The genius of Robert Cray

Robert Cray in concert in 2007

PROVINCETOWN, Mass.

"To say that Robert Cray is a transformational figure for my generation, Gen-X, would not be hyperbole.’’

— "Braintree Jim," the DJ who spins for WOMR , on Cape Cod.

Cray is a singer, songwriter guitarist, known for his unique hybrid of blues and soul. He is a five-time Grammy award winner who has released 19 studio albums, along with an assortment of live recordings and compilations. The Robert Cray Band may not be a household name today, but it has achieved international recognition in the nearly 50 years it, and various iterations, have performed during that time. Cray, who turned 70 earlier this month, regularly visits New England on a relentless, annual touring schedule. He will be spending time here on the Outer Cape during August and into September.

The DJ, who hosts the radio show called Target Ship Radio, further explains his rationale. "I was attending Providence College during the mid-’80’s when Cray's breakthrough album 'Strong Persuader' was released, in late 1986. When I first heard the single 'Smoking Gun' on the radio I simply had to get the album. I was totally taken by it and played it repeatedly. I still have the cassette today."

He recalls that pivotal time for young music fans. "Back then, the ascendant genre was hip hop. Many of my friends were attracted to that whole scene. And by the late 80s, even MTV was showcasing that music. But when I heard Robert Cray, principally a blues guy back then, I went back, not forward. Not only did I buy his back catalog work, which was fantastic, he really helped me discover the blues as a whole other art form.

"Cray, along with Stevie Ray Vaughan, Eric Clapton -- and even Albert Collins and Billy Gibbons -- were part of this exciting blues revival in the 80s and into the early 90s. For me, Cray played an instrumental part in this movement. Cray was affable, the music was accessible. In fact, his whole persona was quite approachable. He was making MTV-style videos that both young men and women found entertaining. And remember, his first national TV debut was on Late Night With David Letterman. By the ‘90s, he was morphing into a soul and R&B performer. He could deliver searing blues numbers for sure, but his music was adapting. That's why I think he's retained this rather remarkable staying power."

Braintree Jim is planning a Robert Cray retrospective on his next show on the Provincetown radio station. "I really think," he reasons, "that Robert Cray should be a bigger name. He's got an unbelievable canon of work that I wish more people heard. So, I want to dedicate three hours of my next show and pay tribute to his music. And he has collaborated with so many people, like Tina Turner, BB King, and Chuck Berry, just to name a few. And he still rips it up on tour. His voice is still the same after all these years and his guitar chops are also still intact."

The radio host further adds that, "I may have eventually discovered the blues without Robert Cray. But It's safe to say that his music really inspired me to appreciate the art form and dig into its rich history. Many of my generation discovered the blues because of Robert Cray. That alone makes him worthy of a three-hour radio show. But the music is so good that it will be tough to boil it down into that time frame. But I'll have fun doing it! That's the great thing about WOMR. I have this incredible level of autonomy in what I can play. That's virtually unheard of in radio today. I will be representing the station at the upcoming concert, too. It doesn't get much better than this."

The Robert Cray Band will be performing at the Payomet Performing Arts Center, in North Truro, Mass., on Tuesday, Aug. 29, beginning at 7 p.m. Tickets are still available.

Payomet is celebrating its 25th year in 2023 as one of the Cape's leading producers of live music, circus, theatre, and humanities.

The next Target Ship Radio show will be on Sunday, Aug. 20 at 1-4 p.m. The live broadcast can be heard on 92.1 FM Provincetown, and 91.3 FM Orleans, streaming on womr.org and beaming on the free WOMR app.

Is it worth it?

—Map by Kelisi

Adapted from Robert Whitcomb’s “Digital Diary,’’ in GoLocal24.com

“Yet each man kills the thing he loves….”

-- Oscar Wilde (1854-1900), Anglo-Irish playwright and poet

Poor old Cape Cod, once rural and now exurban and suburban.

There’s not enough money at the moment to replace the old (from the 1930s) and too narrow Sagamore and Bourne bridges. And pollution from septic systems, fertilizers and pesticides (lawns and golf courses are major sources) kills life in many freshwater ponds. There are 42 golf courses on the skinny glorified sand bar we call Cape Cod!

What to do? Year-round passenger-train service to reduce car traffic to and fro and on the peninsula? (This would be via the charming railroad bridge over the Cape Cod Canal.)  A Barnstable County-wide bond issue to pay to extend sewerage? Close some golf courses 

Expand and contract

“Edge of Snow” (acrylic and photo on paper), by Cape Cod-based Jane Lincoln, at Kingston Gallery, Boston.

Visit in a storm

At the Cape Cod National Seashore.

“What are springs and waterfalls? Here is the spring of springs, the waterfall of waterfalls. A storm in the fall or winter is the time to visit it; a light-house or a fisherman's hut the true hotel. A man may stand there and put all America behind him.’’

— Henry David Thoreau (1817-1862), in Cape Cod

Provincetown in Thoreau’s lifetime.

In trouble

“I'll tell you the story. I was walking
the outer edge of the outer lands

where sporadic signs staked in dunes

warned to keep distant from the mammals;

in fact, there were critical acts in place

to enforce non-molestation,

but between me and the sea

 a seal appeared to be having a time of it….’’

— From ‘“Outer Lands” {on Outer Cape Cod}, by Bill Carty

Why we need schedules

Annie Dillard.

