The Scarier Reality Show: When Islanders Leave the Rock

There are still a few of them, Islanders who have never departed these hundred square miles stuck in cold New England waters. Every so often you hear about one of them; someone’s great-aunt Jemina who is happy tending her garden down a winding Chilmark lane, with no thought to traveling even to Edgartown, someone else’s grandma who died a virgin to off-island travel.

My personal favorite in this breed of Vineyard agoraphobics – not about leaving their homes but about venturing off-island – is Oak Bluffs dweller, Dave Madeiros, formerly that mustachioed man behind the counter at Phillip’s Hardware who, in his own native v. washashore hazing practice, treats you for the first five years of acquaintanceship as a tourist, then finally lets you into the exclusive sphere of his sardonic wit.

Dave has not left the Island for lo these fifty-or-so years. When you ask him about it, he says, “I did two tours of ‘Nam, and that was all the world travel I need.”

If you take a dive into local newspaper or museum archives, you’ll find touching tales from earlier centuries, like the one about the West Tisbury couple who scrimped and saved for seventeen years to pay for a weekend in New Bedford.

Of course, in earlier times, perhaps up to the middle part of the 20th century, it was commonplace, simply the way people lived, to stay put. You married a person who dwelled within a quarter-mile radius (how else to meet him or her?). You went nowhere because travel was challenging. You dedicated yourself to home being pretty much where you were born. Think of all the ancient dynastic beds in which an individual was born, honeymooned, delivered of children, and brought to the threshold of death.

Now here’s the thing about some of us sorrier-sacked year-rounders. We, like Vineyarders of earlier times, can barely afford a weekend in New Bedford. I personally recommend a monthly jaunt to Boston or New York or Providence, just to keep a finger on the pulse of modern living. But, should you lack a budget that allows you to do so, an annual visit to an urban landscape can make for a terrifying experience because . . .

THEY JUST GO ON INVENTING STUFF TO GOBSMACK THE UNAWARE!

Every winter I pack my bag and hold out my umbrella like Mary Poppins to get flown over to California, my home state. And guess what happens? Each new visit brings a cavalcade of tech innovations designed to make our lives easier – or maybe to grab our money quicker – but mostly it reminds me of the frantic lyrics from The Big Bang Theory about the explosion of new gear: “The autotrophs began to drool / Neanderthals developed tools / We built a wall! We built the pyramids! / Math, science, history, unraveling the mysteries / That all started with a big bang!”

Okay, I’ve been out west for a grand total of five days, and here’s what I’ve already been exposed to: My friends’ coffee-maker which, while it embodies the usual water and coffee-grinds components, also has a programming dial so cryptic, I ended up punching all the buttons in various staccato combinations, just waiting to see if anything signaled the machine to GO. Twenty minutes after I’d turned my slumped, uncaffeinated back on it, the motor perked up, and out dribbled drops of java into the glass pot.

For those of you spending the winter on the rez (of MV), you’ll be happy to know people still use measuring cups and basic stuff like manual can-openers, although my friends’ opener was so ergonomically perfect, it clamped down with exquisite concision on the can of garbanzo beans and then, with a flourish, lifted the lid with a hidden magnet. On the Island, my crappy old can-opener consistently leaves a small patch of the lid still sealed, making it necessary to pry it off with a flat knife or fork. ‘Course, I could probably acquire a can-opener like my friends’ at Williams and Sonoma for the equivalent of my coming train fare to Palm Desert.

Okay, next came the credit card-taking parking meters. I’ve seen them before, but they still make me blanch because it’s SO much easier sticking quarters into a slot beside your car.

And then there was the night apart from my son who is dog-sitting for buddies on the other side of town. Myself stationed in Charlie’s bachelor pad, I stared at his 40” flat screen and DVD player. At the same time, I gazed longingly at a “screener” (that’s Hollywood speak for a movie sent out to solicit Academy Award votes) of a film I’ve been dying to see, “Flight” with Denzel Washington.

I had no idea how to get the TV glowing blue, the DVD unit sparking, the disk shoved in and ready for viewer discretion. It was funny in light of the movie I was about to watch with Denzel, the drunken, coke-addicted pilot talking to ground control and trying to land an exploding jumbo jet, because my chatter with Charlie, as I tucked my cell phone into my shoulder, and juggled three remote controls in my hand, sounded pretty much like a black box recording of a pilot’s final message to air traffic control:

“Never mind! I can’t do this!” I repeatedly broke down, close to sobbing.

“Get a grip! We’ll make this work!” he tried to assure me, but I could tell that, like Denzel’s air traffic control officer, he knew the plane was going down.

The worst slap in the face from technology to this old island woman (who really truly should have spent only a weekend in New Bedford herself) was this new-fangled non-key for cars. All you need is this microchip thingie in your hand or purse, and you can open locked doors, start the engine with a jab to a button, and tool along the grid-locked LA boulevards with your son’s rap music thumping from the back of the car to the front axel because you have no idea how to switch to a comforting oldies-but-goodies station.

Also, you may find on one of your rides from point A to point B that you’ve accidentally hit the panic button on your non-key chain, and beep-beep-beeps, then a serious set of literally alarming beeps attends your ride. Oh eek.

I’m thinking these trips off-Island serve as a good reminder of why we live on Martha’s Vineyard. We can exist unembarrassed by our old clunker of a TV set with a back-end as big as a Sumo wrestler’s bottom. No parking meters whatsoever put us through mental gymnastics about how to cover our twenty minutes of errands in town. The ancient can-opener that we bought at the Thrift Shop for a buck will serve us through another hundred cans of garbanzo beans.

Home is where the heart is. But it’s also where the cerebellum need not exert itself more than is strictly necessary.

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