The Giant of Cape Cod

I do not love mankind.

People think they’re interesting. That’s their first mistake. Every retiree you meet wants to supply you with his life story.

Thirty years ago a woman came into the library; she’d just heard about oral histories and wanted to string one together herself.

‘We have so many wonderful old people around,’ she said. ‘They have such wonderful stories. We could capture them on tape and then maybe transcribe them – don’t you think that would make a wonderful record of the area? My father, for instance, is in a nursing home . . .’

Her father, of course. She was not interested in the past, but her past.