HOLLY NADLER
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Writers have a tendency to over-dramatize, and I admit to being one of the worst offenders. So forgive me in advance for comparing my current ire to that of Émile Zola when, in January of 1898, he read about harm being done by the French judicial system to one Alfred Dreyfus. Holed up in a scruffy Paris garret where he scribbled, starved, fidgeted, and fed the rooftop pigeons,Émile wrote a scathing essay entitled “J’Accuse!”
J’accuse — I accuse — our town officials of side-winding their way out of permitting Oak Bluffs citizens a non-binding ballot vote about the roundabout at the blinker light. All the other Island townsfolk will be weighing in on this issue at the polls. Not us, thanks to a misunderstanding with the town about how many signatures were required to put the petition question on the ballot. (It will still be on the town meeting warrant.)
And why not us, we who’ll be hosting this state-funded and state-styled construction, on a site that has known nothing but woodlands and rural roads?
The buzz on the street is that our elected honchos conceived this brainchild some 10 years ago, brought it to fruition this past year with a design published in the papers that scared the beejesus out of us, squeaked it through the Martha’s Vineyard Commission, a body of Islanders entrusted with protecting our unspoiled landscape from off-shore depredations, then ignored all public outcry, waiting out fledgling lawsuits that proved too expensive to pursue.
The mover and shaker, and the original papa of this plan, is selectman Greg Coogan and, let me say up front: I love Greg more than life itself! I love his wife, Sharon, even more! We used to walk along the shores of East Chop when Sharon was pregnant with Catie, and I with Charlie. If this were 16th century Florence, we would have affianced our babies before they were born.
But listen, this roundabout wasn’t a bad notion before it hit the drawing board. It sounded quaint and sort of North Devonshire-ish, evoking stone walls and lambs gamboling in adjoining fields. But the mock-up design looks like Otis Air Force Base has been packed up and dropped in the middle of our Island.
If this rotary is built, every time we wheel our cars into the madness we’re going to bang the steering wheel and exclaim, “How the hell did this happen?!”
And we’ll go on banging steering wheels and exclaiming, “How the hell did this happen?” until we die, because these constructions can’t be dismantled. We know this.
So, please, town officials, including the new town administrator: It’s not that we don’t love you! We love you beyond reason! But take another look at the design. That thing is ugly. And suburban. And un-Vineyard. Give us a simple stop light or keep things the way they are. Things The Way They Are is what we and our visitors love about this place.
And grant us a simple say-so at the ballot box, for Pete’s sake! I mean, what is this? Syria? Do we need to re-name our post office plaza Tahrir Square? I received a D in my 10th grade government class, and had to re-take it at Canoga Park summer school, missing out on sun and fun and the Beach Boys blasting from transistor radios, but I still retain the scant knowledge that in a democracy citizens express themselves even after they’ve elected people. We have a right to our opinions, and our opinions deserve to be counted and considered.
Have I j’accused enough? In the spirit of Zola, I’m going to lean out my window and feed some birds.
In other news, O.B. novelist laureate Susan Wilson, bestselling New York Times author of One Good Dog, has just released a new book. The Dog Who Danced, via MacMillan Books, follows Mack, a Shetland sheepdog who performs a backwoods exercise called Canine Free-style or “dog dancing” and transforms the lives of the people who love him.
An additional O.B. laureated writer, Kate Feiffer, has hit another one out of the park: No Go Sleep, for all the parents of insomniacs, illustrated by Island legend Jules Feiffer. (Any relation to Kate? LOL, as we say on Facebook.)
A spaghetti dinner to benefit Grace Preschool will take place on Saturday, March 31 at Grace Church. Our own Giordano’s Restaurant will host the affair and, get this: Take-out will be available starting at 4:30 p.m., with dinner and auction commencing at 5.
Daffodils will be for sale for $10 per bunch this week to help fund the American Cancer Society. Oak Bluffers, look for these festive yellow blossoms at Tony’s Market on Tuesday, March 20 and on Wednesday morning, March 21, at the Martha’s Vineyard Hospital.
Don’t forget to log in on acemv.org for the upcoming schedule, which includes a Caribbean cooking class with Oak Bluffs chef Deon Thomas and coaching for college entrance exams for students taking ENL 101-59.
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