Bettye Foster Baker>

508-696-9983

(bdrbaker@comcast.net)

Why is storytelling important? Why are we mesmerized by the power of the human voice, and by the written word of men and women who live through their words? Their accounts not only document the truth of their experience but validate our humanity as well. Accounts of the American experience often neglect African American cultural and intellectual tradition, whether bound in literature or oral tradition as in the Slave Narratives, or in the autobiographies of such writers as Frederick Douglass, Richard Wright, W.E.B. Dubois, or Ida B. Wells-Barnett, even Adam Clayton Powell, a man who spent considerable time on this Island. Their stories resonate with a provocative assurance, whatever their own joys or weaknesses, their triumphs or failures, chronicling “the tyranny of the majority.” Though often stranger than fiction, their reality has been self-liberating, laying a foundation from which can be drawn a synthesis of an American experience that remains under examination and scrutiny.

It’s important to know and tell the truth, even in fairy tales, for children depend upon fairness. My husband, Bill, is given to quoting William Cullen Bryant: “The truth crushed to the earth shall rise again.” To extrapolate further from Richard Wright, 1944: “To tell the truth is the hardest thing on earth, harder than fighting a war, harder than taking part in a revolution. If you try it you will find at times sweat will break upon you. And yet, there is no more exciting adventure than trying to be honest in this way.” Whether hearing or reading from Thurber’s A Thurber Carnival, or Langston Hughes’s humorous lines from Jessie B. Simple: “I’ve been under-fed, underpaid, undernourished, and everything but undertaken. I’ve been bit by dogs, cats, rats, poll parrots, fleas, chiggers, bedbugs, granddaddies, mosquitoes, and a gold-toothed woman . . . but I’m still standing.” It is, after all, Hughes’s colloquial genius in capturing black expression that allows us to find humor in the pathos of degradation, giving us license to laugh at the system, erasing the pain, if only for the moment, from the reality of who they tried to make of us and what we made of ourselves. Stories have always been a source of inspiration, healing and self-knowledge, a way of preserving institutional memory, of sorting out, of survival.

This Island has its fair share of storytellers. When I saw the distinguished Dr. Stanley E. Nelson, 94 years old, walking up Canonicus this week, steadied by his cane, giving me his signature thumbs up, I saw in him that undying spirit of determination, now so evident in two of his remarkable children, both writers and storytellers. One is Stanley Nelson, an acclaimed filmmaker who brilliantly directed his most recent powerful film, The Freedom Riders, which aired on PBS this spring. The film recounts the 50th anniversary of this historic 1961 effort to challenge the segregated bus system in the Deep South. Those riders, living today, who risked death, bravely believing a few people could bring change to those communities, told their stories.

Jill Nelson, acclaimed journalist, activist, author of five novels, writes a strikingly compelling account of her summer life in Finding Martha’s Vineyard, the story of her traditions, friends and family, who have their own charming and unforgettable stories of summers growing up on the Island. In her words, “I come here in search. Of what changes with the years, the seasons, the state of the world and of life.” Jill’s blog, Girl, Get Me Started! is a virtual wellspring of truth telling. Straight No-Chase her: Commentary is worth the visit. Check it out!

Then there’s Lois Remmer, writer, teacher, my friend and mentor who lives in Oak Bluffs, who has written her family story of growing up in Brooklyn, N.Y., and summering in Bayport, Long Island on the Great South Bay. Stories of playing with her beloved sister, Betty, her brothers painting the house, and the quirky, vibrant cook, Mrs. Hackel; Frieda Fischer was her father, Dr. Remmer’s assistant and the nanny, more influential than the mother. Babette Reinecke was the washing lady who washed clothing by hand in large soapstone tubs with hand-turned wringers; Mrs. Heirold was the sewing lady who darned socks, all working for a very well-to-do German American family, each unforgettable. Lois broke her hip this week and after a hip replacement at Mass General Hospital, she will return to Windermere for rehab after release.

As a child I remember Saturday afternoon story time that came over WAVE radio in Louisville, Ky. I can hear the tune now that preceded the show. Jack and the Beanstalk, The Three Billy Goats Gruff, Rumpelstiltskin, and Cinderella — all stories where character played large and one always took the side of the underdog, never the villain, and when we saw them in picture books we wondered where the black kids lived. Now we know. These early days stimulated my interest is writing. Then there were the dialect poems and stories of Paul Lawrence Dunbar, like Liza May; when read they too taught of a life unknown to most of us, and as we learned the language and poetry of black America at the turn-of-the-century, we had a basis for understanding the more significant personal family stories told by my grandmother, Jeanette, and her sister, Aunt Alba, about the genesis of our ancestors, who came in bondage to America on a slave ship from Madagascar, and after Emancipation their journey to freedom.

