Makin' Music On The Dunes At Race Point ~ 1962

Sleep way too late, buy a loaf of fresh Portuguese bread at the bakery, get a cup of coffee, and hang out in front of the town hall, I think it was, on Commercial Street, the main drag through Provincetown. When it got too hot it was time to head to the dunes at Race Point at the very tip of Cape Cod.

An ounce of pot was only fifteen bucks, Mexican weed, and not really very good by today's standards, but it was all we had and all we knew and at least the manila envelope (no baggies back then) contained a full weighed ounce. Actually a nickle bag was like as not an honest quarter of an ounce. I was shooting with a Canon II-S equipped with a 35mm f/1.8 Canon lens using bulk loaded Plus-X. Bulk loading freed up more money for getting high and picking up the college girls.

Bongos and conga drums supplied the rythm and noise to accompany the guitar, and the more we smoked the more the noise sounded like music to us. Times were good!

Mike Romano Toking At Number 5 Conant Street, Provincetown, MA 1962

I met Mike in Boston and the plan was to spend the summer in Provincetown working (as little as possible) and mostly doing some heavy duty partying. We rented the larger (by a few square few maybe) of two tiny cabins behind the house. The landlady was what we'd now refer to as a Native Alaskan or some such but she said she was an Eskimo. She'd married a guy in the military who'd been stationed there. He was from Provincetown of Portuguese decent. They had two little boys.

Mike was one of those rare straight guys with a cosmetology license, and he always had scissors and comb handy. He said it was the best way he knew for meeting chicks. Meeting chicks in P-town in the summer was unavoidable! The town filled up with college girls getting summer jobs as waitresses and chambermaids at the the various restaurants, inns, and bed and breakfasts.

In most cases it was their first experience in really being out on their own. It wasn't like living in a dorm at all. In most cases they came from small midwestern towns with conservative a midwestern culture. Mother had warned them about boys and they knew about the risk of getting pregnant.

What Mother never told them was that there were some men, usually the drop-dead gorgeous ones, good dressers, polite and as well mannered as they were bright and well read, who at best would tell them that they had great taste in clothes or jewelry, but never asked them out on a date. After about a week of that Mike and I had a field day, girls merely for the asking!