It’s been a funny kind of summer.  At the end of every year, is the recycling of news that tries to put what is going on now – RIGHT NOW – into a larger context of twelve months.  But that is really so much hoopla, with questionable value to the smaller stories affecting our day-to-day lives little anyway.

So much of what living here year-round is wrapped up in the ten weeks in the center of the calendar, that it seems proper to give summer its own cursory analysis. Good or bad, there are equal chances that these observations will have any impact.

I’m giving this summer a mixed review.  For one, I didn’t travel nearly as much as I said I would, which is typical and therefore predictable.  This is summer on Cape Cod, the time locals make money.  Leaving the Cape means leaving the chance to make money – it cannot be swapped out for a week in, say, November.

Still, I hold out hope for the end of August.  The combination of the town’s stellar morning and afternoon summer camp programs, which have provided Sofie (and her single dad) with a chock-o-block schedule, end mid-month.  The interregnum until the beginning of school forces me to be a little creative.  Part of that will involve a trip or two within a drivable 500-mile radius.  DC?  Mt. Washington? Maine?

This prompts a look at the long-range forecast…  which brings us to the weather this summer.  Remarkable, to put it mildly.  I remember a summer here in my high school years, when it rained 20 out of 30 days in June, and the other ten days were cloudy.  Everything that had begun to bloom in May just withered.  Vegetables turned yellow and rotted in the garden.  I reference this to put this summer in perspective.

With the long, bitter cold of this winter, I had a feeling that this was going to be a rainier, milder summer.  The ocean, which controls much of our weather here, was chilled a tad too much six months ago, and retained it through this season.  The hottest it got in Chatham, I think, was about the tenth of August, when it hit 85 at our house.  Otherwise, it was mostly in the 70’s all summer.  And always threatening rain clouds every other day.

On the other hand, I haven’t seen a brown lawn.  Everything is lush – the sort of gratuitous green that can only come from months of warmth AND moisture.  We just don’t get that here.  The small thornless blackberries I planted in May are four feet tall now, and sporting what look to be an endless crop of fruit.  This is going to be a huge year for anyone with apple or other fruit trees.  In turn, that’s going to mean plenty of fat, happy woodland critters this winter.

Speaking of happy critters, I wonder about the double economic boon of the rain.  No, I am not talking about people not going to the beach, but instead going shopping.  By all accounts, the national economy continues to change tourists’ spending habit in the direction of window shopping ONLY.

Instead, all this rain means more work for landscapers.  If you were in the business, you could count on the end of July and beginning of August (with the summertime drought) to finally catch up non-grass mowing tasks.  Maybe get equipment repaired mid-season.  Instead, it has been go, go, go.  The grass is growing faster than ever, it seems, even the unfertilized ones.  That’s cash directly into the pockets of local working people.

And for those people who do not have their sprinklers set automatically to go off even when it is raining, this summer’s weather means a lower water bill.  A modest boon, really, but again more money in the pockets of the public.  Perhaps spent in the local economy (good), put in the bank (better), or used to pay down debt (BEST).

So, on balance, I can’t completely complain about this summer.  Sure, our camping trip out to South Beach resulted in a night of sleeping in the fog, waking up in the fog, navigating our way home in the fog, and after two weeks, I still can feel that cold, damp still cramping my back.

On the other hand, the yard looks great.  Flowers are just going crazy.  Everyone seems to be busy as ever.  I would have preferred it all a little drier, a little sunnier, a little warmer – consistently. But if, say, we got this one out of every four years, I wouldn’t mind.  After all, I have my eyes on planting a big new bed of black raspberry bushes.

We finally hauled the new dory out from under the apple tree in the backyard today.  Well, “new” as in new to me.  The dory itself has been around for a few years.  The trailer tires were flat, vines had wrapped themselves around the shaft of the outboard and mold and moss covered much of the woodwork.  And lots and lots of last fall’s apples covered the floor of the boat.

So I have some work to do.

Just getting it up into the side yard was a bit of a task.  Had to use fix-a-flat to inflate one of the old tires, then get the jack out from under one side of the trailer so that it could be used to lift the even flatter tire on the other side up enough to inflate it.  But that meant taking a shovel and clearing enough space for the jack to fit under the trailer.

Much to my surprise, everything worked out OK.  The tires remained inflated enough long enough to get the trailer to the optimal place in the yard for fix-up.

The first week in May really is a little late to be addressing anything more than general maintenance issues for a boat.  But I have a good excuse – for the past nine months, I’ve been on the trail of the Columbia Expedition, the first American voyage ‘round the world.  The vessels of my concern have been a ship of 212 tons (Columbia Rediviva) and a sloop of 60 feet (Lady Washington).  Following the premiere of our film in Marshfield last week, I gladly welcomed the humble task of fixing up a 12-foot fiberglass dory.

