old friends who now lived and worked in Silicon Valley. Invited to tag along at a dinner party, I was given the opportunity to observe those at the heart of the dot.com bubble at close-quarters. I think I was brought along as a novelty — “Look, we brought a creative-type!” As long as the food is good, I don’t mind.

Very little of that evening stays in my mind besides my first encounter with one of those now-ubiquitous oversized pottery outdoor fireplaces. Very little else, that is, except for the discussion with two of the other guests regarding their most recent business ventures.

Although they were involved with a new hi-tech startup, they were talking about their previous company. Sound familiar? Seizing on the Internet-investor frenzy, they’d taken the company public, the idea had failed to catch on, so towards the end they were pulling out as much capital as they could, disguising new capital as income, cashing in their stock options and selling office furniture to pay their salaries.

And they were laughing about this. Like it was some sort of play where the props, lighting or sound (or all three) had gone horribly wrong, and the lead kept fumbling her lines.

There was no sense of fiduciary responsibility. There was no shame. There was no remorse that they may have blown the values of countless 401K’s on nothing more than rented office space. And, perhaps worse, no one else at the table expressed any shock or disgust at the attitudes of these two, never mind that they appeared to have gotten new jobs better than assistant toilet-bowl cleaner.

They had failed. That’s OK. In the American system, you have the right to try, and maybe fail, maybe succeed. You don’t have a right to succeed. To their credit, these two didn’t seem to argue that point — that the government or society owes them its support to make sure their business plans makes it, no matter how useless, outmoded or just plain dumb.

Too often today, many businesses look to us as a guarantor against the negative results of their bad business decisions, or just their own stubborn refusal to adapt to change. There’s a subsidy here and a change in regulation there. But as comedian Ron White observed, “You can’t fix stupid.”

With the turmoil in financial markets these days, I’ve been thinking more of those two Silicon Valley Boys. Eight years later, we seem to be back where we started. Any economic growth seemed built upon rising home prices, and more and more innovative investments that seemed, at their core, designed to be against an investments success.

For the most part, however, America doesn’t seem to do anything anymore. Instead, we have grown very good at marking time. This may be the inevitable result of a large segment of the population approaching retirement.

Meanwhile, we are facing the “moral imperative,” as it referred to by economists. By bailing out people who make bad decisions, whether it is to get more of a mortgage than they can afford, or to grant more of a mortgage than a customer can afford, the government sets a precedent that says, “We will save you from your bad decisions.” Or in this case, “If you are going to fail, go big.”

It wasn’t the government that taught this lesson to my two dinner companions, but American business. These two were again in the same line of work. They had demonstrated their willingness to look out for number one, instead of for their investors, and for some reason had been scooped up. There didn’t seem to be any suggestion that, their MBAs aside, they should reassess their career goals and look into the growing opportunities in air conditioning installation and repair, for example. For the good of us all.

More than anything else, this attitude is what troubles me during discussions as to what the government should and shouldn’t do to help the finance industry. Those who made decisions so bad that global credit markets froze up should be barred from ever working in the sector again. Otherwise, those responsible on Wall Street (and beyond) will not learn anything more than how to game the system better.

The “system” then, meaning the U.S. taxpayer.

Last spring while stuck in a slowdown on Route 28 in East Falmouth, I decided to stop idling the car and to pull into Mahoney’s to get a little greenery for our yard. Since our place was built, a sloping escarpment of bare clay has taunted me through the kitchen window. Vegetables didn’t quite work there. Sunflowers looked nice, and the passing birds loved them. But I grew up on Oyster Pond, surrounded by wild berries of all kinds, so it was not surprising I walked out with a small thornless blackberry bush.

Two weeks later, I swung into Crocker’s in Brewster and picked up a mate, just in case it needed a pollinator. Later in the season, we harvested a grand total of four blackberries. I hadn’t planned on any the first year, so this was a real treat.

