What a charming little town! Wellfleet offers two great places to meet people. One is the library, of course. The other? Our Swap Shop. Yesterday I deposited a plant at the Swap Shop door and stepped inside. Sven followed close behind. A curly-haired man was perusing the day’s offerings.“I liked your blog about the turkeys,”
he said in a chipper voice.Not sure if I had understood, I glanced at Sven to judge his reaction.
“It should be fun …” The man’s fingers started furiously typing on an imaginary keyboard. “Your trip to practice writing.”
This statement made me raise my eyebrows, realizing here was yet another stranger who reads Chezsven Blog and enjoys it. When you write a place-blog about life in a small town, I guess encountering readers is to be expected.
Sven held out his hand. “I’m …”
“Sven. Yes, I know. Name’s Mark.” The man turned back to me. “I like the way you write about the realities of Wellfleet in these tough economic times. Like how they’re teaching the kids at school to eat fresh food, but it’s more expensive, and not everyone can buy it.”
This new Elementary School initiative is a topic I have not yet covered but apparently should. I’ve heard about the school nurse and her plan to start a vegetable garden, the way a group of parents have done in Truro, surely material for a blog post in the spring.
We also discussed Noam Chomsky, who owns a house here, and Sven told Mark about the online interview we had just read on Chomsky’s reaction to Wikileaks. I bet Noam Chomsky likes Wellfleet because he can go about his business without harassment. We’re good to our celebrities in this town.
I was a minor celebrity once. When I did radio in France, my photo was plastered across one third of all the buses in metropolitan Paris for a full week, much to my daughters’ chagrin because their friends kept asking, “Isn’t that your mom’s picture?” At the beginning of every show, I would say, “C’est Sandy Beach…” (Yup, my radio name was Sandy Beach) “…en direct du petit studio de CVS…” (NOT the pharmacy) “…et je vous invite รก vous promener sur les ondes avec moi.”
In a way, with this place-blog, I've started up those walks again ….
