They Sweep Oak Bluffs Streets in the Dark and Sleepy Hours
By MANDY LOCKE
At three o'clock in the morning, Circuit avenue in Oak Bluffs
belongs to Herbie Landers.
Slurred catcalls and police whistles faded hours ago to the swish of
Herbie's broom sliding across the sidewalk. A handful of
bartenders and waitresses, trudging home on sore feet, file past Herbie,
offering a "good night" and a firm slap on his stooped back.
He barely looks up but mumbles a personal response to each,
recognizing the late-night cast of characters from their voices. No time
for fraternizing tonight. Four hours remain before the morning crowd
flocks to Oak Bluffs' main street for coffee; four hours to erase
signs of the summer night's debauchery.
In a single movement, Herbie shuffles his feet and sweeps a pile of
cigarette butts, just as he's done for the past 25 years.
A few things changed in the last quarter century, though.
This 73-year-old native Islander didn't hunch over when he
took the role of Circuit avenue's caretaker for the town highway
department. When he started, Herbie's feet didn't ache with
arthritis every time he stepped from street to sidewalk, and a well-worn
bandanna didn't cradle his now nearly bald head.
"I fight everything that hurts to keep doing this - the
stings and burns. Sometimes a glass of water feels like it weighs a
hundred pounds," Herbie says four hours later, during a well
deserved respite on a bench in front of Giordano's Restaurant.
Nearly a decade ago, Herbie's 42-year-old daughter, Margaret
- who, Herbie explains, struggles with mental limitations -
joined her father on the graveyard shift. Margaret is not on the town
payroll. She simply knows that an additional broom on Circuit avenue
means less work for her aging father.
Herbie and Margaret can't quite agree on how the
father-daughter team became treasured nighttime fixtures along Circuit
avenue.
"She needed the exercise," Herbie recalls as he leans
against the bench.
"He needed a helping hand," Margaret explains with a
timid smile the next night.
Either way, the two are quite a pair - each working around the
other's limitations without breaking the rhythm of sweeping the
heart of an Island town. Herbie hangs low on Oak Bluffs avenue while the
crowds still litter Circuit avenue. Margaret stays in the thick of the
action, shouldering past scantily clad, twenty-something women to push a
paper cup into her trash pile. After the bars close, father and daughter
work side by side, Herbie maneuvering between the parked cars, Margaret
scooping up the neat piles of trash into a homemade dustpan.
Herbie's job is by no means all work and no play. He has a
front-row seat for the Island's steamiest night scene and catches
wind of the crowd's newest couples before most. Herbie is also on
the A-list for all late-night Circuit avenue parties, and occasionally
steals inside the bar for a Jukebox sing-along - always promised
to be a slightly revised rendition of an old classic. Herbie is Circuit
avenue's most popular guy - with nearly every passerby
calling him by name and half the women showering him with a kiss on the
cheek.
"Everybody says my name, and I wonder, ‘how do they know
me?' " Herbie says, his voice breaking into a hoarse laugh.
But he doesn't run from the attention.
"When the women give me a big kiss - that makes my
night," he says with a wink, adding, "My wife doesn't
like that too much, though."
Instead of sleeping through the daylight hours after a long night of
sweeping, Herbie tends his prized garden. Spreading across two house
lots which abut his Laurence avenue home, the garden yields enough
tomatoes to feed the Landers family and the diners at Linda
Jean's. Every summer, Herbie sells nearly 1,000 ripe tomatoes to
the Circuit avenue diner that slices and dices the home-grown produce
into omelettes and sandwiches.
Herbie's sideline gardening only does a bit to enhance his
summertime paycheck, but the occasional tip sweetens the laborious task
and meager paycheck. The tips come as small as quarters, a few as large
as $20 bills. Herbie confesses that Margaret brings in much more than
him on any night of the week, which he attributes to her recent
propensity to chat with the bar crowd.
"When Margaret first came down here, she kept everything
bottled inside. Now, she's quite the talker," Herbie says
proudly.
Herbie also has witnessed other breakthroughs in the last 25 years.
Circuit avenue patrons, he admits, are much more likely to find their
way to a wastebasket with a piece of trash than to drop it on the
sidewalk.
"Three years ago, there was so much junk on the street, I
could wade in it. Bottles and cans - they didn't give a damn
where they put them. Now, people pay more attention to the streets. I
guess they really like seeing the town clean," he explains.
"Yep, I guess we taught them a lesson with keeping the street
so clean."
This 73-year-old has been at the business of sweeping streets long
enough that he's witnessed the coming of a machine designed to do
his job. A slick yellow machine runs through Circuit avenue on
Herbie's mornings off, sucking all but the stubborn cigarette butt
off the asphalt. The machine cleans the streets well enough. But the
piece of equipment lacks Herbie's attention to detail and his
unintentional ability to remind tourists to lighten his work by putting
trash in designated cans.
But the day the big yellow street sweeper cruises along Circuit
avenue every night of the week may be just around the corner. In
addition to Herbie's painful arthritis, low blood pressure has
been taxing the veteran street sweeper all summer. He's scheduled
for a thorough doctor's exam later this month.
Herbie won't be easy to replace, says town highway
superintendent Richard Combra Jr.
"Anybody who's been down around Circuit avenue at one
o'clock wouldn't want the job of cleaning it up. People wake
up in the morning and see the street all nice and clean. They
don't wonder how it got that way. It's all Herbie,"
Mr. Combra says of his long-time sweeper.
Despite the toil of sweeping the busy thoroughfare, Herbie will miss
the job. It's mostly the little things - the camaraderie
among late-night workers, the live music that blares from the Ritz, the
random tourist who stops to thank him. He'll long for Circuit
avenue memories after he retires.
"I like seeing this place alive at night, and I like seeing it
quiet. I love the work," says Herbie Landers, keeper of the
streets.
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