Abstract:
From the Forward: These essays appeared from time to time over a number of years in The Enterprise, the community newspaper of Falmouth, Massachusetts.
I first encountered "Starbuck" as a youthful editor some forty years ago.
We were early in the cold war. We were in the McCarthy era. Inspired
by McCarthy, persons ambitious for attention were going about the country
discovering Communists. One of these Paul Reveres of the cold war
came to address some gathering on Cape Cod and announced to a startled
audience that there were-he knew for a fact-a thousand or more dedicated
Communists living on Cape Cod.
A thrill of excitement ran through that part of the community that
enjoyed alarms and nourished the idea that there were Russian spies everywhere
in the land. Kicking around the newspaper office was a Rotary Club handbook that
listed the members of the several Rotary clubs on the Cape. I counted the
names. They added up to a couple of hundred. So I ran an editorial saying
that there seemed to be more Communists than Rotarians on Cape Cod. It was the sort of appeal to the ridiculous that delighted Hank
Stommel, and a day or so later he came to me with an appreciative note
that was signed "Starbuck." I regret the note isn't preserved. I remember
that it was amusing and to the point and that I wished that I had written it.
I had met Hank Stommel, but I did not yet know him. That was the
star. Encouraged, I like to think, by my appreciation, the "Starbuck" letters
began to arrive at The Enterprise offce.
These letters, which I correctly called essays, speak wonderfully for
themselves.
Reading the "Starbuck" letters will suggest the pleasure of spending a
sociable evening with Hank Stommel over beer and fresh-shucked oysters.
I can hear his laughter now.
