8/17
Those inspirational-poster-with-pictures-of-mountains types
who say that it is not about the destination it is about the journey probably
took the ferry to Martha’s Vineyard. Because
in this particular case, for this particular trip, it is totally about the
journey. The ferry may be the high point
of a MV vacation for me. It is all
ahead, everything is possible, the weather is usually brilliant, and you spend
the whole time gazing on to the island and thinking about places and things you
might do and seeing what is different as you drift into Vineyard Haven. You might also imagine how lovely it would
feel if you lived here and had to use the ferry regularly and always had that
delicious feeling of coming home and leaving all the yucky stuff behind.
I should note that the Governor,
while seaworthy, has seen better days, and her engine sounded distinctly
laboring and there was a brief moment
when I wondered what exactly we would do if the engines failed. Isn’t that always the beginning of the end in
tales of nautical disaster? The engines
fail, and your vessel is left to drift on the swells, taking on water, and
eventually slapped by a rogue wave or runs aground or is dashed on some terrible
rocks, with attendant loss of life. Not
that any of that would likely have happened had the Governor lost her power yesterday, since the day was fair, the sea
had only a light chop and there were about a million other boats buzzing around
the Sound. But you know, it added a
frisson of terror to the trip which was just a little exciting.
No armed Coast Guard escort yesterday although Bill did see
sniffer dogs going around all the cars in the staging area. Yes, the POTUSes are in town, although we think
they may leave this weekend.
We’ve upgraded our standard lunch-after-arrival to the Net
Result in Vineyard Haven, where you can get a grilled swordfish sandwich, or a
lobster roll, or fried fish, or, if you are Isabel, a hot dog. This is a considerable improvement over the
Black Dog outpost on State Road.
This year’s house is new, because the one we had the past
two visits, which we loved, was, shockingly ALREADY BOOKED when we started
planning. So we approached with some
trepidation, quickly erased. It’s
another very nice house way way way up Longview, in a little holler in the
woods. Other than the inexplicable
absences of a teapot (and even a tea kettle!) and a lobster pot, the kitchen is
well-stocked. The furniture is
comfortable and it was all clearly re-done very recently. I don’t think it will permanently replace
ROSES, but it is a worthy substitute.
Although apparently it is a house for giants. The wineglasses are on shelves about eight
feet high, and the bathroom mirrors are set so high that I can barely see my
eyes in them, and that’s only if I stand up really straight. Bill thinks they work fine.
We were not particularly impressed with our rental agency,
Tea Lane Associates, or our agent, Bob Righter, during the rental process. But Bob redeemed himself rather spectacularly
by adding a full pound of Chilmark Chocolates to the stack of info from the
realtor.
In a Vineyard first, I did NOT do the initial stock-up run
to Cronig’s, leaving that to the boys.
We took our Scottish Bakehouse takeout dinner down to
Lambert’s Cove beach where the sunset was not promising to be anything special
and then turned into the most spectacular pink and lavender and magenta sky
ever. EVER. Looking back from the path to the car, it
seemed as if the Cove was on fire. Too
bad Bill didn’t really get it.
I had a little moment on Lambert’s Cove beach. On past visits to the Island, I’d always
wanted to tell my dad all about it, because I thought he would really like it
here, so I tried to tell him all the details and now he will never come here
and see it which makes me sad.
One particularly nice thing about this house is the big deck
off of the master bedroom. You are up in
the trees, and it is very pleasant to sit here in the early morning and listen
to them all tweeting away, including some rooster nearby who is determined to
make sure that we all know it is now morning.
Last night I heard a foghorn.
I’ll finish with the book report. Bill has started Graham Greene’s The Ministry of Fear, at my
recommendation (you can read my review here:
http://crimepayslisa.blogspot.com/2012/10/the-ministry-of-fear_22.html). Isabel is thoroughly enjoying getting to know
that cheery family of kiddie lit, the Moffats.
But she likes to mispronounce their name, so she is reading, according
to her, The Moe-fat Museum. Peter has a massive stack with him, not sure
what he’s started but he may have been distracted by The Jaws Chronicle, an insider look at the filming of that Vineyard
classic. I’m finishing up Marilyn
McGrath’s The Long Exile which is
about the forced removal of Inuit from their southern Hudson Bay home to
Ellesmere Island, in the 1950s. It is
beautifully written, although a bit tiresome at times, and pretty damn
depressing.
8/18
If you try to make Peter Laskin put on sunscreen he will get
very mad at you and tell you that you are NO FUN. To which his father might respond, that’s
right, we are no fun, we are fun-free.
In fact, this is the fun-free fake-cation, so get used to it.
Lambert’s Cove beach today was made more perfect by news
that our fantasy football team got first pick in the draft, which means we get
Aaron Rodgers. Go Packers.
We visited the Ag Fair this afternoon, which everyone here
on the Island loves but is kind of small potatoes compared to the Sandwich Fair. Still, they have the requisite carny rides
and games (Peter did his best not to smile while accompanying Isabel on the
Swinging Chairs, but ultimately failed), quilt and baking and art and fruit and
veg competitions (green mint jelly,
pffft), racing pigs, draft horses, and so on.
And, they’ve been doing this for 152 years, which is not bad, and they
always have a nice poster and good food.
