GREY LADY

Nantucket is known as the Grey Lady because it is so often cloaked in fog, and possibly because all the houses are the same color regardless of price, faded cedar..gray or grey (which is it anyway?)  Here is a view of the Old North Wharf and some cottages at the end that belong to some prominent residents and are in some cases for rent. On the day I took this photo, there was not a cloud in the sky.  The temperature was in the low 70s, Flowers were blooming.  Many of the days here are like this and even when they are overcast, and there is fog, it is a special place.  I love it most when everyone else has gone back to what is known on island as "America." It is earlier  in the season or later in the fall and jackets and sweaters are welcome additions to the wardrobe.  I get on my scooter, "Daisy" and ride everywhere seeing almost nobody else on the road.  I can go to Something Natural, my favorite sandwich place, and not have to wait a half hour to be rewarded with a culinary delight.  Restaurants, could exist in July and August with an unlisted phone number though they charge New York prices for ordinary fare, because they can, and really have to because the season is so short.  In late or early season, some cut their prices by half, and there are specials everywhere.

The natural beauty is still here in September and October but the young have returned to some level of school. Your chances of running into or being run into by a tourist on a bicycle wearing an iPod and earphones coming from a keg-stander at the beach, is far reduced.  People who are generally always nice, become nicer.  About 10,000 people live on island (you say "on island" not on THE island if you are in the know) all year 'round.  I am not one of them and the weather change drives me south like a Goose in the winter.  I guess I am a migratory Oracle, from this island to my winter home, another island in Florida.  It is probably a little early to think about fall, but on some days, especially on the weekends when the ferry disgorges a throng of day tourists with t-shirts from the last place they visited, I do get nostalgic for the quieter days.