N
LIN HILDERBRAND
Queen of the Beach Read
BARRY STERNLICHT
The Future of Hospitality
COVID-19 Update
DR. PETER SLAVIN
Aviation Pioneer
CROCKER SNOW SR.
ISLANDERS Stand Strong
N magazine
Nantucket Magazine June 2020
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THE ART OF LIVING WATERFRONT
WATERFRONT
N magazine
DIONIS | $17,500,000 7 Bedrooms, 7.5 Bathrooms
2
WAUWINET | $9,995,000 7 Bedrooms, 7+ Bathrooms
DIONIS | $9,995,000 4 Bedrooms, 4.5 Bathrooms
WATERFRONT
WATERFRONT
TOM NEVERS | $7,995,000 7 Bedrooms, 7+ Bathrooms
DIONIS | $7,950,000 3 Bedrooms, 3 Bathrooms
TOWN | $6,745,000 5 Bedrooms, 4+ Bathrooms
CLIFF | $6,495,000 7 Bedrooms, 8+ Bathrooms
TOWN | $5,995,000 5 Bedrooms, 4.5 Bathrooms
WAUWINET | $4,995,000 6 Bedrooms, 5.5 Bathrooms
SCONSET | $4,295,000 11 Bedrooms, 5 Bathrooms
WAUWINET | $4,195,000 4 Bedrooms, 4+ Bathrooms
TOWN | $3,980,000 5 Bedrooms, 5+ Bathrooms
MADAKET | $2,750,000 3 Bedrooms, 2.5 Bathrooms
SCONSET | $2,345,000 3 Bedrooms, 3.5 Bathrooms
BRANT POINT | $2,195,000 4 Bedrooms, 2.5 Bathrooms
EXCLUSIVELY SHOWCASED BY GARY WINN, BROKER gary@maurypeople.com 508.330.3069
MAURY PEOPLE SOTHEBY’S INTERNATIONAL REALTY | 37 MAIN STREET, NANTUCKET, MA 02554 | 508.228.1881 | MAURYPEOPLE.COM Each Office is Independently Owned and Operated. Equal Housing Opportunity.
“First Republic understands our legacy and our bold aspirations. We define the goal, and they help us get there.” A M E R I C A N B A L L ET T H E AT R E
Kara Medoff Barnett, Executive Director
MEMBER FDIC AND EQUAL HOUSING LENDER
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160 Federal Street, Boston (617) 478-5300 1 Post Office Square, Boston (617) 423-2888 772 Boylston Street, Boston (617) 859-8888 47 Brattle Street, Cambridge (617) 218-8488 284 Washington Street, Wellesley (781) 239-9881 (855) 886-4824 | firstrepublic.com | New York Stock Exchange symbol: FRC
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NANTUCKET
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REAL ESTATE • MORTGAGE • INSURANCE
4
town
dionis
8 bedrooms, 7 full and 1 half baths $11,950,000 l Robert Young
4 bedrooms, 3 full and 2 half baths $8,000,000 l Robert Young
madequecham
brant point
5 bedrooms, 6 full and 1 half baths $7,995,000 l John Arena
6 bedrooms, 3 full baths $7,500,000 l Robert Young
town
west of town
6 bedrooms, 3 full and 1 half baths $5,299,000 l Robert Young
6 bedrooms, 7 full and 1 half baths $5,295,000 l John Arena
Recognized as the #1 Luxury Brokerage by Leading Real Estate Companies of the World
137 Offices
The #1 Family-Owned Real Estate Company in the Northeast
Over 4,000 Sales Associates
RAVEISNANT UCKET.CO M
Over 12.2 Billion Residential Sales 9 States - CT, FL, MA, ME, NH, NJ, NY, RI, VT
17 MAIN STREET | NANTUCKET, MA | 02554 | 508.228.9117
www.kathleenhaydesigns.com
N magazine
K at h l e e n H ay D e s i g n s
Follow us
5
nantucket
•
boston
t 508.228.1 2 1 9
•
beyond
@kathleenhaydesigns
photo by Matt Kisiday
Stay
LIFE
CHANGING
Kathleen and Isaiah Stover with their kids Gabe, J.J., Xander and Finn
I
n these times of uncertainty, it is clear that
welcomed three of our four children into
get the process started. How grateful we
Nantucket Cottage Hospital is not only an
the world, most recently our son Charles on
were to have such individualized attention,
January 10, 2020.
knowing that is not the norm in most all other
integral part of the island community, but it is
hospitals. They respected our wishes the
an equally integral part of our family as well. We had a pretty good idea of what to expect,
entire way.
