'TIS THE SEASON

It's that time of the year again. Christmas shopping can be difficult when you live on an island so in spite of the following essay, I love my catalogs.

‘TIS THE SEASON

There are so many catalogs arriving in my mailbox every day that my postman has been wearing his truss. They started coming the day after Halloween. I used to wonder when Christmas had turned into Ramadan. Now we’d be lucky if the season only lasted a month.

It seems to me that when I was a kid there were two catalogs and they came once a year. You were either Sears and Roebuck people or Montgomery Ward people, so there was only one catalog in each home. Around Christmas time the Sears kids--whatever happened to Mr. Roebuck?--would check out our “Monky Wards” catalog when they came over to play. My mom called it the wish book and it held the inspiration for our letters to Santa. We spent hours pouring over the toy section, changing our minds about a million times, since, in those days kids didn’t get everything they wanted.

These days my Christmas catalog is J.C. Penney. Every item on the first 19 pages requires an energy source. I was twelve before I got my first Christmas gift that needed batteries. Now they have video games, computers, and cam corders for pre-schoolers. No wonder we have global warming.

I got a catalog the other day called Things You Never Knew Existed. It has such wondrous things. For $39.98 you can buy a remote controlled skunk. “Just like the real thing--minus the spray, of course.” I’m sorry but if I were to spend that kind of money on a practical joke I’d want the real deal.

Want to look like a he-man at the gym but keep your day job? For $12.98 you can purchase flesh toned full-length fake tattoo sleeves. Black and white or color.

Yes, this catalog has something for everyone on your holiday giving list. All those hard to shop for relatives. Along with the rubber chickens, imitation vomit, fake snot, itching powder and bullet hole decals they have an electronic watch dog for only $99.98. This is a motion sensored recording of a dog barking. Perfect for your Uncle Joe who has all those allergies.

Here’s something I wish I had been able to get my hands on when my daughter was in school and I had to drag her--kicking and screaming--out of bed each weekday morning. A flying alarm clock. At the set time it launches a propeller which flies around the room. The alarm continues to ring until you get out of bed, find the propeller and return it to the clock. Speaking of clocks, for the person on your list that is time challenged they have one that only has the days of the week on the face. I supposed it would be okay if you’re retired. At least you’d know when to go to church.

The book section was interesting. There was a pop up bra book for your precocious nephew and a ketchup cook book that would be perfect for a new bride who was raised on french fries. White Trash Etiquette: The Definitive Guide to Upscale Trailer Park Manners piqued my interest. It included information on how late in the evening you can politely call your bail bondsman. I have a daughter who has trouble swallowing her anger. I bought a copy of The Book of Yiddish Insults and Curses for her. If she can learn to say them calmly with a smile on her face it could go a long way to restoring her mental health.

Some of these items make me happy I don’t have the kind of relatives and friends who would like to receive them. I don’t know anyone who would enjoy getting an electronic yodeling pickle. I shudder to think what it would be like to live with a child who requested a terrarium with ten plants that trap, drown, starve or paralyze insects for their dinner. Or a roll of crime tape. Or a worm observatory. There’s a radio controlled fart machine for $14.98. If you buy two they’re only $12.98 each. I don’t think I’d care to know the person who would find this an incredible bargain.

I admit it. I’ve always been sophomoric enough to enjoy bathroom humor. $16.98 will buy you a farting gnome but a farting Santa only costs $12.98. The Santa just farts but the gnome says things like, “Did someone step on a duck?” Worth the extra four bucks don’t you think? Of course I’m sure that the engraved toilet paper and toilet shaped dog dish are gag gifts. My personal favorite is the George W. Bush toilet brush. I’m sure it’s a gag gift. Isn’t it? I’ve also been musing about what I’d record on the talking toilet paper holder. “Don’t forget to flush,” comes to mind. Or how about, “The room freshener is under the sink.”

Got a kid who rebels at bath time? Buy him a bar of money soap. Guaranteed to have anything from a one to fifty dollar bill inside. Don’t get more than one, however. When the kid uses it up and realizes he only got a buck--you didn’t think it would be more did you?--he won’t bathe again for a month.

I got a catalog today that bills itself as The Most Important Gift Catalog In The World. It’s from Heifer International and encourages you to buy animals for poverty stricken people the world over. Now it’s not that I think the concept is funny but I had to laugh at some of the captions under the pictures. There was one picture of a little boy holding a Guinea Pig and the caption read “Two trios of Guinea Pigs will help a family in Ecuador add protein to their diets.” I wouldn’t want to be the person who tells the kid what’s for supper.

