Project "Have Horn" and Strange Occurrences in Provincetown, MA

Written by John Webb

In 1970 I was part of a team that was deployed to Truro AF Station on Cape Cod in Massachusetts, in order to support Operation Have Horn. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Have_Horn.  After we arrived on the Cape we rented apartments in Provincetown (PTown) where we would live for the duration of the project.   I was not aware of what a “colorful” place PTown was nor of many of the famous residents who lived there during the winter. I considered myself a relatively knowledgeable “man of the world”, but PTown really opened my eyes.

My first experience occurred while I was exploring the waterfront one Saturday morning and I came upon an elderly couple with a very large display of photographs. I was very impressed with what they had and started asking for prices. I almost fainted. The prices were higher than Joe Namath’s New York City’s bar tabs. When I made a comment to the lady about the prices she looked at me like I was some kind of moron (which, I guess I was). She said the photo’s were by Ansel Adams. I told her I had never heard of him and she said she was Mrs. Ansel Adams and Mr. Ansel Adams was setting in a lawn chair just a few feet away from us. I had obviously become a persona non grata so I quickly scurried away. I was not until a number of years later that I discovered what a world renown artist Ansel Adams was and I felt like a bigger fool than I did the day I almost got to meet him.

A few weeks later, during the late evening, I was driving one of our AF trucks back to my apartment when I saw a guy hitchhiking into PTown. It was kind of an unwritten law around there that you picked up hitchhikers. It was also extremely cold and was snowing quite hard. So I picked the guy up. We started talking and he told me he was the new chef at one of the restaurants in PTown and that was where he was headed. He told me that when we got there if I would come in he would buy me a drink and fix a special appetizer for me.  We got to the restaurant so I stopped and went inside with him.  I sat down at the bar and next to me was a short, rather thick looking drunk who could barely stay seated on his bar stool. When the guy I picked up came in, the drunk acted like he had just seen his long lost brother.  He grabbed the guy and started hugging him and saying how he had been waiting for him to show up.  The hitchhiker introduce me to the drunk as the driver who brought him into PTown and the drunk started hugging me and profusely thanked me for bringing this guy to the restaurant.  Then I discovered the drunk was Norman Mailer.  He lived in PTown during the winter and did a great deal of his writing there.  I sat at the bar and Norman just kept buying he and I drink after drink. Pretty soon, after he could no longer stay seated on his bar stool he decided he probably should leave, Norman wrapped a heavy scarf around his neck, put on a very heavy looking brown cashmere overcoat and stumbled out of the bar.  I offered him a ride but he said he preferred to walk.  So the last image I have of Norman Mailer was him trudging very slowly through the snow, down the street, headed for the far end of PTown and I guess his home.