A SHOT IN THE DARK

Well the Swine Flu vaccine finally made it to the Island. This is good since they are predicting a second wave to come through. I survived the first wave but since I'm going to be on an airplane next week I decided it couldn't hurt to get the shot. This time the clinics were held in each town, they only had about four volunteers working and it only took three minutes. They must have had enough vaccine because the Community Health Nurse spoke at the Woman's Club (that's another blog) and she had an entire cooler full in case anyone had been missed.

I've decided in the future I'll just encourage all my friends to get the shot then I'll be safe. If they don't get sick neither will I!

A SHOT IN THE DARK

I got my flu shot in November. As with everything else the Vineyard does off season they turned it into an all Island song and dance. They said it was a pandemic drill and would be this way from now on. I always thought a drill was a once in a while thing just so everyone would know what to do if necessary. I guess I was wrong.

I've been getting flu shots on Island for the last nine years and this time was by far the most complicated. They must have had fifty gazillion volunteers running around doing pretty much the same thing. It used to be you just showed up at your local fire house and they gave you a shot. Yeah, just before you got jabbed someone would ask you if you were allergic to eggs, but that was about it for the formalities. Afterword they had hot soup, cookies and coffee for those who wanted to hang around and socialize. This was good in case you missed your own town's clinic you could go to another one since they were always held on different days.

A couple of years ago they decided an all Island clinic would be better so everyone had to truck up to the high school. Still not a problem. They'd screen you at the front door then send you to the gym for your shot. It wasn't as neighborly but still worked okay. This year with Swine Flu in the forefront of the news, the powers that be decided to prepare for a pandemic, in spite of the fact that all they had was the regular seasonal flu vaccine. Everyone, it seems, had flu phobia.

The first thing they did was set up staging areas. There was one at the Ag Hall in West Tisbury and one at Alley (formerly known as Waban) Park. I figured Oak Bluffs would be closer for me. The clinic was running from 8 to 12 and I couldn't decide when it would be the most crowded so I just went when I got up. Upon arrival at Alley Park there were signs directing me all the way around the park to an entry where they checked how many people were in the car then sent me off to line up. Now this wasn't too bad, kind of like getting on the stand-by line. Unfortunately I was in the fourth line. I cursed and wished I had brought a book. I don't think I would have gotten to read much though, since about sixty volunteers knocked on the window to make sure my previously obtained forms were filled out. I spent so much time telling them that my papers were in order that before I knew it I was on my way, following a line of cars to the high school. It seems that everyone had their favorite way to get to the school so the line disintegrated in short order. Finding my way to what was formerly the blinker light intersection I noticed that a grave error had been made. The sign for the flu clinic pointed down Barnes Road toward the airport. Since I knew this was a mistake I calmly turned left to go to the school. Of course as soon as I turned I saw a policeman blocking traffic and waving everyone back to Barnes Road. Who knew there was an access road through the state forest to the high school? Not me, obviously.

There were so many police directing traffic I started to wonder who was taking care of the rest of the Island. After passing through many more checkpoints (I bet it was easier to get into West Berlin when the wall was still up) I arrived at the spot where the walkers were separated from the non walkers. Yes, they had a drive through where the infirm could just stick their arm out the car window and quickly be on their way. Apparently I was looking pretty healthy since I was waved around the school to the parking lot. I entered through the Preforming Arts Center where I went through another gauntlet of paper checkers--how could they have possibly thought I had gotten there without already being checked a few million times?--and it was a good thing I'm healthy because from there to the gym where they were doling out the vaccine was a walk of about three quarters of a mile. Someone at the door to the gym was loudly proclaiming, "Have your coat off and sleeve up," over and over. I expected to see pandemonium but most of the nurses were looking around for their next patient. It took all of about thirty seconds to actually be vaccinated. Then of course the long walk back to my car.

There was an article in the paper the next morning describing the flu clinic. They had given 400 shots during the first hour, compared to 800 during the first hour last year. So much for pandemic drills improving performance. They had run out of vaccine by 10:30, which shouldn't have surprised me if they had inoculated all the volunteers first. The reason for the rigamarole was--why else--it was mandated by the government along with the grant money. And here I thought the whole thing was thought up by the Vineyard gas station owners.

ISLAND DRIVING

Learning how to drive is a right of passage for teens even though here on Martha's Vineyard you can't go very far. This essay was previously printed in Martha's Vineyard Magazine.