— Photo by Phyllis Rose

At Wesleyan University, in Middletown, Conn. The view from Foss Hill: From left to right: Judd Hall, Harriman Hall (which houses the Public Affairs Center), and Olin Memorial Library

“How we spend our days is, of course, how we spend our lives. What we do with this hour, and that one, is what we are doing. A schedule defends from chaos and whim. It is a net for catching days. It is a scaffolding on which a worker can stand and labor with both hands at sections of time. A schedule is a mock-up of reason and order—willed, faked, and so brought into being; it is a peace and a haven set into the wreck of time; it is a lifeboat on which you find yourself, decades later, still living.”

―Annie Dillard (born 1945), in The Writing Life. The American author of fiction and nonfiction books taught for 21 years at Wesleyan and has long had a summer house on Outer Cape Cod, a place that she has frequently written about.

Summertime, and the living is easy?

— Photo by Robert Jack

Adapted from Robert Whitcomb’s “Digital Diary,’’ in GoLocal24.com

I suspect that many year-round residents of, say, Newport and Cape Cod are already impatiently counting the days until the  summer residents and vacationers leave, despite all the money they bring in (along with resort area gridlock).

Despite some brief thunderstorm-spawned downpours, much of New England is in a  moderate drought. But there can be a good side to this:  Fruits such as apples, grapes (ask wine makers) and peaches are a little smaller than usual but tastier in dry (but not too dry) summers.

Meanwhile, New Englanders should be thankful that its big sources of publicly owned fresh  water, such as the Quabbin and Scituate reservoirs, are in no danger of drying up, unlike the water disaster Out West, which may well  eventually lead to massive migration to wetter and cooler places.

And now the lilies are wilting along the roads. While global warming is extending our summers, if you’re over a certain age they still seem to go by a bit faster every year.

With New England’s hurricane season coming (mostly August and September), people in such low-lying places as Barrington and Warren, R.I. and the head of Buzzards Bay might want to consult a book I’ve mentioned here before that tells of how some of us  will have to learn  how to live not only along the water but over the water as seas continue to rise with global warming. The book, again, is More Water Less Land New Architecture: Sea Level Rise and the Future of Coastal Urbanism, by architect Weston Wright.

The beautiful Quabbin Reservoir, in central Massachusetts. Copious fresh water is more valuable than copious petroleum.

— Photo by Solarapex

Before the deluge

“The time must come when this coast (Cape Cod) will be a place of resort for those New-Englanders who really wish to visit the sea-side. At present it is wholly unknown to the fashionable world, and probably it will never be agreeable to them. If it is merely a ten-pin alley, or a circular railway, or an ocean of mint-julep, that the visitor is in search of, — if he thinks more of the wine than the brine, as I suspect some do at Newport — I trust that for a long time he will be disappointed here. But this shore will never be more attractive than it is now.”

— Henry David Thoreau (1817-1862), in Cape Cod (published in 1865)

The dunes on Sandy Neck, in the town of Barnstable.

— Photo by Mr Senseless

Irritating and beautiful

New growth and pollen cones of a pitch pine, a common tree on Cape Cod. It’s very flammable.

— Photo by Famartin

“Now I know summer is here, no matter how cold it is at night, for when I went out to the car this morning, the windshield was dusted with orange and the whole shiny dark blue of the body was powdered. The pine pollen has come! This is a thick, almost oily deposit that penetrates everything. If you close a room and lock the windows, the sills will be drifted with the pollen the next morning. The floors turn orange.’’

— Gladys Taber, in My Own Cape Cod (1971)

Todd McLeish: Seeking strategies for sustaining bay scallops

Bay scallop staring at you with its blue eyes

From ecoRI News (ecori.org)

In the Great Salt Pond on Block Island, native bay scallops are thriving like nowhere else in Rhode Island. Scientists from The Nature Conservancy survey the 673-acre tidal harbor every autumn and have recorded hundreds of scallops each year, despite as many as 50 recreational shellfishermen harvesting scallops from the pond each November and December.

The same cannot be said of the rest of the Ocean State’s waters, however, where bay scallops are few and far between.

On Block Island, Diandra Verbeyst leads a three-person team of Nature Conservancy scuba divers and snorkelers who monitor 12 sites around the Great Salt Pond. They have counted an average of 225 scallops annually since 2016, up from just 44 observed by previous observers in 2007, the first year of monitoring.

“There are slight rises and falls from year to year, but the population is pretty stable,” Verbeyst said. “Based on the 12 sites we monitor, the population is indicating that there is spawning happening each year, and there is recruitment to the population.”

In addition to scallop data, Verbeyst and her team also collect information on water quality and other environmental conditions during their surveys.

“The scallops are an indication that the ecosystem is healthy and doing well, and for me, that’s fascinating in itself,” she said. “No matter where you are in the pond, there’s a good chance you’ll see a scallop.”

Bay scallops are bivalve mollusks with 30-40 bright blue eyes that live in shallow bays and estuaries up and down the East Coast, preferring habitats where eelgrass is abundant. They are short-lived animals — most don’t live more than two years — and are significantly smaller than sea scallops, which are found farther offshore and are harvested by the millions by New Bedford-based fishermen.

