I’ve spent at least a portion of the last 47 summers with my family in a gingerbread cottage in the Camp Ground in Oak Bluffs. The boulder at the rear entrance to the Tabernacle reads, “Surely God is in this place.” I cannot speak for God but it seems that my late grandfather’s spirit is still singing loud in the Sunday chorus and present at that most dreaded childhood event — the Camp Meeting Association potluck.

My grandfather was very tall with a distinctive lumbering gait and a constant whistle under his breath. He swam at Town Beach in the afternoon and walked his bike more often than he rode it — the better to stop and chat. His tread made the weak cottage floor creak even as he stooped to pass through doorways. He loved to lift his voice in conversation and song. He sang in the choir every week and brought home the leftover doughnuts. He loved anything communal and he never missed a Camp Meeting potluck. Half the serving dishes still have the family name marked on the bottom, 40-year-old masking tape now permanent.

Long tables of unfamiliar dishes were guarded by very old women who looked like they wanted to beat you with long-handled wooden spoons. Cut-up franks lurked in baked beans, yellowish meatballs in the spaghetti, unrecognizable canned fruits in the Jell-O. These women in aprons, who looked nothing like grandmothers look now, insisted on serving the food. They made foods touch on a plate and rationed the desserts.

My grandfather was enraptured by the variety, the bounty, the opportunity to sit with other households. He was also a man who routinely put leftover salad in the blender to serve as a vegetable frappe. As teenagers we mostly escaped the potlucks, succumbing one final time when my grandfather offered a bribe. The following night we found a partially eaten muffin in reheated beef stew, foil wrapper still on it — a leftover he hadn’t been able to resist at the potluck.

Although I am now what’s called a third-generation Camp Grounder, with my own teenage daughter, the community has changed since I summered with my parents and grandparents in the cottage. The cottages are no longer as makeshift, gardens are works of art, not sandlots, but it is less a place where everyone attends Community Sings or church in the Tabernacle. Unlike grandmother-next-door who never even learned to drive, these grandmothers go off-road for clamming and walk every morning in a babbling group.

When I got to the cottage early this fall in time to read about an upcoming potluck in the Campground Flyer I tried to rally the family to attend. Only my mother got on my bandwagon; my daughter accepted the potluck as involuntary. Bearing Cowboy Caviar and pasta salad we set off with our labeled serving dishes.

We were late of course and the selfsame tables from the 1960s were full. Those already seated looked at us and held up fingers for the number of seats remaining at their table in what looked like apathetic bidding. Why are we doing this, I wondered?

Finally table two rearranged themselves so my daughter and I could be together. My mother and one niece (who figured she’d check it out and then go back to the cottage for dinner) went to another.

When we identified ourselves by cottage location, Marina from Tabernacle Circle said, “You didn’t perchance know the girls who ran the vegetable cart?”

My grandfather loved discarded objects as much as discarded food; 40 years ago he built a cart out of bicycle wheels and old wood. Twice a week my mother and grandparents picked and cleaned vegetables that we sold in the Camp Ground, pushing the cart and shouting, “Vegetables. Fresh vegetables.”

“I am one of those girls,” I said.

“I remember your grandfather,” Marina said slowly and I could watch her memories of him return. People always remember Ted Teal. No one else has ever filled his shoes.

The potluck tables were the same but the contents had changed. Dishes were identified as wheat-free or vegan, the fruits were fresh rather than canned, but there were still women in aprons maintaining a watchful eye over serving portions.

What hadn’t changed is that the potlucks do not last long. As a child there was still a sense of the original Methodist curfew but now attendees all lead vigorous night lives. Some people didn’t even stay for dessert, just packed up their wicker plate holders and set off for the dog parade or the last band concert in Ocean Park.

A couple that had arrived late sat at our table still eating. They had been off-Island for a wedding described as “awful.” The woman went on to explain that as a violinist she plays too many weddings and knows awful when she sees it.

“You’re the couple that got married in the Tabernacle last summer,” my mother said, recognizing them.

“Two summers ago,” the young woman corrected her. “Were you there?”

When I looked surprised she said. “We put an open invitation in the Campground Flyer and the Gazette.”

“There was an awful lot of leftover cake,” the Tabernacle bride’s mother said. “We didn’t know how many people to expect.”

“How was your wedding?” I asked.

The serious young woman smiled her first true smile. “It was wonderful,” she said. “Although I fell down the stairs and he,” nodding at her placid groom, “accidentally picked up a skunk.”

I wanted to tell her, my grandfather would have loved your wedding.

He would have been there reveling, and the leftover cake would not have been a problem.

After we said good night and went back to our cottage, all the potluck naysayers watched our return from their porches. “How was it?” they asked.

“Great,” I responded sincerely. And although I wasn’t planning to sing in the Tabernacle Church Choir I was already feeling taller with an urge to whistle under my breath.

Peggy Sturdivant is a freelance writer and columnist who lives in Seattle and Oak Bluffs.