THE LAST FIVE ...

Closing up shop
- Wednesday, Aug. 02, 2006

It may be time for a change
- Wednesday, May 17, 2006

Entry in the air
- Friday, April 21, 2006

Still here
- Thursday, April 20, 2006

Music of the moment
- Wednesday, March 1, 2006

Or ... BE RANDOM!


GOOD READS

101 in 1001
American Road Trip, 1998


OTHER PEOPLE

Chupatintas
Dancing Brave
Fugging It Up
Kitty Sandwich
Mister Zero
Sideways Rain
Ultratart
Velcrometer


THE BASICS

My crew
Latest
Older
Notes
Our host
Profile

2001-06-27 (flashback) - 10:15 p.m.

Northeast Odyssey: Island exploration

JUNE 27, NANTUCKET

Nantucket Center � Great Point � Siasconset � Madaket. �Breathless�� �Lady Marmalade� � �Freaky Girl� � �Like A Bird� � �Butterfly� � �Hanging By A Moment.�

When Pat comes down to the basement at 8:15 to announce breakfast by singing �You Are My Sunshine,� I awake and remember the dream of Dave from home test-driving a Ferrari and bringing it by my house. Another dream is about a quiet night at home watching TV � a sure sign I don�t have enough quiet nights anymore.

Pat walks among Brett�s friends asleep on the living room floor of the basement apartment and into Brett�s room to wake him up. �It�s 8:15, Brett,� she says. �Breakfast is upstairs and everybody is awake. You�re the only one still sleeping.� She sees me laughing at the lie and smiles as she goes back upstairs.

We rent a Jeep for the day, and at 8:30 it arrives all shiny and blue. We figure that among the seven of us, the $200 rental charge (with a full tank of $2.38/gallon island gas and the entrance fee to Great Point) will be worth it. Heck, it would cost Jess and me $30 each to rent two more bikes for the day.

Dave drives Jess, Jaime and me around for the first half of the day and we head first to Great Point, �Breathless� playing on the radio as we cruise along Polips Road, top down (off, really), fields, marshes and ponds flashing by. Jaime asks if I have high school flashbacks. She does � �It�s the only time I�ve been in a Jeep� � but I don�t. I notice the tiny Nantucket School of Design and the Arts on remote Wauwinet Road.

At the entrance gate, the ranger advises us where not to drive and we embark on our off-road adventure. The bright blue Jeep bounces along the dune road � They haunt this dusty beach road/in the skeleton frames of burned-out Chevrolets (from �Thunder Road) � through the green grasses, a few large houses scattered along the narrowing point. Beyond the homes, the road turns onto the beach and we bounce along parallel to the equally blue ocean. Off in the distance the blue sky meets blue Atlantic in a hazy, nearly indistinguishable horizon devoid of any structures save one tall gray tower of some sort that I cannot discern.

When �Lady Marmalade� comes on, I express my appreciation for Miss E�s introduction of all the singers, because I sure as hell can�t keep them straight.

After one stop along the beach for photos of Great Point Lighthouse, we continue around the tip, the northeasternmost point on the island. Near the lighthouse we park and walk up to the tower. Inside I read the inscription: �The Egyptians built their pyramids. The Cape and Islanders build their lighthouses. We trust this lasts as long.�

Back in the Jeep, we pause beneath the lighthouse to reapply sunscreen, drink some water, and groove to �Freaky Girl,� before which Jess declared, �You�ve got to turn up Shaggy in the Jeep!� Rolling again across the dunes, Nelly Furtado launches into the chorus of �Like A Bird� just as we crest a sharp dune peak in the road.

Off the point and back on pavement for a moment, we turn down narrow � really only wide enough for one car � Squam Road and bounce to �Butterfly� and watch our hands and arms as we thwack the roadside shrubs when squeezing past other cars.

After peeking at Sesachacha Pond and the beachside bathers, we turn down Wauwinet Road and back onto Polips, heading toward Siasconset � affectionately known as �Sconset. Bisecting Sankaty Golf Course, �Hanging By A Moment� prompts Jess and Jaime to ask me the name of the group, which they�d both guessed as Creed. Nope. In tiny 'Sconset village � where cars display �20 is plenty in �Sconset. Please drive slowly� bumper stickers � we buy sandwiches at the tiny but busy general store and drive up to Sankaty Light to east them. Back at the store, while Jaime and Jess go to the bathroom, Dave and I walk along Broadway � broad enough only for a row of parked cars and the one-way traffic to pass � to photograph a house at the corner with Mitchell Lane before we drive off to Madaket, the western end of the island.

Driving along Madaket bike path parallel to the road, I consider what I might name my driveway were it a long lane leading from the main road. Exit 109? Irish Way? Dusty Beach Road? Thunder Road? Or my house, as we pass Madaket Sunset, Moor Wind, Withstandley, West Wind.