Chris Littlefield, a Nature Conservancy coastal projects director and former part-time shellfisherman on Block Island, recalled collecting scallops as a child in the Great Salt Pond 50 years ago, and he has been gathering them in small numbers for his family’s consumption ever since. He said the scallop population received a boost in 2010, when immature scallops grown at the Milford {Conn.} Laboratory of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration were dispersed into the pond in a project funded by the Natural Resources Conservation Service.

“That project broke through some kind of threshold,” Littlefield said. “Scallops weren’t as abundant before that, and they used to be confined to certain key locations and that was it. But now they’re more abundant and more people are finding them and harvesting them.”

Unlike Nantucket, Martha’s Vineyard and a few locations on Cape Cod and Long Island, where regular seeding of immature bay scallops has resulted in thriving commercial fisheries, Rhode Island has a tiny commercial fishery for bay scallops — fewer than three fishermen participate — and the fishery is not sustainable.

Anna Gerber-Williams, principal marine biologist for the Rhode Island Department of Environmental Management’s Division of Marine Fisheries, just completed the first year of a three-year effort to assess the state’s bay scallop population. She is focused primarily on the salt ponds in South County, especially Point Judith Pond and Ninigret Pond, which historically had healthy bay scallop populations.

“We manage and regulate the bay scallop harvest, but besides Block Island, we haven’t had an actual assessment of what the population looks like in Rhode Island,” Gerber-Williams said. “We know it’s pretty low, and we know the actual commercial harvest numbers are very low. But we don’t have anything to base our management on. The hope is that this project can turn into more long-term monitoring, similar to what’s done on Block Island, and maybe lead to restoration efforts.”

Based on her first year of surveys, Gerber-Williams said there are self-sustaining populations of bay scallops in Point Judith Pond, and their abundance can fluctuate significantly from year to year.

“Scallops are very habitat-dependent,” she said. “The habitat in the salt ponds is very patchy, and those patches are very small.”

Unlike clams, which bury themselves in the sand, bay scallops sit on the seafloor and can swim around by rapidly opening and closing their shell, making them difficult to track and count. Gerber-Williams said they are threatened by several varieties of crabs, which can easily crush the scallops’ shells with their claws.

“Part of the scallop’s strategy is to hide from the crabs in the eelgrass,” she said. “When they’re younger, they attach themselves to eelgrass blades to keep themselves above the bottom and out of reach of predators.”

Dan Torre at Aquidneck Island Oyster Co. experimented this year with growing bay scallops in cages in the Sakonnet River off Portsmouth. He bought scallop seed from area hatcheries last July, and they are approaching marketable size now. He has contracted with one local restaurant to buy his experimental crop, with hopes of scaling up the operation next year.

“I believe there’s a market, but it’s a niche market,” he said. “Normally with sea scallops, you sell just the shelled adductor muscle, but with bay scallops you sell the whole animal. The shelf life isn’t the longest, but it seems like there are a bunch of restaurants that are eager to try them.”

In an effort to figure out how best to restore wild bay scallop populations in the region, the Rhode Island Commercial Fisheries Research Foundation is collaborating with The Nature Conservancy to synthesize what is known about the history of the bay scallop population and fishery in Point Judith Pond.

According to Dave Bethoney, the foundation’s executive director, it will be combined with information about scallop fisheries in Massachusetts and Long Island, N.Y., as a first step to developing a restoration plan.

“How to make them sustainable is the real puzzle,” Bethoney said. “Even successful efforts on Long Island are based on a seeding plan — getting scallops every year from aquaculture facilities to replenish them. They have successful populations, but they’re not self-sustaining. I don’t know how we change that.”

Gerber-Williams agreed.

“In my opinion, the way to boost populations here and keep them at a level that’s sustainable for a good fishery in Rhode Island, we would have to have a seeding program similar to what they have in Long Island and Martha’s Vineyard,” she said. “Every year they put out thousands of baby bay scallops. They seed their salt ponds every single year to keep a decent fishery going.

“So the next step for us would be to do that kind of seeding program in Rhode Island. We’re in the process of creating a restoration plan for various species of shellfish in Rhode Island, and my hope is that bay scallops are a part of that.”

Hopefully the current researchers go back to the North Cape shellfish injury restoration project, which included release of bay scallop seed into the South County salt ponds, to learn about what worked or did not work for the multi-year that wrapped up by 2010. The reports are available and some of us who worked on the project are available to discuss challenges and successes.

Todd McLeish is an ecoRI News contributor.

Eelgrass is prime habitat for bay scallops.

Old salts

West Yarmouth salt works in the 19th Century.

Adapted from Robert Whitcomb’s “Digital Diary,’’ in GoLocal24.com

Some of my ancestors were in the salt business on Cape Cod in the 19th Century; they made it from evaporating ocean water. It seems so long ago that large amounts of such a basic commodity, like ice cut from ponds in Maine, would be produced in low-tech ways in New England, for the local and faraway markets. (Blocks of ice from New England would be packed in sawdust and shipped by boat to the Southeast.)

The smarter relatives moved money that they made from this commerce into more lucrative manufacturing of shoes, tools and so on. A few even straggled into mid-20th Century high tech. Of course,  all sectors fade in the end.

Raking up the sun

“Dune Shadows: Hyannis, Cape Cod’ (archival pigment print), by Bobby Baker

© Bobby Baker Fine Art

Before the summer folks

Provincetown, at the tip of Cape Cod, in the years when Thoreau walked the peninsula— 1849, 1850 and 1855.

