Here on Cape Cod the busi­ness land­scape is dom­i­nated by fam­ily busi­nesses and micro enter­prises. One of the things I love about deal­ing with these small busi­nesses is that the own­er’s word is his bond; if he makes you a promise, he’ll keep it.

Com­mit­ments are hon­ored; there’s no face­less bureau­cracy to be blamed for changes in pol­icy, pric­ing, etc. I prize this aspect of New Eng­land cul­ture: the value placed on keep­ing one’s word. (I hope this is not a gen­er­a­tional qual­ity that is on its way to extinc­tion…)

Last Sep­tem­ber my hus­band and I decided to replace our rusted exte­rior light fix­tures with tra­di­tional Sand­wich lanterns that are bet­ter designed to with­stand marine envi­ron­ments. These fix­tures are Colo­nial repro­duc­tions, a model that has been in use here for hun­dreds of years. These lanterns are made by a fam­ily busi­ness near Sand­wich MA, and are very pop­u­lar as fix­tures for Cape Cod homes.

When we went shop­ping for fix­tures last Sep­tem­ber, the busi­ness owner promised us a good dis­count for cash in lieu of credit card pay­ment. He wrote his offer by hand on a scrap of paper.

Eight months later, hav­ing lost that scrap of paper, we returned to the Sand­wich Lantern shop to see if they would honor the deal. For­tu­nately, the owner remem­bered us and sold us 9 lanterns for the price he had quoted last year.

As we were fill­ing the car trunk with our new lanterns, we learned that the busi­ness owner had boxed and set aside the 9 promised lanterns last fall, wait­ing for us to come back this spring to pick them up. What won­der­ful old-fash­ioned val­ues! We had not paid a deposit on these lanterns, so this was amaz­ing on their part.

It’s clear when you visit this shop that it runs on paper. Not a com­puter in sight, stacks of paper every­where. And even so, this model appears to work here on Cape Cod.

We’re always unset­tled, if delighted, by the busi­ness tra­di­tions we encounter here. It’s almost like island liv­ing.

This is one of the many ways in which we have to down­shift, and recal­i­brate our expec­ta­tions for a slower pace. If you don’t want to be seen as a for­eigner, you have to engage dif­fer­ently: relax into a slower and more per­sonal mode of inter­act­ing with busi­ness own­ers and ser­vice providers when spend­ing time on Cape Cod.

Despite New Eng­land’s rep­u­ta­tion for cold, uncar­ing peo­ple, we find that every busi­ness deal or ser­vice exchange requires con­ver­sa­tion and some per­sonal shar­ing — even if only a com­ment on the Red Sox. The locals don’t enjoy purely trans­ac­tional encoun­ters.

If you plan to visit Cape Cod this sum­mer, be pre­pared to engage with the peo­ple who live here. It’s a spe­cial place.