LETTERS FROM HOME: A TASTE OF WILD BLUEBERRIES AND FINS

July 20, 2000

Dear Ken,

New England invented quaint. The gingerbread houses on Martha's Vineyard and street signs on Cape Cod that read "Thickly Settled" or "Drive Gently" suggest a life of genteel individuality.

On Cape Cod, we are staying at a friend's cottage on Wellfleet, which may be a derivation of "Whale fleet." It's still a fishing town, but like the rest of Cape Cod teeming with summertime tourists form Boston and New York seeking lobster dinners and Cape art.

Our friend's mother died earlier this year. The cottage -- two bedrooms with a fireplace -- was hers. They used to pick wild blueberries together out back, he told us.

He hadn't spent much time on Cape Cod in many years. This summer he is back home, swimming the kettle ponds and preparing an addition to the cottage his mother had been planning to make. He is carrying on.

Because John F. Kennedy saw to it that Cape Cod was designated a National Seashore, most of the beaches and land are open to anyone. We went to our friend's favorite spot, Duck Pond, a kettle pond formed by the retreat of the glaciers. The water is clear, sharp and deep.

We played golf on the oldest course on Cape Cod, built in 1892. It looks like the courses in Scotland, except that on the seventh hole you could beam Cape Cod lighthouse with a bad shot. The lighthouse was moved there because its cliff was giving way.

When we returned, DC had prepared a dinner of grilled sea bass, rice and salad. For dessert, she served ice cream with tiny wild blueberries.

The ocean here is not calm the way the Pacific can be, but perhaps that's my bias. I do know "Jaws" has warped everyone's relationship with the sea. Descending to Marconi Station Beach, we saw surfers lined up on the water awaiting the next set of waves. A little boy behind us saw something else in the noses of the surfboards pointing skyward.

"There are sharks," he warned in a Joe Friday voice. His father, who obviously wasn't looking at the surfers, laughed and protested.

"There are sharks," the little boy insisted.

A melodic bell at the nearby church awakens us these salty mornings. We do whatever we want, knowing soon enough our days won't be our own.

We are here at a particular time in our friend's life, a time for bringing pictures and memories out of the basement. His father runs a playhouse presenting a one-woman drama about Diana Vreeland, the bigger-than-life editor of "Vogue" until she was fired. Perhaps her era had passed. She was told, then just moved on to the next quest.

Drive gently,

Love, Sam