“The time must come when this coast (Cape Cod) will be a place of resort for those New-Englanders who really wish to visit the sea-side. At present it is wholly unknown to the fashionable world, and probably it will never be agreeable to them. If it is merely a ten-pin alley, or a circular railway, or an ocean of mint-julep, that the visitor is in search of, — if he thinks more of the wine than the brine, as I suspect some do at Newport, — I trust that for a long time he will be disappointed here. But this shore will never be more attractive than it is now.”

Henry David Thoreau (1817-1862) in Cape Cod, first published in 1865, soon before railroads started to make The Cape a major summer-resort area.

At New Silver Beach, in Falmouth, on the western side of The Cape — probably not quite what Thoreau could have foreseen.

‘She gives of her strength’

“Hold your hands out over the earth as over a flame. To all who love her, who open to her the doors of their veins, she gives of her strength, sustaining them with her own measureless tremor of dark life.’’

— Henry Beston (1888-1968), American writer and naturalist, in The Outermost House, the classic story of the time he spent living alone in a shack on Cape Cod’s Nauset Beach.

When summer was long

One of the “Dune Shacks’’ of Peaked Hill Bars Historic District in Provincetown and Truro, on outer Cape Cod. The shacks include those that have been home to American painters and writers from the 1920s to the present day.

“Bring back the long summer after fourth grade

with stinging-cold waves the crashed on the Cape,

the tall, white dunes we scrambled across….’’

— From “Album,’’ by Gardner McFall (born 1952), an American poet

Smith’s 'meditations on land, water and air'

“Stream No. 31” (chromogenic print), by British-born (but now of Brooklyn) photographer Jonathan Smith, in his show at Lanoue Gallery, Boston, through May 23.

The gallery says:

Jonathan Smith spent the early years of his career assisting and printing for the renowned photographer Joel Meyerowitz {famous for his photos of Cape Cod}, and has had solo exhibitions in both nationally and internationally. His work consists of large-scale, highly nuanced color photographs of the stark natural beauty and inherent impermanence of landscapes.

“Smith has been photographing natural landscapes for more than 15 years. Shooting precisely and selectively with incredible detail, often revisiting the same site on several occasions until he feels the essential character of the landscape has been revealed to him. This conscious and gradual process of documentation results in meditations on land, water and air.’’

His investigations of landscape have led him to the remote locations of northern Iceland and southern Patagonia, where he photographed streams, glaciers, glacial rivers and waterfalls. These landscapes, devoid of human presence, display a world lost in time. Often abstracted, these photographs of mountain streams and glacial shifts are a reminder of the forces of nature at play; a sublime beauty far removed from the everyday. Drifting into frame, the dreamlike palette of these landscapes offers a window into an ephemeral world where scale and perspective become impalpable. These landscapes inspired the creation of large-scale prints that echo the vastness of the spaces they depict, inviting the viewer in to contemplate their own relationship to the natural world.

Above: Stream No. 31, chromogenic print, available sizes: 30x37.5" ed. of 8, 40x50" ed. of 5, 56x70" ed. of 3

The Cape: Still beauty amongst the McMansions

Sesuit Creek, in East Dennis

 From Robert Whitcomb’s “Digital Diary,’’ in GoLocal24.com

David Gessner’s 1997 book, A Wild, Rank Place, is a series of essays about, among other things, how Cape Cod has become exurbanized, such as with grotesque show-off McMansions replacing the low-to-ground, modest gray-shingled houses so identified with the Cape. And yet he can still savor  its remaining windy and haunting beauty. It’s a subject that particularly appealed to me because part of my family were/are old Cape Codders; I’ve seen  even more change than he has.

Mr. Gessner (born in 1961) lived off and on for years in a family summer house in East Dennis  (sold a few years ago). It was the heart of his family.

The  title is a phrase by Henry David Thoreau  based on several trips he took to the Cape in the early 1850s that resulted in the book of essays called Cape Cod.  But as Mr. Gessner’s book notes, Thoreau’s deforested Cape looked a lot different than it did in the 1600s, when the English arrived, and  of course much different than the current version, where woods have grown back even as the number of houses and convenience stores explodes and car traffic worsens virtually every year.=

There is vivid and idiosyncratic nature and environmental writing here,  mixed with an intense family memoir whose heart is  Mr. Gessner’s effort to come to terms with the transitory nature of life, and especially mortality, and entropy, with his father’s fatal illness at the center of all that. There are also some charming pen-and-ink drawings by Mr. Gessner, who is a cancer survivor.

Lonely in the universe

Tideline in North Truro

Photo by Hqfrancis

….this is just one sea

on one beach on one

planet in one

solar system in one

galaxy. After that

the scale increases, so

this not the last word,

and nothing else is talking back.

It’s a lonely situation.’’

— From The Sea Grinds Things Up,’’ by Alan Dugan (1923-2003), a Pulitzer Prize-winning poet. He lived in Truro, on Outer Cape Cod. The town, as with Provincetown, just to the north, has long drawn artists of various kinds, along with other exotic tribes, such as New York City psychoanalysts.

Roger Warburton: What lobsters tell us about climate change

From ecoRI News

If present trends continue, by the end of the century, the cost of global warming could be as high as $1 billion annually for Providence County, R.I., alone, according to data from a 2017 research paper. That’s about $1,600 per person per year. Every year.

