News and Events for Nantucket Island
At eight in the morning, the bride was running down Main Street along with her photographer, her maid of honor, her intended and two other guys in tuxedos. She was carrying her shoes in one hand, the hem of her dress in the other. She was flying on the wind of social media but the photographer wasn’t keeping up. You have got to get the light when it’s just right.
In early September, I return to the classroom and look at all of those things that I haven’t changed, as well as all of those things that I have. The chalk board got covered with a dry erase board which is now covered by screen for my computer projector. Many of the posters are the same. Some are under glass (“Tracy’s World”) but some, like the Ghastlycrumb Tinies and the “Flensing of a Corrupt Judge” remain as they have been for over twenty years, just with more holes in the corners. The room is, of course, lined with books.
I have a kayak.
The kayak is a beautiful boat; outfitted with pedals and a rudder, an ocean keel, and two watertight compartments. Once in the ocean, it will glide and keep its line through waves and water.
I haven’t used it in years.
The two girls sat at the bench, waiting for the NRTA. One held her chin on her fist, the other leaned back and took in the passing traffic. They had been tanned, bleached a bit, and had absorbed as much of the island as they could. They wore jeans, strappy little sandals, and carried three suitcases each. Their summer was ending.
In an idle corner of Massachusetts, Route Two dips along the Connecticut River for a moment, rises to a point in Turner’s Falls, pauses at a flashing red light, than just as fast swoops past Greenfield and out into the the hills of the Berkshires. At the light, a gas station has spread across one corner, a snow mobile dealership goes out of business on another, and a Polish food truck opens on the weekend. On the last quarter, a growth of trees spreads along the high bank of a river forested until Route Two turns into Greenfield. I spent an afternoon amid all of those trees and rocks.
The youngest and I went off-island to take a driver’s test. Nature might be healing from Covid but it takes the Registry of Motor Vehicles a little longer to get back to up to speed than the rest of us do. The brewers were up faster than the restaurants, the restaurants before the health clubs, and the Registry comes dawdling at the end of the line. So, the office in the town building remains shortstaffed, and Registry business either comes zapping over the wires or steaming across the water. So we steamed.
We have had a run of beach days. A puddle of relatively cool and dry air has sat over New England and spilled out over the Atlantic to about a hundred miles south of the island. Sitting on the shore, the southern press of clouds massed and slid by on the southern horizon. The island lucked into a cool pocket, under light northern winds, through the end of the week and the weekend.
One recent morning, the good fishermen of Madaket woke up to a Land Rover Discovery. It was discovered off the end of the Jackson Point Ramp, in eight feet of the North Atlantic. The owner described it as stolen. And sunk.
Nobody gave us America. At best it is a trophy won from years of war. This war may involve guns and Redcoats, or marches and firehoses, or tear gas and pink hats, but we have always been at war with enemies foreign and domestic. The battles swing from Europe and Asia to Pennsylvania and Chicago, but those battles continue. The labor doesn’t end.