How do stories factor into our contemporary living? Steve Denning tells us why leadership storytelling is important, a tool routinely used effectively by our President, Barack Obama: “Storytelling is part of the creative struggle to generate a new future, as opposed to conventional management approaches that search for virtual certainties anchored in the illusive security of yesterday.”

Oak Bluffs’s storyteller, extraordinaire, Susan Klein, and photographer Alan Brigish, in their book Now and Zen, published in 2010, masterfully take us on a storytelling journey, a celebration of the people and traditions of our Martha’s Vineyard Island that Ms. Klein has come to know intimately and understand over a long period of time. They evoke traditions that continue to be transformed, reminding us of what we value and love and what deserves to be preserved for future generations even in these times of environmental and social transformation.

Native Americans, the Wampanoag Tribe of Gay Head (Aquinnah), tell their Island whale stories and perform reenactments of their legends on the Island. We are indebted to these authentic voices as we build our own stories here, created each day on this Island and preserved. It is such stories and images that keep the memory sharp and allow us to fully appreciate the common themes all cultures share, across borders, boundaries and artificial concepts of race. Long after summer moments have evaporated those stories are woven into the fabric in which we wrap ourselves in comfort and, yes, in hope.

Congratulations to Emily Reich of Oak Bluffs, who competed in the Women’s and Coed Sailing Nationals in June for the second time. Emily was named All American! She started sailing at East Chop and was on the MVRHS Sailing team.

If you haven’t visited the Oak Bluffs Open Market by the Sea on Sundays from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m., you have missed a very special new destination. The Open Market offers an ever-changing variety of locally grown produce, specialty foods, artisans and vintage dealers. The market offers something new each week. This week Foster Farms will be bringing lots of blueberries. Mama D’s Cottage City Kitchen will be selling her delicious whoopee pies and other delectable baked goods. Martha’s Vineyard Organics will bring heirloom tomatoes, cucumbers and wheatgrass and zinnias for your spectacular fresh cut bouquets.  There will be chocolates and handmade artisanal cheese from Crowley Cheese, handmade soy candles by Sissie Boyd Crafts, vintage clothing and jewelry and best of all, live music from 11 a.m. to 1p.m. Bubble wands are waiting for the children, to keep them amused while you shop! Interested vendors should contact Kathleen Cowley at kcowley@comcast.net.

The documentary film, Miracle in a Box: The Story of a Piano Reborn, will be screened Saturday, July 30 at 8 p.m. at the Tabernacle. This film tells the fascinating story of an unusual bequest made by Leone Squires McGowan (Berkley, class of 1943) in her will in 2006. She wanted her six-foot, 1927 Steinway grand piano restored and that it go to a “worthy student of piano” at her alma mater, the University of California, Berkley. The film debuts the winner of the competition and will be followed by a piano recital by Jared Redmond, award-winning pianist and composer.  There is a freewill offering.

David Crohan and friends will perform a benefit concert in support of Cherie Stannard on Sunday, July 31 at 8 p.m. Cherie, 43 years old, is a longtime Island summer resident. She was the victim of a horrific car accident which has left her a quadriplegic, paralyzed from the shoulders down. The will be a silent auction, as well as the concert by David and Friends. All proceeds from the auction and the concert will go for her ongoing medical care. Tickets are $30 general admission and $50 premium seating. Premium tickets include a 7 p.m. preconcert reception with the performers.

The Rev. Kate Braestrup, New York Times best-selling author, and chaplain of Maine Warden Service will speak at 10 a.m. at Union Chapel this Sunday. The service is preceded by organ preludes by Garrett Brown at 9:40 a.m. Union Chapel is located at the foot of Kennebec and Circuit avenues in Oak Bluffs. It is nondenominational and welcomes all to participate. Summer attire is acceptable.

Also on Sunday morning, the Rev. Dr. Lawrence A. Jones, of Mercersburg Academy, in Mercersburg, Penn., will preach at the Tabernacle. There will be Bible Study with Rev. Jones on Monday, Wednesday and Friday the week of August 1.

Helen Phillips and Adam Thompson will give a book signing at the Dragonfly Gallery in the Arts District Friday, August 5 from 5 to 7 p.m. You’re invited to come out to meet this talented couple and hear them read Helen’s first novel, And Yet They Were Happy, peopled by the likes of Noah, Eve, Bob Dylan, the Virgin Mary, Jack Kerouac, Anne Frank, and a cast of fairy tale creatures. Helen’s husband, Adam, is a fine arts painter and has been exhibiting at Dragonfly Gallery since he was seventeen. He will be signing his book of drawings entitled #1359 - #1458.