As the steamer Nobska slipped past the Chops on the ebbing tide late yesterday afternoon, there was none of the celebration that greeted her arrival in these waters just about 50 years ago.
Her decks were empty, her boilers cold. When she left Nantucket slip yesterday she didn’t sound one long blast on the steam whistle people hereabouts have come to know as hers just by the sound - she was on the end of a Coastline Towing Company hawser.
It was a night for celebrating. The sky was clear, and the waxing moon was in competition with the stars of the sky, the stars of the screen, and the stars of the Island, and into this perfect setting (or set) went Islanders in best bib and tucker to see the premiere of their very own movie, Jaws.
It had to be a benefit, (these big things always turn into benefits) and it had to be for the Martha’s Vineyard Hospital because that needs more money than other Island organizations.
Jaws, a film starring Martha’s Vineyard and a polyurethane shark named Bruce, will have its first showings tonight on the Island which was its birthplace.
Both screenings, in the Island Theatre, Oak Bluffs, at 7 and again at 9:30 p.m., have been sold out for a week to audiences that will total 1,000 and pay premium prices ($10 and $15) to have the wits scared out of them. The showings, sponsored as a benefit by the Martha’s Vineyard Hospital auxiliary, will net some $9,500 to the hospital’s support, said Curtis Collision Jr., director of its sustaining fund.