In our opinion, the highlights this year were:
- Finding Ting at the Jamaican food truck.
- A scale model of the Saturn V rocket, which they were
going to launch during the fair but apparently were not permitted by the FAA
because MV is a no-fly zone during the Obama’s visit and all flights over 800
feet have to be cleared in advance. Damn
it.
- We missed the oyster shucking contest, which is always
pretty fun.
- The now-famous sow from Nip-‘n’-Tuck Farm with her ten TEN
piglets, born last Thursday (yes, that is three days ago). They looked like cartoon pigs – little pink
noses and curly tails.
- The women’s skillet toss.
This is what it sounds like:
women compete to see who can throw a no. 8 steel skillet (about three
lbs.) the farthest. There are age
groups. The oldest competitor, Eileen
Baxter, was 95 YEARS OLD. She tossed it
a respectable nine feet, six inches and of course received a huge cheer from
the crowd. The winner in her age group
(65+) threw for 31 feet. But the real
excitement is in the younger groups: we
saw the winner of the 46-64 group throw 38 feet, and Bill saw someone in the
35-45 group throw for 50! There are a
lot of locals in this competition, although off-Islanders do well too. You clearly have to practice. It is immediately apparently that while you
might think a running start would help, it is too complicated to get the
momentum of your legs and your arm and the skillet all going in the same
direction at the same time. Height
helps, but it is really all about the windup.
8/19
Man, if you miss a day of this, you really start to lose
control of your recollections. I think
this was Monday, and I think we went to the Wavy Beach a.k.a. Long Point. I do know that this is where Izzy found her
wave-jumping groove. The waves were not
too big today, and guided by her adored big bro she was soon leaping and diving
like a fish. Peter, being extremely
conscientious, would yell IZZY every time he popped up from a wave, to make
sure she’d come up too. He trained her
so well that now she yells IZZY every time she bobs to the surface.
I should note that I have finished The Long Exile (it ends well for the Inuit, but is a hard-fought
battle to get there), and have started and been racing through Eye of the Needle, the Ken Follett
classic spy thriller about a crack German spy who might just scuttle
D-Day. Tons o’ fun.
It got a little overcast and windy so we piled sandily back
in the car and headed down to the bustling scene at Menemsha to get some fish for
dinner.
It is all a little confusing what precisely we’ve done
because I’ve been taking a lot of naps.
8/20
This date at least is fixed in my mind because it is the day
we planned to spend with Peter’s friend Harry.
We whisked him off with us to South Beach, which is kind of the eastern
end of the beach we were on the day before, and he and Peter entertained each
other mightly shouting Olde Englishe at each other and the sea: I shall smite these waves! I say you have been smited by them! and so on. They were also kind enough to include Isabel
in most of their fun, which generated the ultimate compliment from her: I like Harry!
This is where I am in my life right now: that all I can think of to report (other than
that picture-perfect sun, sand, surf, and a fluffernutter sandwich all combine
to make a perfectly glorious and marvelously forgettable vacation day) is that
the deception holds and Operation Overlord can proceed, with its leaders safe
in the knowledge that this spy, at least, lies smashed at the bottom of a cliff
on a remote Scottish island. Yes, I
finished Eye of the Needle. Izzy is inspired by all of our war-time
reading to take up her own version, an American Girl mystery set in Molly’s
era, WWII. She’s also got a Dear America
book going, a captive diary of a Quaker girl captured by Lenape Indians in
1760s Pennsylvania, and The Moe-fat
Museum. She likes to keep a few
books going at a time.
Peter ended up spending the night with Harry so we three had
a nice dinner in Oak Bluffs and drove home under the rising Sturgeon Moon.
8/21
I don’t think I’ve mentioned that Bill has become a
bicycle-riding fiend, and has already completed two 20-mile rides, one to
Menemsha, and one through interior Chilmark.
He heads off early in the morning and returns a couple of hours later,
sweaty and satisfied.
Izzy accompanied me to the West Tisbury Farmer’s Market this
morning while Bill rode, and we dropped an awful lot of clams buying admittedly
lovely produce for our dinner party later this week. Not all the vendors come to the Wednesday
version of the market, but there are enough for us to pick up vast quantities
of cherry tomatoes, nice fingerling potatoes from the Grumpy Potato Man (who is
different from the Fancy Potato Lady – she’ll come on Saturday), some corn,
some feta and a mango lassi from Mermaid Farm, some mushrooms, and finally an
egg roll for Peter, with whom we rendezvous-ed.
And then it is off to ANOTHER beach, this time towards the western
end of that stretch that includes South Beach and Long Point. Izzy’s bestie Eliza and her parents have
rented a rather classic ramshackle vacation cottage right on Chilmark Pond,
across which you can paddle to get to the ocean beach, and they’ve invited us
to join them for the day. It’s a
beautiful spot, and we clamber in to a rowboat and canoe to make our way
across. The beach is more of the same
although wilder and less crowded than either of the previous two versions. The water is clear and warm-ish and while the
waves aren’t huge they are enough to keep Izzy and Eliza and eventually Peter
happy for hours. We see a fellow catch a
striper that is THIS BIG (Bill’s arms held about two feet apart) no this big
(mine held about a foot apart) but he has to throw it back because he has no
cooler to keep it in. What a great spot.
