Meet Your Neighbor
Rick Austin
BY MARY LANCASTER INDEPENDENT WRITER

MICHAEL GALVIN/The Independent

Date of birth April 11, 1939

Likes best about Nantucket

Almost everything.

Likes least about Nantucket "The one thing I dislike is zoning."

Favorite TV show No one favorite; he watches the news every evening, enjoys the History Channel presentations and some sports. Brilliant sunshine streamed through the windows of a front room in Rick Austin's mother's house on Orange Street, the house in which he was raised and that was originally built in 1834 for Captain Obed Swain. Born in the old hospital on West Chester Street to native David Austin and his wife Nancy (Jones) of British descent, Rick's mother now lives at Our Island Home and recently celebrated her 96th birthday.

As a child, Austin spent his first six school years at Cyrus Peirce on Atlantic Avenue, walking back and forth from school and home at lunch time, a pattern he continued when he transferred to Academy Hill School in seventh grade. His junior and senior years were at the new high school (now the middle school) where he graduated in 1957. While in high school, Austin worked for one dollar an hour at The Town Crier newspaper and recalls his father being none too pleased that he had to stay there until 1:30 a.m. waiting for photos to arrive the day the Andrea Doria sank.

After high school, Austin became employed with Whiting Milk. His boss was the late Vernon Hamilton who started the young man with a route salesmanship paying $2.35. He stayed with the company for four years, then in 1961 wed his wife Marina whose family moved to the island when she was in seventh grade. The following year, Austin joined the Army and was stationed in Germany. While in Europe he and his wife traveled through Italy, Austria, Switzerland and France, initiating a fond tradition of road trips they maintain every year. In 1964, when Austin was discharged from service in Germany the couple remained there a while before experiencing a few days in Paris on their way back to the United States - and home to Nantucket.

The Austins had their daughter Sally in July of 1965. Austin had gone back to work at Whiting Milk, but left when he learned of an opening at the post office that provided family benefits. He was with the island postal service until his retirement in 2001. He took about a week off and realized that sitting around the house all day was not for him. He was hired as a NRTA elder van driver and has stayed with it to this day.

"It's a great job," he said. "I get up in the morning and look forward to seeing everybody."

Woven through the years following Austin's Army stint were several community commitments including 10 years on the Historic District Commission, a civic service he found very interesting, but said he believes in term limits so stopped running for the office. While on the HDC he took a course in historic preservation at Cornell University. Austin was also secretary for the Nantucket Historical Association for 13 years, served on the Academy Hill Reuse Committee and spent a brief period on the Planning Commission. He is currently on the board of trustees for the Coffin School.

In his spare time, Austin loves to garden and takes charge of the vegetable growing while his wife tends their flower beds. He used to like photography but since cameras have become digitalized they have "kind of left me in the dust," he said. The constant he looks forward to are the couple's spring and autumn travels. He said rather than making reservations at particular places they just follow what seems interesting and enjoy that spontaneity.

"I like to drive and Marina likes to ride," he said, adding that there are still many locations they want to explore across America.

One thing he does not look forward to is the inevitable.

"I assume someday I'll really have to retire. I don't want to. I really enjoy getting up in the morning

and going to work." I