A Week in Pre-Season Cape Cod

Two days after school ended I put the dog in the car and drove nine hours to Cape Cod. I had looked at beach places to rent in North Carolina, Delaware, and even the Jersey shore but they were all in the thousands of dollars and little remained. In the DMV it was 90 plus degrees with 100% humidity in June. As someone who lived much of her life in the northeast I needed a New England fix. Here’s what happened.

Close Encounter beach in Easton

I booked an Airbnb for a week and then convinced myself to leave right after school. Sitting in the house and losing my mind is not away to decompress. I had to go to Massachusetts over a screw-up with a title selling a truck I owned and trying to deal with it from home put me in a bureaucratic hell that apparently could go on for months. So I rented an Airbnb and left a week earlier than I had planned.

The weather on the Cape was flawless, the summer season didn’t begin until July 4th weekend, and the area around Wellfleet (yes where some of the best oysters in the world come from) was in the 60s and 70s with no humidity. I won.

My Airbnb fell through and to their credit I got a full refund. I found a one bedroom apartment that had not yet been deep cleaned and she gave me two free nights as she made it livable. So I ended up paying just under $700 for six nights in a cute one bedroom cottage behind someone’s house with a deck, a yard and a quick drive to Close Encounter Beach in Eastham. I had read that dogs were not allowed on the beach in the Cape (and they really enforce it), so the night I found the locals playing with their dogs right before sunset I found my beach. When I mentioned the dog ban one dog mom said “I live here year round. Don’t pay any attention to that.”

The Brickhouse Restaurant in Eastham had the distinct honor of being the worst restaurant I’ve ever been to. From the dirty martini that was made by pouring pickle juice or some other vile substance into a shaker, adding ice, vodka and I hate to think of what else was the worst drink I’ve ever had. Next they brought Oysters Rockefeller drowning in cream with barely a hint of where the oyster once was - someone else must have eaten them. The spinach made me throw up later. All the while the manager and the waiter worked hard at being nice as I sent back food. Did manage a few bites of mediocre clam chowder.

Not a Dog Friendly Place

Without the beach during the day, Cape Cod became a place where you visit towns. That’s where I learned that restaurants were either really dog friendly (meaning they gave her water, a bone and a seat on a restaurant’s porch), or just plain said no.

Chatham is a sweet little Cape town with a main street people stroll and find things to buy. Kind of boring, but we diligently walked it, found nothing and then went to the Wild Goose Tavern which had a back patio where they loved on my dog Roo. Burgers perfectly cooked, wine drinkable and delightful wait staff. Not bad for a first day.

The Lobster and Drag Queen Brunch

Wellfleet was a much bigger hit. The town dock had a seafood restaurant, pooches everywhere. They sold a selection of fried everything and grilled fish. Our last night we went back and bought a two pound lobster who looked straight at me as he was pulled from the tank.

“I’m really sorry,” I said to him, then realized I had spoken aloud. The people behind the counter giggled at the tourist. Thy cooked it and sent me home with the best lobster dinner ever. I hope its lobster family forgives me.

Provincetown was the last adventure, a strip of a town with joyous LGBTQ+ people just being whoever they wanted to be. We watched a drag queen brunch ensemble with much strutting, then ate ice cream, played a bit in the sand, which no one cared about and called it a day.

The MVA’s lines were endless so I picked up the forms for a new title and mailed them back. Did I mention that Wellfleet has a shop that embraced legal cannabis and a system to make it feel like a visit to an old friend’s basement in high school? It does.

The drive home was endless but we did it - success and the beach!

Rooey on the path to the beach!

Take Me Home Country Roads

Fiddlers on the main stage.

Spent the weekend at The Vandalia Fiddle Gathering in Charleston, WV. An old friend was told by her mom as a child, and young adult, that she had no musical talent. Turns out her grandfather played the fiddle and her passion to learn and play was unstoppable. That was a couple of decades ago. Today she is an accomplished musician who plays at festivals and gatherings throughout Northern California.

This summer she headed for the East Coast to the capital of WV to join hundreds of other fiddlers and musicians at a three-day music love fest. Picture this. A stately Southern building sits atop a hill, flanked by green, with a sprawl of musicians blanketing around it. Fiddle music everywhere. At night we descended on the town, which offered surprisingly good pizza, and a host of other options other than the usual barbecued pork sandwiches. Such a chummy, outgoing group, those fiddlers.

