TIGHT LINES
SPEAKING OF TRAFFIC . . .
with Andrew Spencer
Igot a text message recently from T. Walsh, everyone's favorite builder extraordinaire. Tom took a little time out from his hectic coffee drinking schedule to suggest that I write a column on text messaging. It was pretty much a meta-text-message (say THAT three times fast)...you know, a text message about text messaging? At the risk of making it seem like Tom was right about this (he was almost a little psychic), I'd already planned to write about cell phones.

Traffic has been in the news quite a bit recently, with Peter Brace's helpful definition about how a roundabout differs from a rotary and Grant Sanders YACKing about the same. Even Shep got in on the action by scooting around town on a moped. And that was just in last week's paper. There's no telling how many of you "people on the street" are yammering about it now. However, despite the apparent "hot button" nature of traffic on Nantucket, I have yet to enter into the fray of the discussion.

That all ends now.

On any given night in a Nantucket restaurant, you're likely to find at least one diner who, over the course of the evening, feels compelled to answer a call on his or her cellular phone. Despite the fact that this activity is not unique to Nantucket, it still doesn't make a great deal of sense to me. You go out to dinner with significant others, family and friends, presumably, because you enjoy their company. And in the midst of this interpersonal contact, you decide that electronics-aided communication is somehow superior? Okay, let's just accept that as true for the moment and move on.

Fast forward to the next morning. You're driving along on your way to work, and you go to make a right turn. Usually this isn't such a major issue. But remember, friends and neighbors, this is Nantucket. Here-the same place where we talk on the phone to avoid conversing with friends and family in a public setting designed for exactly that-we stop our cars in the middle of an intersection to have a conversation with a person we could very easily talk to on the phone. I know it's a unique custom and I know it's quaint and I know it's only a few seconds out of my day. Can't you people just wave like Bruce Watts and then call them later on?

But seriously. Am I the only one who thinks the fact that people will talk on a mobile (read "car") phone and thereby interrupt a face-to-face conversation while out to dinner with other people, but stop their vehicle (read "car") to talk to somebody with whom they could either have dinner with or call on their cell phone? As yet a third option, couldn't one of you agree to call the other while you're out to dinner with other friends, thereby pulling off the irritating communication methods trifecta?

All this talk about traffic issues makes me wonder if we might not have been able to save ourselves a bundle by bypassing the whole traffic study committee and just telling people that they can't stop in an intersection to have a conversation. God help us if anybody decides to hit the brakes because they see a friend across the way at the roundabout. But I digress.

Despite the fact that I'm pretty much convinced these traffic issues point to the end of civilized society as we know it, there's an escape: fishing.

Andrew can't come to the phone right now. He's busy writing clever segues. Please leave a detailed message in triplicate at the office of The Nantucket Independent if you have a complaint.

I've heard rumors of folks talking on their cell phones out at the beach, and I've even heard of one soul braving the treacherous terrain off Jackson's Point with a scallop pusher and a cell phone. But for the most part, the beach this time of year is blissfully free of phones and annoying traffic.

The only problem is that, unfortunately, the beaches have recently been free of fish, too. For reasons that only the fish truly understand, there's been a shortage of stripers and bluefish around. And we're not alone in this. Anglers on the Vineyard and the Cape are experiencing similar issues. Some blame warmer temperatures this summer, some blame historical cycles. At least one person here on Nantucket has gone out on a limb and blamed the summer traffic. But, as wise men before me have said until they were blue in the face, "The worst day fishing is better than the best day working." So get out there and just enjoy the solitude and maybe catch an occasional fish or two while you're at it.

But when it's time to return to "civilization," please remember the new mantra: "NO TRAFFIC GAMS."

Tight lines.

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