EXTRA...

JFK quote; Chopper gets a tribute; Ptown critic; Public asked to comment on rail plan

TODAY's Quote: "As they say on my own Cape Cod, a rising tide lifts all the boats." - J.F.K.

Remember William "Chopper" Young"?,
This was in the Wellfleet Chamber's newsletter:

"Chopper" Young displaying the form which won last year's Wellfleet Oyster Festival and got him in the Guinness Book of Records.

The highlight of this year's Oyster Festival this weekend will be a unique "Hoist on High" to triumphantly recognize Chopper's big victory. Tomorrow, starting at 12:30 p.m. behind Town Hall, Chopper will be paraded through the crowds and hoisted onto the Main Stage for an amazing demonstration of his shucking prowess. Then, the Oyster Shuck-Off preliminaries will be held at 1 p.m.

This heated competition pits contestants against each other and the clock to shuck 24 oysters as fast as they can to earn a cash prize of $1,000 and a place at the U.S. national competition. Shuck-Off finals will be held Sunday
at 1 p.m...

Young had been an oysterman for about 20 years before he decided to enter his hometown competition in Wellfleet. At the Wellfleet OysterFest, Young had long thought oyster shucker Barbara Austin was simply unbeatable — until she was beaten by Keith Rose.

"Then it was gloves on," Young said. "I could compete."

In his first competition, Young shucked 37 oysters in two and a half minutes. "It was pretty good," he said, "and the closest person to me only did 27, and my stuff was not cut up as badly as theirs. So I beat him pretty good."
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Divers identify Nantucket shipwreck

The SS Newcastle City met with its fate on a stormy night on Dec. 23, 1887.

Divers have identified a shipwreck off Nantucket as a British steamship that sank more than 120 years ago.
   The SS Newcastle City was carrying cargo when it struck an uncharted shoal en route to New York in 1887. The 26 man crew and a passenger were rescued after rowing to safety... Takakjian confirmed the wreck's identity during a dive last weekend after he scraped sea anemones away from the ship's wheel and revealed the engraving "Newcastle City Liverpoole."
   He's keeping the wreck's location and depth a secret. Herald.

Public comment on state freight and rail plan

The Massachusetts Executive Office of Transportation invites you to attend a public stakeholder meeting to learn about the state freight and rail plan which is under development and to share your concerns and ideas of how to improve transportation in Massachusetts.

The meeting for the southeast region of Massachusetts will be held Wednesday, Nov. 5 from 3 to 5 p.m. at Pomodores, 2424 Cranberry Highway (Route 28) in Wareham.Please RSVP to lblack@fhiplan.com before Oct. 29. For more information, visit their Web site here.

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On the shores of Cape Cod, I see an America that is closing in on itself

Surrounded by the sea, Provincetown sits at the tip of Cape Cod, held out into the Atlantic. It is both part of, and apart from, America. The philosopher Henry David Thoreau once said that here, "a man might stand and put all America behind him".

As such, it is a perfect place to observe the strange sense of stillness and inevitability with which the American people seem to apprehend the forthcoming and monumental change to their democracy. The greatest democracy in the modern world, all about to be reinvented, it seems, within 18 short autumn days.

The sense of derring-do and exploration which created America seems conflicted now.

These days of October have been blissful on the Cape. An unnatural warmth has settled over the place, the kind of heat we missed out on in Britain this summer. Last weekend was a holiday - Columbus Day, commemorating the discovery of a continent.

Half a millennium later, Provincetown, a former whaling port turned whalewatching port, a place of sunbleached clapboard and drifting sand on the pavements, is a resort for every creed, colour and gender. Currently celebrating Women's Week, it seems to encompass the liberty and hope of the once new republic. Black, white, straight, gay, transgendered and plain ordinary families - of the kind so appealed to by vice-presidential candidate Sarah Palin (just as the lesbian couples with their babies in designer buggies are most definitely not) - have been here, enjoying the last few days of an Indian summer.

Out on the whalewatch boats, the tourists ooh and aah at the leaping whales. Coach parties and groups of students, from places as far as the Midwest, listen to naturalists extolling the history of their country. "What they didn't teach you in history class - even if you were awake," Dennis Minsky tells them, "is that it was here that the Pilgrim Fathers first made landfall. Here, in Provincetown Harbour, the Mayflower Compact was signed." It's true enough: modern American democracy was born in these waters. This is were it all began.

Yet that sense of derring-do and exploration which created America seems conflicted nowadays. We Europeans bemoan the fact that 50 per cent of Americans don't even possess a passport. What would they make of the fact that a gentleman in his late 60s from Wisconsin, on his first whalewatch, asked me what a lobster was?... The Independent.