YACK on: Christine
Grant Sanders
My friend Christine Silverstein worked her last day at Sustainable Nantucket on Friday. Quietly. Without fanfare or flourish. A few friends toasted her that evening over Whales Tail Pale Ale (drink local) and Brotherhood chowder (slurp local) and fries (curl local). And that was that. Sustainable Nantucket no longer has an executive director. Christine woke up on Monday with no office to go to. No politics in her life. No lofty public policy goals to scale. No community-wide programs to launch or maintain. No "out" to reach.

That must feel kind of funny for her. It sure feels funny to me and I'm not even a part of the organization. Sustainable Nantucket with no Christine Silverstein? Isn't that kind of like the Merv Griffin Show with no Merv? Budweiser without August Busch? Sankaty without a light?

I've always seen Christine as a sort of George Bailey type. Helping all of the people of Bedford Falls except himself. Standing up to Old Man Potter and the money that would push his town to be something it ought not become. That's tiring work.

On second thought, perhaps Christine did not get up on Monday, and instead decided to sleep in until next Thursday. Look at all she has done in the past decade. I'm not going to list those accomplishments here, but instead suggest you go to the Sustainable Nantucket Web site at sustainablenantucket. org and check out the string of programs and organizations and studies that are all due largely to Christine's work. I'd sleep in for a week and a half too.

I have been wondering, ever since she announced her retirement, what Christine's departure means for the future of Sustainable Nantucket. The passing of Toppy Topham and Christine's leaving together mean that the number of original founding board and staff members is slim. And I wonder if the group still has the special sauce it needs to keep Sustainable going. Clearly, things are going to be different. And I wonder how different.

We may see a whole new Sustainable Nantucket emerge. When dominant NBA center, Patrick Ewing of the New York Knicks was sidelined with a wrist injury, everyone expected a big let-down. But the truth is, the Knicks without Ewing were a much better team. No longer did everyone, including the coaches, expect one hugely talented guy to carry the day. Everyone stepped up and the team, for the first time in over a dozen seasons actually played like a team. In sports, this is known as the Ewing Effect.

Stepping back, what will the "Silverstein Effect" be on town politics in general? Will more people stand up at town meeting and speak the truth? Will more concerned citizens go to all of those board and commission meetings and represent the interests of a community in crisis? (And we are, folks, let's face it. This island has never been closer to losing its soul than it is right now because there are far more reasons for the middle class to leave than stay.) And who (besides me) will be a lightning rod for the controversy and anger of those who think that change for the better is actually a subversive, secret agenda carried out by a wide-eyed cult of people hell-bent on peeing in the pool at the Nantucket Miracle party.

I have to say in all honesty, I do not envy the person who will eventually be named as Christine's replacement. Those shoes are big, and they are always either moving, or being scuffed up by detractors and denouncers.

Speaking of which, and as an aside, I'm always pretty amazed at how many people really have no idea what Sustainable Nantucket is or does, and yet are dead set against it. How do you explain that? I personally chalk it up to intellectual sloth and unhealthy paranoia. Read the Web site folks. It's all there.

So while my buddy Christine is leaving an organization with a somewhat unclear future, and a Nantucket political scene that is in so much flux you could sweat 20,000 feet of copper pipe with it, her future looks pretty certain. She plans to write (I've read some of her stuff, which is very good). And take it easy. And rest up a bit.

And so I just wanted to take this opportunity, in case no one has done so yet, to say thank you, Christine. Thanks for all of your hard work and unwavering devotion to a community that likely has only an inkling of the things you have done to make it more viable and sustainable. Enjoy sleeping in until

next Thursday. You earned it. I

Grant Sanders is the Host of YACK the Nantucket Online Community at www.yackon.com and he also wishes he could sleep until next Thursday. His views are his own and do not necessarily reflect the editorial stance of The Nantucket Independent. Or his wife.