Bohemia by the Sea

By Michael Whorf

Bohemia by the Sea is a book of memories of Michael as a young boy. Mike was the youngest of four children and lived with his parents, Vivienne and John, at the tip of Cape Cod in Provincetown, Massachusetts. Michaels father, John Whorf, was a gifted American impressionist painter, who went on to become an outstanding watercolorist. This is small town America from 19391945, during World War II, which Whorf has labeled Bohemia by the Sea. In a series of vignettes, Michael attempts to capture the family stories during a time of turmoil and anxiety during the war. Through colorful anecdotes, he describes the wonderful, unforgettable moments and personal memories of his life.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Feb 18, 2016
• ISBN: 9781514449455

Michael Whorf

Michael Whorf is a veteran broadcaster, producer, and writer, widely known for his forty-year tenure with the Detroit radio station WJR. He wrote, developed, and hosted programs as Kaleidoscope, I Remember Radio, and The Quest for Excellence, a musical variety competition show. A recipient of the George Foster Peabody Award, he was inducted into the Michigan Broadcasting Hall of Fame in 2008. Following retirement, Whorf utilized his writing talents to write what he knew best. American Popular Song Composers, Oral Histories, 1920s–1950s and American Popular Song Lyricists, Oral Histories, 1920s–1960s were published in 2012.

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Copyright © 2016 by Michael Whorf.

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Rev. date: 02/15/2016

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Contents

Preface

Introduction

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Postscript

Acknowledgments

I remember summer places

soft as dandelion fuzz

And those warm and wistful faces

In a world that never was.

—Paul Francis Webster

WE SPEND OUR YEARS AS A TALE THAT IS TOLD

Psalms

I think it was Mark Twain who said, I could remember anything, even if it never happened. However, now that I’m losing my faculties, I can’t remember anything that never happened. As for me, I have not lost all of my faculties, but I will admit that my memory does have a problem with what is true and what is an overactive imagination. I leave it up to you to determine when which is which.

PREFACE

The story takes place on a little spit of land that sits on the northern tip of Cape Cod, Massachusetts. It is called Provincetown. There are many who know it, have vacationed there, lived there, and in time have come to love it. I would imagine that over half of its population came to Provincetown as visitors and decided to stay. They were called the washashores. This is what Michael’s father became in the 1930s, a washashore, though his ancestors had lived and worked the surrounding seas since the mid–nineteenth century, and after he had spent twelve summers there, in a manner of speaking and without sounding overly dramatic, one could say John Whorf had come home.

He had first visited Provincetown after the turn of the century. He couldn’t have been more than three or four years old. Mike was approximately the same age when, years later, his father brought his family to their new home, somewhere around the summer of 1935. You should realize that some of what is written concerning this period is hearsay and secondhand information. Still, Michael recalls some of the conversation of his parents and siblings and recollects with clarity those experiences, which at that time seemed so earthshaking but, in the long run, had little significance. It was a time long before television, microwave ovens, and jet-propelled aircraft. In all probability, a few of you will remember the town in those early years and how antiquated and charming it was. Many of the side streets were gravel, telephone numbers were just three digits, and there were a few houses left standing that didn’t have indoor plumbing.

Provincetown was home. It was where we had grown and prospered a lifetime ago—a place that is far, far away. It’s important for you see it was the place where one stored so many of our yesterdays, never thinking that one day we might like to return. The question was, would it be worth the effort? I mean, to dig through all that old rubbish of the past, which contains bruised egos, dashed hopes, disappointments, and plans that ran amok? And let us not forget the broken promises.

Still, in all truthfulness, there was more happiness than heartache, the anticipation of all the exciting adventures that we would undertake, all the laughter and joy we took from those moments. It is not my intention to leave you with the impression that everything was always ideal, that there were never difficulties and hardships, on the contrary.

Want a hardship? How about the day after a hurricane? Or better yet, how about the day of a hurricane? Talk about one growing a hard outer shell. It really is quite astounding to watch a woman or man rise to the challenge and take on whatever difficulty was thrown at them. There wasn’t much time for self-pity, and we oftentimes heard the following bit of sage advice: Get over it.

