This summer, as we’ve done for the past couple years, we’ll take the small boat with the flaking paint job and semi-reliable outboard motor out the Oyster Pond, down the river, around the corner of Stage Harbor and into Nantucket Sound. Hugging the coast of Morris Island, we’ll head east along the tight channel and eventually cross over toward the northwest corner of North Monomoy Island.

Approaching the shallows – the flooded expanse that is the Common Flat running well west from Monomoy into the Sound — we’ll cut the engine (assuming it is still running) far from the sand bars that expose themselves for hours during low tide. The clear, clean water around us will be maybe two feet deep. We will be far from any land that is reliably dry, yet the depth of the water for hundreds of yards will be nothing more than up to my knees.

The anchor dropped, we’ll settle into a lunch of peanut butter and jelly sandwiches and chips, washed down with pink lemonade, and juicy red plums for dessert. Then it will be into the water, donning the masks and flippers, and armed with dip nets for some serious snorkeling.

This discovery was made when I beached the boat on the edge of the flats, and had gone to test the area with my clam hoe. Sofie had never been clamming before, so it seemed this hot and sunny July day was a prime opportunity. What I didn’t expect to find was nothing. There were just no siphon holes at all in an area where I had always been able to find some clams. We walked up and down the edge of the beach, expanded immensely by the dropping tide, and found no clams, no holes, and of course, no clam diggers.

Pushing the boat off the shore, wading back towards the channel, I was reassessing our plans when something very strong and sharp clamped on my toe. I nearly jumped straight up into the boat. It was a sand crab, just below the surface, unhappy with my intrusion. I donned my pair of black neoprene scuba boots, and maneuvered the boat along the south edge of the channel and into the acres of water that is never quite exposed, nor never quite deep enough to take a boat. We tethered our inner tubes to the boat and floated on the surface, face down with our new masks and snorkels.

Every once in a while, we would see a crab skitter by, and I’d grab my basket rake and pull it up into a bucket. With a little water to rest it, the crab would receive a name and probably a serenade from Sofie while back on the boat. (They are too small to eat, really.) Then it would be returned to the sea, and we’d set off on search of some other prize.

It would be easy to conclude the bounty of clams that were once here have been decimated by sand crabs. It is probably no more their fault than any clammer using a simple wooden-handled rake. But clams are cyclical. Here today, gone tomorrow…here again. Currents change, which affects the flow of nutrients. With South Beach connected to Monomoy, the Atlantic doesn’t wash in here as it once did. Depths of this soft sand change.

The area just north of here, between the east coast of Morris Island and the west shore of South Beach, is becoming more sheltered, and has an environment more conducive to scallops and quahogs. So this is not exactly bad news.

This all brings to mind, however, the ongoing struggle with the federal government regarding the continuing right of Chatham commercial shellfishermen to harvest clams from the flats surrounding Monomoy Island. So much effort and money has been spent on making a case to the policy makers in Washington, and yet the same issues face us, as unresolved as ever. The feds feel restrained by federal law, the politicians are afraid of national environmental groups, and those groups oppose based on principle.

As a selectman, I suggested perhaps, as the town of Chatham builds it case based upon the science and the unique history of shellfishing on Monomoy, that we initiate dialogue with the individual members of the organizations that were reportedly threatening all sort of actions should commercial shellfishing be allowed to continue here. We had heard from our elected representatives and legal counsel that this was a bad idea. No explanation, but this was the “let the process work itself out” argument.

Of course, these same people giving this advice were the one who stood to benefit from acting as intermediaries with, as they put it, “the bird people.” As if they were a bogeyman. Not enough grains of salt were taken with their counsel, then. Politicians will tend to do the thing that gets them the most attention with the least amount of courage. Lawyers will tend to use up every dollar of a retainer that is advanced.

To be honest, I can no more fault them for their nature any more than a crab pinching my toe in the sand as I walk by. The crabs are neither the problem nor the solution. They have become a distraction. If we are serious about fixing this ongoing concern, then we need to start talking to the people with whom we differ, and find how wide the distance really is between our positions on this one area we care for.

“They keep feeling like long weekends,” Sofie said this Monday morning as she picked up her backpack and headed out the door.  “Why?”