For $1000 you can purchase a “Milk Menagerie” which consists of a cow, two goats and a water buffalo. I’m sure they’d let you know if your impoverished family was lactose intolerant. The catalog recommends sending a pig to Honduras where they will eat rejected bananas and damaged yams. I can’t help wondering just how hungry humans have to be before they consider eating a damaged yam. And suppose the family doesn’t care for pork either?

It’s not just catalogs that are filled with unusual gifts this time of year. I was in a Wal-Mart the other day and they had a pre wrapped ‘pig on a motorcycle’ cookie jar. Now I don’t know about you but if I had to stare down a pig every time I wanted a cookie it might improve my diet, though I’m not sure it would work for everyone. I’ve seen pig faces you can mount on your refrigerator that oink when you open the door. Do people really think they can buy will power? If only.

Paging through these catalogs amuses me no end. The one that I enjoy the most, however, is filled with beautiful and expensive jewelry. Now I have to ask. Do you know anyone who would spend $1200 on mail order diamonds?

COWS IN MY BACK YARD

I got up the other morning to see a herd of what my girlfriend Janice calls 'oreo cows', because they are black with a white belt, grazing on the new runway of the Katama Airport. I guess the town had to let the landscapers go because of the recession. Unfortunate for the landscaper. Fortunate for the tax payers. This essay was previously printed in Martha's Vineyard Magazine.

COWS IN MY BACK YARD

Even before I moved to the Vineyard I knew the local fauna was, at the least, eccentric, at most downright weird. Like a lot of non-resident homeowners I subscribed to the Gazette to keep up with local events. Articles regarding feral turkeys, tree roosting chickens and neurotic skunks appeared routinely in its pages, particularly off season when there was less bad behavior and fewer moped accidents to report. This should have prepared me for my own run-ins with crazed quadrupeds; but it didn’t.

I have grown used to frequent sightings of wild, feral and domesticated two and four footed creatures in my yard, but occasionally, something strange even by Vineyard standards occurs. Take the case of the red footed falcon. One summer a directionally challenged bird migrating from Africa to Argentina landed in Katama taking up residence on a sign in the airport across the street. I got up one morning to hundreds of bird watchers clogging Herring Creek Road. Taxis by the dozen from ferries and planes brought people who stayed just long enough to eyeball a species that had never before set foot (or rather, talon) on North American soil. After adding this sighting to their life list, they turned around and headed home without purchasing so much as a coke. Once here you’d a thought they might enjoy some of the other natural beauty around them, but no, birders, apparently, are just as single minded as, say, golfers, sailors or fishermen. I once came across a bunch of them on a beautiful Pacific beach. They were sitting in lawn chairs, staring through binoculars with their backs to the ocean! Go figure. (Did I go out and eyeball the falcon, you ask? No. There was a picture of it in the paper. That was good enough for me).

A crazy skunk took up residence in our yard last year. She mated, though I never saw him, and produced half a dozen skunkettes whom she abandoned every time she heard a sound. When quiet returned she would come back and round up her babies who had spent the interval blindly running around in circles completely exposed to any and all danger. This back yard activity did not sit well with dog who, until his first run in with mama had been allowed free range. You would imagine that after being half blinded, dog would have avoided skunks at all cost, but having the short term memory of a turnip, and being more territorial than a street gang in Dorchester, every time he saw the skunk he would leap, snarling and snapping, as far as the leash would allow.

Loony behavior is not limited to loons. Sometimes the people who care for animals go overboard too. Like the fellow who had DNA testing on some hair he found to prove the neighbor’s dog guilty of raiding his hen house. Probably could have bought a lot of chickens for what that cost.

On occasion rush hour traffic, such as it is on Island, can be held up by feral tom turkeys fighting, presumably, over an attractive hen. When I think of birds fighting my mind drifts to a smoke filled cellar or garage with two roosters trying to peck each other’s eyes out. This is not the way turkeys do it. They entwine their necks and do a kind of turkey trot, tug-o-war. Back and forth across the road they go, ignoring ‘scats’ and ‘shoos’ of the tired people on their way home from work.

Of course I must give a mention to Cramer the magical donkey. Our neighbor Ernie Boch rescued him from a petting zoo that was about to go belly up. No one else would take him so Ernie figured he’d get along with the llamas. He was magical because, for one thing, he could open the door and go into the house whenever he wanted. I’m sure Mrs. Boch was thrilled.

