CB: So, let���s get a picture of your origins in P���town. What possessed
you to come here in the first place?
NM: The first visit was in 1942. I had just finished my junior
year at Harvard. It���d been a crazy summer. I���d worked in a mental
hospital. Then I worked in a small theater group. I think I was
here in July. It was in that summer of ���42, that I do remember. I
came here with the young lady who later became my first wife,
Beatrice Silverman. We were contemporaries. She was going to
Boston University. I was going to Harvard. We decided to go
away for a weekend. She picked this place. It had no meaning for
me.
CB: What was her attraction to it?
NM: She���d heard it was interesting and fun. Of course, in those
days, we were always looking for something that was agreeable to
the eye. You know the way kids are. We wanted to see a place that
had charm, and was, ideally, perhaps European, because the war
was on and there was no question of going to Europe unless you
were in the army. If I recall properly, we took a train from Boston,
all the way to P���town, a four-hour trip. It used to end up parallel
to Harry Kemp Way, and then came in behind the gas station on
Standish Street. At one time, it ran all the way out to the pier, to
pick up the fish, but by this time it stopped on Standish. The last
part was very slow indeed, from Hyannis on. But then we saw the
town -- Incredible. I���d never seen a town like that.
CB: How long did you stay?
NM: About three days.
HYLAND
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