In a message dated 11/26/2004 10:20:39 AM Eastern Standard Time,
[log in to unmask] writes:



> Martha's Vineyard; As a yout...I spent my summers on Marthas vineyard and
> built roads there with Grant construction.It was there I became interested in
> archeology as we "dug up"many a Indian with our road building . It was the
> summer of woodstock and Ted Keneddy at Chapaquidick(sp) an infamous lovers lane
> if there ever was one . .a nude beach in Squibnocket (sp) the Scottish
> bakery and some pretty good round rock walls made by one mason who was in his 60's
> then South Beach had no houses anywhere near it , nor did Gay head .Like
> everywhere else I would be afraid to go back now unless I could find a shack far
> from the maddening crowd. .
>


Michael, since you left the vineyard has survived bitter battles over a
mcdonalds (nope), new airport (yup), a second slip for the ferry in case the first
one was damaged (yup), selectmen discovered monitoring and recording the cell
phone calls of their opponents (probably still going on)  ruinously high taxes
in some towns, destroying old family holdings and pushing working people to
the inland or, just as likely, the "off-land" (7 am on-island ferry is full of
carharts, toolboxes, pickups), new ferry terminal, new agricultural society
hall, death and rebirth of scottish bakehouse, and my waxed screens and rotting
gutters.

There are still nude beaches in the town of chilmark, but lucy vincent beach
has gotten so popular each town resident has to have, not only a sticker for
their car which lists the license plate number, type of car and color of car,
but also their own photo id pass (thus, you can't go totally nude); and those
without photo id passes are prevented from wading ashore and just walking out
through the parking lot (but ok if they are on a stretcher carried by emts).
Even so, it is a rare summer day when several arriving stickered/IDed chilmark
residents are not turned away because parkinglot is full.

The Indians have gained tremendous power through tribal law, and essentially
control gay head (careful, buddy, it is now Aquinnah, and don't say anything
to the contrary or you will be in big trouble a la the quebec language police),
leading to all sorts of astonishing contretemps, like a tribal officer who
discharged his firearm at a state trooper responding to a traffic accident, and
the town powers forgetting to collect their own property taxes for 2 years.
Ooops.

People do bemoan how crowded the vineyard is, but come out with me some high
summer weekend afternoon to the rip along middle ground (where you can jump
overboard and just barely touch the underwater mountain with your toes), or
lovely silent little north william street, just one block west of noisy main
street, and see for yourself how empty a busy place can be, as long as you're not
looking to park your car or spend money on empty trinkets.  I guess the
sweatshirt reading "Martha's Vineyard Island" could be useful as corpse
identification if you fell over from the party boat.

This morning:  simultaneous moonset and sunrise.  The moon, a milky orange
like a creamsicle against the brightening sky, sank towards the water in woods
hole bight, the gap between the elizabeth islands and woods hole.  The 54 year
old Islander ferry, zigged just underneath the lower edge, the disk of the
moon all shimmering in the freezing air just like a utah blacktop in the summer.
 Then the llower edge went ca-flop, sucked down to the water's surface by
refraction, becoming a sort of orange mushroom, like the footage of the bikini
atoll a-test.   Slowly, slowly, slowly, down, down, down, disappears just as the
islander zags back across the spot.

The sunrise was, by comparison, a let down.

c