My timing seems to be perfect, too.  May’s 40 days and 40 nights of rain have concluded, which means after a severe application of the power washer (who needs sandpaper and scrapers?), I can repaint the wooden seats and trim.  Before this, I’ll have to get replacement for the rotted rails.  And I’m expecting a visit from Christian Swenson, the Mobile Marine Mechanic, to get the old outboard humming for another season.

Then comes the all-important issue of paint.  Not whether to paint or not, but the color.  Blue being the favorite of greenheads (note the color of those traps in the marshes, my favorite is out.

On the other hand, Sofie’s persistence preference is also not within the realm of consideration:  pink.  Six-year-old little girl-loving pink.  Just no.  We’ll probably go with whatever is left in the garage, and if there’s not enough of one color, we’ll be our regular efficient Yankee selves, and see what can be mixed to make a non-seasick-inducing color.

Then it’s a simple matter of getting new oarlocks, locating a coil of line and maybe a bumper or two, and loading in the rakes and wire clam baskets.  With any luck, weather-willing, we’ll be able to launch by Memorial Day weekend.

The cost of all this is a low-entry fee for the ability to head out on the water with my daughter at a moment’s notice.  There are some now-familiar activities to revisit, like snorkeling on the Common Flats west of Monomoy, or camping out on the beach.  But we’ll also be pulling out the fishing poles, too, since Sofie’s never tried striped bass, certainly not fresh off the ocean.

I’m keenly aware it could be like a blink of an eye before my daughter heads off to do her own things with anyone other than her father.  So there’s a small window of opportunity to show her all these things:  to fix up something that by all accounts appears worn out, to have a goal to motivate you to return, day after day, to work at it, never mind the reward of fully enjoying the waterborne wonderland that surrounds us here in the summer.

Hopefully, some of these lessons will stick.  Then she can get her own boat someday.  That, I tell her, she can paint pink.

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.

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.

I’m not sure about the garden this year. Last year, we attempted green beans but something’s changed in the soil around our place and the fertile spot that, as a child, kept me well-stocked through the fall and winter now produces, at best, scraggly weeds.

Perhaps I could find another spot in the yard. With food prices going up, up, up, and quality heading in the other direction, there’s a good motivation to grow our own. But age and necessity have provided another option, and its proven a real hit with our house: bread.

While our family was stationed in Germany a few years back, we had plenty of opportunity to enjoy the high quality and low price of food found at the regular supermarket. Massive heads of Boston lettuce for less than a buck. Scores of potato dishes or frozen vegetable mixtures that you’d have to go to a five-star restaurant to beat. A single aisle dedicated to yogurt — none of it low-fat, and all of it better tasting than any pudding or ice cream. The only thing they couldn’t seem to manage were simple orange juice and a decent steak.

But it was the bread that I remember the best. I don’t even remember how many varieties there were at the tiny bakeries on street corners, never mind the ones inside the large supermarkets (even Walmart). All of it fantastic, and all of it cheap.

Three long pepperoni twisted rolls for less than $2. Baguettes with no preservatives that stayed fresh for days. Large crusty white rolls, which proved a godsend to a teething Sofie, for only 10 cents. And sunflower seed bread so dense with kernels that it was referred to as an “egel” (hedgehog).

Main ingredients: flour, salt, water, yeast. Not very hi-tech. But even the worst bread here costs twice as much as another First World country, that at the time had almost $4 gas but managed $1 bread.

But I put up with it. That is until gas went above $3. Some switch must have tripped been tripped, and I broke out the until-then-unused German bread recipe book. First up was the sunflower hedgehog. That required sourdough. Real sourdough. Couldn’t find it anywhere, so I finally found a recipe to make it.

I never knew it could take so long and so much effort to make something go bad. Once we added it to the bread batter, the question arose whether it had gone bad in the right way. What if it went bad 
badly? Would it make us sick?

Being the only man in a house full of women, the only answer I could come up with was, “Heat kills everything.” Besides, I was hungry.

And it does. We ended up with an oblong brick, which while tasty, was heavy enough to be classified as a deadly weapon if raised in anger. It takes two rounds on our toaster set on high to get it warmed up enough to spread anything on it. And, as far as I can tell, it has bran or any other fiber beat — use with caution.

Our attempts at white bread have been even more tasty, but far more benign and breathtakingly simple. With an active and hungry five-year-old around, this stuff goes quickly. It also makes a fun Sunday morning ritual — baking day. Kneading is the best part.  There’s little better for a kid than to sink their hands into sweet-smelling goo.

So reflecting on the possibility of the garden, it may lie fallow this year, replaced by the bread stone. I’ll happily trade away the damage done to my back and knees in a garden for a few minutes of pounding dough. The onset of old age may have been the reasons human went from hunter-gatherers to baking grains in the first place.

Now if we can just set up a barter this summer with a gardener with an excess of cucumbers, tomatoes or green beans…

At the Easter Egg hunt in Chase Park, I ran into Tim Wood and Rowan and asked if they’d seen Sofie. Having just turned five, she’s just a little younger than Rowan. So Tim’s alarm was understandable, figuring I had lost her somewhere in the crowd.

