Cool column about MV in the Globe

A UMass professor and author wrote a guest column Monday in the Boston Globe under the guise of advice for the Obamas if they are truly vacationing here later this summer, in the tradition of the Clintons in years past. What it really served as was a nicely nuanced piece from a writer who is clearly intimately familiar with the Vineyard -- leagues moreso than my been-here-two-and-a-half-weeks self. I'm very grateful to the kind old fella who dropped this article off at the bookstore for my boss but recommended I read it first. I won't post the whole text below, but here are some bits I liked:

"Like all islands, Martha's Vineyard is a head case, mysterious, a unique coinage, cut off, stuck-up, a loner, a bit of a drama queen. Newcomers often experience the island as snobby, and not just in the obvious terms of how much property you own and its value. The island sometimes feels like a club for which there are secret rules that no one appears all that eager to share."

A few genius grafs about island's etymology include:

"The names play games with your head, teasing fake definitions from the sounds themselves. Edgartown could be a scary theme park based on stories by Poe. . . Oak Bluffs a strategy in poker . . . Tisbury a quaint way to describe the inside of a pie."

Although none of my jobs are listed, I can relate:

"Memories of having held certain summer jobs are a badge, whether the work was backbreaking, such as picking any of their 10 different kinds of lettuce at Morning Glory Farms, especially if you biked to work in the predawn hours, or mundane, such as bagging at Stop & Shop, or high-toned, such as being a hostess at Atria in Edgartown, or classic, such as scooping ice cream at Mad Martha's."

Check it out if you like what you see. Great way to get a better sense of this island I'm calling home for another three months.