But, before we talk about the future, let’s discuss the economic damage that has already occurred in Rhode Island because of warming temperatures.

Like rich Bostonians, Rhode Island’s lobsters have moved to Maine. In 2018, Maine landed 121 million pounds of lobsters, valued at more than $491 million, and up 11 million pounds from 2017. It wasn’t always so.

Andrew Pershing, an oceanographer with the Gulf of Maine Research Institute, has noted that lobsters have migrated north as climate change warms the ocean. In Rhode Island, for instance, days when the water temperature of Narragansett Bay is 80 degrees or higher are becoming more common. From 1960 to 2015, the bay’s mean surface water temperatures rose by about 3 degrees Fahrenheit, according to research data.

A 2018 research paper Pershing co-authored said ocean temperatures have risen to levels that are favorable for lobsters off northern New England and Canada but inhospitable for them in southern New England. The research found that warming waters, ecosystem changes, and differences in conservation efforts led to the simultaneous collapse of the lobster fishery in southern New England and record-breaking landings in the Gulf of Maine.

He told Science News last year that with rocky bottoms, kelp and other things that lobsters love, climate change has turned the Gulf of Maine into a “paradise for lobsters.”

However, in the formerly strong lobster fishing grounds of Rhode Island, the situation is grim. South of Cape Cod, the lobster catch fell from a peak of about 22 million pounds in 1997 to about 3.3 million pounds in 2013, according to the 2018 paper published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Lobsters provide interesting lessons on the impact of the climate crisis.

A conservation program called V-notching helped protect Maine’s lobster population. “Starting a similar conservation program earlier in southern New England would have helped insulate them from the hot water they’ve experienced over the last couple of decades,” Malin Pinsky, a marine scientist with Rutgers University, told Boston.com two years ago.

Rhode Island’s lack of conservation efforts in the face of the growing climate crisis contributed to the collapse of its lobster fishery. Doing nothing or too little in the face of a changing climate can be economically devastating.

Another existing, and growing, threat to the economic health of Rhode Island comes from Lyme disease, which has increased by more than 300 percent across the Northeast since 2001. A changing climate is a big reason why. There is a growing body of evidence showing that climate change may affect the incidence and prevalence of certain vector-borne diseases such as Lyme disease, malaria, dengue, and West Nile fever, according to a 2018 study.

Chronic Lyme disease is more widespread and more serious than generally realized. There are some 20,000 cases annually in the Northeast and each averages about $4,400 in medical costs. Most Lyme disease patients who are diagnosed and treated early can fully recover. But, an estimated 10 percent to 20 percent suffer from chronically persistent and disabling symptoms. The number of such chronic cases may approach 30,000 to 60,000 annually, according to a 2018 white paper.

As the lobsters and the ticks vividly demonstrate, prevention is cheaper than cure. The longer we wait, the more painful, and expensive, the consequences will be.

The aforementioned 2017 study Estimating Economic Damage from Climate Change in the United States by world-renown economists and climate scientists projects the impact of climate change for every county in the United States. The results for Rhode Island and its neighbors are summarized in the map to the right, which depicts the estimated economic damage, in millions of dollars annually for each county in Rhode Island, Massachusetts, and Connecticut.

The data make clear that the economic damage will not be uniformly distributed. Some counties, such as Providence County, will be hit much harder than others. It also may seem that the southern counties will suffer much less. But that isn’t quite true, as graph below shows. The damage per person per year is projected to be substantial.

The total economic damage to Rhode Island, by 2080, could result in a 2 percent decline in gross domestic product (GDP). To put that in context, during the Great Recession of 2008-2010, there was only one year of GDP decline: minus 2.5 percent in 2009. By 2010, GDP had bounced back to positive growth, at 2.6 percent.

Therefore, the impact of a 2 percent hit to Rhode Island’s GDP from the climate crisis could look like the recession of 2009, only becoming permanent, continuing year after year. Also, it won’t all happen in 2080, the damage will continually get worse.

The economic damage is projected to come from more frequent and intense storms; sea-level rise; increased rainfall resulting in more flooding; higher temperatures, especially in the summer; drought that leads to lower crop yields; increased crime.

In addition, essential infrastructure will be impacted, including water supplies and water treatment facilities. Ecosystems, such as forests, rivers, lakes and wetlands, will also suffer, and that will impact human quality of life.

In the coming two weeks, we will describe how each Rhode Island county faces different levels of the above threats. As a result, each county needs to develop appropriate mitigation strategies.

The damages from the climate crisis will place major strains on public-sector budgets. However, much of the economic damage will be felt by individuals and families through poorer health, rising energy costs, increased health-care premiums, and decreased job security.

As always, prevention is cheaper, and more effective, than cure. Inaction on climate change will be the most expensive policy option.

The lobsters should teach us a valuable lesson: conservation measures based on sound scientific and economic principles could have helped mitigate losses caused by the climate crisis.

Roger Warburton, Ph.D., is a Newport ,R.I., resident. He can be reached at rdh.warburton@gmail.com.

James P. Freeman: A harbor of happiness and hard work

The Lobster Claw, now closed, with a sadly empty parking lot a few weeks ago

Inside The Lobster Claw in the summer of 2019

“The Lobster Claw... still crowded while everyone tries to visit them before they also close. We always hope they will stay open until the first of November, and it is a melancholy day when the signs go up -- CLOSED.”