I remember the first time she uttered the dreaded three-letter word.  It was my birthday a few years back, and she was just getting into her evening bubble bath.  It started off  as several different questions, “Wha-who-howwwwwwwWHY?”  This truly was the death knell for the last shreds of my parental sanity.

On the other hand, Monday morning’s WHY was definitely worth examining.  The previous weekend we had started off with baseball practice, a bike ride, then heading to Hyannis for our long-delayed digital television purchase, some indulgent investigation of our new HD channels, then the next day’s riding for the Pan Mass Challenge in the Brewster in Bloom Parade, a late lunch at Friendly’s, some helping in her neighbor’s garden, and finally watching a movie on that new HDTV.

Her assessment the next morning was that it felt like a five-day weekend.  And this morning, her aforesaid observation, and wondering about that.

I replied, “Well, maybe with the nicer weather, we can do so much more.”  Might be that with my seven-year-old Barbie Tomboy now passing four feet in height, her world of possible activities is growing as fast as our well-watered yard.

Last week I introduced the concept of “Time flies when you’re having fun.”  I’ll hold off for now on the related idea, “Summer is why we suffer through nine months of winter here.”

When I returned from Germany with my baby girl, alone, in 2004, it was with the desire to have her grow up much as I had.  In a safe small town near the water, surrounded by a large extended family.   And while she’s had a fairly active childhood, with summer rec programs, soccer, skating, tennis, South Beach campouts, and all the rest, I think there’s a certain shift in consciousness that comes about this age following first grade.

Now proficient in reading and math, she not only understands the concept of putting money into her savings account – she can make a sign for the much-anticipated cash cow of a lemonade stand.  She’s started writing her own stories, which leads to a desire to explore.  And unlike when she was younger, she has a greater physical ability to explore in relative safely.  I don’t have to keep an eye on her 100 percent of the time, although I am definitely the preferred playtime companion.  Still.

In February, when we had to take three different flights to get to Munich, I got a preview of this new level of confidence.  She was frequently ahead of me with her carry-on, as we navigated from one side of a large airport to another.  She could read the signs for the terminal or gates, and in reading the clocks be able to tell how much time we had to get there.  The concept of currency exchange still was tough, but then again I’ve traveled with a few adults who after a week were still struggling.

So if this is how we are heading into summer, I can only imagine what I will have on my hands by the end. By Labor Day, I am probably going to be looking back at countless skinned knees, bug bites, bruises, cuts from stepping on shells or sea glass, burns from getting too close to the grill or campfire even though I said stay well away, near-misses with oblivious drivers, sugar high crashes, episodes of getting separated in large crowds, jellyfish stings, waterlogging, stepping in God-knows-what and tracking it in the house, ice-cold garden hose rinse-offs after the beach, slips over the side of the boat or canoe, grumpy days from “sleeping” out in the tent the night before and not getting any rest, bugs eaten while berry picking, rashes from experimentation with poison ivy resistance, a few cat scratches, two bee stings, and at least one random dog bite.

That is, if we are lucky.  Given that she will likely survive intact, the greatest challenge she may face is remembering to regularly write at least some of it down.  This may be the year of the summer journal — to remember why we’re here.

I’ve already written about the scheme of the regional school with Harwich, and how simply bigger is only, well, bigger. Not better. Still, money has been spent on this because the state is pushing all districts to try regionalization, and Harwich needs a new high school. At this upcoming annual town meeting, Chatham voters will be asked to fund yet another $10,000 study to evaluate the benefits and costs of regionalization.

Really?

That amount sticks in my head because it is the same that the Women of Fishing Families were shorted this year for running the Chatham Maritime Festival.

It especially sticks in my head because I don’t think anyone has any doubt but that said “study” on regionalization will be anything but favorable. After all, Harwich (who wants to regionalize with Chatham) is paying half the cost, and the report is mandated by the state (who wants the same). Under the circumstances, it is highly unlikely that the conclusions will be little more than tired old “glass is half-full” assumptions and one-size-fits-all arguments that have been employed in one suburb after the other.

