The Lighthouse Keeper
BY DANIEL W. DRAKE ASSOCIATE PUBLISHER

Earlier this week, Michael Kopko interviewed me for his show, “POV,” which runs on Channel 22, Plum TV. It was only my second experience in front of the camera in any sort of formal way. Yes, I used to walk all the time by the electronics stores in New York where one would see oneself on the television in the window — and quickly turn away at the scary sight — but those close encounters didn’t count. This was the real thing. A one-on-one talk show.

My other formal television experience was scripted in a manner of speaking. It was a couple of minutes taped for the end of a video tribute — really a visual obituary — that was to be broadcast on a public TV station.

I wrote down ahead of time what I wanted to say. I was terrified during the taping, because I was afraid both of flubbing, which, of course, I did — and even more, of making a fool of myself with something trite that wouldn’t do justice to my friend. The flub could be taken care of with a retake. The other was a problem that could not be remedied by any technological miracle.

This time was different. The location was the Great Hall of the Atheneum, turned into a sort of set for the occasion. The crew consisted of three young men from Plum TV, who were very quiet and efficient as they went about their business. But they were also an audience!

There was no script and no talk of retakes. The scope of the interview was outlined in only the sketchiest of terms and the only question put out in advance was to have been the first one: “When and where were you born.” As it turned out, when the taping began, we started off in a different direction for a couple of sentences until that question brought us back to the beginning. Throughout the session, that question was the only sense I had of being directed.

Kopko is a good interviewer. He quickly made me feel comfortable. Whether the questions were spontaneous or he had thought them through, they flowed with ease. There was no hesitation on the part of the host. As for the guest, who was trying his best to be intelligentsounding and, perhaps, a bit witty, it seemed like every answer was prefaced with “huh,” “er” or “um.”

The discomfort was heightened by my consciousness of my tendency to slouch down when sitting, a habit encouraged particularly by a smooth wooden chair. To avoid the danger of ending up almost in a horizontal position, I would periodically pull myself up, trying to be as subtle as I could. Of course the immediate reaction was the cameraman hastening to adjust the camera, presumably so that it was not recording just my mouth and neck.

In reflecting on the interview, a couple of questions stand out. The first, after a discussion of my having spent my childhood summers on Nantucket, was, in effect “Isn’t Nantucket really different now for summer people than it was then?” My spontaneous answer was something along the lines of “No, not really. People still come here because they love Nantucket.”

With the benefit of time to reflect on that response, I still believe it to be the correct one.

Sure, things were different 40 years ago. Then, one could only get to Nantucket on a boat trip that took from two and one-half to four hours depending on where you embarked and where the boat stopped en route, or on a nail-biting airplane ride on a Northeast DC-3.

Now you can get here on an array of ferries, fast and slow, turbo-props and private jets, or any number of nailbiting flights in Cessna 402s. There are more choices of things to do and a vastly broader set of options for dining out. A lightship basket purse that cost $35 in 1960, sells today for 40 to 50 times that amount.

But the world has changed, and so Nantucket has changed with it. The pace of mainland life and other factors afford few families the opportunity of coming here for an entire summer. That doesn’t mean that people come here any less for what makes this island so wonderful: the ocean, the beaches, the vistas, the moors, the sky, the clouds, to name just a few of the common denominators.

So, yes, Nantucket has changed in many of the more superficial respects. Are the changes good? Reasonable people will disagree. But the fact remains that the fundamentals are the same as they always have been and they are what provide the basic Nantucket experience which many visitors love and for which they return.

The second question was not connected to the first in sequence but, in fact, was pithier in getting to the same issue. It was: “Does Nantucket have a future?” My response was along the lines of, “Absolutely, Nantucket has a future!”

Some despair at the building explosion of the last 40 years. Some take issue with a lack of foresightedness in preserving a “working waterfront.” People get excited about immediate issues like traffic and airplane noise. Historic preservation becomes an obsession in the face of travesties, real and, perhaps, perceived.

To survive and prosper, a community has to be dynamic. If it allows itself to stagnate, it will gradually wither away. Some don’t mind that, but those are not the qualities that bring people to Nantucket as summer residents and visitors.

Yes, Nantucket has to address growth, waterfront access, traffic, airplane noise and historic preservation, not to mention a multitude of other infrastructure issues. And, no, it hasn’t done a great job on most of these things in the past 40 years. But while not providing an excuse, the point is that the place is dynamic. It has changed with the times rather than despite them and it has become, in some ways, even more unique and special than it was 40 or 50 years ago.

There are differences, of course. In the summer it is hard to find the solitude and peace that one enjoyed a couple of generations ago. Now one has to share the beach.

With two notable exceptions, historic preservation and open land preservation, much of the change in the last few decades has happened without a lot of forethought. The challenges of the future may not allow for that luxury. The issues outlined above require a lot more effort by all segments of the Nantucket community, and with coordinated leadership of a sort that has not been much evident to date. But that isn’t to say that the capability and perhaps even the will are not there.

Of course Nantucket has a future. The question is not whether there is a future but how it will play out. How the future unfolds and whether people — residents and visitors — will be happy with it remains to be seen. The second question is whether the community will take charge of its future or whether it will just let it happen. From this vantage point, I am hopeful that we will take control of the future.

The 40 minutes or so of taping the interview went by very quickly. Kopko and the camera crew didn’t seem too badly scarred by the experience, but whether the interview is worth watching is a question for others, not for me. I know for sure, that I will not watch it. It would be just like seeing myself on the monitor in the electronics store window. Scary!

The “Lighthouse Keeper” reflects the views of the author and does not necessarily represent the editorial position of The Nantucket Independent. Please send any comments to drake@nantucketindependent.com.

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