During the 1970’s I lived on Cape Cod in Provincetown. I had visited there when I went to camp in Orleans, MA and also at 16 with my best friend’s family and then again after graduation before college.

From that very first moment of looking around, I knew that this was the place that my people lived. That was a new, exhilarating experience. What a scene it was there. Not New Orleans maybe, not Greenwich Village really and not Key West. Provincetown was labeled that town that had more gay residents than anywhere per capita. I’m not gay, and I lived a while there with my first husband. We were there together nearly a year and we only knew one straight couple.

It is a picture perfect area. Some of the houses were moved from the mainland to Provincetown, dragged by boats. The architecture is beautiful – Provincetown does “shabby” very well. The main street in town, Commercial Street is one way and a car can barely make it down the road with all the tourists and bicyclists. It is on this street is where the majority of houses are and all the stores were. People walk in the street and it takes a person of fortitude not to explode in road rage. Hey, buddy, this is a walking town. The residents stand out. It is a coupling of their bohemian look and no car. When I lived there I felt that I was too lucky. I worked as a waitress during the summer season and we all received unemplyment in the winter. There are no businesses operating in winter except maybe two restaurants, the library and a scant amount of other this and that/

During that time, promiscuity and drinking and drugs were merely everyday pastime. We went out to the two or three bars to dance and pick up men. I would dance until my clothes were so full of sweat that I could squeeze dripping water of them.

I think Provincetown was, above all, the end of the line for the inhabitants. It was a kind of a beautiful like a deadly Nightshade.

It was first and primarily Portugese. They were the fisherman who had to endure the northern Atlantic for weeks at a time. It seemed that we lost at least one fisherman a year. The Portuguese people had stamina and strength that was amazing. There was very little intermixing of the Portuguese and the other “townies”. We had invaded their space since the 1800’s with all kinds of eccentric people, pirates, whores. Provincetown was actually documented as the first landing place of the Pilgrims. Somehow, some time, that fact was buried under the table as Plymouth; perhaps because Plymouth was more respectable.
We partied every night. Any time off was spent on the beach that paralleled Commercial Street. The dogs ran freely, the townspeople often removed their clothes here and there. I would say that for the straight women, a gypsy look was cultivated. For the straight men dressed like any bunch of tradesmen. The gay population were the most creative in their presentation.

At no time in my life have I been so changed. The choice to later live there for a few short years was one of those life altering experiences. I know it was not the best choice for me but it was the most fun.

It was dreamy like a 40’s movie. Dinah Washington and Nat King Cole was wafting from the restaurant doors. The buildings were lit with soft peach light, so inviting from the street. Our friends were hanging out on most of the corners deciding how to spend the evenings. We all looked yummy in yards of material and barefeet, the men were wonderful in their own delicious ways. Sometimes all the ambiance made me cry — the music, Cape Cod Bay, the bars with decks on the water, the laughter and more laughter but it was also drug time in those days. Most likely part of the manic energy. We were riding the edge, but no one fell off for a few years. The majic years turned then into the tragic years when we started watching our friends fall prey to The Virus.