Hand Signals

                    On a warmish Sunday in early April, George and I headed out for a bike ride. Destination:The Mill Market & Deli on Dorset Street, purveyors of fresh cider donuts and maple creemees. About two miles in, I turned my bike into the K-Mart parking lot off Shelburne Road near Franny O's bar, a well-traveled shortcut from Burlington's Pine Street to points south. I put my left arm out with my hand up to indicate a right turn. Hoped the teen driver in my bike mirror had some idea of my intention. Do they still teach hand signals to new drivers? She turned left, so I didn't get my answer. 

            We crossed Route 7 at a pedestrian light out of the Lowe's/Hannaford complex, then pedaled through quiet South Burlington neighborhoods to the bike path that joined up with Dorset Street. Along the way, I found myself ruminating on hand signals.

            I conjured my mother, telling me how all drivers used hand signals when she was a girl. Mom was born on a thousand-acre wheat farm in Alberta, Canada in 1914. Like most farm kids, she learned to drive tractor at a young age. Her family’s first motorcar was a Ford roadster, with a hand-crank starter, no side windows, windshield wipers or directional signals. “Back then, you made an L with your left arm to signal a right turn,” she told us, as if it was a bedtime story. “When you blew a tire, you pulled out the patch kit and fixed it right there by the side of the road.” 

            When Mom was a teenager, her father passed away after a long illness. My grandmother had relatives in Seattle, so she leased out the farm and moved back to the states, relocating Mom and her nine year-old sister, Pat.

            Years later, Mom regaled us with stories of navigating the steep Seattle roads in their car. She loved to drive, and volunteered to teach her younger sister Pat to drive when it came her turn. My now 94 year-old Aunt Pat still remembers her terror at Mom’s self-devised driving test. “She made me put a ripe tomato between my teeth, then shift my way up and down the steepest hills in the city,” she told me recently.  “Right turns, left turns, hand signals, parallel parking – all without biting down on the tomato.”

“Did you pass?” I asked.

“Of course,” she laughed, “Margaret was a wonderful teacher!”

            In her twenties, Mom stayed connected to cycling in her job as the Northwest Director for the American Youth Hostel organization. It’s where she met Dad on his return from a six-month cycling trip through Europe. She was an early advocate of bike touring as a way for young people to get out and see the world. All her years she drilled us kids in the use of hand signals and other rules of the road for cycling safety. 

Cycling Tragedy 

            Two weeks after the cider mill ride, my husband and I loaded our bikes on the car toward Essex VT. We ambled around Essex Junction along bike paths and back roads, watching the early season golfers at The Links at Lang Farm, shivering in their cargo shorts.

            Our halfway point was a brief stop at The Essex Culinary Resort & Spa.While George was scanning his phone GPS map for a new route back to our car, I checked FaceBook on my phone. My heart sunk as I read a news item: a cyclist and driver had been killed in a crash an hour earlier in Hinesburg. 

            There are no words for such loss -- two young men involved in a tragic collision. We sent up prayers. Heavy with knowledge of the shock and grief the families would have to bear, we started riding the six miles back. Traffic was light on River Road, but we were hyper aware of the narrow shoulders. As we rolled into the village of Essex Junction, we silently agreed to ride on the sidewalks. It didn’t matter to either of us that we were breaking a rule of road cycling.

         Today, June 18, 2015 we woke up to the terrible news of a church shooting in South Carolina. Closer to home, the death of another bicyclist yesterday afternoon. This time by a drunk driver on Greenbush Road in Ferrisburgh, Vermont. Rural roads in Vermont are so beautiful - yet too often the scene of such senseless loss. Will I pray for healing for all involved? How can I not? Will I continue to ride my bike? Yes, no question. Will I ride with a heightened sense of fear and safety, for myself and my fellow cyclists? Absolutely.

