It’s indisputably August on the Vineyard; the calendar does not lie. We are in the thick of it, knowing in about 15 minutes it’ll all be over, September will be here, businesses chalking up their successes – or losses.
A friend dropped by the bookstore. We sat in rocking chairs on our porch, watched Edgartown happen in front of our eyes.
Folks, she said, have told her July was soft. Edgartown has seemed to me as busy as ever it’s been. June a riot, with the 50th Anniversary of the release of JAWS, which made June, to me, at least, seem like August on steroids.
I’ve heard whispers of soft business; in casual conversations, noted concern this will not be the year folks had hoped it’d be.
Thank the bookstore gods, we’re a bit above last year, clawing our way up after a flat last year. I’m better at book mongering, having done this for five years, an unexpected feast in my old age. A friend wrote me to tell me I had the best retirement project of anyone she knew. She’s right.
There has been a stretch of perfect Vineyard days, sunny, warm, soft breezes ruffling hair while walking streets, beaches.
My friend Lionel came for a few days to sort out what’s next; his job at Yahoo has been eliminated. We talked strategies, tactics though mostly reveled in our friendship.
Invited by Jeffrey and Joyce for an afternoon sail with a clutch of friends, we rejoiced in one of those perfect Vineyard days, sipping a dry white Gavi, nibbling appetizers, their amazing 92’ schooner photographed by others as we swooned past, a perfect Vineyard day, followed by clams at their house.
Once in a moment, I get what it’s like to vacation here, for this to be your “happy place,” when I swing in somewhere while doing an errand, see people climbing onto their boats for sails, or dancing on the “Jaws” bridge before jumping into the water.
Being the book monger of Edgartown is something I love. It came to me recently, when my obituary is written, it will focus on this part of my life, not all the other things I’ve done. It is for this I will be remembered, not for opening the west coast office of A&E, not for helping launch Discovery in Australia and India, but for this, this absolutely unexpected chapter.
While I sail through this unexpected blessing of a time in my life, I wake to pictures of starving children in Gaza, perplexed concern over their plight is considered by some to be antisemitism.
We live in a world, right now, I do not understand. I look at children who come into the bookstore, worrying about the world in which they will live. Will it be as good as the one in which I lived?
A local newspaper article featured a scientist, wondering where were all the insects? They seem to have disappeared this year; we’re not plagued by mosquitoes, and where are the moths fluttering at my door in the nighttime?
If you’re old like me, you remember windshields caked with dead insects. But no more.
While fearful and anxious, I am hopeful. We may despair at the shadows on the land; I pick up Jill LaPorte’s “These Truths We Hold,” open it to any page, see we’ve lived through other dark times, emerged. Let us not forget the black shadows of McCarthy. There was a moment he seemed unstoppable.
Even with crime down, Trump has wrested control of DC’s law enforcement, bringing in the FBI and the National Guard to protect the streets. He’s wanted to do this for a long time, been looking for an excuse. A horrible carjacking gave him his moment.
He’s looking for his moments to erode our rights.
Mr. Trump is assaulting our norms, swaggering on the stage, his meeting with Putin just completed with no sense of what was accomplished.
There have been other ugly chapters. Andrew Jackson’s presidency one of those so not surprising the current president seems charmed by him.
With luck, Mr. Trump’s presidency will slip into the history books like those other bad moments, lessons for another time.
Photo courtesy of Paul Doherty
Letter from the Vineyard 
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