I have timed this trip well, and plan to leave the area early Friday morning. The next few days should be quiet everywhere as the Columbus Day holiday visitors depart for their urban and suburban boxes. I would be very foolish to linger beyond Friday breakfast, for that is the day when over twenty thousand people will descend on Wellfleet (pop. 2,800) for the annual Wellfleet Oyster Festival. What began as a very local harvest celebration of what is, in my humble opinion (but I have over 2,800 very proud people to back me up!) the finest oyster in the world, if not the galaxy, has turned into a commercial free-for-all, with hordes of entitled urbanites embarrassing themselves. As Mo in the Wellfleet Bookstore told me today, “We’re all dreading it. It’s now the tail wagging the dog!”
An aside comment, yet one based on good local observation, surprised me today. It was about Mac’s Seafood which, since its founding in Wellfleet in 1995, has opened a sprinkling of shops on the Lower Cape, as well as being the most popular supplier of the better local restaurants. Plus, they have one of their own! I like Mac’s. I now know the family members who run the small Truro shop, and who chat and give me tasters, and I have never not appreciated the quality of their fish, seafood, service or friendliness. But! And here’s where the tune changes… Apparently local people (and define that dangerous category as you will) deliberately choose to ignore Mac’s and instead shop at another (excellent) seafood place in North Truro. The reason? Price? Freshness? Variety? No, none of these vital things. It’s apparently a “Portuguese thing.” They (Mac’s) are not us. So we don’t shop there. God in heaven! Yet another example of tribalism, in the Untied States, in the 21st century. Please don't get me started on the Italians...
I am no fan of bumper stickers, but today I saw one that I would happily display on my car: “Got Linguica?”
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