             

            

A Single Grain of Rice

I'll admit I am superstitious — I would never open an umbrella indoors or walk under a ladder. So when I bought a bag of jasmine rice a few months ago, I saw something on the package that struck me. It read, "An ancient proverb says you must never let one grain of rice spill - or bad luck will come your way." Powerful stuff. In food-rich America, we casually spill food, waste food and reject foods that aren't exactly what we had in mind.

Inspired by the proverb, if I spill any rice en route to the cooking pot, I now recover every grain. Sometimes on my hands and knees to pick up 3-4 pieces of rice. I do this partly to hold onto my good fortune. But also to make me grateful. If every grain of rice is precious, how much bounty is sitting right here in my kitchen cabinets and refrigerator! When I read the remarkable biography Unbroken by Laura Hillenbrand recently, I came to appreciate what a few grains of rice can mean to a starving prisoner-of-war.

"Every grain of rice" is also a reminder about the everyday miracles I shouldn't take for granted. Holding the hand of a child, listening to a beautiful piece of music, watching a bee on a sunflower blossom — the list is as countless as grains of rice in a sack.

Margaret D. Wahl - Television Pioneer

I wrote this essay in March in homage to my mother, Margaret Dunham Wahl, whose 100th birthdate is coming up on June 2nd. It's also an attempt to clarify family lore about the television show she produced in 1950. The first photo was professionally scanned - the rest I photographed from an aging photo album. Enjoy!

Celebrating Margaret Wahl - Television Pioneer

Margaret Wahl on the set of WCAU-TV

            The Ides of March notwithstanding, March 15, 1950 was an auspicious day for our family and the new medium of television. At 3:00 p.m. on a Wednesday afternoon in the WCAU-TV Channel 10 studios in Philadelphia, four years before Oprah Winfrey was born, the cameras rolled on a ground-breaking women’s talk show. The Television Women’s Club aired live as a 13-week pilot. Its mission was to bring intelligent programming into the living rooms of housewives in the post-war era.  The show’s Creator and Executive Producer was a thirty-six year-old Cheyney housewife and mother of four young children – my mother, Margaret Dunham Wahl.

History In a Black Scrapbook

            There are no video records of The Television Women’s Club -- live shows were not recorded in those days. Film was expensive and stations had no idea these might be historical records. Recorded shows were commonly taped over, including the first ten years of Johnny Carson’s Tonight Show. The Television Women’s Club is not yet in the archives of the Broadcast Pioneers of Philadelphia, a non-profit group dedicated to collecting and digitizing materials from the early days of radio and television. But I am in touch with this group about the show.

            Fortunately, the entire pilot season of the show has been preserved in an oversized family scrapbook created by my father. Last year I retrieved it from my sister Christine in Knoxville, Tennessee. The frayed leather volume is a little worse for wear -- over the half century it has survived an apartment fire, suffered water damage, and been moved several times among my five siblings. But inside is a treasure trove of television memories.

            The show name is embossed in gold lettering on front cover. The back cover bears the stamp of the store where the album was purchased: “A. Pomerantz & Company, Stationery, Printing 1525 Chestnut St., Philadelphia, PA.”  My father filled 57 pages with glossy 8X10 photos and newspaper clippings about the show.

            An article from March 9, 1950 describes how my mother conceived the show over an ironing board: “Wrinkled Husband’s Shirt Sparks Idea for Television.” One day while my mother was ironing my father’s white dress shirts, she bemoaned the lack of intelligent TV programming.  She is quoted as saying, “Women who find themselves working about the home all day deserve something better than the ‘bottom-of-the-barrel’ type of video programs presently screened during the afternoons.”

Television show inspired while ironing
(Margaret Wahl, seated)

            Daytime dramas were called “soap operas” since cleaning products such as Ivory Snow® and Tide® sponsored them. Soap operas started on radio in the 1930’s, but didn’t migrate to the small screen until 1953, when NBC’s long-running The Guiding Light first aired. Long before the use of consumer insights and demographics, my mother saw an opportunity to reach women viewers, many of them college educated like herself.