As a family of six, we have frequented the ER
this being our third child in three years. What
for stitches, fevers and other mishaps that
we could not have planned for however, was
And so today we ask you to join us in
accompany a family with four boys, always
the tremendous care our family received
supporting The NCH Fund and help sustain
receiving attentive and comprehensive care.
by the nursing staff and just how much they
our hospital and the extraordinary care it
But the hospital hasn’t just been there for our
would contribute to our overall experience.
provides. Let’s show our appreciation for these incredible healthcare workers.
family during tragic events or unfortunate circumstances. It has served as the “home
It felt as though the whole nursing staff was
away from home” where we gave birth and
anticipating our arrival, ready and eager to
– Kathleen, Isaiah and the Stover Family
N magazine
Donate online and read more of the Stover Family’s story by visiting NantucketHospital.org/NCHFund
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(508) 825-8100
As our hospital continues to respond to the coronavirus pandemic, we want the community to know that NCH is open, safe, and here to care for you. While we have changed the way we operate to protect our patients and healthcare workers, we continue to see patients at NCH for urgent and everyday healthcare needs, both in-person and through virtual visits. By one means or another, we are here to provide care to you and your family. We look forward to seeing you.
ON’T SE D LL E W EDDING B Estd.
2002
but we’ve helped countless folks sleep better at night
No team knows Nantucket better than Great Point Properties. So whether you’re buying, selling or renting, you’ll be in the hands of one of the island’s largest real estate firms. As such, we can not only help you find your Nantucket, we can help you find something even more elusive—peace of mind.
1 SUNSET RIDGE LANE · SCONSET · $2,795,000
SALES & RENTALS
9 OLD WESTMOOR FARM ROAD · CLIFF · $5,875,000
Stunning home with an open floor plan that spills out to beautiful outdoor spaces including a pool and alfresco dining.
1 NORTH BEACH STREET
6 MAIN STREET
NANTUCKET, MA 02554
SIASCONSET, MA 02564
508.228.2266
508.257.6335
GREATPOINTPROPERTIES.COM
N magazine
Newly built contemporary home featuring a private outdoor living area.
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This Summer You’ll Feel Better Than Ever at The Nantucket Club…
Learn Why We’re Nantucket’s Premier Club:
AWARD WINNING BEST AMENITIES CLOSE BY
SPECIAL COVID-19 PRACTICES WILL BE IN PLACE IN OUR SWIMMING POOLS, CHILDREN’S PROGRAM, AND FITNESS CLASSES & EQUIPMENT SPACING
Club memberships available year-round, seasonally, monthly, and weekly. We look forward to welcoming you to The Club soon. ★ Two outdoor heated pools (family/kiddie & adult lap)
★ 4,500 sq. ft. fitness facility
★ Outdoor hot tub
★ Personal trainers, including award-winning Johnathan Rodriguez
N magazine
★ Fun drop-in Day & Evening Kids’ Club Programs (ages 3 to preteen)
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★ Fitness & yoga classes
★ Massage treatment rooms, locker rooms, saunas
★ Breeze restaurant; poolside dining & bar service ★ Conveniently located Downtown ★ Members Enjoy a 15% Discount While Dining at Breeze
We welcome renters staying in homes of Full Family Members. To join, or for more information contact Deb Ducas, Club Manager; clubmanager@thenantuckethotel.com • 508-901-1295
AT THE NANTUCKET HOTEL • 77 EASTON STREET, NANTUCKET, MA 02554 • thenantucketclub.com
Vacation Rentals & Real Estate Sales www.centrestreetrealty.com
N magazine
34 Centre Street Nantucket, MA 02554 508.825.5741
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N magazine
Designer: Carolyn Thayer Interiors Private residence Boston, MA Photographer: Cary Hazlegrove
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Designer: Carolyn Thayer Interiors Private residence Boston, MA Photographer: Cary Hazlegrove
Enter the Rhododendron-lined driveway through sun-dappled woodlands to arrive at a sanctuary of grandeur, quiet and peace. The half mile journey shields you from the world’s intrusive sounds and delivers you to the metronome of ocean waves. Yet, while this singular property is very private, it is not isolated; five minutes to the restaurants, harbor and resources of charming
Manchester-By-The-Sea; 18 minutes to jet-friendly (and rarely fogged-in) Beverly Airport; and 40 minutes by car or train to the shops, museums, restaurants and cultural attractions of historic Boston. Nothing is far; it just feels that way.
