Chris and Tony took diving lessons in Cincinnati and drove up to Gloucester where they were taken out to a wreck. It was only the bottom of a ship, but they were fascinated by lobsters swimming around and a colony of crabs on a rock.
They wanted to taste lobster, then felt sorry for the lobster when I went to cook it. “Aw . . . they’re so cute swimming around, and now you’re going to kill one!” Bill bought a lobster to cook for Vicki when she graduated from high school. She said, “What are you going to do with that kettle of boiling water?” “I’m going to throw the lobster into it.” Oh dear! She ran sobbing to her room and refused to eat a bite. Her cruel parents greatly enjoyed it!
The week with Tony and Chris was a quiet, companionable time which we know won’t often happen again. We didn’t do anything special. They and Bill worked a thousand-piece jigsaw puzzle that obsessed them, and we played vicious games of canasta and Aggravation. My favorite time was a wiener roast and s’mores under the stars when they dragged chairs down to the beach and dug a fire pit in the sand.
We took a ferry to Martha’s Vineyard whose size is about 100 square miles. They went to the beach while Bill and I took a bus tour. Martha’s Vineyard is a major playground of the rich and famous such as Walter Cronkite, the Kennedys, the Clintons, the Obamas, and entertainers who have rented or owned homes there. Even President Ulysses S. Grant went there for the 4th of July.
The bus driver/tour director had been in many of the homes when he was a television repairman. He pointed out the locales of various celebrities whose homes you can’t see because of the woods. However, that wasn’t the most interesting thing. The guide is a native of the island and knows its history from the native Americans — some of whom still live there — to the present. He lives with his wife on a farm that her ancestors settled during the 1600’s.
There are fewer than 20,000 permanent residents. During the summer, there are 100,000 visitors there. I decided that much of the place is akin to a movie set of an old-time western town — all façade — except in summer. The guide explained that with one exception, the six towns totally close down for the winter. The lovely homes have no heat and stand vacant.
Perhaps you’d like to live in paradise? Ordinary people have a difficult time. The cost of living is 60 percent higher than the national average. Groceries are so exorbitant that residents periodically take their cars to the mainland via ferry and cram them full of essentials. The median income is only 71 percent of that of the state of Massachusetts. Home prices are 54 percent higher.
The guide had to find other work after people bought new televisions instead of repairing them. He quit sheep farming after two episodes of Lyme’s disease. After the tourist season ends, he fishes for scallops, works part-time for a plumber and makes and sells jelly from wild plums that grow along the roads. He has a snapshot of himself with Hillary Clinton who is holding a jar of jelly. He hunts deer for meat for his family. People keep a few livestock for a tax break. Taxes are so outrageous that people have had to sell their land. A land bank buys up land and preserves it. Winters are sometime harsh with a great deal of flooding caused by Nor’easters.
I asked if they have many problems due to hurricanes at the beach house. “No. The problem is the tremendous surge of the sea during Nor’easters. We’ve had to replace the deck twice in five years and totally re-do the downstairs. The foundation of the house next door is so damaged that the house will have to be torn down.” wclarke@comcast.net