            How did she get the show on the air? In 1950 my father, Bob Wahl, was a dashing “Mad Men” style advertising executive, working as Director of Television at the large Philadelphia ad agency Gray & Rogers. One of their big clients was the Proctor Electric Company, makers of irons and toasters. Proctor wanted to expand their advertising into the emerging medium of television, and WCAU-TV was looking for a show to offer this sponsor. Hungry for programming for the growing female daytime audience, then WCAU station President Donald W. Thornburg was no doubt intrigued when he heard Mrs. Wahl’s talk show idea.

            With her husband beside her, my mother was able to convince Thornburg and Proctor Electric on her concept: bring relevant topics into the living rooms of modern homemakers. The contract for the show was inked on February 20, 1950. WCAU would pilot The Television Women’s Club, with Proctor Iron as sponsor. It would air in the 3:00-3:30 afternoon time slot on Wednesdays. Margaret Wahl was named Creator and Executive Producer. Representing the Proctor account, my father would be Director.

 Savvy Marketing Strategy

            The show title and format were no accident. The strategy was to build viewership from the 300,000 members of the Pennsylvania Federated Women’s Clubs.  The General Federation of Women's Clubs (GFWC), was a well-respected international women’s organization based in Washington, D.C. Founded in 1890, the GFWC provided women avenues to serve their communities, similar to the Rotary or Kiwanis clubs for men. The members of GFWC are credited for starting 75% of the public libraries in the U.S. Eleanor Roosevelt was one of its most famous members.

            Another clipping outlines the rationale for affiliation with Federated Women’s Clubs, “Aware of the natural pride women have in their sex, Mrs. Wahl realized that the best type of program would be one involving women, their problems and their accomplishments, and that the groups that cover this exclusively are the Women’s Clubs.”

Author Pearl Buck (right) and show
hostess Mrs. Robert W. Cornelison

            In return for GFWC support, local chapter members appeared on the show. Each week, a club President or other officer served as the on-air hostess. Chapter members made up the live studio audience. The hostess was allotted the first few minutes to showcase a service program of their chapter. Then she introduced the week’s featured guest, who delivered a prepared speech and answered questions at the end. This somewhat stilted talk show format later evolved to include celebrity hosts such as Ellen, Oprah and the women on The View.

The Television Women’s Club sought out women of accomplishment, often in traditionally male professions (see episode listing). The most famous guest was Pearl S. Buck, Pulitzer and Nobel Prize winning author. The first guest was Mrs. Lakshmi Nandon Manon, a UN diplomat promoting women’s rights. Other speakers included Dr. Catharine McFarland, an international cancer specialist, the editor of Parents Magazine, a Vice President of New York City’s East Side National Bank, a prominent horticulturalist, and Marjorie Dangerfield, one of the country’s leading sculptors.

While most guests were women, a few men also appeared. One coup was getting Alaska Territory Governor Ernest Greuning on the show. He and my parents were friends from their Alaska days, and he came to Philadelphia to promote the ongoing case for statehood. His bill finally won approval from Congress seven years later, and he became a U.S. Senator from the new state. As senator, Greuning is credited with initiating the national 911 emergency response system.

Alaska Gov. Greuning (right) and my parents,
all wearing lapel pins of the Alaska flower,
forget-me-nots.

            As Executive Producer, my mother scheduled the better known names in the second half of the pilot season. This allowed time for viewers to discover the show and favorable reviews to appear in the press. Pearl Buck’s spoke about a cause close to hear heart, “Education for Retarded Children” (as it was called in that era). Her daughter had been born with severe disabilities, and Mrs. Buck touted the methods at the progressive Vineland Training Center in New Jersey where her daughter lived.

            According to the scrapbook clippings, the station polled viewers to gauge the show’s impact. Results were favorable – the audience liked the show and the sponsors were happy. Working with an associate producer, my mother wrapped up the pilot with popular stage and screen stars. There was performance artist Cornelia Stabler, actress and fashionista Faye Emerson and finally the comedienne Ilka Chase, timed to coincide with her cover photo on TV Digest.      

