HOLLY NADLER

508-274-2329

(hollynadler@gmail.com)

There is only one man in Oak Bluffs who would request to see my washer and dryer, and that man is Ron DiOrio. Ron came to dinner last Saturday night along with his significant other and partner at the Craftworks gallery, Paula Catanese. Becca Rogers and Jaye and Tom Shelby were also in attendance, and the meal served was 100 percent vegan, right down to the red lentil-carrots-coconut soup, so eat your hearts out, all of you who couldn’t make it over that night.

Before I tell you why Ron was keen to see my new appliances, let me explain that I couldn’t be more proud of the contents of my utility closet than a Colombian drug cartel kingpin rolling back the doors to his garage of Bentleys and Ferraris. In the fall of 2010 when I took up residence in this upstairs rehabbed apartment in the old library at Pennacook and Circuit, a deep closet against the far wall of the bedroom had a space within it with washer and dryer hookups. It wasn’t until the summer of 2011 that I completed a layaway plan with Cottage City Appliance, and had the goods delivered.

Maybe it has something to do with being a person of fiscally straightened means, but I was uncommonly proud, still am, of this new two-piece acquisition, as well as delighted to be freed of the tyranny of collecting quarters, shoring up bags of dirty clothes, and listening to a pop AM radio station for two hours straight down at the laundromat. (I mean, God bless it for being there, but I served my time.) I feel so privileged, in fact, to have my own washer and dryer that, when friends arrive for visits long or short, I offer to pull back the folding doors of my utilities closet to unveil the new appliances.

Oddly enough, no one has ever specifically asked to see these amenities until Ron’s visit the other night. It was Ron, you see, who during his 2006 to 2011 years as Oak Bluffs selectman, served as the mover-and-shaker in the resurrection of this vintage building. You might recall that for several years after the library skedaddled to its new palatial address on School and Pacific streets, the empty shell of 82 Pennacook sat and rapidly rotted back into the soil from which it had been hatched in 1895.

“The building was a persistent eyesore,” recalled Ron the other evening. A few years back, he immediately pulled together schemes for rescuing the upper end of Circuit from its resemblance to the center of Beirut circa late 1970s.

For years townsfolk had said over the proverbial picket fence that what Oak Bluffs most needed to complete its holistic array of village goods (grocer, hardware store, post office) was a pharmacy. Ron and a few cohorts pulled together plans for C.P.A. funds, an affordable housing grant from the state, and an interested tenant in the form of Conroy’s Apothecary, long in operation in Nueva West Tisbury.

My own one-bedroom apartment over the new O.B. Conroy’s ­— and no, it’s a false rumor that I have a fireman’s pole to slide myself directly down into the drugstore ­— is a story in and of itself. For almost a century, this space was the librarian’s forlorn office, reached by a rickety set of steps where, in the rafters bats floated and swooped; no one knew quite how to cobble living quarters out of this drafty loft and the adjoining storage room. So Ron and crew brought in historic preservationist and architect Margaret Westfield from Maryland. This master builder reprised the elegant lines of the mansard roof, dropped steps into the storage unit, kicked out the ceiling, eased in extended dormer windows, and voila! The old Pennacook building has three renovated apartments with lovely ceilings and hardwood floors, dishwashers, microwaves and garbage disposals, making three sets of tenants (myself plus a mom and her eight-year-old daughter plus a 35-year-old bachelor) supremely happy and grateful.

So last Saturday night, Ron got a chance to inspect one small part in a rich legacy of projects and, although I would hardly describe his first sight of my washer and dryer as a culminating moment in his career of town service, I have to say he seemed suitably impressed. As anyone would be.

At the actual current library, here’s what’s on deck for this weekend: Clifford the Big Red Dog (created by the Island’s own Norman Bridwell) will be on hand in the flesh or, more accurately, in the red-felt at 10:30 a.m. Feb. 4. Along with the dog himself will come stories, crafts, and refreshments. Clearly this kind of celebrity occasion attracts participants of all ages.

Also under library auspices, the book club selection of the month is a tried-and-true mystery and cult favorite, Mistress of the Art of Death (“CSI meets the Middle Ages” is how librarian Anna Marie D’Addarie describes it), by Ariana Franklin. Copies are available at the desk and may be kept through the book club date, Feby 29, 10:30 a.m. Refreshments will be served.

Free classes for high schoolers will be offered at Featherstone Center for the Arts, in filmmaking, ceramics and mixed media. For more info call 508-693-1850 or log on to featherstoneart.org.