Commentary
This is a significant year for me. It marks my 75th summer of coming to the Vineyard. When my widowed mother and my stepfather got married, I came to his Vineyard Haven summer home as a very young teenager in 1937. Having lucked into a good thing, I kept coming back. I did miss a few early summers. In 1940 and 1941, we lived on government service in the Philippines, too far away to get back to the Vineyard. And in the World War years of 1943-1945 I was in the Army, living on the less hospitable islands of New Guinea and New Britain.
We need to change the change bill to information on the main frame of the skeleton of the system.”
That indecipherable bit of information from my Comcast customer representative regarding my request to take my name off the account just about sums up what it means to be an Island shuffler.
Here we go again, another summer and another move. Anxiety rising. Having bad dreams. Sleep interrupted. Soon I must find a place to live. Must make enough income to get through next winter . . . can I do this all over again?
Not long ago West Tisbury was described, using a line from the Oliver Goldsmith poem, as “the fairest village of the plain.” But with the addition of brick sidewalks in front of the town hall and between the First Congregational Church and Alley’s General Store, citification has come. There’s still a general store, of course, and a Farmers’ Market twice a week in summer and the Agricultural Fair in August, but now suddenly the town has surrendered its fairest village status in favor of modernity. And it’s too bad.
When my wife Cathlin and I were married the ceremony was part tradition and part theatre. The wedding was held at Judson Church in New York city. Cathlin wore a red dress for the occasion and we walked down the aisle together, entering the church already as a couple.
About halfway through the service, a very tall man stood up in the back row and began waving his arms and yelling, “Wait. Wait. What about the objections part? What about giving our reasons why this couple can’t get married?”
There comes a time when you cannot be silent anymore and this is it. Like many people on the Island, I would like to live in a place with clean air, clean water, a flourishing natural environment and amiable neighbors who have a respect for each other and for the heritage of the place. As a proud citizen of the United States and the town of Oak Bluffs, I believe these are my basic rights. So when these rights are threatened for myself and others, I must speak up. I am standing up for the roundabout. What follows are my reasons.