ISLAND DRIVING

People who learn to drive on Martha’s Vineyard are at a distinct disadvantage driving anywhere else in the world. Not just Boston or Rome but even Falmouth can present a ‘first time off Island’ driver with things he has only read about in the driver’s manual. Street lights, for instance. Oh, everyone here knows about them. There has even been talk of putting one where Barnes Road crosses the Edgartown-Tisbury road (which provided months of fodder for the Gazette op ed page) but saner voices prevailed. Now they are talking about a round-about which to my knowledge only exists in Massachusetts. But I digress.

For drivers used to four way stops, a very genteel way of dealing with an intersection in my opinion, a stop light doesn’t always register. In fact, after living here for nine years I find myself completely confused at stop lights when off Island. It takes me a while to figure out why nobody is stopping to let me out. At first I figure it is just rude off Island drivers. Then I think maybe the drivers aren’t used to the rules (like in the summer). Then it slowly dawns on me that it isn’t a four way stop. By that time the light has changed and I sheepishly go on my way.

Another thing an Island driver gets no practice at is going over 45 MPH. MPH, incidentally, means Maximum Per Hour here on the Island, but not anywhere else. On every other road in the world it means Minimum Per Hour. Or at least I think that’s what it must mean because when I drive the speed limit ‘over there’ I am always the last one to get where I want to go. People whizz by me like I’m standing still. This can be unnerving if you’ve never experienced it before. It can be unnerving even if you have. Not to mention if it’s a tractor trailer that’s doing the whizzing. I think maybe the drivers ed instructors at the high school should be given permission to have at least one class in the middle of the night when they can take the students down the Edgartown-Tisbury Road full speed ahead so they will know what it feels like. Who knows? Maybe they would get it out of their system so they won’t be tempted to speed other times. Not that I’m naive enough to think the kids on this Island don’t speed. My own daughter has paid a couple of those inflated fines. I do think it is less common here than in other communities, however. Who wants to be embarrassed by a cop who says, “Wait till I see your dad.” Or, “I’m gonna tell your mom to take your keys away for a couple of weeks. How would you like that?”

Since there aren’t any highways on the Island there aren’t any entrance ramps. This is something I still feel inadequate about. Umpteen years ago when I took my drivers test (a humiliating experience at best-even if you pass) the testers (usually off duty corrections officers from the local prison) just made you parallel park and do a three point turn. As long as you didn’t have an accident or speed in a school zone you passed. How did this prepare me for driving in the real world? I still equate the entrance ramp with the Indy 500, and frequently pull a nerve in my neck trying to merge into the traffic. Should I go slow and wait for an enormous space between two cars or should I go like a bat out of hell and hope they look out for me? This is not something that was covered in the drivers manual. And what chance does a kid who learned how to drive on Martha’s Vineyard have?

One thing they won’t have to worry about off Island are generous, polite drivers. You know the type. They stop to let you out of Cronig’s parking lot just for GPs. Or they wave you ahead if you’re both headed for the same parking space. This just doesn’t happen anywhere else that I have ever driven a car. I love it when I’m cruising a lot for a space and someone with a gift shop bag in their hand waves and says, “I’m leaving. Follow me.” Where else does anyone even care that you’re looking? The thing is, here on Martha’s Vineyard, if the drivers didn’t care about each other there would be chaos.

Maybe there should be a requirement for all drivers in the state to come to the Vineyard and drive around for a few days in August in order to get their drivers license. This would either decrease or increase road rage. I haven’t figured that out yet.

DON'T ASK AND PLEASE DON'T TELL

When you live on an island where the newspaper only comes out once a week, gossip takes on a whole new meaning. I find the men of the Vineyard are just as big at gossip as the women. In fact Edgartown has it's own personal town crier. Bob works at the Stop $ Shop and knows everything that happens. He must listen to a police scanner because after listening to Bob there is nothing new in the paper except obscure facts and letters to the editor. The kind of gossip he doles out won't get him into trouble like the following tidbits might.

Don’t Ask and Please Don’t Tell

I’m one of those people folks like to tell their troubles to. I’m sympathetic, compassionate and keep my own counsel. You’d think this would make me a lot of friends. Not so. The minute people unload their deepest darkest secrets they suddenly realize that the relationship is uneven. They start to resent the fact that they’ve spilled their guts to me and soon drift away.

