Our First Coddiwomple Stop Explained: Another Sign That Truro Was Meant To Be
The Triumph of The Undertoad, a Newburyport story that stays with us
The Cape Cod National Seashore website reports that there are over a thousand freshwater ponds here.
During the last ice age, enormous blocks of ice were left behind, forming deep depressions called kettle holes. Nature filled them with water. Although you don’t see many driving the length of the Cape on Route 6, they are everywhere when you look from above.
I’m most concerned with those that Mary Oliver kept company with and another cluster along the Truro-Wellfleet line.
The other thing a newcomer like me was not aware of is how hilly the terrain is. It’s easy to get 400 feet of elevation gain in a three-mile woodland stroll. It’s these hills and the wild tangle of dense forests up and down the Outer Cape that intrigue me. Many of the back roads are rutted dirt lanes with room for only one vehicle. It is truly wild land.
During the forties and early fifties, young journalist and aspiring author Edwin O’Connor lived in Boston, in various rooming houses with shared bathrooms, near Boston Common and the Public Gardens. He was gregarious, humble, charming, and utterly Catholic. I say this last part as a compliment. He lived as a true child of Christ.
The famous literary critic Edmund ‘Bunny’ Wilson, who proposed to Edna St. Vincent Millay two miles from here, after she took his virginity in Greenwich Village, and later tried to convince Anaïs Nin to have an affair, referred to his in-season Wellfleet neighbor as the most authentic Catholic he ever knew.
During the last ice age, enormous blocks of ice were left behind, forming deep depressions called kettle holes. Nature filled them with water. Although you don’t see many driving the length of the Cape on Route 6, they are everywhere when you look from above. I’m most concerned with those that Mary Oliver kept company with and another cluster along the Truro-Wellfleet line.
Edwin O’Connor made his way around Boston on foot, but on the Outer Cape, he rode a bicycle. He had no need for a car. To beat the summer heat of the city, he came to Truro and Wellfleet. He stayed in what amounted to shacks and rustic cabins around Slough Pond, Horseleach Pond, Higgins Pond, and close to Newcomb Hollow Beach on the Atlantic side.
He became a regular contributor to the Atlantic Monthly and stopped by its Boston office twice daily on his walks. He wrote a novel, but it wasn’t very good. Yet he was interesting, kind, and popular with the other summer literary minds who flocked here.
He organized weekly baseball games on Sunday mornings in Wellfleet. Bernie Rosenberg, editor of Dissent, played second base. The third baseman was Norman Mailer, who was just a kid back then, just starting out. Edmund ‘Bunny’ Wilson, prolific author, columnist, and literary critic, also played, as did Arthur Schlesinger, Jr. Teams were chosen weekly, and there were plenty of little kids on each team.
Edwin O’Connor was the best athlete of the group, but it was all fun and light. He performed magic tricks for the kids at the game. At noon, when the game ended, Edwin would climb on his bicycle and pedal from the bay side of Wellfleet to the ocean side and his little rental.