Perhaps what Thomas Wolfe wrote was true: You can’t go home again. When you finally go back to your old hometown, you quickly discover that it wasn’t your home or the town that you missed but rather your childhood. It is not that Michael’s boyhood was that idyllic, for there are those occurrences that he later regretted. Some years later, he said what he really should have done was to apologize to his mother and father for his hellish behavior. He admitted that he was weary of constantly coming up with an alibi. His father told him on a few occasions, Tell me what really happened. It’ll be easier than you coming up with a lot of preposterous stories. But you know, the one thing that was reassuring was that you always knew that no matter what kind of difficulty you had, the family would try to support you and forgive you. Thank the good Lord we had families that loved us.

Of course, when he had to deal with the highest judge of all, his father, all the latter would ask of his son was that he make his defense, whatever it was, short and sweet. If he was guilty, step up to the plate, and take what’s coming. Years later, Michael recalled that when a spanking was the punishment, his father always prefaced it with This hurts me more than it does you. The boy never ever understood that.

However, if there was a legitimate method of extricating oneself from a difficulty, you’d be given a fair hearing. However, Michael’s father wanted to make it clear he wasn’t governing a democracy. His was a dictatorship, and he was the final authority. What he attempted to do was to teach his children how to stay out of trouble in the first place.

It seemed that he was pretty even-keeled, especially with Mike, except the one time when, even if a court had shown mercy, nothing would have saved the boy from his father’s wrath. But let us hasten to add if not for his mother, on that day, his father would have hung him up on the highest yardarm.

But before I get to that tale, permit me to reiterate that the time frame I write about was during the most perilous, frightening, and nerve-racking time that one might imagine. For family, friends, and townsfolk, it was a mind-bending event that made an everlasting impression on their hearts and minds and, in a way, brought them all closer together. Times were tough, and wages were low. There wasn’t a lot out there. Haven’t you heard there’s a war goin’ on? That’s why the Whorf kids had summertime jobs.

The event was the Second World War, and though the memory is printed indelibly on the individual’s mind, I’d like to leave you with a few impressions and the thread that, in part, weaves its way through our lives. One should have knowledge and an understanding of the entire story or, as they say, a clearer view of the bigger picture. It will be easier to appreciate the historical significance and how it all, the past and the present, shed light on how we reached this moment in time.

You see, we too had a history. If you were from New York, okay, well and good. You had the Empire State Building, the World’s Fair, and the Yankees. If your home had been Chicago, you had the stockyards and ridden the el, and then there was the Biograph Theatre, where John Dillinger came to his end. If you came from Pennsylvania, you had Gettysburg, where, to this day, two armies still sleep. There was a bell in Philadelphia, and maybe your granddaddy dug for coal. But in New England? That was different. And Cape Cod, that’s where it all began. The Pilgrims Squanto and Samoset sailed across from Holland with a handful of corn to where the sea promised adventure, as well as danger. Your ancestors may well have been candlemakers or gunsmiths, clam diggers or members of the constitutional Congress, separatists or Wampanoag. Your kinfolk could well have been Portuguese fishermen or a member of the Wharf Theatre Actors’ Guild.

But wait a moment. Imagine, if you will, the Lower Cape. This, dear reader, is a total wilderness; one must make one’s own way, and you may take that literally. There is nothing familiar. What must it have been like? Remember, you could have been among the very first to make this trip. You find yourself cutting your way through dense woods, with no sounds or sights of civilization. And then one takes note of the incline on the road in North Truro, and it is from here that, one day, you will look out and see the Pilgrim Monument for the first time. It becomes a reassuring sight every time you go home.

We should know something about the hearty souls that preceded us or, for that matter, all of the folks who decided to remain, whether it is for a night, a year, or a lifetime. And let’s be sensible. November is not a particularly pleasant time of year to visit Provincetown. I never thought it was, and I’ll wager the Pilgrims didn’t either nor did the Viking explorer who entered the harbor some six hundred years before John, Miles, and Priscilla.

INTRODUCTION

From the late forties to the early sixties, he had given very little thought to the history of the Second World War. As a boy, he had grown up during those years, and they proved to be remarkably historic, and he would retain many of the memories for his entire life. However, having survived and emerged unscathed, he found he had to move along and leave his boyhood behind. Few, if any, of his friends had been seriously touched by the war. His parents and siblings had all survived it. The general heartaches and sadness that war always leaves with the living had begun to fade and finally disappear, and eventually, everybody got back to living with a capital L. Six years later, the boy was of an age, so it was his turn to serve. He enlisted in the air force, which was relatively sanguine because of his not having to serve on the front line. This, and the fact that the young man had been assigned to work in the Armed Forces Radio Service, was a stroke of his great good fortune.