-- Gladys Taber,  in “Autumn ” in  My Own Cape Cod (1970)

During the 2019 summer season, The Lobster Claw restaurant, in Orleans, on Cape Cod, seemed to be heading for a celebration of half a century of serving patrons under the ownership of Don and Marylou Berig.

But a few weeks ago, on Aug. 24, the owners posted a message on social media with this surprising news: The “Last Suppah” would be served on Sunday, Sept. 13. The CLOSED sign was going up for good. There would be no more Novembers.

The Lobster Claw was more than a restaurant. And it was more than a “landmark” -- the worthy appraisal given by The Cape Codder, a local weekly newspaper. Through sheer endurance, it was a link between the Olde Cape and the Cape in 2020. Between Patti Page of 1950s and Great Whites.

That is important because history is under assault today. History needs preservation, not cancellation. Even benign history, like a restaurant.

In a world changing so much, The Lobster Claw defined constancy, as so very little changed about it over 50 years. (The same menu design -- a lobster claw cutout -- had been used since the early 1970s; the same radio commercial ran over the Cape airwaves for nearly 35 years.

What in anyone’s life is consistently stable, familiar and friendly? That may account for part of this establishment’s success and its charm. People today cling to the precious few things that don’t change that much, seeking a kind of psychological safe harbor. The Lobster Claw was one of those ports of call. A refuge from the storm -- figuratively and literally. (On Aug. 19, 1991, it was the only restaurant to open in the entire area -- the entire Cape lost power -- as an unwelcome guest, Hurricane Bob, slammed the peninsula; the owners had obtained gas generators before the storm, perhaps anticipating what became their busiest day ever, serving over 1,000 meals.)

The Lobster Claw was steeped in history.

The building that houses the business is over 100 years old. It originally was two separate structures; they were fused together in the 1960s. Their uses were very Cape-centric. For many years, the building on the south side was a wood mill while the other was an old cranberry barn. Train tracks terminated on the northern side of the building allowing the harvest to be hauled off Cape (rain from a northeast gale would sometimes seep through an old sliding door -- used during cranberry-processing seasons --  until it was replaced about 20 years ago). Later modifications allowed for more operating space and gave it a distinctive and unifying presence. A maroon-and-white trim also gave it a warm feel. The dual-gabled roof  rather resembled a house. Families would  feel at home there. It was hospitable. That was a good starting point.

Sitting down with Don Berig over several days before the final close was an exercise in revelation. I have known him for nearly 35 years; I worked for the him for three summers during the halcyon days of the late 1980s); our respective families have known each other for close to 40 years (most of my family has been in its employ at different stages spanning over 30 years. Berig was tough, fair and quite generous, qualities that have endured for decades. He is more wistful now; nostalgia, gratitude and relief crept over his weathered tanned face and into his Boston-accented speech as I chatted with him. He was running on adrenaline, not exhaustion; the latter would come later. Still, at 81, he showed more energy than most twenty-somethings.

When asked  why he decided to enter a business fraught with failure, he simply answered: “I guess I always wanted to be an entrepreneur.”

The Lobster Claw in about 1963, on a very off-season day

The Lobster Claw has been in existence since at least 1963, when it was owned by Iver Johnson. He sold it to Russ Fletcher in 1965. During this time Berig had been the restaurant’s accountant. His father’s accounting business, D. David Berig & Co., out of Boston, served small businesses on and off the Cape, including many restaurants. Fletcher himself was in his mid-60s and had no relatives. According to Berig, Fletcher approached him to buy the business in 1968. Finally, after some fits and starts, Berig became owner on Jan. 3, 1970. The new decade began with the country still mired in the Vietnam conflict and the Dow Jones Industrial Index closing just above 800. The new Lobster Claw opened that year just days before the Beatles broke up.

The exacting science of accounting gave Berig at least one competitive advantage. Like any business, restaurants are about numbers at their core. If the numbers don’t add up  the business can’t survive. It’s that simple. So, every single day every delivery was counted and every fish and every bushel was weighed. He would only pay for what was delivered. Data, not desires, drove decisions. That was a big part of the strategy.

There was another important experience.

From 1944 to 1964, Berig’s family had owned and operated a fish market in  the Allston section of Boston. He began cutting and weighing all sorts of local fish when he was 13 at the Harvard Seafood Shoppe (now a Korean restaurant). A man who knew math and fish was off to a good start with owning his own seafood restaurant.

Don figured that  he would assess things in 1980, when the mortgage would be paid off. That is, if things went well.

Despite having two important factors in Berig’s favor, two others would lend themselves to help the business, too. In fact, they were critical factors to ensuring its success: a Yankee work ethic (presumably inherited from his father, whose formative years were during The Great Depression; he retired at age 89) and a little luck.

The restaurant would open April 1 and usually close in late October, convenient in that it by-passed the bulk of accounting season. Still, for much of Berig’s career during summer months he would leave the Cape on Monday nights for Boston and return by 5 p.m. on Wednesday afternoons to cook. It was a grueling routine. Berig was a chef-owner before the phrase was coined. He knew that the Cape’s  summer season demanded that business operate at maximum efficiency. A grinding work ethic was an absolute necessity. As Berig calmly says, without a hint of hyperbole, “most successful entrepreneurs don’t have days off.” 