I had a girlfriend (the operative word here is had) who one day out of the blue told me that her husband had recently confessed, by e-mail no less, that he was a transsexual. Before I had a chance to say, “Too much information”, her skeleton had rattled itself over into my closet. Being a confidante is a no win situation. If word gets out it looks like I blabbed. I could tell the minute she told me, it was only a matter of time before she would no longer be able to look me in the eye unless I confided some equally humiliating factoid about my life.

After endless therapy, which did nothing except make my friend believe she had an honorary degree in psychoanalysis, she spent the next couple of years trying to convince me that I should open up to her about my troubles. When I finally said there was nothing I wished to discuss with her she announced we no longer had anything to talk about and hung up on me. I haven’t heard from her since. I can’t help thinking if I were more self centered and my shoulder was less waterproof these things wouldn’t happen.

A summer visitor friend who happens to be a writer told me recently that when she goes home she’s meeting a man for a drink. Now, that statement might sound innocuous to you but when you’re a woman of a certain age, as she and I are, it is fraught with meaning. It’s a euphemism for you know what. She was getting close to the too much information line but like a dummy I didn’t stop her and now I know her dirty little secret. The thing that really bothered me about this confession is that with great glee she followed up by saying it was going to make a great book. This woman is close to seventy and when she told me her paramour-to-be is forty I pictured a dust jacket with Fabio pushing a wrinkled old bleached blonde around in a wheel chair.

I was soon getting a weekly call and blow by blow, you should pardon the expression, description of her geriatric love life. Due to various reasons that aren’t important to my story she didn’t hook up with the original guy but, having made up her mind, like a lion stalking prey, she systematically hunted down someone else perfect for her. Not wanting this to become common knowledge, hence her confiding in someone who lives 1,000 miles away, she chose a pilot who is only in town two days a month. She calls me to let me in on her latest adventures and she actually giggles like a teenager. Is it just me or is this a little unseemly? I happen to be fond of her poor husband.

After my mother had been a widow for a few years she developed a relationship with a younger man. She of course couldn’t tell any of her friends about it so she bubbled over one day in my presence. I tried to forget about it but at a dinner party I attended the conversation took an ugly turn and the sex lives of oldsters was discussed. It was the consensus that they don’t have or want one. I couldn’t let it go. I mentioned my mother, albeit obliquely, naturally not mentioning names. As luck would have it there was a woman there whose sister was my mother’s neighbor and come to find out was also dating her gentleman caller and had seen his car in my mother’s drive. Needless to say this woman was not as closed mouthed as I usually am and my mother didn’t speak to me voluntarily for several months. Again--trouble caused by a secret that I hadn’t really wanted to hear.

This event, however, did finally provide me with a solution to my problem. I realized that if people thought I would blab their confidences all around town they would no longer use me to unlock their vaults. Since it is against my nature to actually do that I enlisted my best friend who, either has no secrets or more likely doesn’t feel the need to share them. With my permission she told everyone we know that I was on the short list to take over the gossip column in the local paper and anything they confided in me might find its way into newsprint. It must be working. I haven’t lost a friend in months. No one tells me anything any more.

FETE NOIR

I think there's something unique in living in a tourist mecca, whether it's a beach resort or a ski town. I don't know if it's the tourists or the people that make money off the tourists that inspire odd events but they abound anywhere people go for their off time.

FETE NOIR

Even though I have lived on Martha’s Vineyard for more than nine years I still read the New York Daily News on Sunday. My friend Jules switched from the Times to the Globe, but not me. I’m used to the guys who write the headers for the articles. They amuse me no end. The reason I bring this up is that on Sunday in the summer their travel section lists festivals. All kinds of festivals. Everyone wants summer people to come to their community and spend money. Trumped up festivals, events and contests abound. You can’t blame them. We’ve all seen tourists buy over-priced food and clothing. We’ve done it ourselves. Americans are some of the hardest working people on earth and even if they have to go into hock (I once knew a nurse that took out a new credit card each year for her annual family outing) they are going to enjoy their vacation, damn it! It’s only once a year. Right?

Some of these festivals appeal to me. The Great American Beer Festival in Denver, for example. New York’s Ugly Dog Contest is probably good for a laugh, if you’re not too sensitive. But how many Garlic Festivals can the tourism industry support? And believe me, there are Garlic Festivals everywhere garlic is grown. Bird circuses, twin fests and lumberjack championships have limited appeal, I believe. You’d need something a little more exciting to lure me to Wisconsin.

