Tourism strikes

With incredibly temperamental weather (and maybe a bad economy to blame?), tourism has been pretty dead on the Vineyard so far. As of July 3, that became a hazy memory. The weather was sunny, hot and beachy. People were unloading from boats and buses like locusts into the streets, Mediterranean was three times as packed as it's ever been, and my street promptly metamorphosed from Circuit to Circus Avenue.

Best moments of the touristy day:

Man getting off the boat stops me: "Do you know where John Belushi's grave is?" No, sir, I don't. Enjoy your day.

Man on the bus to tourists on the bus: "We had shaahks here, but we ain't evah had no Great White shahhks." ("Jaws" was filmed here.)

Hostess at Mediterranean: "Is that Meg Ryan in the Moroccan Room?" No, it's not. At all.

After asking the guy taking the cover charge for the New York City DJ at Mediterranean if we'd gotten any famous people yet: "Not yet man. I heard there's some big ones on the island though." Like who? "Like Oprah." Oh. Hopefully they come out tonight, since I'm closing the outside bar as a bar-back. Must...celebrate...Fourth of July...before work at 5 p.m.!

Circus Avenue at 1 a.m.

Have a fun Fourth of July, everyone. I hope the weather is nice for you and the fireworks are big and purty and you're with family and friends and a grill.

On Tourism

Another weekend is here, which in normal life means it's time to say, "Wow, that week cruised by." But on Martha's Vineyard, in the tourist mania of Oak Bluffs, Friday is the day to remember people are flocking here like seagulls to an errant Pringle on the beach.

It's strange being from Maine -- Vacationland, "The Way Life Should Be," "Worth a Visit, Worth a Lifetime" -- and having barely given a thought to tourism any summer of my life. It's obviously because I'm not from the coast and don't spend much time there, but places like Bar Harbor are on the same page as Martha's Vineyard in the summer; tons of tourists, tons of foreigners coming to make money, and general, abundant insanity.

It's funny that I acknowledge the tourism in oblique ways without remembering what's actually going on. "Cool, it's Friday, the restaurant should be pretty busy tonight" or, "Hey, it's pretty congested on my street. Walking down the sidewalk, past all these shops, is annoyingly unpleasant today." Not just because it's a weekend, but because it's one of the few days in the week in this pre-summer period when tons of people are unloading from the ferries and kickin' it with some island living for a few days.

I'm sure as the summer wears on into late June and further, weekends might take a backseat as tourists teem 24/7, but right now, it's an interesting shift from Friday to Sunday.

Tourism as a whole fascinates me. A waitress I work with is vacationing at Old Orchard Beach for the weekend, and while part of me is excited she's going to my state and to a beach I've been to tons of times, it's also unfathomable to me that she'd leave this island, surrounded by magnificent beaches, to go to Maine for something only mildly different. Ditto for people who go to Maine specifically to camp. I appreciate it and love Maine's outdoors, but isn't there allure for people to do this stuff in their own neck of the woods? My guess is it's the human, more specifically American, need to always be on the go, to be somewhere you're not, even if it's the same. I love traveling as much as anything, so I promise I'm not being cynical -- just trying to sort out the whole tourism thing. I'll be back with more of a diagnosis later this summer, when I've really stared the phenomenon in the face.

A sign on the island. You have to be blunt with tourists.