Spent the first night in a Fayetteville cabin about an hour from Charleston. Dozens of adventure lovers head there for white water rafting - a great place for the summer ski bums to find more danger thrills. There’s not much to the town but we did eat good Mexican food in a restaurant called Don Rizo Mexican Kitchen and Cantina on the main street in town.

The owner joined us and told us how he had left home for many years, living mostly in San Francisco,. But the lure of WV was too strong so he brought Mexican food to the town where he grew up.

The entire trip John Denver’s song “Take Me Home Country Roads”, ran through my mind. The line “West Virginia, Mountain Mama” followed by the song title would not quit. On the ride home trying to avoid VA holiday traffic, the GPS took us through western Maryland. I sang along to Spotify, remembering the rest of the words.

Charleston capitol shines in the moonlight!

My Journey as a Public School Teacher

Finding Fulfillment in Retirement

A former corporate marketer returns to the classroom, this time in the footsteps of a mentor who had kindled her passion for writin.

Last fall and winter I spent four months teaching third-grade students at a local elementary school how to write. An eight-year-old girl with cornflower blue eyes came to my desk at the end of each day and handed me a tiny white-and-black striped tiger.

"Pet him," she instructed in a sweet, firm voice, and the day's stress melted away.

"As a daily substitute, I bounced from school to school, which allowed no real connection with the kids. So I picked the schools I liked and became a long-term sub,"  |  Credit: Getty

After I left for another assignment, I received a cardboard box in the mail that contained a small stuffed tiger and a note that said, "I'm sending you this tiger so you don't forget about teaching us. Your friend L."

"I'm sending you this tiger so you don't forget about teaching us." 

While I spent most of my career in the corporate world, I had long been drawn toward teaching — partly to experience moments like that. My mentor was my ninth-grade English teacher, one of those rare gems who could encourage and inspire a student like me to become a writer.

Inspired to Teach

My mother had died the winter before I started high school, and I was still in shock when classes began. At my teacher's suggestion, I began keeping a diary, which led to poems and short stories. Writing helped me move forward and get my bearings back.

Now, in retirement, it was my turn to pay it forward.

In early 2022 I was in my early 60s and not ready to officially retire. I wanted to do something meaningful. Early in my career I had written for top business media like the NY Times, Fortune and Business Week, covering marketing and advertising, and then moved to PR, which paid better and was easier.

I taught young PR and marketing professionals how to write, as well as both of my 20-something children. With an ancient degree from SUNY Oswego that said I majored in English and Education, I believed I was more qualified than most substitute teachers. So I became one.

Learning the System

Teaching in public schools as the COVID pandemic swept the country was like entering a foreign land. Everyone wore masks and there was an endless supply of hand sanitizer and soap.

A giant TV screen called a Promethean Board dominated the classroom and had become its central learning device. Every student was given a computer to use for the year. Most lessons were produced in slide shows that were left for substitutes to teach from.

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As a daily substitute, I bounced from school to school, which allowed no real connection with the kids. So I picked the schools I liked and became a long-term sub, filling in for a teacher who needed to take a couple of months off.

Long-term substitutes' pay was about 30% higher than the daily rate, but it also came with constant grading, an endless parade of assessments, and other challenges that salaried teachers had. When the Promethean Board didn't work, which was often since Wi-Fi in the schools was unreliable, I improvised and became a much more creative teacher.

A Difficult Situation

The teacher exodus was in full swing when I became a full-time sub, and many of those who stayed were desperately unhappy. The rage and frustration in some schools was concealed only by a thin veneer of professionalism that was used when those at higher pay grades were within earshot. Constant attrition offered a lot of opportunity for new teachers to get plum assignments.

"While I could not change the system, the leadership, the curriculum or the malaise that settled over my fellow teachers, I could make a difference with students."

The gaps in student knowledge were daunting. The most persistent problems were in math, where we had to teach multiplication and beginning division to some students who could barely add and subtract. Some students didn't know how to read yet, while others were proficient.

While I could not change the system, the leadership, the curriculum or the malaise that settled over my fellow teachers, I could make a difference with students. And slowly I began to reach them.

