Family

Mind your toes! Make way for the strollers! It's family week! The kids are already here, skateboards clattering down the street, toy rifles trained on you and much giggling, which is proven to be good for us nonchildren... extremely therapeutic.

Families of all sorts will be spilling into town ladened down with every gizmo and gadget for any possible or impossible eventuality. I've said this before, but I've noticed more straight families in town than in recent years. And the other night this was confirmed as I sat watching Varla Jean Merman amongst, what she thought was, a very drunk straight crowd. "How do you know," I said, being forever the journalist. "The jokes took 4 seconds longer to land," came her reply, as though that were a universal truth, which it probably is.

So why then are all the straightees with babies and kiddies here? I thought Family Week was for same-sex 'rents? But what I'm talking about is the straightees and they're here, and they're not even Townies. Don't get me wrong. I'm one of them. My son was born here, attended his first Carnival at two months and his second in a few weeks from now. My girlfriend said, "Can we get him into Humpday Karaoke?" I wanted to answer, but couldn't find a good reason why he shouldn't be permitted or for that matter admitted...so long as he's not sucking down my Margarita. But Provincetown is changing. It's become exotic to many who are looking for a spark in that gray drudgery we call the rat race, mass culture, television for twits and draconian attitudes about life altogether. It affects us all, I know, but for we straights the confusion between proper and boring is an ongoing dilemma.

When I lived on the West Coast two gentlemen friends of mine adopted a wee lad. An American boy from the South...could have been no more than three. This was back in 1995. To my mind they might have been one of this first male couples to do so. Anyway, recollection being what it is, I do remember they had great difficulty getting around all the legal hurdles that were definitely in place to prevent this sort of "abnormality" from succeeding. In the end, their wish was realized and David, Joel and Parker became a family. Much to my happiness, I met my old friends a few years ago along with their son, only see that Parker had indeed become a bright, and mannered young man. I say this, not as some ridiculous affirmation that "See! Gay parents are just as good as straight ones." I say this because children care only for the essentials and being treated right as well as engaged is the key to their love and, as parents, our happiness. Who performs this is really of no concern. I mean, wasn't Mowgli raised by wolves and look how well he played?

But back to Provincetown as the new elixir for the droopy masses. The energy of this place is an attraction to anyone...extraterrestrials included. Now, will Provincetown change as a result of this influx of nippers and their 'rents? Will we become "cr?che by the sea?" A kindergarten for real kids, not wannabes? So long as we hide our offspring in the dunes when out of towners visit, we should be fine. Despite it being family week, we don't want to give the wrong impression?