When I was growing up in a suburb of New York city, I didn’t realize how average we all were. I don’t mean that in a bad way — it’s just that among not only my family, but all the families in our neighborhood, nobody I knew stood out with a special talent or incredible ability in a special field.

My first brush with notoriety came when I was a teenager and babysat for the two young children of Fred Carney, who lived up the street from me. Fred, an actor, was the brother of Art Carney, and he could (and did) occasionally get me tickets to New York city events. In the 1950s Perry Como was just being recognized as a very good singer, and his first appearance was on a weekly radio show. From Mr. Carney, my friend Bunny and I got passes into his 30-minute show in the city. It was a very small studio with a table and microphone and a glassed in area where Mr. Como could relax during commercial breaks in his show. We were shown into the glassed-in space, and he would pop into for four to five minutes and try to make conversation with two shy teenaged girls who couldn’t think of a single thing to say.

We were struck dumb at actually meeting a radio star, though he wasn’t yet a star. And after his show was over, we rode the Fifth avenue bus (top deck) back and forth until the Paramount Theatre opened. Mr. Como was to make a short appearance on the stage along with several other new singers, and we felt really special after spending the afternoon with him.

Jimmy Cagney, a friendly neighbor.

A few months later Mr. Carney gave me a ticket to the Paramount show that featured the newly popular Frank Sinatra. I was one of hundreds of screaming teenage girls in the theatre. What I remember most was that the last song played was The Star Spangled Banner. We all had to stand and salute the flag while Sinatra made his escape out the back door. Otherwise he might have been trampled to death and never become the famous icon of the 1940s.

In 1946 I was spending my first summer on Martha’s Vineyard. After a disastrous beginning working at the Harbor View Hotel, I got a job waitressing at The Edgartown Cafe (today The Wharf). In August I waited on a handsome couple who ordered lobster dinners. After a brief conversation I learned that she was a movie star named Dorothy McGuire and he was her husband, John Swope, a Life Magazine photographer. They were very kind to me and asked if I had ever eaten lobster. I hadn’t and they left me a tip of $2.50 and note saying I should use it to buy a lobster dinner.

Five years later I was married and living in West Tisbury with my husband Johnny, toddler son Jack and baby daughter Deborah. Along with children, I wanted a dog, and when I saw an ad in the Gazette offering pedigreed golden retriever puppies for $50 each in Gay Head, I called my friend Polly Murphy who also wanted a dog. The owner was Elena Krylenko, Russian wife of Max Eastman, who was one of our first famous residents. Although we each bought a puppy, I never laid eyes on Max Eastman, but we had a connection with our retrievers.

While Deborah was still a baby, I met Jimmy Cagney, a friend of Tom Flynn who was a friend of Johnny’s. One day he had a cup of tea with us in our living room. A few days later I was driving home from Menemsha with baby Deb in the car bed behind me. She was hungry and fussy, so when I turned from North Road onto Tabor House Road I pulled off, stopped the car and climbed into the back seat to nurse her. Another car pulled up beside me. The driver asked if I was in trouble — did I need any help? I stammered “No, thank you,” turning red with embarrassment — it was Jimmy Cagney!

When Beverly Sills and her husband built a home in Makonikey in the 1970s, they became friends with Johnny’s cousin who had a house nearby. Cousin Lee Lockwood invited us to dinner one night, along with Beverly Sills and her husband. Again I was more or less tongue-tied, being in the company of someone who had made it to the top of her chosen career.

Johnny and I went to an outdoor party one year at Arthur Hadley’s place near Homer’s Pond. Among the guests were Walter Cronkite and his wife, but the only thing I remember about that party is that his wife Betsy tripped over one of the guy wires holding the tent up and fell, breaking her ankle, which kind of broke up the party. I never did talk to Walter.

And once, also a long time ago as we were boarding the ferry, Katharine Hepburn was driving the car behind us.

That was the extent of my brushes with famous people during my youth. The celebrity chasers hadn’t discovered Martha’s Vineyard yet.

When my presence on the Vineyard became obviously permanent and I had produced three native children and three native granddaughters, I began to know myself and where I fit into my life here. I perfected my photographic skills and had a small business photographing children (long before Alison Shaw and Mark Lovewell appeared on the scene). In fact, during this period of my life I took photographs of a friend’s five young children, one of whom grew up to be James Taylor. I sold a photo to the Gazette now and then and when I started traveling the world I sold a few travel stories and pictures to travel sections of off-Island newspapers and magazines. It felt like I might have discovered a career, but I never made enough money to deduct my travel expenses and I could only afford one trip a year.

As my children were growing, as well as my ambition, I turned to watercolor painting and then to writing. I went back to college and finished work on my degree which allowed me to begin a teaching career that lasted for 20 years. At the end of that career, I became a career grandmother, and had a small hand in raising three granddaughters in West Tisbury. I met and mingled with people who had achieved their life goals, but now I could talk to them because I had some experiences of my own that were interesting to other people. In 2014 I self published a book of some 40 essays, recalling bits and pieces of my long life. Maybe I’ll write another one — 90 years of memories!

One of my favorite memories is the evening a few years ago I read an essay at a gathering at the Bunch of Grapes bookstore. Someone in the audience came up to me afterwards and told me how much she liked my writing. She was very pleasant and I asked for her name. She replied, “Geraldine Brooks.” I was stunned.

Some of us are just slow starters.

Shirley W. Mayhew lives in West Tisbury.