A recent New York Times article reported an unusual urban occurrence: “It’s not every day that a great big rock shows up on your block.” The Oct. 28, 2006 story went on to describe what was excavated while a sewer line was being dug beneath a street in Brooklyn, New York: a rock seven feet high, weighing 10 tons, as wide across as four adults standing elbow to elbow. Once it was extracted and left parked by the curb, it quickly drew the street’s residents for a closer look. Neighbors of all ages came to admire, study and feel it. “Its gravitational force seems to have slowed life a notch,” the reporter noted. Susan Raskin, a children’s social worker, lives closest to the rock. She said she briefly considered having it moved into her yard, already decorated with gnomes and gargoyles. Then a state geologist was sent to inspect it, who identified it as glacial erratic, well over 400 million years old. Ms. Raskin described it as “full of sparkles and rich grays and bright whites and dark blacks.” It is composed mostly of quartz and mica minerals. The Department of Environmental Protection decided the rock had value, and the Parks Department of Queens agreed. The rock will be installed in a new park on the former site of gas storage tanks. The parks commissioner stated, “We’re very excited about this rock.”
Well, certainly residents of Vinalhaven wouldn’t be as surprised to have a great big rock in their street or yard. No one lives on Vinalhaven without an acquaintance with great big rocks. They dominate the landscape and land use. Their ordinariness doesn’t mean they’re not noticed, although they may come in for a bit more derision than appreciation on balance. I have certainly cursed the rocks that limit my garden’s soil depth or menace my car’s bumpers and undercarriage. But every Vinalhavener surely also employs in some fashion some rocks, and has a favorite rock-studded island locale, and possibly even identifies with them, feeling some kinship.
So, what would a Vinalhavener note then as alien and remarkable if suddenly appearing in their neighborhood? Well, try “street signs.” You might wonder how something that ordinary can be so novel and new on the island, which has, after all, been a civilized place for years and years. Only with the heightened concerns of the federal bureaucracy in a post-9/11 world has this phenomenon now appeared so pervasively. In August of this past summer, the signs began to be installed. Of course they immediately created a buzz. It wasn’t what they looked like. Rather it was what they said and did. Most of Vinalhaven’s “roads” are more like furrows — long, winding, dirt driveways and private lanes — that look uninviting, difficult to traverse, and seem to disappear with nary a house in sight. But now, rather confusingly, they have been officially named and designated with standard-issue signs. The signs imply — or even seem to insist — that all roads and destinations have become accountable, accessible. Along with street names came house numbers. The impact of this change is a bit complex.
On Vinalhaven, islanders appreciate individuality and value privacy. So there were accepted quirks to finding places or referring to them, and murkiness and uniqueness, rather than precision and predictability, reigned. Residents didn’t seem to mind living “off the grid.” And that may be one of the draws of island life to begin with: a sense of escaping, the ability to disappear from sight.
Landmarks for finding places on Vinalhaven tended, pre-August, to be subtle and organic. Probably a small but essential handful of folks would have known exactly where to find everyone. The short list includes the UPS guy, the electric meter reader, town doyenne Bodine Ames, and the town assessor. What if the fire or police department or an ambulance needed to find you? That was one concern of mainland bureaucrats. But on Vinalhaven, truth be told, they could have found you just fine. Islanders may not show a lot, but they know a lot.
So, what’s a novelty one place may not be somewhere else. The large rocks of Vinalhaven are assumed in their landscape. And street signs aren’t. The Times story quoted a Queens resident describing their large rock as “really kind of a visceral thing.” Vinalhaveners might not often say that about their rocks, but they might agree it is what puts street signs at odds with the natural order of life on the island. For what they are and what they do, they’re just not very visceral.
When she’s on Vinalhaven, Tina Cohen lives three street signs from the ferry.