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From Vineyard Style Magazine, Spring 2002:
We’ve now evolved into a bedroom tourist community. More and more of the homes built are occupied by those from afar. The Vineyard has become a summer destination, where people come to fill their lives with sunshine and recreation, and they bring with them a different social theatre.
For me - like so many other good folks on this Island - just by prevailing, by hanging onto this community by my fingernails -- we can make a significant social contribution to this place. Just staying true to what is already here is no small accomplishment. By staying connected to this Island by eking out a living, by holding onto a home by the seat of my pants, and by carrying on as a story teller in words, pictures and music, I have a paycheck rising above all else.
The ultimate perk of chronicling what I see is I get to grow into an old timer here. I get to recall when events were different. I get to rattle off stories about how Turtle Lawry once landed swordfish at Memorial Wharf in Edgartown. I get to remember the Nobska tooting its steam horn as it pulled away from the Oak Bluffs wharf. I can tell others how I remember dairy farms and even at least one turkey farm. I get to remember when the Gay Head Cliffs were redder.
I get to be the sailor on the fantail, at the stern of this Island vessel, who has a long view of the ship’s wandering wake going out past the horizon.
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