Short-Lived Success

            The last episode aired on June 7, 1950. The final photo in the scrapbook shows my parents dressed up and beaming at an awards ceremony in July 1950. The Television Women’s Club earned a TeeVee award for excellence in daytime programming. TeeVee was the precursor of today’s Emmy awards.

            Despite its success, there is no record of the show continuing beyond its pilot season. There might have been a change of heart at WCAU-TV, but I assume it was due to changes in the lives of the Producer-Director team. Sometime after the pilot ended, my father landed a job at Doyle, Dane Bernbach, the top ad agency in New York. By February 1951, the family had moved to Greenwich, Connecticut and welcomed a fifth child. I came along two years later. Our mother’s career as a television producer was sidelined. Presumably her show couldn’t go on without her.

Ilka Chase (left) admires my parents' TeeVee award

A Pioneer at Heart

             My mother’s path to television was paved from a mix of Western cowgirl bravado and East Coast opportunity. She was born in 1914 on a 1000-acre wheat farm in Alberta, Canada. After graduating from the University of Washington with a degree in psychology, she moved to New York City to make her mark on the world. She later met my father in Seattle, where she was Northwest Regional Director of the American Youth Hostel organization (AYH). She had worked for the AYH in New York. She taught school to indigenous Tlingit children in Alaska. In 1949, she worked freelance as the director of the Miss Greater Philadelphia Contest. She continued as chaperone for the winner, Miriam Lapuyavoker, at the 1949 Miss America Contest in Atlantic City, NJ.

            Besides raising our family of six children, my mother always considered herself a career woman. Childcare was not available or acceptable in her generation, yet my mother found ways to juggle parenting and work. In the season of her TV show, our sister Karen (now Ariel) was just turning two.  My older siblings remember staying with our grandmother, Margaret “Mia” Dunham, and Aunt Marian Elkinton, who both lived nearby.

            A year after I was born, three years after The Television Women’s Club, we settled for good in Stamford, Connecticut. My mother’s public life continued as a civic leader and later a non-profit executive. She was President of our PTA and followed local politics closely. She supported a young Connecticut state senator named Joe Lieberman, who had gone to Stamford High School with my older brother Rolly. In the 1960’s, she went back to work full-time. She helped young mothers, teens and domestic workers as Program Director of the Stamford YWCA.

            She was an ardent supporter of the Civil Rights movement and drilled into us the privilege of voting. She often joked that her Democratic vote was cancelled out by our dad’s predictably Republican vote. At the time of her death from breast cancer at age 68, she was an advocate for the elderly as Director of the Stamford Office on Aging.

            June 2, 2014 marks the 100th anniversary of my mother’s birth, so it’s a fitting year to honor her accomplishments. Born on a farm before women had the right to vote, she ignored the limits imposed on women of her time. She worked tirelessly all her life to be a catalyst for change, to inspire a better future for women. I know I carry much of her buoyant energy and spirit within me.

            Another moral of this story: don’t throw out those old scrapbooks. You never know what treasures they might contain.

*  *  *  *

Speaker List - Television Women’s Club

March 15, 1950 - June 7, 1950

1)  March 15, 1950 - Mrs. Lakshmi Nandan Menon from India, United Nations Chief of Section, Status of Women. Topic: “The Declaration of Human Rights and its relation to peace”

2) March 22, 1950 - Dr. Catherine McFarland (Philadelphia) international achievements in cancer medicine

3) March 29, 1950 - Mrs. Clara Savage Littledale, Editor of Parents Magazine

4) April 5, 1950 - Miss Dorcas Campbell, VP, East Side National Bank, NYC Topic: “Women and Their Money”

5)  April 12, 1950 - Raymond P. Korbobo, Professor of Horticulture at Rutgers University. Topic: “Home landscaping”