This all brings us to the point of my little tale. I live half way between Katama Farm and Herring Creek Farm. Before rising in the morning I can tell which way the wind is blowing by what sounds I hear. The crash of the surf, lowing cows and in good weather, which runway is being used at the airport, all tell me if the wind (and there is always wind in Katama) is coming from the east, north or south.

I awoke the one day to exceptionally loud mooing, and since I knew the herd had been at Katama Farm I figured the breeze was light and coming from the east. In fact I could have sworn they were in the back yard. But that would be silly, wouldn’t it? I got up and looked out the window anyway and there they were. A dozen or so black and white cows, using the trees for scratching posts and munching on my carefully tended lawn, surrounded by a half dozen confused farm workers.

It seems the Farm Institute had been moving the cows from farm to farm on foot, via Herring Creek Road. This particular morning the lead cow decided to make a break for it and the rest of the herd followed. After trying several methods of wrangling, these New England cowboys finally got them back on the road. The rest of the trip was not uneventful with two more attempted escapes before reaching their destination.

Retired life can be dull. I get a lot of milage out of this story. Not with Islanders though. They just shrug. They’re used to strange behavior, both animal and human.

BEAN THERE, DONE THAT

I consider myself a foodie, though there are things that are not on my menu. Raw fish for example. If God had wanted us to eat raw food he wouldn't have given us the Weber grill. Raw clams, a gourmet item for some, is like a little glob of salty snot to me, although I love liver, an item at which most people turn their noses up. Now there's an awkward sentence! I've sent this essay off to a food magazine. Haven't heard. I guess the real gourmands don't find anything funny about food.

Bean There, Done That

When I moved to Martha’s Vineyard after living most of my life near New York City I realized that the food I had been eating was regional and I’d best get used to something new. The New Englander’s palate was just, well, different.

Back then, when I invited people to my home for a Saturday night dinner party, I usually prepared a prime rib of beef or rack of lamb with the appropriate starch and a green salad. You can imaging my surprise the first time I was invited out on Island and was treated to the traditional Saturday night baked-bean dinner, excuse me, supper. Hot dogs and brown bread rounded out the menu. Don’t get me wrong, I happen to like baked beans but it is not a meal I, nor anyone I have ever known, would have served to company.

Now, technically, if you look at the food pyramid, this should be a well balanced meal. You’ve got your meat, your legumes (the onion in the beans counts as a vegetable) and your grain. Of course in the form they took all three are on that list of foods you should rarely or never eat that nutritionists try to (you should pardon the visual) shove down our throats. These people, however, had been eating this exact same supper every Saturday night for their entire lives. They looked pretty healthy to me, although I can’t vouch for their blood pressure.

Another of the regional foods that I find odd is the lobster roll. I simply don’t understand why they take one of the most precious, gourmet foods in the world, boil it, chop it, mix it with mayonnaise and celery and slop it on a toasted hot dog bun. Some anti-chef must have come up with that one. I’ve never been to Russia but I can pretty much assure you they would not do that with caviar. I have been to Paris and, believe me, if I had asked for a fois gras roll they would have laughed me out of the country. I guess it’s just that Yankees aren’t food snobs.

Then there’s the New England boiled dinner. Where I come from they call it stew but they cut the stuff up into smaller pieces and make gravy. And I still can’t get used to the clam bake. Digging a big hole to cook your dinner just seems like too much work. Although cleanup is a snap. Just throw everything in the pit and cover it up with sand.

They are big on regional cook books here. Every organization has published one, and the local stores are very generous in putting them out on a shelf. I’ve looked at a quite a few. Have even bought a couple. Most of the recipes seems to start out, take a quart of mayonnaise and a package of lime jello.....

One thing I got used to quickly is Quahog chowder. Now that I no longer pronounce it kway-hog I order it everywhere I go. It’s always delicious but varies from thin and watery to so thick that when you spoon it up it sounds like a mule pulling its hoof out of the mud. I tend to favor it on the thicker side and full of potatoes. When we have company from off Island, the chowder is always a consideration when we choose a restaurant.

Pot luck suppers and parties take a little getting used to. Back in New York nobody ever asked if they could bring something when invited to dinner. In fact if you asked them to bring something they would have been insulted. Bring your own food to a party? In New England they are insulted if you don’t ask. It took me a long time to convince my friends not to bring anything. I had to be firm. I like getting all the accolades when I entertain. If you show up with a warm apple crisp for dessert I have to share the spotlight. So stop it!