The dune roads of Madaket are closed, so we backtrack past all the cyclists and the children setting up lucrative lemonade stands along the path. We turn off the road at a dirt path Jaime, Dave and Brett had ridden on bikes two days earlier, so that we can bounce along the trail and splash through the puddles. Dave gets more ambitious, taking each Jeep-sized puddle faster than the last so that by the last two � we�re doused in a shower of muddy rain and laughing hysterically at the now-splattered seats, passengers and dashboard. By the time Dave returns at 6 p.m. after carting Brett and his friends around, the once-shiny blue Jeep is a gray/tan/blue piece of Nantucket art.

While Dave is out with the boys, Jess, Jaime and I bike three miles to the southern (central) end of the island for a quick swim in the perfectly cold Atlantic (�I watched as the sweat ran down your face� from DMB�s �Stay� running around in my brain) and an hour lying on the sand. On the way home we buy the last of three girls� lemonade and took to the showers.

And here I sit now, 6:30 in the growing golden evening atop 23A Union Street. The scent of a grill below � maybe even ours � teases my senses and the soft hum of slowly passing cars is contrasted by the rhythmic clop-clop of a horse and carriage below me at this moment. The white bows and ribbons suggest the driver�s been to a wedding, though the carriage is empty. It stops to let cars pass and a woman walking on the sidewalk stops to pet the horse and talk with the driver. Two blocks behind me up the hill, four women talk on the roof of their house (or hotel), their voices carrying down to me rather clearly. I see them silhouetted against the white sky, the lowing sun still highlighting their features.

The door of 24 Union Street stands open to let the sweet evening breeze in and the smell of barbecued chicken now wafts certainly from our backyard. I watch the cars pass looking for familiar ones, because that�s one of the enjoyable island experiences � over the course of a stay (or day), you�ll see some of the same people at different times and places around Nantucket. Yesterday it was the two older women in the convertible BMW, first during lunch, then along a backroad on the bike ride. Today it was a pretty blonde from Nantucket Bike Rentals or Auto Rentals or somewhere, standing outside the �Sconset store talking with a guy, her black lab panting at her side. Even with 30,000 people spread over just a few dozen square miles, Nantucket is a small world.

And now I�m summoned below for dinner.

After eating, Dave�s excited to show Jaime, Jess and me the trails he�d found with Brett and friends in the Jeep. We climb into the mud-splattered Wrangler and head again toward Madaket. Turning off down that same dirt path/road, we again bounce along through the puddles (slowly) and I take some pictures of the Jeep and scenery. Turning onto a new path, we hop along as if on a roller coaster, the girls in the back giggling uncontrollably. I laugh in between photographs and once through, we decide to do it again. Only this time, before running through two large puddles, I get out, they roll up the windows, and I position myself � camera in hand � for the splashdown. Dave backs up for a running start, then guns the Jeep through two deep puddles, nearly blocking it from my view with the wall of water reaching three times as high as the vehicle. They pick me up, back up, and got through it one more time before we bounce � again, harder � along the trail and back home.

As I jump out in Nantucket Center to stop at the store, I lose my balance on the curb and fall back, my legs touching the lower door frame and wiping some of the mud off it and onto my shorts and legs.

Back at the house, Brett tells us there will be fireworks, but before we can walk down to the harbor, we hear the bursts. Instead we head for the roof and watch the colors burst above the tree line to the west. Twice we think the long show has ended when they light up again and once it truly has completed, our applause and cheers are joined by those from other rooftops in the surrounding blocks.

Our last night is spent in the upstairs living room, the five of us playing contract rummy (Brett wins on my 50-50 discard being the one card he needed to complete his hand; otherwise I would�ve won), drinking beer, eating chips and listening to Cape Cod�s 96.3 �The Rose� and hearing �Lady Marmalade� and �Drops of Jupiter� for the third time today � and twice during the game for Train.

And this Nantucket visit has been a perfect two days. Hot and sunny � in fact, no threat of a cloud today � active and relaxing, fun and inspirational. One exciting night out, one quiet night in, four-wheel drive fun and biking, swimming and walking around town. I remember the first time I came, in 1990 summer after freshman year of high school, and how I hoped the next time I�d have someone special to share it with. The second time, Memorial Day weekend �93, I had High School Heather � our first wake-up kiss good morning one day when I walk out on the deck to see her already there and she says, �That was nice.� But these last two, while with good friends I love and adore, have lacked that one person I can walk hand-in-hand with around the wharf at night or hold close on the rooftop while gazing up at the sparkling night sky.

Must mean I�ll be back again someday.

Previous page: Northeast Odyssey: Nantucket History Day
Next page: Northeast Odyssey: Home can be the Pennsylvania Turnpike

� 1998-2004 DC Products. All rights reserved.

Yeah, sorry I have to be all legal on you here, but unless otherwise indicated, all that you read here is mine, mine, mine. But feel free to quote me or make fun of me or borrow what I write and send it out as an e-mail forward to all your friends, family and coworkers. Just don't say it's yours, you know?