Lots of towns have turned their fifteen minutes of fame into annual events. Roswell, New Mexico, Steubenville, Ohio, Buffalo, New York, and Hoboken, New Jersey. Roswell, of course, has a UFO fest, Stubenville has a Dean Martin fest, Buffalo a wing fest, and we all know who came from Hoboken.

I recently picked up a small handbook called Beauty From Afar: A Medical Tourist’s Guide to Affordable and Quality Cosmetic Care Outside the U.S. It says you can save 50% to 80%. Now that’s where I might spend my tourism dollars. How about a facelift to go with your culture.

Reading about all these odd-ball festivals piqued my interest. I started to wonder just how far a community would go for money. This curiosity led me to a web site called Festival.com which boasts listings for 25,000 annual festivals world wide. I found many of these events common to all cultures. Fairs, seasonal and food-themed (pumpkin, lemon, apple, strawberry, seafood), there’s a ramp (whatever they are) festival in West Virginia, and a dried bean festival--can’t say that one sounds very exciting, or even tasty. Music festivals abound, featuring jazz, folk, bluegrass, rock and zydeco. Film festivals are growing exponentially and culture fests are big; Greek, Portuguese, Hispanic, and Celtic being the main ones. I’m having trouble with the Salem, Massachusetts culture fest though. In my opinion the words “culture” and “burn at the stake” do not belong together.

Back to Festivals. com. This web site has a map on it and you can check out any country in the entire world. I limited my search to the US since I really can’t imagine traveling to, say, Germany for a wurst eating contest. That’s another hot summer event. Eating contests. I don’t see the point in stuffing an abnormal amount of food down your throat in order to be the last person who barfs. This is supposed to make your mother proud?

Hoping not to be too embarrassed, the first state I visited was my home state of Massachusetts. The first festival that caught my eye was the Hyperflite Skyhoundz Festival in Tewksbury. My friend Jules is a private pilot so, of course, my orientation led me to believe it was an air show. Not so. It’s for frisbee-catching dogs. Believe it or not I found one in every state I visited. The Santa Lucia festival in the North End of Boston sounded pleasing. Lucy’s the Patron Saint of the Eye, but since they boast 100 food push carts, I think they should have chosen the Patron Saint of the Stomach. And in Hawley, Massachusetts, a town of 375 people, they have an entire day of festivities surrounding a pudding contest. Don’t ask me what they do with the pudding.

Next I visited a state that I have always considered having a high level of sophistication. New York had its share of county fairs but the one I found just too soignee for words is held in the Brick Theater in Brooklyn. This year’s play festival is aptly entitled “The Pretentious Festival”. Previous years have included “The Hell Fest, The Moral Values Fest, and The Sell Out Fest”.

Then there’s the Barefoot Dancing Festival in the Bronx. I lived in the Bronx and believe me, I didn’t go barefoot even in my own apartment.

As you would expect, California has an eclectic mix of events. Jules said the Belly Dance Fantasy Festival appealed to him, but we can’t imagine what they do at the Silicone (with an e) Valley Moon Festival besides draw a lot of adolescent boys, and I don’t want to know anything more about the Up Your Alley Street Fair in San Francisco. Especially since it isn’t ”suitable for children due to nudity and X-rated behavior”.

Finding some of these annual events a little weird, I decided to try a couple of states in the heartland. Middle Americans are the salt of the earth. Surely their festivals would be rated PG.

Here again I’ve been proven wrong.

Montana is holding its 25th Annual Testicle Festival. I didn’t check their web site as you had to be eighteen to enter, which always makes me suspicious I’ll see something I’d rather not. They also have a Pagan Pride Day. Well, I guess Montana isn’t one of those Bible Belt states. I was surprised that Minnesota celebrates Mexican Independence Day. I’d have bet most of our south of the border neighbors had never heard of Minnesota much less gone there to live. It’s probably just an excuse to get blitzed on Margaritas. Their Tree Frog Music Festival could show the Vineyarders a thing or two. How about an annual Pinkletink Fest?

If the Vineyard didn’t already welcome more visitors than we can handle, my Internet tour of American festivals would certainly give us plenty of ideas. Other towns can bring in the tourist trade with Fallen Bridge Day and concrete canoe races. If Martha’s Vineyard can have a successful festival based on a movie about sharks that eat tourists, we ought to be able to do more. How about an Annual Tick Fest?