LOCAL OR TOURIST?

The summer is winding down, although you wouldn't notice it with the president here. The massive 10 day traffic jam in China is nothing compared to what it was like yesterday in Edgartown when Michele and the girls came for lunch. The weather was crappy and if you got caught behind the yellow tape when they arrived, as did my friend Dave, you were stuck there until they finished eating and got back into the caravan. At least he got his picture in the Globe!

LOCAL OR TOURIST?

Every couple of years there’s an article in one of the Vineyard publications about how to tell a native from a tourist. Sometimes it’s in the form of a list. They usually start out with something like--real Vineyarders never wear Black Dog T-shirts. Which isn’t true you know. A real Vineyarder will wear anything he can buy for a fraction of what it costs in August and loves to wear something he found abandoned on the beach, even if it’s a Black Dog T-shirt. We would be happier if it was a Medeiros Appliance T-shirt or a hat that says St. Barths but we take what we can get. Of course, for some people, the older and rattier the better.
People who move here with a full wardrobe of normal clothes find that after a few years the items that wear out are replaced with things that say Martha’s Vineyard. Which is why almost everyone on the Island during the ‘off’ season looks like they belong to the high school booster club. During the summer, of course, everyone looks like a tourist. In fact people who smile and cheerfully greet me in the winter often ask me in the summer where I come from. This used to irk me. I feel that since I have survived many an August and March on this Island I deserve credit for being a local. A ‘washashore’ local at least.
Which brings up another point. There are several types of Islanders each with their own genealogy of contact with Martha’s Vineyard. There are, of course, the real true multi generational Islanders. People who are Wampanoags or have names like Mayhew, Norton, Pease and Coffin, or are related to the aforementioned. Then there are the ‘washashores’ who were not born here but settled here sometime during the last century. I have a friend who has been on the Island since before World War II who is still considered a ‘washashore’. Then come the ‘snow birds’. People who have retired and spend close to half the year in some warm climate where they can sun, golf and do all the things you can’t do during a New England winter. Next are the summer residents. This is a subgroup unto itself. It includes people who are much like the ‘snow birds’ except they consider their off Island home their permanent residence. Then you have homeowners that come only on weekends and during their vacation. Even renters that spend more than a week or two consider themselves summer residents. And of course there is the work force that comes to the Island and lives in less than comfortable circumstances to earn an obscene amount of money on tips so they can afford their next semester at college. Last but not least are the true tourists. The people who come for a day or week. These are the people who buy the Black Dog T-shirts for full price, eat $4.50 oysters, and generally keep the souvenir stores, hotels and expensive restaurants in business. They are also the people who give the locals something to complain about; traffic, mopeds, crowded beaches and harbors, noise, long lines at restaurants and all the other annoying things that come with being a summer resort.
If someone asked me the difference between a local and a tourist I would say it’s the way we (yes, I am considering myself a Vineyarder) think. If everyone thought the way the people of Martha’s Vineyard do it would be a wonderful world to live in. The Vineyard is a community in the truest sense of the word. Community isn’t just a word. It is a state of being. The dictionary defines community as “a social group of any size whose members reside in a specific locality, share government and often have a common cultural and historical heritage”. This is only partially true about the Vineyard. It is true about the core of the community; which, much like the earth’s center, holds together a larger mass, made of unique but inseparable parts. Anyone who comes within the gravitational pull of Martha’s Vineyard is forever changed. Many come back again and again. Those lucky few who are able to live here, whether for a month or year round, find themselves drawn into the community. “Washashores” are absorbed like paint into new wood. A friend recently described this phenomenon as being like links in a chain link fence. You can’t touch one without being touched by three others; and this is how the fabric of our community has been built.
While looking up the definition of community I came upon a word that I think fits us even better. “Communitas” is an anthropological term meaning “the sense of sharing and intimacy that develops among persons who experience liminality as a group”. Living on an island is our liminality. We are all in the same boat, or rather dependent on the same boat. This insular lifestyle does not induce a feeling of isolation, however, but of independence and self reliance. We care for our own. We don’t wait for the government to do it. Every time there is something to celebrate the whole Island celebrates. Every time there is a tragedy someone organizes a fund raiser.
I’m sure there must be other communities like ours. I hope there are. Wouldn’t it be nice if they were all like ours. Then there wouldn’t be a difference between Islanders and tourists and everyone would proudly wear their own community’s name on their shirts.