I allayed his concern, explaining, “No, I dropped off her and Chandra here and then parked around the corner.” Glancing about at the gathered masses of kids and parents, I added, “It shouldn’t be too hard to find Chandra in this crowd.” To which Tim had to agree.

And yet, I still had a problem finding the woman I’ve been seeing for three years now - a black woman - in a small park in Chatham. She has the ability to effortlessly dematerialize, which may come from her growing up in Dorchester. It was particularly uncanny in this day’s sea of otherwise pale faces.

So as the candidacy of Barack Obama has risen, and then taken on directly issues of race in America, it has come at a time of increasing seriousness in my relationship with a professional, masters-educated journalist and health care writer, who is also black. Both having a great interest in politics, but being of opposite parties, we’ve become each other’s sounding boards for discussions on television news, talk radio and blogs. Closer to home, however, race is an issue in talking about our future.

The theme common to both the presidential campaigns and any future Chandra and I may have is that race is an unresolved issue in America. Not just in East Crackerbarrell, Georgia, but here on Cape Cod. That makes people uncomfortable. It makes me uncomfortable. But in a small place, it is pretty clear when someone is being treated differently.

One early summer evening two years ago, while I was handing out balloons at a Cardinals game in Orleans, Chandra took Sofie to the playground at the opposite end of Eldredge Park. As expected the place was crawling with kids, parents and grandparents. Done with my campaigning, I came over to relieve Chandra from watching Sofie, who was playing with another little girl. I was dressed well, as was Chandra (as always). She went over to a large planter surrounding a tree nearby.

As she did so, the father of the girl Sofie was playing with looked up, looked over at Chandra, looked over at his wife and yelled to her to move their bag, which was eight feet away on the other side of the planter in plain site. This, after she had been there half an hour already with God knows how many other people around. Perhaps the guy realized that he had left his personal possessions exposed - but it took the presence of someone dark skinned nearby to them that flipped his mental switch.

I’d never seen this before. Not blatantly. Perhaps that’s the beauty of growing up in an almost 100 percent white town. You never get bald-faced bigotry demonstrated to you for the simple reason there are no potential victims.

But before the smug that-doesn’t-happen-here attitude kicks in, consider this: More than a few times, we’ve been out at the beach or playground with Sofie - my blond-haired, blue-eyed Alpine princess - and when it has been time to go, another parent will refer to Chandra as Sofie’s mommy. It is not the same parent every time. But every time it happens, the person is white, and is from a large metropolitan area much more diverse than here.

Contrast this with Chandra’s reception here by locals. She’s followed around stores by otherwise inattentive clerks. She’s asked what inn she works at. She’s solicited for cleaning Saturday changeovers. In the fall people ask her when she’s going back. Friends of mine who would come from Jamaica for summer work said this was regular rapport with white people here. So when Chandra is with Sofie, she’s often asked if she is the new au pair. Too often, her experience being black in Chatham has been to be seen first as a servant.

For a person who grew up in the poor all-white town of Chatham, I see that as quite a step. Backward. If that is uncomfortable to read, it is worse to live with. And like concrete, once set, a public perception is tough to change.

When she studied in London, Chandra saw a city where interracial couples were practically the rule. To a lesser extent, it is becoming more common in the U.S. So, as Barack Obama said, the situation is not static. Attitudes are changing, slowly, on both sides. It may take a whole generation of biracial children to break the silent stalemate between those who say “Let go of the past,” and those who answer, “But it just happened five minutes ago - again!”

I hope for that. At some point, being black in America will be no different than being Italian or Irish. Or, like Sofie, part Mexican, part Austrian, part old-line Yankee. Someday. It has taken longer, though, and that’s because they were the original easily-discernible underclass. The nation, as a whole, has had two chances to get it right - first with the Constitution, and second after the Civil War - but ditched it for political expediency.

To be fascinated by American history is to be fascinated with the issue of race. It is a stubborn thing, and an uncomfortable thing. Though I want it to be assigned to history - and history alone - as I go forward with Chandra, the question of race come down to this:

If Sofie were to have a brother or sister, would that son or daughter of mine, more likely to look like her mother or the junior Senator from Illinois, be treated the same by my country and my community?

I’d like to say yes. But the answer today, uncomfortably, is no.

Read the previous installment here.

On the first of December I finished up a major writing and photography project.  It had consumed the better part of the past 6 months for me, and had taken longer than expected - partly because of technical issues (my computer is old and slow) and partly because of environmental conditions (it was raining or foggy when I needed it to be clear).  So when I raised my head up and finally had a chance to look around, it was the smack in the middle of the holiday season.  And it has never been so welcome.

First off, Thanksgiving had just wrapped up, but I was still in a thankful mood.  I still had 4 weeks in which to get things together, coherently, for Christmas.  As typical of my gender, I will give thought to gifts for loved ones as early as the day before Christmas Eve.  But I’ll wait until the shopkeeper is walking to his front door with key in hand at 9 PM on the 24^th before I relent and make a commitment to actually buy presents.