My first visit to Martha’s Vineyard was with Rob and his parents. His brother, Chris, was not long out of culinary school when he landed a job at The Black Dog Tavern in Vineyard Haven. Funny name because at the time Vineyard Haven was a dry county. But it was, and still is, a wonderful restaurant on the beach with a view of the boats in the harbor.
My father-in-law invited Rob and I to join him and my mother-in-law on a drive up to visit Chris. His address was our first stop after getting off the ferry. We found him in a home shared with several other chefs working at the restaurant. They were all in a slightly unkempt comfortable living room, reading cookbooks and discussing recipes.
Chris walked us up the street to the Bed sans Breakfast, where he’d reserved two rooms for us. It was a three-story fading grand dame of a house, whose owner managed to fill every inch. She wasn’t one to recycle, donate or trash anything. Our rooms were on the second floor. At the bottom of the steps stood an old kitchen wooden chair stacked with a leaning tower of National Geographic magazines. We were welcome to them during our stay. Things I suppose she thought her guests would enjoy took up space on the steps, leaving enough room to walk up and down.
After dropping off our luggage, we took a walk on Main Street. Rob’s mom and I browsed a Christmas ornament back room in one of the stores. There were souvenir lighthouses, shells, and Santas with red and white life preservers, stamped with the words Martha’s Vineyard on them. She bought me a plexiglass disk ornament with a drummer boy etched on it. It wasn’t stamped with any writing. Nevertheless, it is a souvenir that evokes memories of that first Vineyard trip.
That night we ate at the restaurant. Rob’s dad liked shrimp. The manager treated us like VIP’s. Fried shrimp, popcorn shrimp, coconut shrimp, shrimp, shrimp and more shrimp in super-sized portions arrived at our table along with whatever we actually ordered.
I ordered a brownie for dessert. It came with a scoop of vanilla ice cream of course. It was made from scratch with real cocoa, vanilla, and walnuts, which at the time, was not common. Convenient mixes were the rule then. It was cakelike, which is what I prefer over the fudge texture of most brownies, and it was the best brownie I ever ate. It lost some of its delectable wonder, though, when my brother-in-law bemoaned the “back to nature” laissez-faire style of the bakers. I think the way he put it was “letting their kids roll around naked in the flour”.
After dinner, we walked back to the house in darkness. There were very few old fashioned, low lit streetlights. Right before we got to the house, a staggering man crossed the street under one of the lights. At the same time a happy-go-lucky dog was prancing along the sidewalk in front of us. My mother-in-law called out to the dog, “Boozer!” Rob and I turned to look at her when she yelled again, “I mean Bowser!”. We burst out laughing. Surprisingly, and to our relief, neither Boozer nor Bowser paid any attention.
The next day we took a walk through an area called Felix Neck. Well, three of us did. Chris was working and Rob’s dad stayed in the car in the parking lot snacking on a bag of popcorn. We were supposed to spot a variety of wildlife but saw no signs of life with one exception. We found a blind with a good view of a pond. While looking out, a large black bird swooped in so close to us that Rob’s mom ducked and yelled out, “Meeshkah!” We’re not sure what kind of bird it was, and not sure what meeshkah means, but we still say it when something amazing happens.
Disappointed, we trekked back to the car, dusty and tired, to find Rob’s dad sitting sideways on the passenger side of the car with the door open, feeding popcorn to the myriad of wildlife we were supposed to spot in the woods.
The next morning, after having a fabulous breakfast at the Black Dog, and hugging Chris goodbye, we took our spot in line to board the ferry. It was pouring rain and we were a little early. Rob’s dad was always early, and a little nervous about driving his car on and off the ferry. He was distracting himself by bending almost upside down, fixing something under the dashboard.
I loudly said, “The line is moving.” and he popped up and hit his head on the steering wheel. It wasn’t funny, but it was, and Rob and I couldn’t help laughing. I don’t even know why I said it. The line wasn’t moving. My mother-in-law, turned to face us in the back seat. She didn’t say anything but shook her head and widened her eyes letting us know we should stop laughing. But we didn’t and then she started to laugh. I apologized, but he wasn’t mad. I gave him plenty of opportunities over the years, but my father-in-law never got mad at me. I loved that man!
A few minutes later, the line did start to move and we headed home.
We’ve been back to the Vineyard many times since then, but that first time, as we used to say in the 70’s, was a trip.
I still think Boozer was going to punch me.