But Berig was also benefitted from something beyond his control, unforeseen by many in the early 1970s: the intersection of favorable logistics and demographics on Cape Cod.

Before the 1960s, the Cape was a quaint peninsula with a modest tourism trade. Two seeming unrelated events allowed tourism to flourish while keeping much of its natural beauty intact. The Interstate Highway System was authorized in 1956, and the Cape Cod National Seashore was created in 1961. It also helped that Patti Page’s 1957 hit song “Old Cape Cod’’ extoled the virtues of the Cape, and President John F. Kennedy’s summer home graced the shoreline in Hyannis Port.

For The Lobster Claw the effects of these developments weren’t fully realized until the 1970s and 1980s. It was now much easier to drive to the Cape from points west inside and outside of New England. By 1974, the last part of the I-195 extension from Providence to Route 25 in Wareham was completed; in 1987, the final connection diverted traffic out of congested downtown Wareham to the end of I-495. A booming economy in the 1980s and 1990s fueled more visitors and more economic growth. On top of all this, between 1976 and 2000, the average working American took off more than 20 days a year for vacation (today, that number is roughly 13). Finally, as if more luck were needed, the Cape’s year-round population was growing rapidly and could sustain much new business outside July and August.

Alas, Neptune and Mercury -- Roman gods of the sea and commerce, respectively -- could not have delivered better blessings.

Business exploded.

When Berig took over he endeavored to make improvements prudentially over time. He winces now, recalling that frozen fish was served with frozen potato salad on paper plates before he bought the place. So, making the experience better for customers was a priority but would happen gradually, all within a sensible budget while maintaining a reasonable profit margin. Competition would also push those efforts.

One early competitor was a worthy one and just up the street. Within eyesight of The Lobster Claw stood a Howard Johnson’s restaurant. Opened in 1935, that particular Ho-Jo’s was already famous because it was the first franchised operation in what would become a food and lodging empire. But the destructive creation of capitalism lead to one of two outcomes for businesses: growth or death. In 1979, Howard Johnson’s surrendered to the second outcome. The Orleans location was sold to its local general manager and later renamed Adam’s Rib.

Nonetheless, being neither national or local, the Berig family needed a value proposition that could be marketed with broad-based appeal -- to both townies and tourists alike. The Lobster Claw saw itself as “cheerful,” “immaculate” and “unpretentious.” Those three words captured a narrative. Its very own credo. A daily, if not zealous, execution of those three words gave the credo a kind of street cred.  

Enter clever promotion.

From the beginning, Berig deployed a novel marketing campaign on the local radio station, WVLC (1170-AM, 104.7-FM). Instantly memorable, his two daughters, Wendy, and Karen, then  5 and 6, respectively, were showcased in radio hits professing their love of fruits of the sea and promoting their parents’ new venture. They would also participate in the town’s annual Fourth of July parade. Later, in the mid-‘80s, a radio jingle was written that ran right up to shortly before the restaurant closed. Other ads featured longtime employees thanking them for their service. In subsequent years, ads appeared in print and on television, and, most recently, on the Internet. And, as you might expect, advertising was strictly budgeted. No more than 5 percent of revenue could be spent on marketing.

Early on, this business was a family affair. If you were a repeat customer -- many were for decades -- chances were good that you knew someone serving you. That helped affirm stability and durability. Many worked there for decades. Marylou’s brother, Skip Schade, joined in 1970 fresh out of the Army and stayed for over 20 years. Wendy Berig, who could not see above the kitchen counter when she began recording radio ads, pitched in during the entire last week of operations, tending bar, washing dishes, hosting customers. Lucille Eldredge was a holdover from 1963; legend has it that she was more precise than an electronic scale in measuring servings for lobster meat (3.5 ounces). And hostess emeritus Diane Wade -- who is like family -- was a gift from the late 1960s. She only retired last year, at 89.  

A hallmark of the Lobster Claw was modesty. It set out to be “unpretentious” and lived up to that ideal to the point where it was part of the culture. In 2020 vernacular that translates to “staying in your lane.” There was never an urge to be anything other than a family restaurant. Things were kept simple. Like the décor.

Murals done by Bob Guillemin

The interior was nautical-themed, done tastefully, not kitschy. Wooden lobster pots acted as tray holders and netting hung from the ceiling. These obvious accoutrements were offset by framed aerial photos of the Cape coastline. The murals were painted by the late  Bob Guillemin, otherwise known as “Sidewalk Sam,” one of Boston’s best-known artists. He was commissioned for the work in the 1970s. Now, they are being preserved.

And this cannot be overstated: The owners prepared food and drink that was to be enjoyed, not studied and dissected -- like so much of modern cuisine today. Fried haddock would not be a gastro artsy architectural project. They served clambakes, not concoctions. The kitchen made lobster rolls of the classic Cape Cod variety (think unembellished). The restaurant  included a kids’ menu (with Jell-O). It served full entrees and just appetizers, such as steamers and mussels. It welcomed rehearsal dinner parties and parties of one. Shirley Temples  co-existed with Lime Rickeys. Fittingly, guests were encouraged to “Talk Loud, Eat Well, Laugh Often.” And they did. 

Restaurants, mind you, are not exclusively about absolute numbers; they are also about relative change.

Of course, The Lobster Claw embraced some change. But not too much. Most of the changes involved expanding customer comfort, facilitating growth. 