Everyone else is sticking with their books, but I’ve moved
on to another classic of the spy/crime fiction genre, Frederick Forsyth’s Day of the Jackal. This story revolves around an attempt to
assassinate Charles de Gaulle, and you have to know something about mid-century
France to really get it so Forsyth has to do a bit of historical background
into the aftermath of the Algerian conflict which is pretty complicated. I think the pace will pick up.
Tonight is Family Night at the London’s main house. I suppose it is always family night for them,
but we are delighted to be absorbed into their milieu, and very happy to eat
John Tokeshi’s tasty surf and turf of steak and shrimp skewers. But in a shocking departure from tradition, there
is CAKE for dessert instead of pie. What
is going on over there?? Steak and cake?
I think the wheels are coming off.
8/22
After much hemming and hawing on this cloudy-ish morning, we
finally settle upon a plan. Check out the Vineyard Artisan’s Fair, collect lunch
and Harry, and head over to Menemsha Pond for some kayaking. All on board?
For the moment.
The first part turned out brilliantly anyway. Serendipity stepped in and led to us finding
our dear former preschool teacher Kathy Poehler, at the Artisan’s
Festival. (You may recall hearing about
Teacher Kathy, who took us on our clamming adventure a few years ago.) But what do preschool teachers do when they
retire from working with children?
Become purveyors of fine weed, of course! Kathy makes art, and nice stuff too, with seaweed,
and her tent at the fair bears the moniker “Purveyor of Fine Weed” which is
designed to get people into the tent so she can explain what it is all about. Ever
the science teacher, she describes to us how the various seaweeds – and there
are many – have their own sort of adhesive, so you just kind of stick them on
the paper and there they stay. She has
all kinds of images, some abstract, some kind of realistic – trees and mermaids
and Vineyard stone walls and so on – using all different shapes and sizes and
colors of weed. They are really quite
beautiful. We hem and haw and purchase a
lovely delicate tree image, and a charming ornament for our Christmas tree, of
a teeny crab painted gold, and attached to a piece of driftwood.
Kathy is a kind of Goldfinger in the shellfish world.
We also ran into Eliza and family, and directed them to
Kathy’s tent. And I supported my other
favorite Vineyard artisans, the pressed clay pottery guy and the jewelry
lady.
Kayaking on Menemsha Pond was marginally less successful,
although Bill and I liked it. Izzy had
REALLY wanted to go, and REALLY wanted to have her own kayak but it was REALLY
not a good idea since the paddle was about twice as tall as her. So we doubled up in a girl-powered craft, Peter
and Harry betook themselves out together hooting and hollering, and Bill
paddled off serenely on his own.
Fortunately he decided to switch with me as Isabel’s enthusiasm waned
about ten minutes into our two-hour paddle.
It was really peaceful and pretty along the shore, although
windy and gray. Bill and Izzy ventured
all the way into Quitsa Pond, where they were part of a dramatic open water
rescue! Apparently another kayaker was
hit by a sailboat (we’re not quite sure how this could actually happen but it
did), and Bill and Izzy helped collect her paddle and boat, and get her on to
the sailboat. She was fine, they were
apologetic, and towed her in. Meanwhile,
we had to fight our way back across the pond in some fairly stiff wind, which
resulted in a lot of splashing and grumbling from the boy set. Honestly.
8/23
Tonight is Londons-for-dinner-at-our-house night, so I made
a blueberry pie this morning. It is
rather beautiful
Peter was feeling particularly grumpy about going to
Lambert’s Cove this morning and it was pretty windy so Bill and I took a lovely
long walk up to the Split Rock and left those whiners to each other. Eventually some Londons came down and we had
a jolly time, leaving Isabel with them while we three returned to prepare the
feast. (Well, I prepared the feast, Bill
supplied the feast, and Peter napped.)
Everyone came! There
were 16 of them and four of us, and we managed to feed all 20. Here’s what we had:
Tuna
tartare
Smoked
bluefish
Grilled
shrimp with miso butter
Grilled
halibut with either a sorrel pesto or an olive salad
Fingerling
potatoes with seedy mustard dressing
Cherry
tomatoes and corn and feta salad
Pound cake
Blueberry
pie
Ice cream
And pasta for thems that don’t eat that stuff. Which turned out to not be very many as we
had only a little dessert and a lot of beer left so I think everyone liked it. “I think I just ate a grape,” said Tom. “Is that possible?” Theoretically of course, anything is
possible, but practically speaking, those were just incredibly sweet tomatoes.
We’ve started a 1000-piece puzzle which provided much
entertainment for the masses this evening.
Isabel was spotted curled up in the crook of Julia’s arm, and Peter was
walking around laughing and burping outrageously as he single-handedly finished
off about a gallon of root beer. It was
really really nice to have everyone here and we all wish they weren’t leaving
this weekend.
8/24
This is shaping up to be a pretty boring vacation
journal. I’m leaving out all the
teeth-gnashing over email from work (which I am scrupulously avoiding answering
in a raging bout of passive-aggressiveness) and arguing with children about
just getting out the door and stop touching each other and yes we do need
smoked paprika do you think they have it at Cronig’s?