In the mid-1950s, he was married and had accepted a job in commercial radio in Worcester, Massachusetts, which in time led to his serving in nearly all aspects of broadcasting. A two-hour show allowed sufficient time for the development of a full range of topics with narratives, which could be detailed and performed with some degree of authenticity. Eventually, he focused on American history and its rich repository of great adventure, discovery, exploration, personal initiative, and the genius of men and women who gave their lives and sacred honor to the making of America.

It was the winter of 1962 when he began to log some of the significant dates for the coming month’s broadcasting schedule. The holidays would soon be upon them, and it would be his task to make the yuletide more than the lovely carols and vapid little verses, to which many folks were accustomed. He decided to unleash the great library of Christmas melody, magic, and story. No stinting this Christmas. It would be done in a new, fresh format, inviting the listener to hear again the legendary favorites of the yuletide season—Clement Clarke Moore’s tribute to the jolly old elf as read by Moore’s great-granddaughter, O. Henry’s delightful The Gift of the Magi, and the Christmas Carol performed by the station’s acting company. These and other delightful classics would be combined with the beautiful secular and nonsecular music of the holiday, providing the wonderful magic of the season.

He had glanced at the calendar and began to think in terms of what happened historically on those various days in early December—the first, second, fifth—and then it came crashing in on him. You nitwit! December 7, 1941, the twenty-first anniversary of Pearl Harbor. With a snap of the finger, it was as though he was hurled back into his youth, and his memories came alive. He wasn’t hesitant or astonished at his fervor when the time came for a military documentary tribute or just an old-fashioned, patriotic music program. Oh, how he loved to hear the music of a military band. He had a gift for blending the music of yesteryear with that of the modern era and a composition such as 1941 by John Williams and then Richard Rodgers’s nearly forgotten Guadalcanal March.

With the music came the story of that Sunday long ago, perhaps a documentary approach about the attack itself, a blow-by-blow account of the raid with the actual voices of the participants—Genda, Fuchida, and Yamamoto and the Americans, Admiral Kimmel and General Short. At that time, referring to 1941, we had no idea of what to expect. We knew little about the Germans and even less about the Japanese. We knew that they both would make formidable adversaries, but other than that, we knew nothing about island fighting or the enemy’s strength, their resources, or their resolve.

American boys would come face to face with the frigid days and nights in the Argonne; the never-ending sweltering island-hopping from Guadalcanal to Bougainville, Tarawa, and Iwo Jima; the scorching heat of Tobruk, the Sahara, and Tunisia; the whipping cold, wet winds of the North Atlantic; and the thousand dreaded German U-boats. All they had to do was watch and wait. There was mud and muck that was ever present on the rain-drenched roads that led to St. Lo and Messina, Rome and Paris. It was the same for all of the sailors, soldiers, or marines, who were in for the duration—2,194 days, close to six years and a two of months, about the same amount of time it would take a twelve-year-old kid to become eligible for the draft.

It has been a half century–plus since he’d given much thought to the past and the stories of his youth. In retrospect, it was an exciting, devilish, frightening era. Quite frankly, if not occasionally amazed, he was certainly delighted with his ability to recall many of the escapades that justifiably belong in Robert Ripley’s Believe It or Not!

Now in his present stage of life, he would probably be considered an old man, but the years had been very gentle to him. He was fully able to get around and was quick-witted, and occasionally, when he seemingly couldn’t remember, it was because he had chosen to forget. He has to retrace a bit of the story, for it is important that you know how a boy achieved a wonderful dream, never believing that it all came to him as though preordained. You understand, here’s this kid—nothing exceptional about him, an average kid—who upon graduation from school unknowingly takes a wild, unbelievable gamble that pays off. It wasn’t because of any brilliant insight on his part; as it sometimes occurs to so many, it just happened. If it had been ordained that Michael would go to college, he would have found it to have been a drudgery-filled long monotonous experience in studying who knew what. An initial reaction would have been that here was a fish out of water. However, he decided on an alternative—not college but rather enlistment in the United States Air Force. Michael had been given one opportunity after another, and the time had come to choose. He did just that, not knowing where his selection would take him. It was truly off we go into the wild blue yonder.