And still, when completed, this study will be used as a gong by pro-regionalization supporters. Before they have even begun, they are citing Peter “I-Never-Met-A-Town-That-Wouldn’t-Be-Better-Off-Regionalized” Francese. Of course, Mr. Francese is a demographer, not an educator. Just last week in a New Hampshire newspaper he predicted Americans would be so angry at the federal government that they would throw out their census forms. Francese had no data to back this up. Instead, he relied upon listening to talk radio.

So this is the guy we’re relying on to make decisions about the future of education.

Really?

In our case, however, Francese looks at the entire Cape and predicts a dwindling school population, coupled with older voter unwillingness to fund the schools. What he doesn’t factor in, specifically for Chatham, is that we steal students from other systems through school choice. We do that because we are small. There’s a cachet to Chatham, too, no doubt. But if we regionalize, we lose that.

In return we’re supposed to get state-of-the-art computer labs.

Really?

We’re supposed to get AP courses.

For all students? No. Just those who qualify. For the classes we can afford to hire a teacher for.

And more sports. Like hockey? The game that we already play with Harwich and the school committee tried to cut funding for recently?

Or maybe football. But hockey and football seasons overlap, and you might be talking some of the same kids then, so you’ll end up with, what, an opportunity for a handful of players from Chatham.

OK, but there is a downside. I can think of several. The first, as I’ve written before, is the way a regional school system’s budget would be presented to Chatham Town Meeting for an up or down vote. If it is amended, there will be a great wringing of hands and gnashing of teeth as it must then be approved by the voters of Harwich.

That shouldn’t be a problem. I can hear that familiar argument trotted out at Chatham Town Meeting: “We have to pass this or else we’ll have to start from scratch.” Democracy in action.

But here’s an even more concrete argument: I have a daughter. Sofie. She’s seven. She’s in first grade. The bus doesn’t come down our road. When she goes to middle school in a few years, she’ll ride her bike a mile and a half. It will take 10 minutes. Or she could walk. Or, in a pinch, I could drive her. That will take less than five minutes.

Same with picking her up.

In Chatham, even the house furthest from the middle school and high school is only five miles away. On the other hand, if the schools were regionalized, with either the middle or high school in Harwich, Sofie is looking at a seven-mile drive. Walking is out. Biking, for most of the year, is out. Other students in Chatham will be looking at up to a 10-mile bus ride. And that’s a straight line – which no bus does. How early are they going to have to get up?

Worse, with so many kids having after school activities, how many times a week am I going to have to go drive all the way into Harwich Center to pick her up? And if she forgets something at home, that’s me having to lose the better part of an hour during a workday on that roundtrip.

And we all know how much kids with drivers licenses love to continue to take the bus. So we’re looking at a convoy, twice a day, of carloads of Chatham teenagers on the roads between Chatham and Harwich.

We cancelled school this winter because of a threat of snow that never materialized. How about real ice- and snow-covered streets? Are they suddenly going to be safer for our kids to drive to school on just because they lead to a regional high school?

Not really. No.

Chatham has a good school system, with good test scores, small class sizes and strong local control. Yet we are being asked to throw good money at a study that says it can get even better if we get hitched with Harwich.

Really?

Yes, this year I got behind on pulling the boat.  I usually run a little late on getting it out before the Oyster Pond (a salt water inlet off Nantucket Sound) freezes over.  This fall, however, preparations for and the trip to Cape Verde took over my schedule.  And then there was the issue of the boat itself.

See, in years past, we’ve had Novi skiffs.  They’re the best all-around work boat for around here because they don’t have a deep keel (great for all the shallow water around here) and they are steady.  Not speed boats.  And they are self-bailing — in that the deck is high than the water line, so all the rain just washes out the stern.

But this year, I had to resurrect an old dory from the back yard.  Fixed her up and gave her the name “Li’l Boots”, nickname of my daughter, Sofie.

Li’l Boots was a mixed blessing.  Advantage:  free.  Disadvantage — not self-bailing.  So after every rain, it needed to be emptied of water.

Now, this boat was light enough to pull up on shore rather than leave on the mooring.  So every once in a while I’d just walk down and pull the plug on the stern and empty it onto the shore. BUT, this made things tough for moving it since I couldn’t pull the plug until it was low tide.  But then the boat was too heavy to move until high tide came up and floated it away.