6)  Marjorie McDonald - one of the country’s leading sculptors - Topic: “Sculpture in Action,” created a head of her artist husband, Louis Lundean, before the television audience

7)  April 26, 1950 - Pearl S. Buck - author, winner Pulitzer Prize and Nobel Prize for Literature. Topic: “America’s Forgotten Children, the Mentally Retarded”

8)  May 3, 1950 - Dr. Philip Cummings, news analyst, world traveler, and specialist on contemporary youth. Topic: “Education Around the World”

9)  May 10, 1950 - Ernest Greuning, Governor of the Territory of Alaska - “Why Alaska Needs Statehood”

10)   May 17, 1950 - Cornelia Stabler, popular monologist and performance artist. Two character sketches on the show: “Family Supper” and “Remembrance of Things Past”

11)   May 24, 1950 - Faye Emerson, actress and named one of America’s 10 best dressed women. Topic: “Choosing a Wardrobe”

12)   May 31, 1950 - Margaret Widdemer - Pulitzer Prize winning poet. Topic “Folk Music and Poetry”

13)   June 7, 1950 - Ilka Chase, author, fashion show emcee and comedienne. Topic: “Back Stage in Broadcasting”

Sunrise, Sunset

Wow! It's been almost 180 sunrises and sunsets since my last post. Shame on me, but on this rare cloudy day, I have a chance to reflect on my wonderful, restorative time here in Florida. I'll skip February -- I've blotted out the memory of the coldest, iciest, longest Vermont winter in recent memory. Instead, here are some photo highlights of my first weeks in St. Augustine.

The beach beckons

Cousin Steve Elkinton and Aunt Pat Hunt
soak in the sunset at Frank B. Butler State Park - West

Visitors Center at Timucuan Preserve on St. George Island

Sunset from Cap's on the Water restaurant,
on scenic Vilano Beach

Sunrise over a sand castle

Rainy day project with Steve
500 piece puzzle of Flagler College

Cloud sculptures graced us during my sister Christine's
weekend visit

Joining the locals for dinner at our new favorite
spot: Creekside Dinery

The Highs Have It!

Our daughter Jamie started a nice dinner-table go around a few years ago: Everyone shares a high and low of their day. It gives you a quick chance to reflect and share, whether you're part of the family or a visitor.

Now that we're halfway through the first month of 2014, I'd like to offer a photographic look at the "highs and lows" of my month so far.

HIGH: Started 2014 off right with the Burlington First Run 5K. Braved the cold temps
with my sister-in-law and running partner, Louise Thabault.

HIGH: George has spent hours on the Lakeside Skating Rink, and
sometimes he even gets to skate!

LOW: This was literally the low of the month, although I think it did go down to -12F.
Almost a week of below zero weather with wind chills that VT hasn't seen in 20 years.

HIGH: Breathtaking views of cumulus clouds on Lake Champlain
 -- forms when the water is warmer than the air.

LOW: Buckets of rain caused this little lake, which we
actually shoveled off, so the rink could re-freeze once the temp dropped.

LOW: Frost etched on the kitchen window like a street map of London.

HIGH: Instant gluten free bread crumbs to top GF mac & cheese.
Just crush Glutino pretzels (shake off excess salt first).

HIGH: Winter wheels in trendy Northampton Mass

HIGH: Balmy temps in Springfield MA the weekend of Jan. 11
when we visited my sister, Robin Withers, and her family.

HIGH: Parsnips! Deliciously sweet, and so easy to cook.  Just cover with water
in a shallow frying pan. Boil until the water is gone. Poof - they're done.

HIGH: Our neighbor took advantage of yesterday's
sunshine to hang out her sheets.

Just a disclaimer that I did not take photos of the following LOWS: waiting at Sears one Sunday morning to replace my dead Mazda battery, the times George and I fell on sidewalk ice, the hours spent scraping ice off multiple cars, or the afternoon spent helping Jamie install plastic over her drafty 7' tall windows. Oh yes, and the two credit cards we lost in less than two weeks. So technically the the Highs and Lows might be tied for now... let's see what the rest of the month brings!

