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GroundhoggeryFebruary 02, 2006 Rhodry and I didn't see our shadows when we walked into town this morning. By the time we walked home, Rhodry having stopped two pedestrians in their tracks with his terminally gorgeous face and withdrawn at least half a dozen biscuits from tellers at the bank, distinct shadows had appeared. Who cares if Phil from Punk Pennsylvania saw his shadow or not? Six more weeks of this particular winter imposes no hardship: most of January felt a lot like March, and February so far is more of the same. Happy Candlemas, Brigid, and Imbolc to you who celebrate light's returning. Much talk on the island this week has to do with the closing of the drawbridge and the traffic complications resulting therefrom. If you don't know Martha's Vineyard: Imagine a big triangle. The apex consists of two points, like the tips of an upside-down horseshoe. On one point is Oak Bluffs, on the other Vineyard Haven, two of the three down-island towns. The shortest route between the two crosses a drawbridge that, when up, allows boats to pass between Vineyard Haven harbor and Lagoon Pond. That route is about three miles long. The only alternative route is more like twelve. This week the bridge is undergoing the first phase of a long-overdue replacement. In other words, all traffic has to take the long way around, passing through the four-way stop at the blinker light. It's sort of like going from Boston to Springfield by way of Montpelier, only the distances are shorter. I live in Vineyard Haven. My favorite liquor store is in Oak Bluffs. You'll see why I laid in a week's worth of beer before the bridge was closed. Fortunately the work is being done at midwinter, when most people on the island know how to get from Vineyard Haven to Oak Bluffs and back, because the detour signs aren't entirely reliable. I saw one at the intersection where the registry used to be, pointing in the direction of the closed bridge. Much of the talk has to do with the number of cars on the road in late January. You don't have to have been here long -- 15 years maybe? -- to remember a time when you could stand on a main road in the middle of the day and not see a single car for almost 20 minutes. The drive from my barn to the barn where I just finished horse-sitting isn't long, but it does go through the blinker intersection, and a couple of times I made the mistake of doing it just before five o'clock. Rush hour on Martha's Vineyard is nothing next to rush hour in Boston, but keep in mind that rush hour is a relatively recent phenomenon here. I distinctly remember my boss at the Martha's Vineyard Times gazing out at the Beach Road through the office's front window and remarking that, no, he wasn't imagining things: Martha's Vineyard really did have a rush hour. That was around 1992. Last night when I drove home from the barn, about quarter to five, traffic on the Edgartown-Vineyard Haven Road was backed up from the four-way stop past the electric company, past the Norton farm, almost all the way to Cash & Carry. In January? Even with the drawbridge closed and all Oak Bluffs-Vineyard Haven traffic routed through the blinker, this was a marvel, and marvel we did.
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