News and Events for Nantucket Island
essay by Robert P. Barsanti So far, in the middle of July, my best beach day featured a hooded sweatshirt, a makeshift wind block, and more than one tumble in a storm-driven surf. Everyone locked into traffic on I-84 would happily trade places with me, but this is not the […]
I was holding up the line. And the beach wraps and the baseball hats were annoyed. I wasn’t quite worth the anger or the stare, but, I was slowing down the process that would bring them back to Chip, Becky, and the folks on Daddy’s deck.
America can be hard to see.
Oh, we can see the flags. On the Fourth of July, we have the red, white, and blue on every bicycle, tricycle, and baby carriage. The bunting hangs off of buildings and wharves. We celebrate the country in a rollicking, rolling carnival of hot dogs, ice cream, and beer. Somebody will host a firecracker fun run, somebody else will win a pie-eating contest, and then, in the evening, fireworks will guide us through the night with the light from above.
I follow a boy to the beach. He pedals a brown 12-speed Univega with red panniers hanging off the rear rack, as if he were pedaling across the country and needed to bring everything he would ever need. The boy is bent over the racing handlebars, with his hands resting on the lower handles and his butt raised by a fraction of an inch off the seat. He wears a Campagnolo bicycling cap, although his bike has no rat traps for his feet nor is he wearing a helmet.
She had come down to open the house for the summer, again.
When the boys were younger, they had all come down over spring break to take the shrouds off of the chairs, stock the pantry, and restart the water and the electricity. Her husband, Benjamin, was a marvelous Professor of Economics and a force to be dealt with in the Faculty Senate, but he was not particularly handy. A degree in economics and a hand full of thumbs meant that he tried to turn the water on himself, broke something, and she always called a plumber to make sure it was done right.
I can’t buy a decent bookcase. If I want, I can get one on Wayfair or from Ikea that looks like a bookcase, but the shelves won’t hold anything heavier than a take out meal. I can find one created by a craftsman made of walnut and sturdy enough to hold the Harvard Library in leatherbond, but the bill is roughly what you would pay for a used Toyota. And it won’t buy the groceries.
To know the future, know the graduates.
Nantucket High School, for most of its recent past, puts its graduates on stage for the family and for friends. They sit there, arrayed in the ceremonial cap and gown, and present themselves to the town. Neither the superintendent, nor the faculty, nor the school committee present them to the public wrapped in blue and white. Instead, they present themselves. “Here we are,” they say, “for better or for worse, we are the best this community could do. You have committed the future to us.”