The most important thing I could do to get a classroom on track was connect with the kids by using material they cared about and paying a lot of attention to them.

In the fall of 2022, I got a job as a third-grade teacher and brought in a bevy of books and stuffed animals donated by my neighbors. To tap into their innate creativity, I had them make up stories that we called "the Stuffy Chronicles."

During the World Cup, I gave the students obsessed with soccer an assignment to research the teams in the semifinals and convince me their choices would win. They all picked Argentina, which did go on to win, and several offered analyses with data and text explaining why.

Persuading Students to Care

Next, I took a job teaching ninth-grade honors English at a local high school, becoming the teacher who had helped me all those years before. The students had gone through multiple substitutes and had no respect for any teacher who walked into the room to help.

The uphill battle began on day one: getting them to care about English again. In one class, the boys thought it was cool to use the F- word every couple of minutes and tormented me in every way they could think of.

Then I was given "The Hate U Give," a book by Angie Thomas that had been banned in several states. The story's protagonist was a young girl who moved daily between a private school and her life in the neighborhood.

My students saw themselves or their older siblings in the fictional account of a Black teen who was murdered for sassing a police officer during a traffic stop. The community in the novel came together and joined what was then a new movement called "Black Lives Matter."

Enthusiastic Debates

Most students were not reading the book at home, so we began a round robin reading it aloud in class. On my last day, the class — which now included boys who no longer cursed and even said hello to me in the hallway — read aloud and got into enthusiastic debates over the questions, "Why do you think the author chose to put so many different incidents in one chapter?" and "What was she trying to tell you?"

A couple of months later I ran into one of my former students at a local dog park. She said their new teacher paid no attention to them, and they missed me.

My most recent assignment was to replace a very popular sixth-grade teacher who was not only teaching kids how to write but how to organize information.

Working One-on-One

We started off a speechwriting unit with a video of Amanda Gorman's poem "The Hill We Climb," which she had read at President Biden's inauguration. We discussed adversities overcome by the people the students were writing speeches about including Matthew Henson, first Black explorer to reach the North Pole; Junko Tabei, the first woman to climb Mount Everest; and Harvey Milk, the first openly gay man to run for elected office. Some Florida schools have banned Gorman's poem.

For three months, I edited their work the way I was taught as a young writer, in one-on-one sessions working on structure, deeper thinking and grammar, among other issues. I was not with them long enough to ask them to figure out how to fix their own work, so I told them what they needed to do, and they came back with much better writing.

In all the years I worked in corporate America, building companies, marketing products and services, it was just about making other people money. None of it was as rewarding watching understanding and connection dawn on a child's face.

On the second-to-last day of sixth grade, one of the students presented me with a gift bag; inside was a mug that read, "Mrs. Stern, You Make a Difference Every Day."

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Aimee L. Stern is a teacher and freelance writer based in Maryland. Read More, appeared in PBS’ Next Avenue magazine.

48 Hours in Manhattan

Before this trip I had only been in New York once since the pandemic. I was there at the very beginning of Covid, in my perennial search for a way to live in NY again, dating someone with a great one bedroom on the Upper East Side. The relationship never stood a chance to begin with, but Covid killed it quickly.

This trip was a whim, I love Manhattan in January and February when the tourists are gone and decided to do a couple days of theater while visiting friends and family. Stayed at the Beacon Hotel, just adjacent to the concert theater, on Broadway. The Beacon has $179 high floors with a view for $179 which more than doubles in March and the rest of the year. I used to live on 72nd between West End Avenue and Broadway so this is still my “hood.”

Theater is way expensive now, but it was freezing and I did not want to stand online at TKTS so I just bought tickets. If you love theater as much as I do, and lived in NYC for close to two decades, you’ve seen most of what’s out there. I chose MJ, the Michael Jackson musical for my first night and had a perfect seat in the center orchestra. I got the the ticket from the Helen Hayes theater, not that hard since it was a Tuesday night, and chopped a couple hundred dollars off the scalper price. It was just over $200 with aTicketmaster fees.

