Opinion
It was almost Labor Day and we were hoping to get through the summer without too much drama at least until we got to the annual I’m Sorry I Called You What I Called You on Broadway in July but I Was Stressed Out dinner, which would come right after. But that was not to be.
Every year we launch 92-year-old Jack Farnsworth’s little wooden skiff and tie it up to the dock so that he can sit down there and look at it and perhaps tell the summer tourists a few lies about his adventures in it some years ago.
The “Season” is closing fast. Labor Day brought thousands of people to Oak Bluffs and it is surprising how quickly they were absorbed and became a part of the community. There were large crowds at the Tivoli, the two theaters, the skating rink, the bowling alleys and the band concerts. The churches were well filled on Sunday. The bathing beaches were crowded with bathers on Sunday as well as on Monday by those who came from cities for the weekend and Labor Day vacations.
By the numberless thousands they descend. The birds
arrive as a great host, flying from the northeast, following a sinuous path on invisible, atmospheric currents. The flock appears as a river of birds, curving through the air, with birds pouring forth in a flow that seems unceasing.
The great flocks of migrating tree swallows have arrived upon the plains of Quansoo and elsewhere on the shores of Martha’s Vineyard.
Each morning when boatbuilder Ted Box wakes up, drives to his makeshift warehouse on the Vineyard Haven harbor and climbs the scaffolding to gaze at his 70-foot scow schooner, he is confronted with all the problems of completing a big boat. Ted is 68, a master shipwright, has seen many a craft to the finish, but is looking toward daunting work ahead.
On Monday familiar yellow buses will roll over Island roads, stopping along the way to collect their precious cargo: school-age children from kindergarten through high school.
And another Vineyard school year begins.
Author Robert Putnam in his book Bowling Alone, published in 2000, examined trends in American society and concluded that the country was growing apart due to lack of community involvement. His thesis pointed to a disengaged populace that was more isolated and therefore less likely to be empathetic. The traditional outlets for bringing a community together were no longer thriving, he said, from bowling leagues to PTA meetings, and as a result the country as a whole was suffering.