The Zen of Basketball

You know how in the course of an ordinary day, you hear something that speaks volumes and instantly becomes your life motto? That's what happened to me in March 2010. And it came out of the mouth of an unsuspecting zen master - Evan Turner, a college basketball star from Ohio State. On Friday, March 12, which happened to be my husband George's 60th birthday, Evan made a spectacular 3-point basket to win their opening game in the NCAA March Madness college tournament. (I'm explaining this for my readers who aren't sports fans - you know who you are). You can watch his shot here. Evan Turner's 2010 miracle 3-pt shot

Turner's game-winner coincided with a tumultuous weekend in our lives. George had a raucous dance party on Saturday night at Club Metronome. Drew came home from Boston for the event. Our Colchester house was on the market and there was yet another showing scheduled for Sunday. We went out to brunch to vacate the place, and the TV in the restaurant/bar repeatedly replayed Turner's famous shot.  Lo and behold, on Monday we had a signed contract and a closing date of April 14. Another miracle, except that now we had less than a month to move!

After weeks of searching for a house or condo, and arguing about whether or not to rent or buy, I was at my wit's end. I was working mega hours in those days, and I just needed to know we had a place to live.  George was more blase, saying we could move in with relatives or friends. Yeah, right! By the time another Sunday came around, I gave up on the classifieds and emailing realtors and started praying for a solution.  I turned on the TV to ESPN -  the great escape of sports. Guess who was being interviewed? Evan Turner. When asked how he had made that impossible 37' shot, what he said changed my life: "Sometimes you have to be aggressive and go after the game, and sometimes you just have to let the game come to you. And that's what I did."

I sat there stunned by the simplicity and wisdom of this young man's statement. I've since learned that Michael Jordan said the same thing years earlier, when I wasn't paying attention. Now I said to George, "I'm done trying to force us into a place. We'll just let the house come to us." And I truly relaxed for the first time in weeks.

Monday night I popped onto Craigslist on a whim, and there was our house! Perfect location near Lake Champlain, bike path and parks, an old WWI neighborhood of duplexes. George knew the landlord and the next door neighbor from his days on the Burlington City Council. We looked at the house on Tuesday and signed a lease Wednesday. We did end up staying with relatives to bridge two weeks after the closing, but we moved into the Lakeside neighborhood in Burlington on May 1, 2010 and we're still happily ensconced here.

Fast forward to December 16, 2013 - another weekend of family changes, again with a little help from Evan Turner. We were helping Drew move from Boston to Durham NC to start a post-bac program at the Duke School of Nursing. After loading the 12' Penske rental truck in a snowstorm on Sunday, she and I got stuck in traffic for several hours Monday evening near New York City. We were driving tandem, me in the  truck and Drew in her trusty 2000 Corolla. To pass the time I turned on a NYC sports radio station, and heard Evan Turner's name. His pro team, the Philadelphia 76ers, was playing the New Jersey Nets. Unfortunately they were getting trounced. Turner was their star player, but he couldn't do anything right that night. I wanted to reach through the radio and tell him to "relax and let the game come to you." But I relaxed instead, and let Drew navigate us away from the I-95 gridlock. I listened to the rest of the game as we headed southwest through Pennsylvania. The 76ers lost by 40 points. Ouch.

The happy endings came on Friday, Dec. 20. With Drew settling in her new apartment, I flew home to Burlington ahead of the ice storm, arriving around 8pm.  Then, after 20 minutes in line while George paced and worried, we were told that my bag was not lost, just misplaced. There it was sitting behind another airline's counter. And Evan Turner turned his game around, against the Nets again, only four days after their drubbing. He scored 29 points and won the game in overtime with another dramatic shot. Turner sinks one at the buzzer to lift the 76ers in overtime That's my zen master!