MJ, the Michael Jackson Musical

MJ was the best show I’ve seen in years. I have always loved Michael Jackson, and despite all the controversy that has swirled around him, still love his music. The story spans Jackson’s early life from The Jackson Five, to as he puts his stamp on the Dangerous Tour in the 1990s. The story begins in the early 1970s as he was just coming to national prominence so it has all of that decade’s big hits including ABC, The Love Your Save, etc. All his pop hits before he changed as an artist and started exploring darker themes. The relationship between the five boys and their abusive father is upsetting, but then we shift to see his artistry at work.

MJ shares the evolution of his choreography which I have never seen before in theater. He pushed boundaries that his fiscally conservative white manager and other handlers were scared of, believing he should stick to being the King of Pop. The show hints at controversies swirling around him, but chooses a timeframe when he hadn’t gotten in trouble yet.

The woman I sat next to and I wanted to dance so badly that at one point she just stood up, nodded to me and went wild. I was well into my $40.00 vodka and cranberry juice by then. Learned the lesson ask before you buy a double shot in a theater

Between Riverside and Crazy

The play I saw the next day, Between Riverside and Crazy, had a packed theater and my $96 mezzanine seat was crammed against a wall leaving me about 4 inches of leg room. The usher was a sweetheart, and at intermission she moved me to an aisle seat.

The show focused on one of the last rent controlled buildings on Riverside Drive, which everyone wanted and Walter “Pops” Washington, played by Stephen McKinley Henderson, had no intention of giving up. He’s a retired N.Y.P.D. cop who barely leaves the apartment. The cast includes adult son, Junior (Common) who is just out of jail, Junior’s flighty girlfriend Lulu (Rosal Colón), and a recent parolee, Oswaldo (Victor Almanzar). Walter is suing the city because a white rookie cop shot him eight years earlier and he has mastered the cantankerous old man’s shifts from opinionated and stubborn to hilariously funny.

I highly recommend both shows.

Leaving NY

The last night I picked up Zabar’s and visited cousins with a feast of jambalaya, eggplant, grilled vegetables and more. The final morning I went to a hole in the wall cafe in Chelsea with an old friend. So fun.

In front of the Helen Hayes Theater.

Father and Son.

My Heart in San Francisco

You should know what this is.

I’ve been to San Francisco more than two dozen times and each one has been special in its own way. One of my oldest and dearest friends and her husband moved there in 1986, after a stint in the Peace Corps, and never left. She’s a musician and the scene is thriving with just about every kind of music played somewhere. They are the perfect examples of people who bought a home in a city when a middle class couples could still afford it. Also they have money because they never had children.

In November, the weather is often foggy, rainy and cold but my first day was 60 degrees and sunny in that blinding California way, so we headed to the Lands End trail near the Presidio for a 4.5 mile hilly trek along the Pacific. The hometown company has renovated and kept this trail in pristine condition. At its end, China Beach, a grey sanded strip where San Franciscans, grateful for the sun, bring their children, picnics marveling at how lucky they are to be alive. It’s that kind of vibe. For me it was just a deep breath of life can be better than what it is now.

Did I mention that from many vantage points you have a perfect view of the Golden Gate Bridge? Icing on the cake.

If you have knee issues, and I had one replaced a year ago, there is a strip of trail where you climb stairs until they throb but the views are worth it. There’s the obligatory rock claimed by seabirds, jutting towards the sky with a majesty that few things covered by poop can reach. Better to see it from a distance.

When San Francisco is Grey we go to Sausalito

The next day the weather couldn’t decide, at dawn (yes there was jet lag), the sun hinted at a perfect day, but by 11:00 am it was toying with us and the ride over the Bay Bridge was grey. Susan swore it would be sunny in Sausalito and I doubted her until we crossed the bridge, and there it was a long strip along the water, illuminated with sunlight and clouds.

On a Thursday afternoon in early November Sausalito was not in peak tourist time. We drove around for 20 minutes and found a spot on the main drag.

We walked and walked and walked - her GPS saying she walked less than I did because despite the fact that she is under 5’ tall she is in much better shape. They were not pandemic only walkers, they have kept it up and can literally skip up hills.

Then came the saga. We kept walking. We passed a place that looked perfect but she said it was not ours. When you’ve down someone since you were 17, and were told the beer was in the bathtub at your first freshman party in the dorm, you cut each other a lot of slack. It’s just a bit further,” she kept saying and we did a U-turn and found it on the way back- Salitos’s Crab House, the place we had passed and she said was not it. The view was worth it, expansive with hints of San Francisco as a backdrop, an expansive view of the Bay and a back porch that worked as well as a yoga class for a calming moment. The food was good -we weren’t that hungry. The fist was caught that morning.