I never quite timed this right — empty Li’l Boots at low, push it off at high — and coordinate with my father to get the trailer hooked up to his dump truck and then drive down to the town landing to pick the boat and me up.  It was either raining.  Or snowing.  Or the sun had gone down too early.  Or I was working or away.  Or the pond had frozen up earlier than usual and made rowing impossible.

But I finally did this time. Yessir.  High tide was in the morning.  Li’l Boots was floating. Weather was January Thaw-mild.  Remembered to go down in the afternoon, get the boat fully emptied.  Then heard the weather was going to change drastically, temperatures would drop to the teens during the day, and that meant the pond would definitely freeze.  Perhaps for a good long time this time.  One winter it froze in December and didn’t thaw until March.  So this could’ve been my last chance.

This morning I went down to the shore.  Sunny, but 17 degrees Fahrenheit with 33 mph winds making the wind chill more like 1.  What’s more, it was a strong West wind, meaning it was driving everything down the pond.  But that was to my advantage — it was the direction I was heading.

So I dropped the oars down at the boat, called my dad to tell him I’d be leaving soon. He’d meet me at 10:45 or so down at the landing.

Now, the thing is, the engine in the Li’l Boots is the same age as the boat.  33.  We had it checked out thoroughly this spring, and it ran well.  Until it decided not to.  Then, given half an hour, would start up again and run fine… for another half hour.  We pulled the boat back into the yard.  Mechanic came, checked it out, and it ran fine.  No problems.  Put it back in.  Same problem.

In short, it wasn’t running in January.  So I’d be rowing.  But not so far.  Might take 15 minutes.  With the wind, even less.  All I had to do was hug the shore for a quarter mile.

Two socks.  Jeans.  Old raggedy fleece pants over the jeans.  Black rubber boots.  Faux Under Armor long sleeve shirt.  Turtle neck.  Sweater.  Patriots hoodie.  Fleece hoodie over that.  Over all that, I donned my really cool mariner’s coat which is not only warm and dry, but has foam in the lining, making it a Class III flotation device.  Just in case.

On the way down the path to the shore, I heard someone yell out. It was a construction guy, working on my neighbor’s house.  He asked if I was heading out clamming, and what was the price.  I told him I was just moving the boat, but if he heard a splash…

And then it was simply a matter of wading through the water in my black rubber boots, pulling the anchor, and shoving off from the flooded meadow bank.  Except the anchor didn’t want to come up.

It was stuck under the meadowbank.  The only way to get it out was to get into the boat, push off from shore, then pull from the opposite direction and it would come up.  As I did so, I realized that I really should not have worn the ski gloves.  Sure, they’re warm, which is important on a bitterly cold day like today.  But in handling the anchor line, it became quickly obvious they were not waterproof in the slightest.  My hands were soaked.

I have a great pair of gloves just for this, too.  Actually, they are like super-gauntlets, made of thick plastic, insulated, and run all the way up to the shoulder, and attach to each other by an elastic strap.  Great for winter work on the water.  And I had forgot them down in the basement.

But no big deal.  It was a short row.  Off I go.

Another thing to mention.  The oars.  These are only 6 feet long.  Li’l Boots is about 5 feet wide.  So when I sit down to row, very little of the oar blade actually dips in the water.  To get any purchase on the water, I have to extend them out, but that diminishes the leverage I have.  Not the best things to be using, but I got a wind pushing me.

The wind was pushing me.  But it wanted to push me towards the middle of the pond.  I wanted to stay close to the north shore of the pond. It became a struggle to point the nose of the boat back to shore.  Didn’t need to row forward so much.  Just wanted to aim the boat back towards my destination.

The left oar jumped out of its oarlock.  So I set down the right oar, grabbed at the left one to put it back in its lock.  And that’s when I heard the clunk.

The right oar was in the water.

It took a little time for this to register.  There was the oar – one of the two oars necessary to row a boat – off on its own, with no means of me to get to it because, after all, I would need it to complete the set of two needed to row to it.  Which I did not have.  I had one, and one oar is about as useful in rowing as one hand is for clapping.  Which is to say, you can still use it somewhat effectively, like to smack yourself in the face.  For clapping, that is.

