Big & Little Slices

Hi everyone, Lisa B here (that's me on the left with Dakota in the middle and Deirdre on the right) to give respite to Sharyn and to share with you a little slice of Wellfleet and a big slice of Caleb…well, here goes….
I’ve known the Potter/Lindsay Clan for as long as they have been in Wellfleet, and one of my first recollections of Caleb was when he was a skunk in the Halloween parade while he was so tiny. I remember he fit into Sharyn’s arms like this furry little puppet, and he smelled like a skunk by the end of the parade because he had pooped his pants!
I owned a restaurant once called the Flying Fish from 1990 to 2000, and in that time had almost every kid work with me in the Fleet bustin’ suds, or prep cooking, or on the line, and Caleb was no exception. And he was a prankster! We had the world’s smallest dishwasher working for us this one summer, and Caleb and Jonah (Shaye’s bro) convinced this kid to climb into the laundry bag and when the Acme laundry guy came to pick up the bags, he jumped back and screamed when the bag started to writhe and wiggle. Afterward, Caleb offered to buy him breakfast, and apologized for laughing so hard. That guy talked about that for years! On another note, when Jesse was working at the Fish, just 4 months before he died at 19 of cancer, Caleb was so tightly in that kid’s pocket, helping him just keep on keepin’ on. What a tough time that was, and how humbled I was to be just a little adult corner of the kid fabric that held these growing Fleetmates together.
I currently teach at Nauset Regional High School right next door in Eastham. It’s where I graduated from, and where Fleet kids go to school. I teach World Music, and the second year of class I had Mike D, Caleb, Bags (Caleb P), Sky And Casey S in my class…all Fleetsters. We started what is now the Nauset World Music Ensemble, and our first big concert was the first annual Clothesline Concert where a few hundred people showed up at the high school for this fundraiser.
Now, none of these kids were “professional”. in fact, most had never really performed in front of this many people (well, maybe Sky had). We were supposed to fill about 15 minutes of the evening, and because everything we did was original, needless to say we had about 10 minutes of stuff, even including the cool thing Sky danced to, which she stretched as much as she could. Caleb, Bags and Mike ASSURED me that they could fill the other 5 minutes, 2 minutes before we went on. Ever have one of those moments when your career flashes before your eyes? When you know that the kids think they got it all goin’ on, and you are afraid because they grew up in Fleet…and…well…maybe etiquette is a little…uh… different here than in the real world, that perhaps you really won’t see a job in your foreseeable future after what was about to unfold? GULP. Just trust them (I whispered ferverently to myself). Okay. We go on. I introduce. The Ensemble plays, Sky dances…and… the three boys start in on this clap thing, hitting their bodies, their heads, their thighs, beating their chests to this crazy beat & rhythmically pounding each other like a Stomp / Blue Man Group gone haywire! Then Caleb starts that jig..y’know... THE jig with arms and knees and elbows a’flappin’..?
OHMYGOD they brought the house down!
The moral of the story? If you want laughs, love, tenderness, compassion, and general hijinx, well..it’s definitely alive and well in Wellfleet. It is where we get to bump into each other and bump dysfunctionally into ourselves in a BIG way. And soon again we get to bump into Caleb too….I love you guys.
Lisa
p.s. At 5:30 today whoever wants to help move the circle 3 feet to the cannon, we will see you there!