The Dinner Party

My friends live in Sunnyside which has an expansive view of the city and generally presents San Francisco in a warming, friendly way. Cities are so often dominated by the young who want to do everything out, but the 60 plus crowd that I spent time with was far more interested in holding dinner parties. This was not surprising considering how incredibly expensive food was - far more than DC whose prices are up by 30-50%. It reminded me of a much more relaxed version of the parental dinner party I grew up with - carefully selected guests, potential topics of conversation discussed beforehand.

We used paper towels as napkins. For a moment I thought they had turned into our parents as the men headed for the kitchen and shots of tequila and we stayed near the gas fire with glasses of red and white wine.

The dinner was quite good, the husband became a pandemic cook and made chicken tanginess with rice and vegetables and she, a panacotta dessert topped with raspberry coulis that someone remarked had alcohol in it. I couldn’t eat the chicken but I managed to eat the side dishes. The smell of spice lingered over the meal for hours, as did we. And the drinking - one member of the happy couples got really drunk and the wife got more and more annoyed. Evidently they did not cut off the wine and the husband really likes to drink. The second couple was much happier - she worked in healthcare and he taught tech in schools, there was a dynamism and solidarity about them that spoke of mutual respect and a lot of kids who were now old enough to take care of themselves.

We never talked about teaching schools. I told them the story about the Bellevue escapee who stood in front of me right before the NYC subway reached Astor Place, and took off all of his clothes while others left the car.

They left by 10:00 and we sat up talking until yours truly fell asleep on the couch.

Jazz in Jesse’s Basement

The first Saturday of each month an old friend of theirs who teaches and performs, invites in a local jazz ensemble, to perform in a basement that holds about 25 people. The intimacy of it is was like going on an adventure with people you didn’t really know but felt very comfortable with. We had seats in the front row. The room was cool and dark and Jesse’s wife sat next to me. I paid $25 in cash at the door.

Jazz in Jesse’s Basement.

The star of the show was a base player, an older Asian woman who straddled the giant instrument like a practiced contortionist. Her joy in playing that instrument was palpable. I could feel it as I watched her and her hands were magical as they talked to the strings. Could I tell you what they played - not exactly. Several variations of early 20th Century jazz whose melodies were vaguely familiar from records my parents used to have. Just the act of being swallowed by live music without getting pushed around was worth the entire trip.

At the break, I sat and ate fried shrimp and a couple of other things. People were welcoming.

Crazy Korean Massage

The Imperial Day Spa was described by one of the women at the dinner party as a “car wash.” When we think of spas we think of luxuriating under fluffy white towels, spritzing ourselves in the sauna, a choice of fresh-squeezed juices and a hot tub. That’s not what this is.

You enter, strip naked, lie on a tatami mat with other naked women and breathe in Himalayan salt which clears out all the stuff that you want gone. They give you a single large towel which you toss on the mat and lie down on. About 20 minutes later it’s enough and there is a hot tub, a cold pool and what I chose, a frigid shower. No clothes anywhere.

They were late in getting us so we got time to enjoy the pre car wash festivities. She had taken me once before to Kabuki so I was expecting it to be rough but I didn’t expect this. We follow a woman up the stairs and she separates us - I go to a table and she throws hot water all over it - spend much of the time wondering whether I will fall off. But the Asian woman in a black top and shorts isn’t going to let that happen. She throws more hot water on me and then gets what can only be described as a scrub brush - the kind you would use inside a toilet - and remove layers of your skin. I wince and breathe my way through it.

She also pounds on me at various intervals and manages to turn me over without sliding off the table. I will never forget of all the black stuff that was on the table - the dead flesh that has been peeled off my body with some sort of dark scrub.

This continues for about 30 minutes and then there is the not at all soothing massage which is essentially pressure point therapy with no thought to the sensitivities of your body. They wrap you up in a robe and send you on your way. My skin was as soft as a newborn baby’s afterwards.

Land’s End trail mirroring the Pacific Ocean.

