O U T H E R E I N T H E R E A L W O R L D
Ancestor Worship
by Eva Murray
The Phone Man was standing in my kitchen doorway talking about “Gladys’s house” the other day. The subject was the Internet, and the potential for installation of telephone company DSL (digital subscriber line) to the aforementioned residence, but you can be damned sure Gladys Mitchell never had any truck with the Internet. Gladys died at least 20 years ago; it is entirely possible that she’d never even heard of the Internet. Yet Gladys’s house it is, and likely always shall be--and thus it is Gladys’s Internet.
“You mean Sarah’s Internet,” I muttered, but it wasn’t going to do any good. That is because here on Matinicus, most all homes are referred to by whoever owned the place at least two or three owners ago. It’s a tradition, sort of like leaving the church Christmas tree up until Saint Patrick’s Day, the Sunbeam bringing bad weather, and guys around the harbor telling the summer-trade environmentalists with an absolutely straight face how they eat a regular diet of seal chops.
Referring to a home by naming a previous owner makes sense in certain circumstances, such as when conversing with one of the great multitudes who used to live here but have moved off. This rather large contingent of natives, regulars and founding fathers tends to cherish a mental picture of their island community from, say, 1970 and become all twitchy and indignant when presented with facts indicative of any changes to their beloved snow-globe. Yes, I am sorry, but if this is you (and it will be many of you,) I am making fun of the situation. Forgive me.
I get to do that because I am here, and it is February.
There is also a serious and somewhat cutthroat competition among a few of the owners of older structures over who has the Oldest House On The Island. This really matters, and each contender for the title has produced a pile of evidence on her own behalf, including engineering studies of heart-shaped cut-outs in wooden doors, and genealogical listings that prove residence by one of the dozens of men named Ebenezer. It’s always “her.” The guys don’t care who has the oldest house on the island. If I write a piece another day about who might have the fastest boat we’ll go for equal time.
Most of the older places, by force of custom, are referred to as “Aunt Somebody’s” house. The aunts ruled this community; that is very clear. There hasn’t been an Aunt Belle in Aunt’s Belle’s house in quite some time but that’s what everybody still calls it despite the house having had six owners since—and Max somehow managed to own it twice. North a half mile stands the rambling sequence of main house and attached sheds still called Aunt Marion’s. Aunt Marion hasn’t walked with the living for quite some time either but she was, according to historic record, some sort of tribal chieftain or powerful clan matriarch. She did have the post office, we do know that. In her day, by all accounts, Aunt Marion’s was Command Base Central, and also the first private home to have a telephone.
The old ladies who came here summers were a force to be reckoned with as well. People still talk about Grace LaCurto, Lois Booth, Denise Bryant and Mrs. Boxer as though they’ll be back on the first ferry after ice-out. I did get to meet Denise one of her last summers here, back when I was the teacher in the 1980’s. I recall a neatly dressed little old lady scrambling up and down rocky little woods paths in very high spiked heels like it was nothing. I’ve only been here a mere 26 years and this would have been practically yesterday in island ancestral time. Mrs. Boxer abandoned a small, drop-leaf pine table in this house maybe 30 years ago and we are still under orders not to make rings with our coffee cups because Mrs. Boxer might show up and want it back. Anybody who might know where she is, please feel free to write me. I don’t normally like to use coasters.
The older females ran the island, to be sure-- or at least the high ground. Somewhat less architecturally precise structures surrounding the harbor were another bailiwick entirely, and properly-raised young ladies were discouraged from hanging around the trap shops and fish-houses of their beloved grandfathers lest they be pained to overhear undignified discourse.
Given enough years gone by, what was once merely obnoxious or unlawful behavior becomes the beloved folklore of our enigmatic little salt-washed rock. Newbies like me might be left shaking our heads and wondering. Funerals for these guys generally turn into fairly hilarious storytelling sessions with considerable focus on the outwitting of game wardens, the marine patrol, and the aforementioned old aunts who ran things up on the ridge.
I have noticed how the most otherwise hard-boiled, tire-slashing, seal-meat-eating natives are inclined toward a peculiar sentimentality about the old pirates. The nieces and nephews of these revered ancestors get online with the wrinkled black-and-white photos and go all gooey and mushy about some old reprobate, how he “loved women, children, dogs…” In truth what some of those guys really loved was the nether end of a rum bottle and other people’s lobster traps.
Ah, well; tradition.