The Kindness of Strangers

I love road trips, and traveling solo. People often ask me, "Aren't you afraid of staying alone, especially at night?" No, I say. I take precautions around safety and cherish my solitude. I've stayed in remote cabins, Canadian hostels, dunes campsites, dingy hotels and luxury resorts. And most people I run into are kind and helpful. This hit home again last week on Cape Cod. I arrived at our Dennis Port rental house a few days ahead of my family. It was our third time staying at Georgia's Hideaway, a block from Nantucket Sound, owned by our friends Peter Brooks & Nancy Okowitz.

After about an hour of unpacking, reacquainting myself with the house, turning on lights, I went outside to bring in the last load from the car. And promptly locked myself out of the house. I left multiple messages for the owners, then went searching for the spare key. No luck. An hour passed, and I was stuck outside the brightly lit house, with my purse inside and the house key on the kitchen counter. My cell phone was almost dead, but luckily I had my car keys on a lanyard around my neck. Once darkness settled in, I drove down to the beach and let the car charge my phone while I listened to the surf. I later learned that the owners were out of town and busy all evening, so I didn't hear back from them for several hours.

Back to the house, more hunting for the spare key, and double checking the windows to see if I could find an open one. But no, the previous renters had followed the instructions and latched all the windows. Finally, just looking for commiseration, I called George and let him know my plight. My pillow and bedding were still in the car, so I figured I would just bed down in the back of my car and snooze til I heard from the owners. George didn't like that idea, and encouraged me to get a room for the night. He had his credit card ready so I could pay. I didn't think that was necessary, but told him I'd go see if anyplace was open nearby. It gave me something to do, so I drove a block down to the oceanfront properties.

Most were closed for the season, one was closed for a staff party, but I did see lights on in a B&B down the road, "By The Sea Bed & Breakfast." Knocked on their office door around 8:45 p.m., and the owner came dressed in her housecoat. I explained my plight, she invted me in, offered me a room, but said I should call the police and ask them for help. Again, that seemed like too much trouble. Before I could protest, her companion Marie was dialing the police ("We know them all," she said). The dispatcher wasn't sure they could help, but she agreed to send an officer over to the house to check it out. Helen and Marie sent me off with their business card and made me promise to call them with an update.

Buoyed by their kindness, I went back to the house, charging my phone as I sat in the driveway, then welcomed the officer. Seeing my Vermont plates, he asked what town I was from. Hearing Burlington, he said he's an alum of Castleton State in Southern Vermont. Small world. He checked all the windows with his giant flashlight. I remembered one that had looked less latched, but it wouldn't budge when I had tried it. He said, "Let's take a look." So we scoped out the window, and he had an idea how to open it. Not to give away police secrets on how to break into a home, let me just say that in less than 5 minutes, I was inside!

After profuse thanks to the young man, I called the owners to leave them a new message: "I'm in!" Of course, Nancy O. called me not ten minutes after I was back in the house, so now I knew where the spare key was hidden. Then I phoned By The Sea, and told them my happy ending. To celebrate, they invited me out to breakfast the next day. Turns out they had no guests to serve, and Helen's brother, Dino Kossifos, owns a popular breakfast spot in Harwich Port. Over delicious home fries and eggs, I heard stories of how the Kossifos family from Yonkers NY came to own By The Sea more than fifty years ago.

So what started out as a woman traveling by herself, locked out at night, turned into meeting locals and gaining some new friends. No, I'm not afraid to travel alone.  I continue to be amazed and blessed by the kindness of strangers. And I'm tickled to share a few scenic Cape Cod shots taken in the leisurely days following my action-packed first night.

George and I took a dip at this beach on balmy October 18th

No beach crowds in the off season

Stately copper beeches line the walkways of a local park in Dennis Port

Discovered the secluded Mill Pond Park in West Yarmouth

Happy golfers after 9 holes at Cranberry Valley Golf Club