So there was the oar, floating along down the shore, but not as quick as I was.  And the wind, now having Li’l Boots at its mercy and deciding I made as good a sail as any, pushed us further along and out – out – out towards the middle of the pond.  The oar continued on its trajectory, and would hit the landing eventually.  Perhaps that explains it – it had determined on its own to get to the landing, saw that staying with me and the other oar was going to involve a lot of work, and thought, “Hey, I can get there just as well myself without doing much at all.  I’ll just hop over here then…”

And abandoned ship.

I should not complain.  This oar clearly has a genuine Cape Cod attitude.

And it was about this time the wind started to pick up more.  Of course it would.  Having far too much experience with lost oars, the Oyster Pond, west winds and such from boyhood, I kedged.  I pulled out the anchor and heaved it as close to the oars as I could.

Then I pulled it in.  Slowly, the boat  swung around to the opposite direction, facing into the wind.  I was stopped, and the oar continued its slow progress.  All this time, the strengthening wind saw me standing up in the bow, trying to throw something, then pulling on the anchor line, and decided to have fun.  Lots more waves hitting the boat.

That’s about the time I discovered that there had been a small amount of water left in the bottom of the boat from yesterday, and it had frozen.  Slippery.  Slippery deck I was standing on.  My wet gloves were starting to freeze, too.

At this point in our story, I recalled the story of a Captain Ryder of Chathamport who, after going off on one of those multi-year round-the-world voyages, returned home one night in a gale.  He was rowing his dory to shore when it overturned, and he died within a few hundred feet of his home.  They found his body the next morning on the shore.

Getting up to the anchor and pulling it up, all covered in heavy black mud, I had to rinse it.  And off Li’l Boots raced again, with nothing to hold her fast against the wind.  We passed the oar, but too far to reach, and further away from the shore we went.  I threw again.  And pulled.  Threw again.  And pulled.  And it a mooring buoy.  And pulled again.

With that happy thought in mind, I threw one more time, and was able to face the bow toward the shore, and swing around… and alongside came the oar.

Yay!  Now, with two oars I saw the waves were now breaking here, towards the center of the pond.  If I could just get back towards shore, I was nearly at the landing.

My father’s big red dump truck arrived at the landing, with the boat trailer.  I was directly across from him, a mere 100 yards.  But the boat would not turn.  I kept moving further down the shore, passing the landing, and the wind just kept me moving forward.  Two oars or one, they were just too short to do anything.  I threw out the anchor.  Tried to kedge to shore.  The waves were higher now, and I was risky overturning the boat.

I was able to signal to my father what was going on.  He yelled something, but over the wind I couldn’t hear.  I told him I’d have to let the boat go down to the other end of the pond and he signaled okay.  He’d meet me there.

Standing up, I was ready to get this three-hour tour over with.  The wind pushed me quickly along toward the Oyster Pond Beach.  Approaching, I saw that the first of the sea ice was forming, and gathering in crescent of slush along the sand.  As I neared the beach, I started rowing toward the center. From there, perhaps the truck could back down with the trailer.

The sea slush was the consistency of oatmeal.  Not what I was expecting.  The waves lifted it up and down, making slow progress in rowing.  I stepped out of the boat into a foot of water, meeting my father who has just arrived.

So, now, here we are, on a town beach in the middle of town.  High visibility.  Full daylight.  And we want to bring a 40 year-old dump truck down onto the sand, with a trailer, to pick up a boat.  And with a few people in the parking lot, sitting in their cars and trucks, drinking their coffee.

And so we do.  Working the truck and trailer back down to the frozen beach, we got it into position.  Trailer was just in the slush.  Truck rear wheels at the shore, on the crunchy sea ice.

As my father cranked out the line used to draw the bow up the trailer, I brought around the boat.  Three-foot waves of slush pushed the boat sideways to the shore while I was struggling to get it nose-on to the trailer.  I got it in position once, but the hook from the trailer line was cranking out too slowly and wasn’t long enough.