Ice cream is a regional food that’s easy to get used to. It has become a necessary part of my diet. Every town boasts its own homemade variety. The only problem is that you can’t get it on Martha’s Vineyard off season, which is why I tend to pig out during the summer. You can get ice cream anywhere, it’s true, but I’m betting if Ben and Jerry had lived in New Jersey instead of Vermont they would have bought a Burger King franchise rather than inventing Cherry Garcia and Chunky Monkey.

When I relocated to the Vineyard the fact that I couldn’t get good French bread or bagels was more than off set by the wonderful Portuguese sweet bread. As the years go by, though, I find that to please our seasonal visitors the stores are bringing in more and more items that I hadn’t realized I’d missed. The world is getting smaller and palates are becoming more sophisticated. When you can get a lobster roll at a McDonalds in Iowa, I’ll know that regional food is a thing of the past.

WINTERING THE VINEYARD

I got a call last night from a 'fan' who is a recent wash-ashore. He told me that when people ask him what it's like living on Martha's Vineyard he refers them to my blog, so all you non-Vineyarders are going to have to put up with essays about things you are probably unfamiliar with, but this is what our life is like! The weather is starting to turn coolish and the days have suddenly gotten shorter so here's what it's like to be on Martha's Vineyard in the winter. This essay was previously published in Martha's Vineyard Magazine.

WINTERING THE VINEYARD

Anyone can summer on Martha’s Vineyard. All you need is money, love of a beautiful place and more taste than those who go to the Hamptons. The people who come here for ‘the season’ are very proud of the fact and are eager to let the world know, ergo the demand for T-shirts, hats and MV stickers. There are vastly more cars off Island with those stickers than there are on Island. Wintering here is a seagull of another color and produces a stubborn, quiet, yankee sort of pride. A ‘we survived it together’ pride.

When seasonal residents’ thoughts turn to the Vineyard they remember beautiful weather, wonderful meals and summer fun. The rest of us know that summer is only one of four Island seasons; summer, fall, winter and fall, again. Every ‘spring’ all you hear is, “It feels like November. When’s it gonna’ get warm?” We really don’t have spring. We have a sort of reverse fall. Just think September to November and turn it around. March comes in like a lion and leaves like one, and the gentle April showers that are supposed to bring the May flowers are more like nor’easters. But eventually the grass turns green, the trees leaf and the flowers come up in time for Memorial Day (sometimes even for a late Easter if we’ve had a mild reverse fall). Our winters aren’t typical of New England either. Instead of white our winters are shades of gray, varying from fog to aged cedar shakes. Be that as it may, most year rounders will tell you they love the Island in the winter.

Why is that you ask? For one thing you don’t have to worry about dinner reservations. Of course most of the restaurants close off season. The stores have no lines to speak of. Of course many stores close off season. There’s a fraction of the traffic in winter. Of course there aren’t many places to go off season. It’s cheaper and easier to get a ferry ticket in winter, but that predisposes a desire to go off Island which isn’t a given. On the other hand, the air is clearer, the beaches are cleaner and people nod and say hello because they know you’re not a tourist, and they smile in that ‘don’t you just love this time of year’ way. You don’t have to wait a month to get your hair cut and the staff of just about any business you enter is glad to see you and has time for a chat.

Just like Avis we try harder in the winter. There are plenty of activities to keep us busy. From Christmas in Edgartown to the Boys’ and Girls’ Club Ball and winter walks run by the Trustees of the Reservations you can always find something to do. You can ice skate, go to lectures in a variety of venues and see movies, old and new. You can dance, see plays and go to concerts. The schools provide a variety of sports events to watch, and there is time to socialize with neighbors and browse the book stores. We do chores we’ve been putting off and work on hobbies we don’t have time for in summer. Organizations that suspend in the summer (usually due to lack of parking) resume meeting and there’s time for planning all those summer fund raisers that take from the rich and give to the poor.

I’ll never forget the first winter I lived here. One night I came out of a midweek matinee at the Edgartown Cinema. It was about 6:30 pm and pitch dark. The street lights were glowing on a car-less main street and a few snow flakes were gently falling. There wasn’t another soul around. I could hear my steps echoing on the sidewalk as I walked to my car. It was such a remarkable contrast to the streets on the fourth of July.

Unlike the snow birds who go south to continue the party, for us life slows to a more manageable pace and we get a break from off Island visitors. It’s time to recharge our batteries and build up enough energy to get us through the next summer of beach, BBQs, grandchildren and lines in the post office.