FROM THE MOUTHS of BABES

So, I'm walking along South Beach Street on my way home and I run into an old friend, his wife and three little kids. The little girl, LASSITER, looks at me and says "You have yellow teeth." Well, I know I have yellow teeth, but my day was going so well up to that point the last thing I wanted to hear was that I have yellow teeth, even in Nantucket. I thought I just had yellow teeth in Florida, with the bright sun and all. Devastated by the observations of this little girl, whose name means "Speaks her mind no matter whose ox gets gored" in Gaelic, I have added "Crest White Strips" to my shopping list for when I go to the Stop and Shop. It's a good thing we didn't run into one another on some naked beach somewhere, I might have been judged even more harshly.

Anyway, I spent some time at the Wharf Rat Club this morning and got some feedback about my bicycle choice. Remember, this is a club where Nantucket faded red pants are very in, and the real essence of non-tourist Nantucket is alive and well. They, like Lassiter, will tell you what they think. The consensus and I mean unanimous, was that I should buy the oldest bike, for the cheapest price, maybe even get a free one at MADAKET MALL, with the most patina that works as well as I want it to. "Things that are too shiny, tend to disappear." I was told.

I remember being in Colorado about 40 years ago and driving our little red Fiat 850 spyder convertible to El Ranch Colorado, a restaurant at the base of 14,000 ft high Mount Evans. We expressed interest, for some ungodly reason, in driving to the summit. All the locals said "Don't go up there, there's a storm brewing." We said to ourselves "We're from New York, what do these rubes know." or something like that. About 3/4 of the way up , our car that was adjusted for sea level conked out, it started to snow, we got a white-out and couldn't see and we were on the side of a cliff, inches from a 3,000 foot drop with no guard rail. We managed to push it inch by inch back and forth and turn around. We rolled down the hill for about a half hour until the car would restart. The moral of the story, "You gotta listen to the locals." Especially little kids.