I want you to remember that this story is also about a rather remarkable man who possessed a marvelous gift. Permit me. This gift became his signature, permitting him to bear witness to who he was and those who would embrace him as colleague and friend during various stages of his life. Who and what he was is one of the themes in this narrative, for he was to achieve high praise and recognition from a following, who believed that he was the finest watercolor artist in America. For a score of years, he maintained that popularity. I say twenty—it’s a starting point—may well have been even longer. I arbitrarily begin with, say, the midthirties, and we’ll drift on into the following twenty years and observe what unfolds.

A television newscaster, Tom Brokaw, would label this period the Greatest Generation. In retrospect, I would say that he was pretty well on target. Of course, the one factor that stands out is that people didn’t know that living in the forties was going to lead to such an auspicious time nor that they were being observed. What did they know? The automobile was still coming into its own.

I guess as a nation at that time, comprised of forty-eight states, their behavior was nearly exemplary. I don’t know if Americans were aware that they were being honorable, resolute, self- sacrificing, willing to struggle, and, above all, hard working. However, the one thing about the future was the great uncertainty, for America didn’t know what lay ahead. Many families didn’t know where the next dollar was coming from or, for that matter, if they would still have a job when the sun came up the next day. If you were single, you could always enlist in one of the armed services, and a lot of boys did just that. By the late 1930s, there seemed to be quite a good deal of saber rattling. Soon that sound became the roar of cannon, and then there came that fateful Sunday in December 1941.

On that day, America had but one concern. At times, we would act as though nothing daunted us, particularly when events at the beginning went badly. It became an hour for brave men. Dorie Miller, Colin Kelly, John Basilone, Robert Bush, Jimmy Doolittle, Joe Foss, they all gave us examples of what it would take. This was all at the beginning. (Author’s Note: I should never have started the listing of brave men because before the war had ended, 464, including the half dozen aforementioned, were awarded the nation’s highest honor, the Medal of Honor.)

And remember, I mentioned a little boy. I have chosen a specific time, the war years—from the time he was seven to when he was approaching his fifteenth birthday. He was like a million other kids, keeping his head above water, trying to do the right thing, invariably doing the wrong, living and learning in uncertain, scary times. He lived in a little town that was practically shut off from the rest of the world. Maybe that was a good thing. There were so many towns and cities where kids grew up too fast. At least for this little fishing village, there was time where, every so often, a kid could slow down and be just that, a kid. However, having made that observation, there was more tangible evidence that a war was being fought involving America than in most other communities in the United States. You see, there was actual evidence, for the war literally washed up on its shore. You will come to understand.

Perhaps it was because there was still family, tradition, love of country, and the fact that people cared about each other and what they had accomplished. Those ancestral ties still mattered and remained strong. To be sure, there was a certain isolationism that had set in. Let’s face it, many Americans couldn’t find Siam, Singapore, or Sydney on a map. We had broken most of the ties with Europe, with the exception of England, and that was only because we spoke the same language, well, practically. Here in the western hemisphere, there were the Canadians and us. We knew where Mexico was, and the rest of South America seemingly left us alone. During the first six years of the forties, we learned more about the world than a hundred books would ever have taught us.

And so here is the story, and here is the man who threescore and five ago lived through the events of which you are about to read. Again, there is a war that is to begin, and he prepares for whatever is in store; he is but a little boy. He lives with his two sisters and brother, his mother and father, all of whom he loves dearly, particularly his father and mother, for you see, his father was a magician, a seer, a historian, a storyteller, a traveler, a wise man, a purveyor of magical scenes; and he could do anything. His mother was the rock. She was always there to comfort him, to reassure him, to kiss his furrowed brow when he was worried or afraid. Let us go back to when life seemed much more predictable, and our destiny was absolutely defined. Come and sit beside me, and gaze upon the bohemia by the sea and the story of an artist, a boy, and a war.

CHAPTER 1

His name was Thorwald, a rugged and adventurous Icelandic Viking who set foot on Cape Cod in the year AD 1004. Somewhere, it was written or supposedly uttered and recorded, Here, his ship was blown off course and destroyed on a treacherous sandbar. By design or an error of navigation, Thorwald would be the area’s first explorer. However, as fate would have it, he and his crew managed to get into a brawl with the Indians, and the Viking leader was mortally wounded. The Norse chieftain was buried on the dunes, a cross being placed at both his head and feet, and the site was named the Cape of the Crosses. Of course, the exact location has been carried away by the wind and sea and the passage of time.

