Eccentrics Abound

If you spend enough time here on this island, you will notice the peculiar rhythms of its inhabitants, those that call this place home, people we call 'All Year Rounders.' As an island, everyone arrived here, crossing a body of water to seek whatever illusions, fortunes, or refuge that propelled them on to that ferry. Whether they found any, or all, of these desires may have been abandoned long ago, perhaps their first winter here when the island is, I imagine, desolate, making them subsume all else, simply burrowing inside for warmth. I've heard, never substantiated, that alcoholism is rampant among All Year Rounders. Perhaps warmth is found only inside an amber colored liquid.

The divide between these permanent residents and summer people is as vast as the ocean, separating Falmouth from Vineyard Haven. It is a precarious Pas De Deux that summer residents and All Year Rounders dance, each dependent on the other for their comfort and survival. Yet, each side does their part to insure the island remains unblemished by the normal fissures of class war fare that every other community engages.

Those drawn here, whether permanently or for four months out of the year, share a common spirit, I believe. The summer residents share similarities in privilege, most of which I abhor. Yes, I'm a hater of my own people, as they say. We are busy making certain our children will uphold, if not surpass, all of our accomplishments of our class: tennis, golfing, sailing, appearing at ease in all these particular social arenas. And eccentricities are there, just not that publicly.

The eccentricities of the All Year Rounders are much more visible, much more like a character out of a Flannery O'Connor story. These odd characters are as much a part of the landscape as the Flying Horses and the ocean. The paraplegic that drives around the town of Oak Bluffs in his automated wheel chair is hard to miss. He wears glasses, has long hair streaked with a bit gray, pulled back into a pony tail. His wheel chair zips around on the side walks of Circuit Avenue or along the sidewalk by the town beach. Each year I arrive, I unconsciously scan the town for his wheel chair, almost holding my breath till I've seen him, certain that his absence would foretell of a tragedy occurring during the winter months.

The 'Mayor' of Oak Bluffs is an overweight man, who holds court on the outside picnic tables of Giordano's. He sits, usually around dinner time, eating whatever was fixed in the kitchen of the restaurant, talking to all the regulars of Oak Bluffs. He says he is the mayor, but I think he may be the owner of the restaurant that is famous for their pizza and fried clam strips. I was fortunate enough to have met him--he introduced himself by asking where I was from--one night as my son and I sat on those tables indulging in one of our favorite meals here.

Another woman sat alongside us eating a large cheese pizza. She was older, her skin wrinkled from sun and age. Her hair, a steely gray, was cut as if she had been a back up member of the Flock of Seagulls. There was something just a bit off about her. Yet it was the way she ate her pizza that drew my stares. She first peeled off all the cheese on each slice, which she ate in one bite. She then tore the remaining doughy pieces into bite size chunks before popping one into her mouth. It was obvious she was a 'native' here. She and the 'mayor' shared gossip about people that stopped to say hello. When she learned I was from Philadelphia, she revealed her daughter--hard to imagine who this woman might be, look like--had graduated from Penn, University of Penn, not Penn State. I tried to hide my astonishment at this bit of information, still mesmerized by her inventive way of eating pizza.

Imagining what those long winter months here must be like is hard to do. First, I have to have been on the East coast for a winter, something I haven't done in about 7 years, not since I left grad school. But to spend those months here, an island of only 30,000, seems romantic, but is probably a bit grim. The landscape must be stunning in its vista of snow and water. The dark green of the woods that abounds during the summer would be bare, the trees looking skeletal.

Most towns seem to shut down, restaurants gone dark for the winter. Most places are extending the season to December instead of October. January and February must be the longest two months of the year here with so few distractions of life that most of us enjoy elsewhere. It makes sense the video store in Edgartown and the liquor stores must do a brisk business.
Each visit to a shop reveals another eccentricity of this island, another opportunity for me to take in another rhythm of this island.