Dropped another bundle of cash at the West Tis Farmer’s
Market.
A shocking discovery today:
sometimes there are NO WAVES AT THE WAVY BEACH. Peter was sorely disappointed.
Had the remnants of the Londons over tonight, for clams and
corn (“This is what the Wampanoag ate!” Tom reminds us) and some locally-made
bratwurst. Bill Murray loves these, the
farmer who made them told me, after I said that that my husband is from
Wisconsin and knows from bratwurst. Bill
is from Chicago you know. Which as far
as I understand it is a hot dog not bratwurst town, and is not even in
Wisconsin, so what are you talking about, man?
While small, the sausages in question were, in fact, excellent. We had yet another delightful evening,
listening to tales of the London’s year in Holland, now about 40 years
ago.
8/24
And now we are on our own.
We waved at Kathy’s car heading to Vineyard Haven this morning, as we
were off to the beach. Eliza’s family
leaves today, Harry’s tomorrow. The
Obamas are a distant memory.
We get over it by heading to Moshup Beach, which is becoming
one of my favorites on the Island. It
has nice sand, no painful pebbly bits at the break, clear clear water, and is
nice and flat for walking. If you walk
to the left, you would eventually get to Chilmark Beach, where we went with
Eliza, and then Long Point and then South Beach where we went with Harry. But that would take you a very long time as
it is several miles.
If you walk to the right, you get to view the gorgeous cliffs
up close. The legend is that the giant
Moshup (who created the island) used to grab whales out of the sea and bash
them to death on the cliffs before roasting and eating them, and that is why
the cliffs are red – with ancient whale blood.
It is really just clay but we like to think about Moshup, who, other
than his treatment of whales, which were plentiful then anyway, was really
quite a benign giant.
If you walk to the right, you also pass the nudie portion of
the beach. And it turns out that walking
on a nude beach (clothed) is a great way to boost your own body image, since
there are actually very few people who look really great naked, and even fewer
of them on this beach. This is the old
Vineyard, right here.
Bill, of course, rode his bike here. He is a cycling maniac.
We spent a lovely long day at Moshup, and I hope we go
back. Izzy finished a Nancy Drew
mystery, Bill finished The Ministry of
Fear, and I am deep into the plot
in The Day of the Jackal. Peter occasionally enlightens us with
tidbits from Operation Mincemeat,
such as the fact that the submarine delivering the body was small and the crew
was large, so some had to sleep in shifts in the torpedo racks, next to William
Martin (real name Glyndwr Michael), who was the corpse.
I am reminded that I did not include note of our scientific
find of the day. If you’ve followed our
pictures on Instagram or Facebook, you’ve seen it: a plastic bottle with two sets of
clam/barnacle-like creatures attached to it.
They look a bit like small-ish clams (maybe an inch plus in length), but
when removed from the water, little purple feeler-like things emerge and grasp
desperately at the air. Limited online
research suggests that they might be gooseneck barnacles, although I couldn’t
see the necks. Maybe juveniles? In any case, nothing we’ve seen before, and
quite remarkable. We had a family debate
about returning their home to the sea (Bill was opposed, as it was a plastic
bottle), and then couldn’t figure out how to do it so that they didn’t wash
right up again. Peter ended up filling
the bottle with water and sinking it behind a boulder. UPDATE:
taking blatant advantage of a professional relationship, I sent our
picture to a marine biologist whom I know.
He confirms: gooseneck barnacles,
neckless likely due to stress.
Something new alert!
Checked out the Artcliff Diner truck for dinner tonight. The Diner is revered for breakfast and lunch,
but always has a long line in which we never feel like waiting. The truck is a surprisingly sophisticated and
tasty substitute, and it is good to have a burger once in a while during this
fishy diet.
Cronigs in Vineyard Haven is to the Up-Island Cronigs as the
Fresh Pond Whole Foods is to the Dark Star on Beacon Street, a veritable
Harrods Food Halls of groceries.
Izzy has indulged in one of her favorite Island pastimes,
which is watching Esther Williams movies.
Today we finished Neptune’s
Daughter, in which Esther is romanced by Ricardo Montalban, who, amazingly,
swims in the big production number at the end.
It is a rather frothy story, but Red Skelton is pretty funny, and Keenan
Wynn is in it (he of the hoods who sing “Brush Up Your Shakespeare” in Kiss Me Kate), and Mel Blanc (yes, of
Bugs Bunny fame) plays one of the grooms with the “South American” (they don’t
even get a country!) polo team, in a so-badly-stereotyped-it-is-funny bit. But Izzy chortles delightedly during an
extended sequence of trying to get Red Skelton on to a horse.
8/26
Today being overcast and windy, and threatening some rain,
we opt for a bike ride around the Manuel F. Correllus State Forest. This is a (we thought) pretty flat area in
the middle of the island, which envelops the airport on three sides. Turns out that the area along South Road is
actually a bit hilly, which disturbed the smallest member of our party more
than the others. I must note here that
Isabel reached a great rung on the ladder to adulthood today, by riding her OWN
bike on this trek, rather than the trail-a-bike of past years. She was a great trooper, carrying on despite
a skinned knee, and making it around all ten miles of the loop.
