Tag Archives: Washington DC
Season of the Risk
Fall on Martha’s Vineyard: The days grow shorter, the leaves turn — and deer ticks make a comeback. Ticks are part of the seasonal cycle here. The big ones, called dog ticks or wood ticks, are much in evidence from … Continue reading
Out of Sight? Not Quite
I lived in Washington, D.C., for 11 years and loved it. All those years I hardly ever thought about where my drinking water came from or where my trash or sewage went. All that changed after I landed on Martha’s … Continue reading
Faith
The other day word went round that a friend’s sign had been stolen from its accustomed place at the end of his road. This wasn’t just any sign: it’s unique, hand-crafted and -painted, and big enough to be legible from … Continue reading
The Key Sestina
This poem came back to me while I was writing yesterday’s blog. When I lived in D.C., my keys wore holes in the hip pocket of my jeans. On Martha’s Vineyard I carried no keys at all. This might have … Continue reading
Insularity
When I moved from Washington, D.C., to Martha’s Vineyard in 1985 — just for a year, mind you — I expected some culture shock. D.C. is a big city. In the mid-1980s, more than three-quarters of the population was black. … Continue reading
Hot Ts
It’s been hot. How hot? Usually I do laundry when I run out of underwear. Yesterday I did laundry because I’d run out of tank tops and muscle Ts. There were only two regular Ts on the line, and no … Continue reading
Mayday & Mary
I. May 5, 1971 Just over a month shy of my 20th birthday, I got busted on the Capitol steps along with about 1,200 other people. It was the third day of the Mayday demonstrations against the war in Indochina, … Continue reading
The Privilege of Pique
This is by way of a sequel to “Compromise,” in which I listed a bunch of things I don’t like about WUMB-FM, the public radio station I listen to when I’m listening to the radio, and then explained why I … Continue reading
Meetings
An islander who knows whereof he speaks recently noted that for some people the Vineyard off-season is one long meeting. In the last eight months I’ve been to a bunch of meetings. Not all that many compared to what, say, … Continue reading
Death of an Indy Bookstore
Earlier this week I learned that Edgartown Books was closing for good at the end of February. I’m sorry, yes, not least because Edgartown Books took enough interest in my novel, The Mud of the Place, to keep it in … Continue reading
From the Seasonally Occupied Territories . . . 