BETTYE FOSTER BAKER
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This will be the second summer in a row I was smacked off the Island; this time by a very ill-tempered vixen named Hurricane Irene, and though evacuation was not mandatory in our town, when you live 82 steps from the sea do you want to risk your life?
Last year it was the Great Pretender, Hurricane Earl, another potential devastator. Both were projected to be powerful storms but by the time they reached Martha’s Vineyard and Nantucket, they were reduced to tropical storms which people in this area have been dealing with for generations. In its aftermath accusations of over-hyping the storm by the media and forecasters were rampant. Hurricane victims in Vermont, East Haven, Conn., and Patterson, N.J. won’t agree that the storm was exaggerated. Their devastation is real and ongoing.
Just as we were getting in the car to head for the ferry, Olivia Baxter drove up in her white Mercedes bringing three friends from New Jersey I hadn’t seen in years. It was a quick hello and goodbye as we hugged and then drove off. Would love to have had more time!
Yes, Wayne Barrett boarded the windows for the second year in a row before the end of summer and Labor Day celebrations, knowing they would be unboarded in less than a week, and looked askance at two southern wimps, unlike his brand of tough New England rugged individualists who roll with the punches and pride themselves on withstanding most anything thrown their way. He was probably thinking, “No big deal. What’s with these people?”
Yet as NBC news reporter Byron Barnett reported from the Oak Bluffs ferry terminal on Saturday and Sunday, wind gusts and waves were pounding the pilings and car ramp, splashing over the boardwalk. In Worcester, where we decamped, the rains were relentless and storm drains were cleaned to avoid flooding. The winds picked up and walking the streets was not recommended! On Tuesday when we left, the dining room was filled with emergency electrical crew members who were going out to restore power to desperate communities near and far. We talked to Archie and Emma Bankston on the ferry back to Oak Bluffs, who also evacuated and we were in complete agreement that our decision was a good one.
For those who do not believe in the science of global warming and climate change, accompanied by a long list of natural disasters, especially this year, I have bad news for them. Global warming is real and affects us in real and defined ways that will continue to make our lives less predictable, less comfortable and more expensive. We had more that 100 natural catastrophes this year alone, and over $27 billion in damages. Now we can add $7 billion more after Irene. Homeowners with standard homeowners’ insurance are learning an expensive lesson — their polices do not fully cover hurricane and earthquake damage. Additional rider policies such as national flood insurance, wind and hurricane insurance policies are required if insurance companies are to pay repair and replacement costs. This was a major issue after Hurricane Katrina, when insurance companies denied claims if residents did not have both flood and wind policies. This resulted in a huge number of claim denials.
Our condolences to the family of our friend, longtime Oak Bluffs summer resident and member of The Cottagers Inc., Kathy Dowdell Allen, one of our Island’s three beloved sisters, who died at the Cape Cod Hospital Wednesday morning.
The annual White Party was held on August 30 at Lola’s. Cheryl Wills, chairman of the board of North Coast Cable Television and Erie Coast Communications, her husband Walter Lowe, retired corporate AT& T executive, now with Tzell Travel, Kern and Cheryl Grimes of Grimes Oil, Wayne Embry, former center for the Celtics, Royals and Bucks and a member of the NBA Hall of Fame and his wife Terri Embry, and Johnny E. Parham Jr., executive director of the Thurgood Marshall Scholarship Fund, were hosts of this annual affair celebrating summer’s end. This year the hosts were uncertain if the White Party would be held due to the ill health of one of the major hosts, Ken Hudson, inductee into the National Basketball Hall of Fame, and recipient of the Mannie Jackson Human Spirit Award. Mr. Hudson, a former vice president with Coca Cola who has led a distinguished sports, corporate, and humanitarian career, said the party must go forward — and it was outstanding as usual. Ken released his autobiography, A Tree Stump in the Valley of Redwoods, in 2006.
The Louisville, Ky., crew gathering for Derby city hospitality in the Vineyard is a time for mint juleps, barbecue and conversation. Folks from my hometown have been coming here for over 20 years and it has become a reunion with a capital “R.” Edward Hamilton, renowned American sculptor, his most recent project, the Abraham Lincoln Statue at Waterfront Park in Louisville, called the other day to see if invited guests should brave it to the Island given the weather forecast. Dr. Ursula Parrish Daniels, longtime summer resident and Louisville native, told him it was a go! Ed cut mint from my garden for the juleps and on August 30, he, his wife, Bernadette Hamilton, their friends attorney Laura Douglas, her husband, Robert Douglas, artist and author of Resistance, Insurgence, and Identify: The Art of Mari Evans, Nelson Stevens and the Black Arts Movement, hosted guests from Louisville and shared yet another glorious evening in Oak Bluffs. Attending were Natalie Cosby and her daughter, Connie, Janice and Prescott Porter, Horace Wynn, Kendra Hamilton, Edward Hamilton, 3rd, daughter and son respectively of Ed and Bernadette Hamilton, Ursula Parrish and her mother Francis Parrish, and Bonita Shobe and others. Award-winning barbecue team Wendell and Ernestine Thomas of Falls City Smoker’s Competition and Caterers, Smithville, Ky., truly lived up to their reputation.
I met the most interesting family, Monica and Dennis Bisgaard, their son Nicholas and daughter, Saudea from West Hartford, Conn., at brunch a week ago at one of our local restaurants. Dennis, a Danish citizen and U.S. green card holder, has led a most challenging life. Born a biracial child in the 1960s in Hamburg, Germany, and raised by his single, East German mother, who tragically died when he was only eight years old, his journey through poverty and hunger, separation from two older half-siblings, attendance at numerous schools and overcoming prejudice is a remarkable story of survival and achievement which attests to the resilience of the human spirit over adversity. In 2006, he was appointed head of Kingswood-Oxford School in West Hartford.
The Bisgaards had just returned from a family Mediterranean cruise when we met. Dennis and two of his siblings all turned 50 this year and met in Albir, Spain, where the cruise began. After the cruise they spent a week in Barcelona. They were ending their vacation here when we met. I later learned that the highlight of their trip to the Vineyard was meeting President Obama and First Lady Michelle Obama at Nancy’s in Oak Bluffs, and they sent the film to prove it. Monica said, “Our children were delighted and will never forget that moment in their young lives. We’ve traveled all over the Mediterranean this summer, but this surely surpasses anything we’ve done all summer.” She is a psychologist and graduate of the Harvard School of Education.
Union Chapel services were cancelled for the first time in recent history on Sunday, August 28, due to Hurricane Irene.
On Sept. 4 at 10 a.m. at Union Chapel, the Rev. Quinn G. Caldwell, associate minister at Old South Church in Boston, will speak. The service is preceded by organ preludes by Garrett Brown at 9:40 a.m. Union Chapel is nondenominational and welcomes all to participate. Summer attire is acceptable. This is the last service of the 2011 summer season.
On Sept. 4 at 11 a.m. at the Trinity United Methodist Church, Bishop Peter D. Weaver of the New England Conference of the United Methodist Church will preach. There will be communion and worship of praise. Connie Teixeira, Dukes County associate commissioner for the homeless, will be the special guest.
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