Nantucket Voices Archives

British Invasion

June 20, 2024

Now don’t let the history books fool you: the real British Invasion happened in the early 1960s, and there was nary a Redcoat to be found. The American music scene had been floating along with mediocre pop music for quite long enough, thank you. Exactly how much Fabian and Bobby Vinton can one nation stand, right? So the stars were aligned for a quantum shift. And here came the Beatles, just in time to fill that vacuum which nature abhors. The flood gates opened, the American population went gaga for everything British, and things were never the same.

Stand by Me

June 13, 2024

There’s a scene at the start of the fantastic 1986 movie “Stand By Me” where Richard Dreyfuss is sitting in his car, trying to come to terms with the death of one of his childhood buddies. As this character looks up from the newspaper article that had delivered the bad news, he sees two kids who look about thirteen pedaling by on their bikes. We see the Dreyfuss character immediately taken back in time, back to that age, back with his neighborhood gang. It’s a poignant moment that starts this brilliant coming-of-age movie (based on the Stephen King novella The Body).

An Island Point of View, Nantucket Essays, Nantucket Voices

You’ll Need a Bookcase

June 13, 2024

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.

Nantucket Essays, Nantucket Voices

Go Bucktails!

May 16, 2024

Yikes—it’s the second week of May and no Nantucket anglers have caught a striped bass yet! The first striper of 2023 showed up on May 3. I remember this well as my wonderful, crazy wife Beth landed it! She didn’t know that it was a big deal at the time. I certainly did. So here we are, us Nantucket fishing types, waiting in anticipation. Antici-paaaaaation…it’s keeping me waaaaaaaiting…

Nantucket Essays, Nantucket Voices

Easy to See, but Hard to Recognize

May 16, 2024

We have had a run of remarkable weather. May, on Nantucket, is no longer wedding season: brides don’t plan fun activities for guests in the raw rain and fog. But when the weather does break, the sky glows, the trees and bushes gobble up as much warmth as they can absorb, and God is in his heaven.

Nantucket Events, Nantucket Voices

Intermittent Rewards & Lasting Memories

September 8, 2023

Tournament fishing is lots of fun here on Nantucket. We have a variety of contests for the local beach anglers, and I enjoy them all. Things get started with the Spring Sea Run Opener, an event that begins when someone catches the first searun striped bass of the year from the beach. That tournament runs until the end of May. The inaugural August Blues tournament is currently underway. It’s been an absolute blast, except that I’m sitting here at my keyboard, lamenting the fact that Gray Malitsky just knocked me out of first place for the biggest bluefish. Ouch. And before we can catch our collective breath from fishing that fun event, the big daddy of them all, the Nantucket Inshore Classic, will soon be kicking off. It will run for the five weeks between Labor Day and Columbus Day. That tournament is the Super Bowl of Nantucket fishing and I just can’t wait for it to get underway!

Insider Tips, Nantucket Voices

Visiting the Wizard

August 17, 2023

Unsinkability. Is that a real term? Well, I’m going to say yes, seeing how my spellcheck feature didn’t draw a red line under the word. But what does it really mean to be unsinkable? It’s not always a positive term, of course. The Titanic was said to be unsinkable, and that didn’t go so well. But in my lexicon, if I feel that someone is considered unsinkable, it’s high praise.

Exploring Nantucket, Nantucket Voices

Avoiding the Skunk

July 27, 2023

It was looking very much like one of those days. Three plus hours into our beach charter excursion and nary a hookup. Each of us had at least one fish blow up on our respective fishing lures, but somehow all of the attacking fish had dodged our hooks. The only thing biting were the mosquitoes and green head flies. Alas, our time was up and it looked like we had to take the long ride back from Great Point with a skunk tagging along. That is not my favorite thing, let me tell ya…