When I was a youngling, every summer we would shut down our house in Vermont (that’s where I was born and raised) and we would move over to Nantucket Island. Keep in mind that this was back in the day when Nantucket wasn’t a popular place and it didn’t cost a bazillion dollars to rent a cottage. We would stay out at Surfside and live in a cottage owned by the Folgers. It was always the same one. There wasn’t any television, it always smelled musty and like the ocean, it was kind of dark and it was simple. I remember there was an alligator skin hanging on the wall. For a while it used to freak me out, but then I just began to talking to him and all was okay again. I had my own room and my brothers had to share a room. There was a family room, kitchen and bathroom. There was a clothesline outside that was always full of bathing suits and towels. There were swimming rafts, snorkels, masks, flippers and sand toys all over the yard. You could follow the dirt road down to the sand dunes, walk down the long rickety plank board walk and then you were on the beach. We would spend all day at the beach, sun up to sun down. We would play in the dune grass and get covered in ticks. My brothers would pull them off, drop them into Dixie cups and then drop in a match and listen to them pop. We would swim and skim board, picnic and lounge about. When the bluefish were running, my dad and I would go down in the wee hours of the morning and surf cast until we caught one. I had my Nantucket friends, Stevie and Kari. Kari still actually lives on the Island; she never left.
We would travel all about the island too. We got to know the famous Madaket Millie and we would always see Mr. Roger’s crooked house (it really WAS crooked). My dad and I would bike all the way into town and get ice cream at the Sweet Shoppe. My favorite flavor was malachite ice cream. It was their own secret recipe and I can still taste it to this day. We would have clambakes on the beach with the Jemisons and the Englands until all hours of the night. We would ride in jeeps out to lighthouses and race back before the tide came in. We would fly kites high into the sky and then daydream about being carried away by them.
I look back at silent home movies now and it feels like just yesterday when I was there. It was such a magical time; one never to be repeated. The Nantucket I grew up with doesn’t exist anymore. Now it’s more of a destination place, full of boutiques and fancy shops. The cobblestone streets are still there though, and some of the older cottages are still adorned with beach roses and weathered shingles. On the outskirts of town life remains as it was, a nod to the past. The Whaling Museum still harkens to what life was like when whaling and fishing were the sole livelihood of the Island. The Tuckernuck Yoho still flies through the mist and guards his treasure; if you listen you can hear his scream in the dead of night. The Nantucket Bake Shop hasn’t changed any of it’s recipes since I was a little girl, and I’m most thankful for that. Surfside is still the best place to go for killer waves. The ocean breeze is still strong and the ferry is still the main way to get there. Some things I suppose remain the same; but most things have changed. However, it will always be “my Nantucket” in my heart and soul.