One experiment in the 1970s was initially thought to be a disastrous failure. For two years no one came for the “Early Bird Special” from 4 p.m. to 5:30 p.m. (chowder, beverage and dessert). An advertising boost solved the problem and the initiative proved to be wildly successful.  

In the early 1980s, the unused second floor in the north building was converted to “Surfboat Lounge.” A 30-foot replica of a Coast Guard rescue craft was built as the centerpiece bar to accommodate a surge in business. Back then one-hour waits were commonplace. (Most nights were controlled chaos but other nights were utter chaos.) The Berigs were also pioneers in merchandising; they added an in-house gift shop around the same time. Air-conditioning  was finally installed in stages in the mid-1990s.

Other changes were more subtle but just as consequential. Sometime in the 1980s waitresses wore polyester fire-engine red polo shorts but Marylou detected something wrong. The shirts set the wrong tone, the ambience of the dining rooms started to seem hurried, aggressive, even; they were also uncomfortable to maneuver in, noticeably so, by diners. Those shirts were replaced with ones with softer colors and different fabrics and in that and other ways the balance was brought back, and  a more relaxed environment returned. Over the years she also effected menu changes, reflecting the dietary adjustments of Americans. Don Berig may have been the head of the business but Marylou Berig was always its heart and soul. If Don was about data Marylou was about direction. It was a good partnership.

Just one person was given special status in 50-plus years of Berig ownership. Table number nine facing what is now the Stop & Shop complex -- by that old sliding door -- was reserved for lunch each day. Martinis at the ready. That privilege was accorded to the late Gladys Taber. She was an author of 59 books and a columnist for Ladies’ Home Journal and Family Circle. She died in March 1980. She would recognize the Lobster Claw today but probably not the restaurant industry. Consider: touch screens in place of personal touch, and Facebook pages in place of the Yellow Pages.

COVID-19 did not close The Lobster Claw. Rather, acceptance of the passage of time did. “It’s time to go,” the perennial proprietor said. It was time to retire. Facemasks and social distancing aside, the business has been functioning about as normally as one could expect, vibrant but downsized. Labor Day weekend recalled lines and waits as if were the 1980s all over again. But it had been a challenge. Always adapting to the times, the Berigs converted the gift shop to dining space this year. It allowed for more dining space and helped ensure that safety protocols were adhered to.

Conservative estimates suggest that the global pandemic has resulted in the permanent closure of 20 percent of all restaurants in  Massachusetts so far. Devra First, Boston Globe food writer and restaurant critic, believes that the industry is on the precipice. Just as problematic are grandiose ambitions and expectations for new eateries. Restaurants today, like musical acts, aren’t allowed to grow and develop. Their impatient owners feel that must be stars from the start. Further complicating matters are the tricky financial structures used to launch them. Like too much debt financing.  

Cape restaurants have not been immune from these events either. But Cape restaurants in particular have -- and will continue to have -- unique challenges. A big problem is labor. Getting workers is a struggle. There is a confluence of reasons: greater affluence on the Cape, a  weakening of  the work ethic amongst some, family and sports commitments, internships and earlier start times for colleges -- before Labor Day weekend.

Thirty years ago most of the Berigs’ staff were local people and college kids. But in 2020, the backbone of his workers were Jamaican. Years ago most staff were from Eastern Europe and Ireland. The owners have high praise for their formers employees, many of whom have become like part of an extended family. Undoubtedly, the H-2B program has been helpful over the years on hiring help. The program allows temporary work visas for foreign workers with job offers for seasonal, nonagricultural work in the U.S. (between 2,500 and 3,500 workers participate annually on the Cape in normal times). But the administrative requirements are enormously time-consuming, expensive and complex.

The Aug. 24 post announcing the final close brought a massive response.    

Local, regional and national media picked up the story. Facebook users shared stories, expressed sadness, recalled fond memories. Upon hearing the news, some traveled hundreds of miles to have one more meal. Inquiring callers asked the best time to come. Regulars came and went as usual. Diners sought out the owners to express their appreciation. Former employees returned to give their best wishes. It was a proper sendoff.

Don and Marylou Berig are tired now. In the three weeks before the final order was placed, they remained goodwill ambassadors, greeting, listening  and thanking the legions of well-wishers. Smiles diverted tears.

The Berigs look back and marvel at the sacrifice, struggle and success. There’s been no playbook. However, if anyone could come close to drafting an owner’s manual on serving several generations of diners for over half a century, they would be among those to do it.

Zero hour arrived. The incomparable Berig brand of hospitality reached its conclusion.

The hydrangeas had turned purple-rust. The winds had shifted southward. The crickets chirped defiantly. The doors closed. For good.

Life comes full circle. Just days before the restaurant closed, Rolling Stone magazine’s September issue featured the Beatles on its cover (remember, they broke up days after it opened in 1970). The sub-headline reads, “The Heartbreak, The Brotherhood, and Why the Music Matters 50 Years Later.” Family and friends will be substituting memories of the Lobster Claw for music.   

James P. Freeman, a former financial-services executive, is a New England-based writer. He is a former columnist with The Cape Cod Times and New Boston Post. His work has also appeared in The Providence Journal, The Cape Codder, Cape Cod Life, newenglanddiary.com, golocalprov.com, nationalreview.com and insidesources.com.