News and Events for Nantucket Island
by Robert P. Barsanti The new year begins when the grass does. Sometime, after enough rain, and enough sun creep on through the fog banks, the grass returns to life and goes green. Crocuses and daffodils pop sometime before the easter eggs and the lawn, but they run a false […]
~ by Robert P. Barsanti ~ The tide was draining out of Madaket Harbor in the early afternoon under the incandescent winter sun. Safe in waders, six of us stood in the cold water that lapped around our waists. Aware of the present danger and recent past, we watched each […]
~ by Robert P. Barsanti ~ As you get older, your life becomes a lab experiment for doctors and nurses and a math problem for bureaucrats and insurance executives. I go off-island, from time to time, to confer with the young people who pick at me like a frog transfixed […]
~ by Robert P. Barsanti ~ Nantucket scars us. We are stewards to an island in the sea of time. The cobblestones remain as they always have, as do the moors and the gray buildings. The years seem to slide by us. History happens on the other side ot the […]
~ by Robert P. Barsanti ~ By September, Monday leans back, gives himself a scratch, and looks around the backyard for a few minutes. It has all the time it needs. Nothing presses it. The phone doesn’t ring, the e-mail only contains spam, and the coffee is ready by the […]
by Robert P. Barsanti The weathermen declared Nantucket “the place to be” for the hurricane season, and the kite surfers nod vigorously out in the channel. Starring in their own YouTube videos, they rip across the water in the Tropical Storm force winds. A blue sail dips down and pulls […]
~by Robert P. Barsanti ~ You know who you are in a storage locker. When you open the padlock and the shutter goes up, all is laid out in front of you at the cost of $125 a month. Every one that I never became is stacked and stored in […]
~ by Robert P. Barsanti ~ On Friday afternoon, just around quitting time, I stood in a line at Old South Liquors with a dozen cold beverages in my hands. It was a good time to quit; the air was warm, the fog distant, and the winds favorable. The men […]
~ by Robert P. Barsanti ~ I am trying to get my son to shave. Ever since he was in seventh grade, he has grown a phenomenal beard; a dense thicket of wiry red bristles. After eight hours, a shadow appears. In two days, a low growth spreads across his […]
