On Chappy: May 20
Brad Woodger

I am not someone that desperately needs to know or understand stuff. An ideal columnist, I am not. I prefer to look at the big picture, let the details sift through and settle in, and accept what remains as fact.

Read More

On Chappy: Dec 4
Brad Woodger

I was chatting with ferry captain Liz on a recent trip to town (we chat quickly, but still rarely finish our topic before the chain goes down) about who we are, or more accurately who people think we are: Witness Protection clients. Why else, folks wonder, would we choose to isolate ourselves on Chappy when we could do so almost equally as well in Edgartown?

Read More

On Chappy: Nov. 20
Brad Woodger

Chappy decided that we really didn’t need our storm door after all, so she enlisted the help of the wind and had it ripped completely off its hinges. A lot easier to get in and out of the house with groceries now.

Read More

On Chappy: Nov. 6
Brad Woodger

Grass waits for no man. Typically by this time of year, I have the Cheetos bag open and am in full recline in my comfortable chair. But there is nothing typical about life on Chappy. The temperatures are now approaching the 70s, and all sorts of flora are making their comebacks, chief amongst them the grasses.

Read More

On Chappy: Oct. 23
Brad Woodger

Most weeks when I sit down to write this column, I make an honest attempt to include insights and observations outside the confines of my own small world. And most weeks I fail.

Read More

On Chappy: Oct. 9
Brad Woodger

My Auntie Babs, Barbara Fynbo, passed recently. She was 93. The youngest child of my great-grandfather Frank Marshall, she never seemed young to me — probably because I entered into her life rather late in the game. But she also never seemed old to me. Babs was not an old lady, even in her nineties. Auntie Babs was a doer — she was always doing something: sewing curtains, fixing a grass mat rug, making a jumpsuit for Uncle Bob, crafting a wooden sleigh.

Read More

On Chappy: August 21
Brad Woodger

Seems to me like summer is already winding down. Odd, with a full half of August still to be used up. But August always has been the strangest month for me on the Island. I compare this month to a four-course meal in which the entree is hurried to the table, gobbled up with vigor, and then everything that comes after is only vaguely considered on the periphery of one’s overstuffed self.

Read More

On Chappy: August 14
Brad Woodger

I’ve been dreaming a lot lately — mostly clouded scenarios of chores unfinished, but peppered amongst the drudgery of my dreamscape have been a few gems. One such jewel was my dream of a Chappy populated by canals.

Read More

A Swinging Time Is Always Par for the Course on Chappy
Brad Woodger

Dear Madame First Lady: I am writing today in my present capacity as manager (and past owner) of the Royal and Ancient Chappaquiddick Links.

Read More

On Chappy: July 31
Brad Woodger

I knew a girl named July. She was 12. I was 10. She wore paisley bell bottoms. She had chain link bracelets. Her eyes hinted at some events that I had yet to witness. She rode motorbikes. She was so cool. This July, our July, is nothing like her. Chill out seventh month!

Read More

Pages