News and Events for Nantucket Island
• by Robert P. Barsanti • In late June, Nantucket sets us apart. For the rest of the country, and the state, the first burns of summer arise. The air builds a curtain of water, the heat pins everyone and everything down, and the clouds ascend into towers of thunder. […]
• by Robert P. Barsanti • On this Sunday morning, the coffee is percolating, the coffee cake has been cut and tasted, and the newspaper is spread out over the table. Its various sections are weighed down by books. The house remains quiet. This is a house of bookcases. They […]
• by Robert P. Barsanti • At the Downyflake last weekend, I noticed that I took my coffee in the same way that my father did, regular with too much cream. He drank his coffee every morning with the same slobbers of sugar and milk building up on the table […]
• by Robert P. Barsanti • The good news finally arrived this weekend. It came over with a wedding party on a rocking ferry in a thick, thirty-degree fog on Friday. We had prepared for more bad news this weekend; we lined up polar fleece, long pants, sweaters, and a […]
• by Robert P. Barsanti • Spring landed triumphantly last weekend. The oaks and elms blazed kelly green against a deep blue sky. The wetlands and swamps glowed green and white as the year made the turn into spring and carried us forward into another summer. The Juice Bar has […]
• by Robert P. Barsanti • I have just been invited to a fiftieth anniversary party for the Jordans. The invitation arrived in a huge cream envelope with my name and address in script across the front. It also arrived with a bachelorette party of bills from the car company, […]
• by Robert P. Barsanti • Things are getting ready to happen out of sight. The world is sodden in April: the snow melts, the rain drips, the fog beads along the wires. Blind white roots push out and break the frozen ground. The daffodils have pushed through the dead […]
• by Robert P. Barsanti • They were out there on New Year’s Day. Four white boats lined up near the eastern jetty, pulling scallops out of the water. Two men worked in each boat. They aimed the nose of the boat into the incoming tide and worked the winches. […]
by Robert P. Barsanti Many years ago, I put on waders, floated the basket, and walked out into the October water to rake up a few scallops. At the time, picking up scallops was not just a pastime, but the duty of an islander. We walked out into the cool […]