The boat swung around in the mean time, but I was able to get the hook on it.  Once I did, it would simply be a matter of lining up the boat with the trailer and draw it in.  Then we could get the hell off this beach before someone from the town came along and asked why we didn’t use the town landing instead.

With this in mind, I stepped further into the slush and maneuvered the stern.  Waves slopped up over and into the boat.  Slush at last started filling my boots.  I knew this would happen.  But we’d be on our way soon.

Slowly, the crank pulled the boat up.  My toes were getting very cold.  The wind tried to push the stern sideways.  I stepped further into the slush.  My toes were numb.  Slowly, the boat gained on the trailer.  I stepped out of the water, my boots filled to the tops with slush, and relieved my father from the cranking.  Closing the gap a few more feet, I locked the line into place.  Then I went to go empty my boots.

I could get the left one off by using the right boot.  A gallon of slush spilled onto the frozen sand.  I couldn’t feel anything in my left foot, so I could not use it to get off my right boot.  I couldn’t pull it off myself, so my father had to.  So I walked soaking sock-footed over to the passenger side and got into the truck.  I could feel every grain of sand and every shard of ice through my socks.

My father got in, started up the truck. Shifted into first.  Wheels turned.  Truck didn’t move.  Wheels turned.  Truck didn’t move.

He got out.  Looked at the wheels.  Came back.  Stuck.

I’ve never gotten stick in this truck.  It has four rear wheels.  I’ve driving in all kinds of mud in a stump dump with it.  But it couldn’t handle the high tide saturated sand and the weight of the boat on the trailer, and the sea slush.

Now, in broad daylight, weekday, noon, stuck on a town beach.  But my most immediate concern was my feet.  What I could feel, which was not much, was pain and stabbing cold.  Or stabbing pain and cold.  I had only risked the dousing of sea slush because I knew I’d be off the beach and home soon.  Now it was indefinite.

Then I saw Tim Wood, editor of the Cape Cod Chronicle, drive by. He didn’t seem to notice what was going on. He didn’t stop. He didn’t take a photo. He didn’t put it on the front page of the paper. So things were looking up.

Calling, I asked my mother to stop into my place and bring down a pair of socks and my hiking boots.  Then I called Matt Griffin to get ideas on who might have a truck to pull us out.  No answer.  He doesn’t leave his phone on at work.  So I called the head of the DPW.  He was in a meeting, but said yes we could call someone to get us off the beach, but no, a town vehicle couldn’t do it. We called my brother to see if he could find someone, and all this time I was gingerly pulling my two pairs of socks off my feet, rubbing my toes to get some feeling back in them (didn’t work) and finally putting the dry socks on. It took 10 minutes.

When I finally got my shoes on, I stepped out of the truck to see how deep the tires were.  Too deep. Halfway.  No getting out on our own.  We could drop the trailer there, and leave it until low tide.  Then the guy came up.

Cool guy.  Big guy.  Asked if we needed help.  I was walking back and forth in the sand, getting my circulation going, and said, yeah, yeah, we could.  While he brought his 4×4 truck down, I took a shovel from the truck and dug out the tires, both sides.

He hooked up a chain, my father got in the truck, started it, put it in first gear, and the tires just spun.  I told him to wait.  Then the tow started up, and he put in gear again.  Off they went.  Great.  Then the trailer went into the ditch the tires had dug.  And up out of the ditch and up into the parking lot.

His name was Craig, and he was working at a house nearby. Saw us on our lunch break.  Definitely came from somewhere off-Cape, outside of New England. More Appalachian, I’d say, from his accent.  Other guys in big trucks were still looking out their windows at us.  I yelled out, “Show’s OVER!”

Drove the truck back to West Chatham, where we left it, boat and trailer hooked up in the yard.  When I got back home, after checking in, I soaked in the tub for half an hour.  It took me two hours to get all the feeling back in my toes.  There were whole winters I’ve spent shellfishing, in waders, up to my chest in water.  But I’ve never felt this kind of permeating cold.

While it may have seemed stupid to have gone out on a day like today, I blame it all on the wrong gloves.  If had been able to hold onto those oars as I needed to start with, I could’ve stayed closer to shore.  Instead, I ended up with a tale of mid-winter recklessness so typical of the Cape.

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?

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 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.

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.