The most interesting thing about the Manuel F. Correllus
State Forest (named for a long-serving superintendent) is that it was actually
established in 1908 as a reserve for the increasingly rare Heath Hen, a kind of
grouse. These birds were plentiful along
the Eastern seaboard until the late 1800s, when only a few hundred remained in
the world, and only on Martha’s Vineyard, no thanks to hunting and loss of
habitat. The birds rebounded for a few
years after the establishment of the preserve in 1908, but fires in the forest
and disease and “increased predation” took their toll. By the late 1920s, there was just one Heath
Hen known to still exist. He showed up
for three years in the spring, calling for mates, and acquiring the name
Booming Ben. In 1932, Ben didn’t boom .
. . thus endeth the existence of the Heath Hen on our planet. We all took momentary pause at the fact that
there were probably still people on the island who’d heard of this, first
hand. Like that lady from the
skillet-throwing competition.
You pass a monumental Heath Hen memorial sculpture on the
bike path, and a placard upon which you can read more about this tragedy. The sculpture is by a guy named Todd McGrain,
who makes sculptures of extinct North American birds. You can read more about him here: http://www.toddmcgrain.com/
Lunch at The Bite, in Menemsha, offered enormous and tasty
fried clams for the growns, and chicken fingers and fried fish for the
smalls. (Note: Peter is no longer so small, being officially
as tall as me now. But he still doesn’t
like clams in any form other than chowder.)
Cloudy afternoon activity:
Star Trek. Say no more.
8/27
I believe that I have neglected to mention that our house is
called “SEAS THE DAY.”
Today we all awoke, late, to a pouring, drenching rain. The kind of rain that does not let up when
The Weather Channel says it will, and the kind of rain that gets your kayak
tour cancelled. So we visit our favorite
rainy day destination, the Martha’s Vineyard Museum in Edgartown. I think they’ve got a savvy development staff
because this is clearly not a museum that stagnates. The core exhibit, the Cook house, remains the
same but they have a new feature of little listening devices that talk about
features in the house. Even better,
when you get out to the lighthouse, and the stuff in the barn like the whaleboat,
the recorded bits are all old Vineyarders talking about their experiences. So, the son of the last keeper of the Gay
Head Light talks about living with the Light, and people talk about whaling
boats and swordfishing and the Aquinnah tribe’s fight for recognition and all
kinds of stuff. Adding that kind of
feature, upgrading existing exhibits with new info, and hosting temporary
smaller exhibits all germane to the Island, all takes hardworking staff and
money, and it is great that this small museum is able to do all of this.
In the shop and “new” galleries building, there was also a
charming room wherein each of the six or seven summer interns displayed their
project, which involved selecting an item from the museum’s collection, doing
some research and preservation work, and then writing up a little note about
it. Such good historians! And clearly getting a great and unique
opportunity to work directly with objects.
I wonder if they take 47 year- olds?
Finally, there was a new-ish exhibit, with just a few
objects representing periods in the Island’s history. So, there was a tea brick about the foreign
trade, and pearlized beads made out of herring scales, and a map from a reprint
of J. Hector St. John de Crevecour’s Letters
from an American Farmer (1782) showing the island with its southern shores
called “the great beach against which the sea continually beats.” (More on that tomorrow.)
Our favorite piece in this last room was the flag from the 1977
secession movement. Yes! That
year, a redistricting bill proposed to remove the representative who served MV,
Nantucket, and the Elizabeth Islands, and roll them all in with a bunch of
towns on the Cape. Needless to say, this
didn’t sit well with the locals, although it seems that they were indeed
proportionately over-represented in the state legislature. The movement was just about seceding from
Massachusetts (they realized pretty quickly that seceding from the US was a bad
idea) and apparently the Islands were courted by various other states –
Connecticut, Rhode Island, Vermont, Hawaii – about joining them. Then-Governor Michael Dukakis threatened to
veto the secession bill if it came to his desk.
It was a little bit serious and a lot in jest, but it appears that the
Islanders had an awful lot of fun with the whole idea. You
can read a good article about it here: http://www.mvmagazine.com/2007/september-october/secession.php
Once the rain cleared, people came out like cockroaches and
Edgartown got rather crowded. We ran
into Patty, the assistant teacher in Peter’s fifth grade classroom, which was
fun, and then took a glorious walk on a windy but warm and super-wavy South
Beach. It is so wavy that there is only
one intrepid wave rider, an adult, but he is having an awesome time riding
those curls on a boogie board, no less.
We watch transfixed, for about half an hour. Dinner at our fave Red Cat Kitchen (steak,
tuna, calamari, and mashed potatoes for Isabel) and Back Door Donuts (chocolate
supreme, jelly, apple fritter) topped off what turned out to be a pretty good
rainy day.
We sang along with James Taylor on our foggy drive
home. The Wampanoag say that fog is the
smoke from Moshup’s pipe, and that he is smoking because he is satisfied with
his people. So, fog is good.
Bill has finished The
Ministry of Fear and has moved on, at my suggestion, to Eric Ambler’s Epitaph for a Spy. I think he’ll like it, it is very
Greene-esque. Peter is about to start Dracula!
