Ways of Life from WCAI

Bobby and Me: Keeping Piano Bar Traditions Alive in Provincetown Oct 12, 2020

Bobby Wetherbee has been playing piano in Provincetown every summer for the past 57 years. After years of hustling, he’s now helping the new generation find its voice. His mentee, Jon Richardson, is helping him keep an old tradition alive.

From Dresses to Ducks: One Woman’s Journey to Happiness Aug 24, 2020

Colette Cummings thought she had reached the peak of the fashion world. But that all changed when she was fired from her role as vice president of Talbots. Since then, Colette’s career has taken her in a totally new direction. She got a part-time job at a rubber duck toy store in Chatham, and just months after, was asked to take over the business. Colette bought the store, despite warnings from her family. She’s now found something she was never able to find working in the corporate world.

Reina Del Taco: A Different Kind of Mother Goose Aug 03, 2020

Some days, Tim McNerney is just Tim; a Master's degree graduate who delivers UPS packages on Martha’s Vineyard. Other days, Tim transforms into Reina Del Taco, a drag queen as transformative as Barbie. After travels to LA, NYC and Mexico City, Tim has started to settle into a new phase of Reina del Taco’s trajectory: story time at the local library.

One Keeps Spinning: Saving Yiddish on Cape Cod Feb 24, 2020

Yiddish was once spoken by over 11 million Jewish people before it was nearly wiped out in the Holocaust. But it spread to the New World and flowered in places like New York and Boston. Today, however, it’s declining quickly—by about fifteen percent every decade. Even the United Nations has declared Yiddish an “endangered language.”

Living out Your Life on Cuttyhunk Island, or Trying To Feb 10, 2020

Cuttyhunk is a tiny windswept island off the coast of Cape Cod -well known by game fishermen and sailors, but only a dozen people call it home year-round. Fisherman Bruce Borges and his wife Carolyn made their home there and Cariad Harmon went out to tell their story.

Becoming a Mentor to a 10-year-old: Bob & Ethan Jan 27, 2020

5 years ago Bob Mailloux took a leap. He had noticed a lot of kids around the Cape were getting in trouble, and he was worried. He signed up as a mentor, through Big Brothers Big Sisters.

Bandaids, Ice and Thermometers Can't Begin to Cover it: Being a School Nurse in the 21st Century Jan 13, 2020

The usual or expected teenage angst is exacerbated today by concerns about the planet, affordable college, and the fear of school shootings. Joyce O'Connor is the school nurse for Mashpee Middle and High Schools. She walks us through the changes school nursing has made to deal holistially with student health.

Rescuing the Pilgrim's First Church Dec 30, 2019

First Parish Plymouth is the oldest contiguous congregation in America. They trace their lineage all the way back to 1606, in Scrooby, England – before the Pilgrims even left England. They’ve had a church on the same land since the year after the Pilgrims landed. Mayflower Meeting House is the fifth one, built in the 1890s after a fire decimated the previous one. But it’s gone largely unrestored since its completion, and the building was starting to show serious structural damage. As the 400 th anniversary of the Pilgrim landing approached, the congregation had some tough choices to make about their future.

A Different Kind of Prescription for Mental Health Dec 02, 2019

Proper diet and exercise is what every doctor recommends for proper health. For Amelia, an intense new workout experience helped exercise not only her body, but saved her life.

Reading Race: Understanding Racial Justice Through Literature Nov 18, 2019

Panchita Peterson has worked most of her adult life addressing racism on Cape Cod. She trained at the National Coalition Building Institute and worked as a Diversity Specialist in schools across the Cape. Panchita is in her late70's but came out of retirement a few years ago because she felt like she still had work to do.

On the Frontlines of EEE: How an Entomologist Controls the Threat One Step at a Time Oct 28, 2019

Summer 2019 was one of the worst on record for Eastern Equine Encephalitis in Massachusetts. Gabrielle Sakolsky is Cape Cod’s first line of defense when it comes to mosquito-borne disease. From the cedar swamps to the lab, her job is to search for something she hopes she won’t find.

The Ripple Effect of One Falmouth Couple's Good Deed Oct 14, 2019

John and Olivann Hobbie always thought of themselves as sensitive to social issues on the Cape, especially housing insecurity, but in 2012 they confronted the issue head-on by opening up their home.

Poet in the Field: Working Through Grief by Picking Up Litter Sep 30, 2019

It’s hard to go anywhere on Cape Cod and not see litter. People leave plastic bottles and food packaging on the side of the road and along hiking trails. Trash washes onto the Cape’s beaches, from people but also strong storms and ocean currents. Ralph Bousquet is a Cape Cod native. He’s a poet who started a new group to combat the litter problem on the Cape. But the reason he’s doing it isn’t really about litter, nor about his art. It’s about something greater than himself.

All for One And One for All: In Troop 137 Girls and Boys are Simply 'Scouts' Sep 23, 2019

Boy Scouts of America has been in the United States for over 100 years. Earlier this year it changed its policy to admit girls into Scouts BSA – that’s the program formerly known as Boy Scouts. Troop 137 in Falmouth is one of three troops with girls on the Cape and Islands.

The New Shepherds in Town Aug 19, 2019

Peterson Farm in Falmouth is one of the oldest farms on Cape Cod. It dates back to 1679, and was farmed by the same family for nearly 300 years. The town of Falmouth purchased the land in 1998 to preserve the open space. But after its last tenant left, the farm was handed over to two somewhat unlikely shepherds. Diana Wickman and Simon Thorrold are now working to restore the land with the help of their flock.

A Man Leaves his Home in Poland Bringing his Puppet Theater to the Cape Jul 01, 2019

Jacek Zuzanski is an actor, director, and, above all else, a puppeteer. He's been performing with his theater company, Dream Tale Puppets, for children on Cape Cod area using various hand-crafted puppets to tell the stories like Rumpelstiltskin and Cinderella. But he doesn’t always perform for a large audience, and some shows get canceled. But numbers are not Zuzanski's measure of success.

An Artist Pursues the Unimaginable May 06, 2019

For emerging writers & visual artists, acceptance into the program is a dream. Rosana Ybarra is one of the Center's recent fellows and while art was one of her earliest passions, pursuing it as a vocation wasn't only unlikely — it was unimaginable.

Searching for the Atlantic's Most Elusive Whale Apr 22, 2019

Danielle Cholewiak is a research ecologist at NOAA. She has spent her career becoming a leading expert on finding and interpreting whale sounds. This past summer, she set her sights on finding one of the most elusive whales in the Atlantic Ocean. The plan was to be out at sea for a full month, scanning the horizon with binoculars and listening to hydrophones being towed behind them.

Giving up your solid day job in science... for the challenges of wooden boatbuilding Apr 08, 2019

Athena Aicher is a boat builder on Martha’s Vineyard, but she wasn’t always. Seven years ago, Athena moved to Woods Hole to work in a lab at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution. Athena gave up life in the lab to work in a boat yard. Today, she hears sea birds while she works and can smell the salt air. Her dog, Clio, runs on the beach. The work is hard – bending straight planks of wood into a new, curved life is not easy -but that’s part of the appeal.

Labor of Love: Practicing Midwifery Far Offshore Mar 25, 2019

About 100 babies are born every year on Nantucket Island- most of them at Nantucket Cottage Hospital. Parents who choose home birth can turn to the one midwife of the island. Sunny Daily has been training to be Nantucket's midwife for the past decade. But sustaining a midwifery practice nearly thirty miles offshore comes with unique challenges not to mention that sometimes home birth means delivering a baby on a boat.

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