On August 20, the Camp Ground will turn into a fantasy land of Victorian gingerbread houses and hundreds of paper lanterns hanging from porches. Welcome once again to the Grand Illumination.
At dusk last night a single lantern lit by Gordon Long and his son Roy made its way down the center aisle of the Tabernacle in the Oak Bluffs Camp Ground. There was a collective gasp from the large crowd gathered inside the Tabernacle and around blankets and picnic baskets on the lawn.
Kennith Kirk tugged the hem of his mother’s dress. Over the screams and laughs of his two twin siblings, Maya and Robert, Kennith’s question was barely audible to all but his mother.
“Why are there so many moons?” the three-year-old wanted to know. Maya, seven, whipped her head around and said “They’re lightbulbs!”
The rain will stop. The clouds will clear. And the historic circle of gingerbread cottages in Oak Bluffs will become a fairyland of lights. The Night of the Grand Illumination is here.
The 132nd Illumination Night will be held tomorrow night.
For Robert C. Cleasby, program director at the Martha's Vineyard Camp Meeting Association, there's no better time for singing and celebrating than tomorrow evening, minutes before the start of Illumination Night.
Illumination Night coincides with the culmination of many wonderful aspects of summer on the Vineyard. "This is the major Camp Ground festival as far as summer goes," Mr. Cleasby said. "It's the really fun one."
The spirit and the first candle of the Grand Illumination was
carried by a 32-year-old sufferer of Huntington's Disease. With
her father, Walter, and her niece, Kyla McCartney, nearby, Tammy Frye
lit the first candle Wednesday night on the stage of the Tabernacle;
within seconds lanterns throughout the Camp Ground were aglow.
It was the 133rd annual Grand Illumination, and thousands of
well-wishers cheered the power and reach of a glowing candle.
Amy Bannon is determined to get it right this Illumination Night. Wednesday night marks the 134th year for lighting up the Camp Ground, but for the Bannons, this is just their second try.
And the pressure is on.
"We made some mistakes last year," said Mrs. Bannon. "We were the dimmest cottage in the entire circle."
Maybe it's the sound: giggling, try-and-catch-me children, laughing adults, backyard party chatter.
Maybe it's the color: pastels and bright hues sprinkled over pathways and porches and suspended in mid-flight like handfuls of confetti.
Maybe it's all the smiles: people on front porch rocking chairs or strolling along walkways; everyone ready to pose for pictures and tell you their names, as if they have been commissioned to talk to strangers.