And Isabel has a couple going, the beloved Freddy and the Bean Home News which involves talking animals on a
farm, and a Nancy Drew mystery.
8/27
We had planned to take a kayak tour at Long Point yesterday
afternoon, but rain and fog intervened.
Fortunately, today the clouds are clearing and it is promising to be a
pretty great day, so we wind our way down a very long dirt road to the
off-season parking for the Long Point Wildlife Preserve, and spend the morning
toodling about Tisbury Great Pond with a nice young guide named Isobel. (“My name’s Isobel” she says to us. “Oh,” say we, “this is an Isabel too.” “How do you spell it?” asks our guide, in
what is apparently the standard greeting between all Isabels in the world.)
Here’s what we learned.
The pond and its environs are apparently a sand plain grassland, a.k.a.
coastal sand barrens of which there are only eight square miles in the world,
and an eighth of it is right here on Martha’s Vineyard. The rest are in small locations down the east
coast toward New York. What is a sand
plain grassland, you might ask? Well, it
is a salt pond and seashore environment that is influenced by humans. In this case, for centuries the Wampanoag
would create a cut in the late summer, between the ocean and the pond, allowing
the fresh sea water into the pond which is good for the sea creatures,
particularly shellfish. Long Point is no
longer on Wampanoag land but the locals have continued the tradition, and every
year in late August, they bring a digger in to create a channel, which will
close up naturally in about six weeks.
This was supposed to be a wildlife tour, but once the cut is
opened, the pond drains several feet and the places where the wildlife gather
are just mudflats now. So, we mostly
just paddle around. We also learn,
talking with Isobel, about storm damage from last winter, that the dunes
backing the great beach against which the sea continually beats, actually move
backwards between five and ten feet every year.
But lately, the ocean is encroaching faster than the dunes are moving,
so the dunes themselves are threatened.
It is a natural process, but one can’t help think about rising seas and
the human factor in that. We won’t live
to see the beach disappear, but will our children, or theirs?
Maybe you figured it out by now but the cut, known by its
other name of the TIDE RIDE is also dear to the hearts of Laskins, and several
members of our party are delighted that it is back. They spend two hours riding the incoming tide
into the pond. Speaking of the tide, it
is high today at the Wavy Beach, and with the shore break here the waves are
really pounding which thrills Peter and now Isabel no end. I get tossed by one up on to the beach and have
to spend an awkward five minutes removing sand from various parts of my bathing
suit.
Perhaps you thought we’d had enough fun for one day, but not
us Laskins. Time for another Something
New Alert! Tonight we went to the
Community Sing at the Tabernacle in Oak Bluffs.
It is like walking on to the set of The
Music Man – the charming wee cottages gently lit with lanterns and fairy
lights surround the venerable old structure, folks are sitting on their porches
talking quietly, and a big American flag hangs over the main aisle as you are
handed a songbook ca. 1985. A
nice-looking lady sits at a Steinway and entertains until the main event which
is when Bob Cleasby, who runs the show, takes the stage in red pants and a belt
with a buckle shaped like the Island. Everyone
is asked to stand and sing the national anthem, which we do, lustily (no
silently listening to the celebrity singer here!). Then we sing a song about Martha’s Vineyard,
to the tune of America the Beautiful, and another one that we don’t know the
tune but which is also about the Island.
Things really take off with some goofy rounds (“Little Tommy Tinker,” “My
Hat It Has Three Corners”), some old-fashioned tunes (“The Ash Grove,” “The
Vesper Hymn”, “Loch Lomond”), a religious tune (“Amazing Grace”), and the
apparently most-requested song ever: “The
Swiss Navy.” Get a Laskin kid to sing it
for you if you want to know how it goes, it is pretty funny. Bob offers patter in between the songs,
wishing happy birthday to folks, telling us what is for sale at the Camp
Meeting Association museum store, explaining about the history of the sing, and
so on. It is about as wholesome, and
gosh darn entertaining as you can get, and did I mention that it is free?
We end, as this is the last sing of the summer, with “Auld
Lang Syne” and “Sing Your Way Home,” which we are asked to keep singing as we
depart the Tabernacle. People are still
humming it over at Back Door Donuts.
Peter, on the way out:
“OK you were RIGHT” which means that he rather enjoyed it after all.
8/29
Oh dear oh dear our time is running short. I have been for the past several days engaged
in my annual activity of trying to figure out how to stay permanently. No luck yet in persuading Bill that he can
run PG Calc from here, but I persevere.
More clouds – this has not been the most stellar weather
week ever – so another bike ride. This
time we cruise along State Beach and into the traffic hell that is Edgartown on
a cloudy day, for lunch overlooking the harbor and watching the Chappy
Ferry. Then it starts to drizzle so our
ride back is a little damp. But the
birds in the marshy shoulders of Sengekontacket Pond are great – sanderlings
and sandpipers and stilts and willets and an egret or two. Isabel has clocked another nine mile ride,
and is feeling pretty chuffed about her bicycle prowess.
About every fourth car here is a Subaru Outback. Many are green. But none have the pinstrip that sets ours
apart.
