The Lighthouse Keeper
The cold wind that heralded change last week has gone away. Summer has returned. The air conditioning has gone on again in the office. Some of the most glorious weather known to man has been with us for the past several days. As the full moon has waned, September has returned.

The weekend weather allowed for one more beach picnic. A t-shirt is again sufficient attire for a walk. The water is still warm, particularly in the shallow places. Yet of a beautiful Saturday or Sunday afternoon, where is everyone? Many beaches are virtually deserted. A lot of boats just hang on their moorings. The golf courses are quieter.

Of course people have left, but that doesn't account entirely for the drop-off of outdoor activity. That wind brought a change in perspective which hasn't gone away. While September is many people's favorite month, and logic would say they would continue to enjoy the vestiges of summer for as long as possible, that is not the way it works. It is sort of like "If it is Tuesday, this must be Paris." If it is September, it must be fall.

When fall comes, Nantucket weekends are taken up by all sorts of things like Whalers' sports, football on television and yard work that didn't get done all summer. None of those make one think "beach!" It's too bad.

One look over the edge and I was able to better grasp the magnitude of this project.

However, one should admire those who went to the high school football game on Saturday and stayed through to see the Whalers pull a super victory literally from the jaws of defeat. The ones who didn't give up at the end of the first half, when things looked very bleak, were rewarded, I am told, with some very exciting football. I did leave and did go to the beach. Only later in the checkout line at the grocery did I hear the final score. "So, it got worse," was, I think, my comment. "No, Nantucket won," was the response. Wow!

Honestly, it was the first Nantucket High School football game that I have ever attended. Whether that is for better or worse, really doesn't matter. Whether or not I have suffered for my miserably failed, good intentions of the past is irrelevant. Football is part of the local landscape here; not, perhaps, the way it is in Ohio or Texas but it still is of significance in the development of many Nantucket young people, present and past. So it is something that needs to be taken in, absorbed, observed. If it really is September, then, it seems, one needs to get with the program.

We all get into our routines Football isn't the only thing which is out there to see on the island, if we only take the time to go and look. We just don't do it often enough.

Thank goodness for house guests. Well, that statement may be a bit strong, but house guests do get us out of our ruts. They are restless. They are expectant. They need to be shown around. They give us the opportunity (or excuse) to take to the road and see what's going on.

Take for example, the new building on Pleasant Street, soon to be the home of the new branch post office. (Is a post office with its own zip code a branch?) As the structure has gone up, it has become a part of the landscape, but the guests look at it and ask how people are going to get in and out. With that it takes on a new perspective. One tries, without much success, to recall the description of the traffic flow - something like in through the bank, out through West Creek Road but it doesn't make a whole lot of sense. And how will access be affected by the new rotary and so on.

From a functionality standpoint, what effect will the new postal facility have on the downtown post office? Also will it be the place where people pick up packages or retrieve postage due mail instead of their having to go to the warehouse at the airport?

Along Nobadeer Farm Road, there has been a spate of construction over the last several years. Recently, a large housing project has taken over the site of the old miniature golf course - which incidentally was one of the finer of its ilk, but the house guests aren't even told that. With them, we notice the new construction; a couple of small developments which nestle down alongside some major commercial enterprises. This juxtaposition drives home the point that Nantucket's current zoning, which permits residential as well as commercial construction in certain areas is helping to whittle away at the land available for commercial activity, because residential construction is much more profitable.

The Bluff walk in 'Sconset, a favorite thing to do with guests, always yields surprises. One, of course, is how it gets shorter each year as the ocean continues to eat away at the bluff. Another is the perspective on the vast expanse of ocean from high up, something one doesn't ordinarily get on Nantucket unless one lives in that spot, or hangs out in lighthouses. And, again, because of the walk's elevation, one can see and be mesmerized by the ever changing waves and currents far out to sea, as well as the occasional gray seal bobbing up close to shore.

One hears about the beach reclamation (or "renourishment") project proposed for along Baxter Road and one envisions an expanse of newly-placed sand at the bottom of the bluff. That's only part of it. Unless one takes the trudge along the beach or finds a break in the hedges to peer down from the edge of the cliff, one has no idea of the magnitude of the project. With the renourishment effort still in the permitting process, the homeowners have embarked on a major effort to shore up the bluff.

Looking down from above, peering over the cliff and realizing that the fence one is hanging on to has problems of its own, the perspective is difficult. The machinery at the bottom is dwarf-sized. Only after a few minutes does one realize that the beach has been terraced and then, rising above that are retaining walls using vast quantities of lumber. The engineering is interesting and, no doubt very expensive. Whether the effort will hold off the ocean remains to be seen. What we learned from observing the project, rather than just reading about it, is that it is something worth checking into from time to time. And, by the way if the project is successful, will the beach walk be reinstituted for the length of Baxter Road?

There was one more surprise in 'Sconset. How many times has one driven by the "comfort station" and never known it was there? The house guests praised someone's forethought!

The moral of this travelogue? Get out and find out what is going on. (You don't have to wait for house guests, but they help.) It may not prove anything but it's still worth doing because it takes us away from the humdrum; we learn things and we think. And when we weary of it, on a bright, warm fall day, the beach - or football - always beckons.

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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.