Indeed, with some imagination, one might envision Russell Crowe leaping from a bowsprit, brandishing his flaming hammer and yelling encouragement to his fellow marauders. The fact that Thorwald (the first four letters of his name spelled that of the Norse god of thunder and lightning) had indeed landed at Provincetown was borne out centuries later. In 1853, an excavation took place at what had become the home of Francis Paine. Here unearthed was an underground stone wall, which was claimed to have been erected by those stalwart Vikings centuries before to stave off the attacking Indians. In truth, we always believed that the stone wall was an old foundation begun to shore up a floor; it wasn’t what was needed, so they buried it. Okay, are you going to be the one who tells Ragnar, the Viking chieftain, standing there before you with mace and shield in hand, that he’s wrong?

It was in 1602 that Bartholomew Gosnold trudged the dunes of Provincetown’s coastline and thought about what he should name this place. The name was actually rested from the sea itself as one of Gosnold’s crew had hooked a couple of codfish for the day’s meal. As unimaginative as that might sound, that’s just how the cape was named. Sometimes it doesn’t take much.

The famed English explorer John Smith came all the way north from Virginia and, in an open boat, navigated the shores of Cape Cod. He apparently took note of the natural harbor that was at the tip of the cape but stayed no longer than necessary. Little did he know what awaited him back in Ol’ Virginny.

In November of 1620, those beleaguered souls aboard the Mayflower dropped anchor in the same harbor and then proceeded to draw up the Mayflower Compact. Nary a soul among them had an idea how lasting this document would become. The following day, they rested at their mooring, for it was Sunday, a day of rest and prayer. They knew not what tomorrow would bring, but this day, they thanked their God for their deliverance. On Monday, they manned their small boats and rowed to shore, where they met a number of friendly Indians, members of the Nauset tribe. The natives informed the newcomers that the land on which they stood was called Meeshawn.

The Pilgrims—comprised mainly of men and women who had come to this new world, seeking religious freedom, as well as the other travelers who had no expectations and figured they had nothing to lose—all came ashore ready to investigate this territory, which one day would be named Provincetown. They hiked westward as far as the present-day breakwater. They shared their disappointment, having found little freshwater. It was then decided to travel across the bay to a broad stretch of land where water was found, as well as a fertile soil to plant crops. They would name it Plymouth after a town in their native land, and they would honor and remember their former homes in England by repeating this process many times in the coming months. That is, they favored places named for communities in England rather than people’s names; consequently, the land was given names such as Chatham, Harwich, Falmouth, Sandwich, Salem, Gloucester, and Truro.

Time would pass, but for some inexplicable reason, the cape tip didn’t receive a formal place-name. Every so often, a meeting would be held, and it was requested that the settlement be given designation; however, the inhabitants couldn’t agree. If the best that the folks could come up with was Herrington, then what’s the hurry? Finally, 107 years after Bradford, Brewster et al. set foot on dry land; a group of thoughtful, responsible souls realized their duty, and in 1727, the province lands became Provincetown. Not named for royalty, the privileged, or the landed gentry, it was a simple place-name—a governed territory expressing a state of mind rather than a geographical site or honoring a dignitary.

That which had become envisioned, the dream, would be comprised of the experiences of all the souls who ventured forth to fulfill their hopes and desires. Once the early settlers built their homes, they fashioned their ships and set sail. The compasses were set eastward and north-northeast, the sails billowed, and the quest began, seeking the God-given gift that was so necessary to man’s survival and found in such abundance—the fish. Near the beginning of recorded history, we learned that mankind rested his living from the sea, a sea that no sooner gave sustenance than it took it away. People who lived by the sea accepted what the ocean offered—bountiful reward, harvests beyond imagination, yet there could be danger and a cruelness that defied description.

Not all fishermen’s stories are about the size of the catch, the weight of one great tuna, or the amount of ambergris floating on the surface of the ocean. What of the vicious storms, the many who were swept out to sea, the great sea battles when nations were at war? There are the tales of enchantment, stories of intrigue, suspenseful and mysterious events that steal one’s heart and touch one’s very soul as witnessed in the tale of Polly Rock.

It was in the year of 1758 when the crew of a Provincetown fishing vessel, the Magellan, was homeward. As the vessel sailed through the Bay of Chaleur, some of the crew thought they had heard a cry of distress. Their reaction was one of dismissal inasmuch as sailors have much more to think about when working on the deck of a goodly sized fishing boat bound for home. Besides, what they had heard was but the cry of a seagull. The fishing boat was approaching the coast of Gaspé Peninsula, somewhere southeast of Quebec and New Brunswick, still a far distance from home.