Damp and chilly, we stop off in Oak Bluffs, to track down a
copy of the songbook from the Community Sing last night. Success at the Camp Meeting Association
Museum, which is a cottage filled with stuff from the past 180-some-odd years
of camp meetings in the grove. It is
charming, and we admire the old quilts and toys and clothes, and think about
living in these very teeny cottages truly cheek-by-jowl with your neighbors. They are so close and small because they were
originally tents, and one year everyone thought hey, let’s use our tent poles
to make cottages on our tent plots instead, and we can stay longer! So that’s how the wee small cottages came
about.
We also learn that the Illumination used to be known as the Grand Illumination, and involved strings
of lanterns from the Tabernacle out to the cottages, all manned by Boy Scouts
to watch the live flames. Well, in 1967
the Steamship Authority got the bright idea to advertise the Illumination on
the mainland, and boats full of people showed up – but no plan had been made
for boats back that night so they stayed all night, goofing around, playing
catch with the lanterns (which sent the Fire Marshal into a tizzy given all the
wooden cottages so close together), likely stoned, and definitely sleeping
everywhere. The Marshal said no mas! to
future Grand Illuminations. Eventually,
the CMA and the Marshal reached an agreement on how to run it, and now it is
back. It sounds beautiful, but very very
crowded and we’re never here for it anyway.
Here’s a sight you don’t see everywhere: a young man playing the harp on Circuit Ave.,
clad in his Martha’s Vineyard football uniform.
Donations benefit the team. He’s
pretty cute, and an admiring (and dollar-donating) crowd quickly gathers.
Our cloudy-day activities are not done, however, as we have
one very important stop to make:
Chilmark Chocolates is back after their August vacation! We arrive at 5, thinking, who would be there
in the last half-hour that they are open.
Only about a few dozen people ahead of us, that’s who. Finally, at about 5:40, we get in the
building. Here’s how it works: you tell the lady what size box you want, and
then point out which chocolates you want in it.
You have to have someone counting because they say 30-35 pieces fit in a
pound box, and you don’t want to load up too heavily from the first end of the
cabinet, lest you not have room for the big toffees at the other end. On the other hand, you don’t want to be too
abstemious up front and not get enough of the good stuff like Squibnuggets
(cashews in chocolate) and Moshup Macs (macadamia nuts in chocolate) and
Menemsha Sunset (apricot and nuts in chocolate). Pre-packed boxes are fine for office gifts,
but you want to fill your own box just so.
In our case, that means almost everything in the dark chocolate version
(as opposed to the milk), and since we have room and I’m feeling magnanimous, a
couple of coconut clusters for the boys.
The lady will helpfully tell you when your box is halfway full, and when
you are within about eight or so of filling it.
We end up squeezing more than 40 treats into ours, and leave, like all
customers, triumphantly out the back door with our big bag of goodies. It’s a bit of an ordeal, although like all MV
ordeals, mellow and congenial, and totally worth it.
Hoping to see a sunset, we continue out the South Road to
Aquinnah, but the clouds are clearly going to thwart that plan. Some fish tacos from Faith’s, and various
chowders, eaten in the lee of a building since it is pretty windy, make up for
the lack of sun. (Izzy has yet another
hot dog. She is tired of hot dogs, and
makes quite a fuss about them. But since
she refuses to eat anything else, she is stuck with them.) At Faith’s they sell an Aquinnah clam
chowder, in addition to the regular creamy kind. This is a clear soup, kind of like Rhode
Island chowder, and I like it a lot. But
I do think they boost the brew with some chicken broth, and tonight it tastes
as chickeny as it does clammy.
Even without a sunset the view from the clifftops here is
still spectacular, and we think about the precarious position of the Gay Head
Light, which is to be moved about 150 feet back from the edge of the cliff
sometime in the next year or two. We
purchase t-shirts to support the effort, since the town has to do this itself –
the Coast Guard has relinquished any responsibility for maintaining the
building. They do want a light there,
but they could just put one up on a stick, they don’t need a historic brick
tower to house it. So the town has taken over, and I bet they will raise the
money.
We were home early enough to play that beloved-by-children
but excruciatingly endless card game Uno.
Have I mentioned that Blofeld is in town, once again? His yacht, complete with carefully wrapped
helicopter is here, anyway. He too must
be a last-ten-days-of-August kind of guy.
8/30
Another good old Vineyard day. Another long morning ride for Bill. Another Lambert’s Cove beach excursion
although it took a very very long time for those clouds to dissipate. Still, you know it is the end of the summer
when the LC guards pull in the “SWIM AREA – NO WAKE” buoys in the
afternoon.
I am thrilled to report that this year both kids have now
discovered the peaceful contentment of reading on the beach. Some days find us all four lined up,
completely lost in whatever we are reading, and then discussing all the plots
over our next meal. I can also report
that le jour du chacal est finis, and just in time, too – it is amazing that De
Gaulle lives after all that. The Day of the Jackal shall remain forever
in my memory related, in a completely incongruous way, with tranquil Lambert’s
cove.