All this summer, Sofie and I have watched our bounty grow. From the kitchen counter, while nursing bowls of cereal, we have seen these two sprouting hydras blossom and produce clusters of red berries. Waiting for them to ripen into sweet black fruit seems to have taken forever. But two weeks ago we were finally able to find a few that came off the stem with the slightest tug. Terrific taste — and no thorns — and perfectly formed fruit. We end up with a couple handfuls every other day.

I made a bet with Sofie that all our blackberries would be done by the time she started kindergarten. It is a good thing for me that we didn’t actually wager anything. They just continue to come, apparently feeding on nothing more than sunlight and dew. As the wild blackberries we find along our bike rides pass away, our own domesticated bushes continue to produce dessert after dessert. One can only imagine how profuse next summer and fall will be.

If only our local economy showed such adaptability. Throughout our history, inhabitants here learned to be flexible. The soil is relatively poor, the location is off the beaten path, and the harbors are shallow and bounded by sandbars. If it hadn’t been for the fish, nobody would have been here to greet the Pilgrims. And most of their descendants got out as soon as they could, too.

Farming didn’t last long. Salt works lasted until mines were found in Pennsylvania. Whaling worked until the oil came along (and whales didn’t anymore). We had a naval air base until peacetime precluded the need for it. The railroad brought tourists here until the automobile killed that. And now our tourist-based economy is in its throes.

Note that I do not say “death throes.” Just massive changes. These changes are completely beyond the control of the local or state tourism entities, and the forces that drive them are as sympathetic to the plights of an innkeeper or restaurateurs as a hurricane.

Gas costs at least twice as much as it did just a few years ago. People do not have disposable income, so they cut back on trips to the Cape, or on the extras once they get there, like eating out and shopping. On the other hand, Europeans have flooded in with a healthy euro-to-dollar exchange rate. Establishing a business model on a favorable international exchange rate is as wise as it would be to base it upon a finite supply of imported labor whose entry is controlled completely by a federal security bureaucracy. From a gardening perspective, that’s like replanting your entire yard with annuals every year — it is going to look like hell if your garden shop runs out of inventory.

Meanwhile, consider this investment. If Sofie goes to Chatham public schools until she graduates, that will be an investment of at least $100,000 of the taxpayer’s money. Driving over the Sagamore Bridge on Labor Day (a very light traffic count), I saw a few cars loaded with bags destined for one college or another.

The kids in those cars are almost certainly never going to return to live here permanently, and that is an entirely rational decision. Why go deep into debt for college just to come back to a place where breaking your back is required to just get by? We’re losing millions and millions of dollars of long-term capital investment every year. Meanwhile every year our wholesale dependence on a seasonal economy that can be disrupted by something as simple as a few rainy weeks grows more precarious.

Our supposed affluence, measured in what someone from California or Washington, D.C. is willing to spend to buy your modest ranch or Cape, has brought very little lasting benefit to our middle-class families.

We need to diversify our economy to recapture the investment we’ve made in human capital. We need to see that the way to empower people is not impose limits on their income so they can qualify for health insurance and housing. We need to find new avenues that allow people to remain in Chatham year-round, to make the same paycheck they do in January as they do in July, to afford a home without public subsidy, to go out to restaurants and otherwise spend their money here, at home.

Consider that just across the Canal, a huge film complex, Plymouth Rock Studios, is being built that will transform the economy of Southeastern New England. Now at current gas prices, that’s too much of a hike from Chatham. But what local venues will be used for movies and television shows filmed there? There’s a short list: Provincetown, Woods Hole, the National Seashore, Route 6A. Oh, and Chatham. Not for one film. Not for just one time in a few years. More than likely on a regular basis.

Moreover, this is an industry that spawns numerous cottage businesses through subcontracts. With the advance of film technology, there’s no reason why some of what is shot here couldn’t be further developed right here. A non-polluting, non-disruptive, well-paid knowledge and creative economy. Year-round.

That is not at odds with the tourism sector of our economy. It supports it. This is but one example.

Too often when discussing economic development, the public (and sadly, our leaders) thinks in terms of heavy industry. But that’s not where we are going, locally or nationally. Not everything works well forever. Not even blackberries.

This week’s featured op-ed at The Cape Cod Chronicle.