Now they quietly sailed through the bay, and from somewhere high in the rocks above, they heard another cry. It was indistinguishable; some thought it was an animal while others believed it had a human quality. The discussion got so heated that the captain sent a party up on to the boulders to investigate. Four crewmen scurried about the rocks until one of them finally shouted out that he had found something. From a crevice in the rocks, he lifted up a bundle; and gently removing the soft red flannel that covered the contents, he unveiled a small rather plump female child. Much to the astonishment of all, the child had a pleasant nature, giggling as the entire crew got involved passing her hand to hand in a human chain. It wasn’t long before members of the crew, including the captain, began to ask questions. Who was this child, and where had it come from? Who put the child up in the rock? The captain realized that, at that moment, there was absolutely nothing he could do. The only thing he might accomplish was to take the child home and then, on the next trip out, perform a thorough investigation.

The first thing the crew did was to name the child and, after some deliberation, came up with the name of Polly Rock. Polly seemed like a pleasant name and the crew liked it and Rock because that is where they had found her. Later, they would change her name to Shirkwell. After all, the crew agreed all she did was eat, sleep, and play. She was the only mate that shirked her duties and did that well enough. One of the mates went so far as to make her a coat of arms upon which he had stitched the letters of the Shirkwell family. The name stayed with her as did the name of Polly Rock. When they arrived in Provincetown, the captain took the child and brought her ashore. Goodness, how everyone loved the little girl. And there she grew into womanhood.

Eventually, Polly was to fall in love with the captain’s son, himself a successful mariner. But the mystery always remained. Had the captain and his adoring wife ever discovered who she was, and if so, did he attempt to return her? Many believed that he did not; so dearly he had loved the girl, but then there was also the seamen’s legend. Let me speak of an alternative.

Edward Snow, a poor fisherman, had lost his wife, who had died after a short illness. She had, however, given birth to a lovely baby girl, so at the very least, the fisherman had been given a beautiful replica of her mother. Although bereft and deeply saddened by his wife’s death, the day came when the man realized that he must return to his work, for he must support his child. There did remain a problem, for the man had no one to watch the babe while he was away, working. He did arrive at a simple solution. But of course, he would take the babe with him. His tasks consisted of mending nets and so during the time of labor; he would place the child up in the rocks, always in a safe spot, and then attend to his work.

It was on this particular day that Snow had gone through his usual practice of tucking the child away in a crevice and protecting her against the elements. He wrapped her in a soft red flannel blanket, snuggled her away in a comfortable spot, and then hopped down and went to his work site, which was close at hand. On this day, something occurred that had never happened before. He had been working for an hour or so, and he was suddenly summoned by one of the men and was told that the boss man wanted to talk with him. This was new; he climbed over to his boat and rowed to the mainland.

While Snow was but a couple of hundred yards away, he thought of his child and became very agitated and fretful. He thought to himself that whatever it was that the foreman had to say, it wouldn’t take long. He was right. All the foreman had to tell him was that Snow was doing a good job and that there would be two dollars added to his purse. He was pleased, for he could always use the money. He thanked his boss and hastened back to his boat, jumping into it and practically capsizing it; such was his state of mind. It took him scarcely ten minutes to get back to his nets. He scampered over the rocks to where he had placed his daughter, and to his shock, she was not there. She was gone… disappeared. Uttering such sorrowful groans, he looked for her, searching among the rocks, every nook and cranny; she was not to be found. For the remainder of the day, he did nothing but retrace his steps, looking in the same places, places where she should have been but wasn’t.

Finally, exhausted, he sat, resigned to having to accept the inevitable and the grief. His little girl was gone. The best he could hope for was that she was kidnapped as opposed to having been snatched up by some wild beast—a wolf, a wild cat, who knew? There was nothing more he could do. Had the search ended? The tears continued to flow down his cheeks, his heart broken, his pathetic sighs swallowed up by the wind, which swept off shore. Perhaps those sighs were carried on wave and wind, reaching a fishing vessel far to the east, homeward. If Edward Snow had only observed rather than being blinded by grief, he might have seen the vessel’s name printed on the stern, "the Magellan."

On the sandy shores of Provincetown, there is a vestige of the Revolutionary War. When Michael was a boy, it was just a pile or rotten timber, or so he thought. This wasn’t always so. The year was 1779; the war would soon be over, and closure of hostilities between Great