Nashville: Music City's Wild, End of the World Vibe

I went to Nashville on business to give a presentation at a giant business conference and ended up spending most of my time wandering around the city. While New Orleans has an old world charm replete with falling down mansions that you want to live in, Nashville is a city of tourists who leave all inhibitions behind and drink until they are falling down drunk.

Nashville is also the world’s - that’s right the whole wide world - favorite bridal party location. Female wedding parties were everywhere - often hanging out of busses singing and screaming as they coerced their way through the city. Another phenomenon was the mobil bars where visitors sat and viewed the city waiting for their refills. The city had an untamed and a bit forced wildness in late August as resellers grabbed the last bit of summer. Miraculously it was not hot.

My drinking consists of two and then I must stop or I become like its visitors who go on to drink more than I thought the human body could consume. The music - great in the dive bars and everywhere else - somehow makes up for it. The convention was at the big, sterile Music City Convention Center that was near everything. My GPS refused to function and took me on long, meandering walks to get to my hotel which is listed as in the city but was between the railroad tracks and a neighborhood you do not want to walk around in at night. And this from a New Yorker.

My tourist stop was at the Country Music Hall of Fame, a sprawling couple of floors that took us from its origins in minstrel shows from the early part of the 20th Century - yes you read that right - to the glitzy, soppy mess that it is today. And the truth is I love it. Spent much of my daughter’s childhood listening to tales of suicidal love, loss, men romancing women who were aloof but a bit predictable, driving in trucks. One of my favorites was Taylor Swift - I hear you groaning - who and her diatribes about men who burned her or she burned in turnl

About those dive bars - my favorite was one of the grittiest - The Tin Roof which has a downtown and a second location in a more residential section of the city. Stuffed potatoes skins exploded with cheese, bacon, just about every artery hardening food you could imagine. Of course, nachos were on the menu, as well as every sports bar imagined creation you could think of.

Would I recommend it? Worth a visit solely because of the music but if I had to compare it to something - scenes from The Capitol City in the Hunger Games comes to mind.

Bridesmaids on the prowl downtown Nashville.

The Country Music origin story.

What country music stars war.

The Last Time I Saw Paris Part Two

In the beginning of the 21st Century I went to Paris with my then husband to celebrate our 11th anniversary. The marriage would remain intact for another two years but then blew up in the spectacular fashion that these things end - his explosion, rage, hurt, fear and finally a “Save the Children” approach when it becomes clear how bad this is for them. My son was eight and daughter was 5.

The highlight of that trip was Paris’ summer solstice party held every year on June 21st. French musicians, famous, amateur, amazing, not so amazing come out to the streets of Paris for the entire night and the whole city joins the party.

This past June I returned to Paris for another Fete de la Musique, this time alone after visiting my son in Germany. This was my turn, to make this night of music, laughter and sore feet all mine. It worked like a charm.

The wandering began in the 4th Arrondisement and travelled all the way to the 10th when the sore feet made me get on the Metro back to the edge of the Marais in the 3rd. I listened to a Latino men’s group, a church choir with a lead singer whose voice raised my spirits, and much more. The highlight was a giant open air dance party to American rock and role, the French musicians perfect American accents only lasting through the songs. I was stunned when the lead singer told me he only had a limited play list in heavily accented French.

How do you describe joy that begins at dusk and reduces you to total exhaustion by midnight. After 2 years of Covid restriction we were, for a moment, back in a world where we were all one and unafraid of each other. And yes, I danced right along with all of them.

I spent a long afternoon in the Marais checking out places from our trip in 1991 and found our favorite cafe still there with its ratty charm. Hopefully by now the upstairs bathroom is not a hole in the ground although I did not go up to check.

Over the years, I’ve been to many of the museums in Paris - the famous ones like the Musee D’orsay, the Louvre, the Orangerie, the Rodin Museum and also the Picasso Museum. I went back to the Picasso Museum and found a new exhibit that I would highly recommend. The exhibit is the story of his drama-laden relationship with his eldest daughter Maya Ruiz Picasso. For her first decade of life May was a constant subject for Picasso - one he approached with “fascination and tenderness,” according to the exhibit. She was the daughter of Marie-Thérèse Walter, Picasso’s most iconic model.

Picasso chronicled intimate details of their private life together. Of all his children, Maya was most frequently depicted—as a muse in the image of her mother.