Grace Church lobster rolls for dinner which Peter says are
like skiing in Telluride – they completely spoil you for a lobster roll
anywhere else. If you ask for them to
go, they will give you a little tub loaded with the good stuff, and your roll
on the side, so the roll doesn’t get soggy while you take it home or to the
beach. Our dinner conversation that
night is mostly contemplating how do they do it: there is almost a half-pound of lobster meat
here, all good, with just mayo and S&P – not too much mayo, and no annoying
add-ins like celery. For $17, you get
the lobster roll, chips, and a drink (admittedly, Country Time lemonade or weak
iced tea, but still). I’ve said it in
previous journals, but it bears repeating that you’d pay upwards of $25 for the
equivalent in a fancy resto. Grace Church
lobster rolls: they really ARE all that
and a bag of chips.
Alerted by Teacher Kathy, we search the play yard at the
Church’s preschool to find another old friend from HYCCC days, Mrs.
Dinosaur! Looking rather skeletal, it
must be noted. Kathy donated the frame
to a friend who runs the preschool there, but we remember the time Isabel wore
her Dr. Isabel costume to preschool, to fix the (papier-mache-peeling) Mrs. We mostly think about how nice it is that we
still know our kids’ preschool teachers.
Hat-tip to high-quality early childhood education!
We also check out the last gasp of the Vineyard Artisan’s
Fair (alas, no weed), drop a few more clams on some deserving folks (Peter’s
fave woodcut and doggerel artist, Daniel Waters in particular), and finally
head home for the traditional last-night-on-the-Vineyard showing of Jaws. This year, Peter watches, and is not
particularly scared except for the part where the fisherman’s severed head
floats into the porthole.
8/30
So our island idyll comes to an end. With – heavily – loaded car, we stop at the
West Tis Farmer’s Market for one last breakfast of champions (egg roll and
mango lassi) and some treats for the ferry ride. Also picked up one last jar of Ethel’s
jam. I don’t think Ethel is actually
selling it anymore, I heard this spring that she was ill. But I think she is still making it. I ask about rhubarb and am told that they’ll
make that in the fall, when things have calmed down a bit. We’ll have to wait until next year, I
reply. Oh well, have a nice winter says
the nice lady selling it! (Note that
Ethel does not make beach plum for sale.
We get ours from the flaky lady at The Good Earth.) I am buoyed by the fact that Ethel’s jam
lists Sure-Jell as an ingredient, as the pectin v. non-pectin wars rage in an
online discussion I follow about preserving.
If it is good enough for Ethel, it is good enough for me.
We cruise somewhat aimlessly around Vineyard Haven while
waiting for our ferry. The outbound
ferries aren’t quite full – we could have gotten on an earlier one – nor are those
inbound, must be the end of summer. Once
onboard, we eat our snacks topside, in a raging wind, just to experience it all
a little longer, even while telling ourselves that it wouldn’t have been a very
good beach day anyway: too windy, too
cloudy, too cold.
But to paraphrase my friend Dan Hamilton, going to the beach
on MV is like pizza: even when it is
bad, it is good. So, we don’t quite
convince ourselves that it wouldn’t be better to have stayed.
Here are the things we did not do:
- sail anywhere
- play tennis
- swim in Seth’s Pond (it was kind of murky this year, and
not entirely enticing)
- eat Murdick’s Fudge (I never thought of this before, but
it is true: http://gawker.com/why-do-tourists-love-fudge-1173001409)
- eat at State Road (apparently I should reserve now for
next year) or the Beach Plum Inn
- hike anywhere
- eat lobster
- convince Bill that he could run PG Calc from MV.
But as Peter points out, we should not cry because it is
over, we should smile because it happened.
He read this on a plaque at the Artisan’s Fair. And as you can tell, we did do a lot, mostly we
had a really good time.
We know we are back in the big city as we drive up Cambridge
Street with its heavy traffic (although, no worse than Edgartown on a rainy
day, Bill points out, and here you have actual sidewalks and bike lanes, and
enough room for everyone). I don’t think
I’ve mentioned that our neighbor’s house had a terrible fire while we were
away, and while it is structurally sound, the interior is completely
destroyed. So it is all boarded up, and
the preschool nearby is starting to be torn down. It’s going to be a construction zone around here
for a while.
SKI magazine and lots of school forms are waiting in the
mountain of mail that came while we were away, a sure sign of the year’s
passing. We head out for Taiwanese for
dinner, to a restaurant populated entirely by glamorous young Asians and MIT
students, and Bill is really nice to all the other drivers on our way
there. “I’m still on the Vineyard” he
says. Summer ends there too, of course,
the population drops dramatically next week, and lots of regular summer events
have ended. But we have brought home
many souvenirs, and perhaps when we are feeling low we shall pull out our 150th
Anniversary Edition of the Tabernacle Song Book (1835-1985) and sing “Ode to
the Vineyard” (to the tune of “America the Beautiful”):
O gleaming sand and silver seas,
O glowing sun above,
That shines of Gayhead’s colored cliffs
On all this Isle we love;
We love Menemsha’s myriad masts
Katama’s crashing seas
The billowing sails at Edgartown
Each strong refreshing breeze.
We love you more each passing year
Your lore our hearts enshrine,
Your spray-spumed sands we’ll not forget,
Your trails of plum and vine.
O keep this place a haven free
As once in days of yore,
When hardy Norsemen braved wild seas
To reach this vineclad shore.
Don’t you just love that?
I do. Although for the
record: if Norsemen came here, no one is
talking about it.
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