Summer’s coming. On Vinalhaven we’ll find our numbers swelled by four or five fold as tourists of every description descend on us from late May till mid October. While they certainly create congestion where there had been none, and while our capacity, emotionally and in terms of limited resources, is usually tested by Labor Day, our lives are enriched by their presence and it’s time we acknowledge it. Instead, now and then, one of us will rail contemptuously and thoughtlessly about the seasonal intrusion or otherwise display an ill-considered proprietary attitude toward this island and this community whose very survival would be doubtful were it not for the taxes paid by summer visitors and for the profit from the perfectly honorable services provided to them. Our non profit organizations, those groups in whose name so few toil (often summer people) for the benefit of so many (always islanders), and whose work makes life so much more rich for us all on so many levels, wouldn’t even get off the ground were it not for the generosity, almost entirely unseen and unacknowledged, of our summer visitors. Day trippers, the scourge of summer in the eyes of some, make it possible for most of the businesses on the island, none less honorable than the respective professions of those who choose to be so critical, to survive. All these, day trippers, renters, those who stay a few days, and our permanent supper population are, finally, just people. They are burdened or buoyed by the same kind of baggage or inspiration we carry ourselves. Now and then we see, among the familiar annual infusion, faces whose gaunt expressions testify to, like us, a winter spent fighting disease or misfortune. These signs notwithstanding there is little evidence to suggest either is aware of anything of consequence going on in their lives of the other. And given the drama we know can constitute a single life during the course of nine off season months, we must be missing a great deal. Who are these people a few of us find so troubling? They are veterans, people who have lost a loved one on 9/11, endured a divorce, lost their savings, have been hospitalized, lost a child, are terminally ill, or otherwise, like ourselves, have endured the ups and downs of what life has to offer. True, our differences are striking. We’re all from here (at the moment anyway) and they’re from (God forbid) Away.
This is an extraordinary distinction. We have been wallowing in our own wheel ruts all winter; seeing the same old faces, and energetically nurturing the same old wounds. A small number of us have been going to great lengths to foul our own nest as completely as possible, discarding heaps of trash along the road side or overboard. Hardly any of this is the product of careless tourists.
Diversity is what comes to us each year, often in the nick of time, thank goodness. We offer them escape; a few of us, sadly, offer resentment, and complain bitterly some about what an irritation their presence, even if only walking together on a deserted road, can be. Certainly we need to limit the influx and impact of tourists but not because they are the contemptible people a few of us make them out to be. Rather we need to conserve our wits and our resources and each is threatened by overpopulation and over-use. Certainly that can be done in a more constructive way, the thoughtful development of a Comprehensive Plan, an on-going process as it happens, comes to mind.
Phil Crossman
Vinalhaven