INCOMPARABLE 28 ACRES: 13,000sf, 8-BEDROOMS 6 FULL BATHS, 2 HALF BATHS: $21,000,000
The 13,000sf home, with its seven chimneys and 12 fireplaces, commands a bluff above the Atlantic Ocean and glories in stunning horizon-to-horizon seascapes.
The Chimneys’ centerpiece is seven acres of 1906 Frederick Law Olmsted Jr. gardens, expertly restored, incomparably beautiful and serenely tranquil.
This is a rare opportunity. Since 1844, this 28-acre estate has belonged to just three families and only two have experienced the pleasure of living in the gracious 1904 home known as The Chimneys. The property is ready for a new family to add its own chapters to this distinguished history.
TheChimneysOnDanaBeach.com
N magazine
The fully-restored Carriage House held a car collection. The two-bedroom apartment above was as a home for senior staff or lodging for guest families.
This substantial oceanfront property abuts 4⁄10 mile of a private white sand beach, shared by just seven families. Kid and pet friendly, no crowds ever.
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Michael Carucci 617-901-7600
2020 CONTRIBUTORS N
N TOP TEN
TRENDING N
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26
32
Recognizing photographer Bill Hoenk for his tremendous contribution to this issue’s Foggy Sheet after he photographed hundreds of island families in front of their homes.
NUMBERS N
KIDDIN’ N AROUND
22
28
A statistical snapshot of Nantucket during the month of June.
N NEAT STUFF
N magazine
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With the Nantucket Book Festival going all virtual this June, here’s a rundown of some of the top “Authors at Home” video segments available at Nantucketbookfestival.org.
The hottest summer swimwear has a powerful message behind each stitch.
Children’s book author Wendy Rouillard gives her top tips for keeping your kiddos entertained in June.
What’s going viral on #Nantucket.
N NGREDIENTS 34
Private chef Kaity Farrell dishes one of her favorite recipes for strawberry shortcake.
N NECESSITIES 30
With beach season almost upon us, here’s some of the items that should find a place in your bag.
Local comedians David Hayes and Sarah Fraunfelder give us a laugh in "Comic Relief" (page 81)
NANTUCKET REAL ESTATE • MORTGAGE • INSURANCE
west of town
Residential / Commercial $5,250,000 l Robert Young
5 bedrooms, 5 baths $4,950,000 l John McGarr
town
town
2 bedrooms, 1 full and 1 half baths / Commercial $4,495,000 l Josh Lothian
5 bedrooms, 4 full and 1 half baths $3,995,000 l J.Arena/M.Gowen
west of town
miacomet
4 bedrooms, 4 full and 2 half baths $3,395,000 l John Arena
3 bedrooms, 4 full and 1 half baths $2,995,000 l Lee Gaw
Recognized as the #1 Luxury Brokerage by Leading Real Estate Companies of the World
N magazine
town
137 Offices
The #1 Family-Owned Real Estate Company in the Northeast
Over 4,000 Sales Associates
RAVEISNANT UCKET.CO M
Over 12.2 Billion Residential Sales
9 States - CT, FL, MA, ME, NH, NJ, NY, RI, VT
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17 MAIN STREET | NANTUCKET, MA | 02554 | 508.228.9117
HEALTHNWELLNESS N
NVESTIGATE
36
44 GROWTH POTENTIAL
Personal trainer Johnathan "JRod" Rodriguez gives his top tips for staying active.
NBUZZ 38
All the news, tidbits and scuttlebutt that’s fit to print on Nantucket.
NEED TO READ N 40
N Magazine’s resident bookworm Tim Ehrenberg taps his fellow Book Festival Author Advocates for this month’s must-read rundown.
NOSH NEWS
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The team from Lemon Press delivers delicious meals with their Lemon@Home cooking kits.
Private chef Kaity Farrell shares her secret recipe for 14 strawberry shortcake.
The newest name in award-winning wine has Nantucket roots.
48 MESSAGE IN A BOTTLE
Nantucket’s campaign to eliminate single-use plastics launches this summer.
NSPIRE 53 ABOVE & BEYOND
In the face of COVID-19, Nantucket’s essential workers heroically heed the call of duty.
L AND S CAP I NG
508.325.0949 • office@tomhanlonlandscaping.com • www.tomhanlonlandscaping.com
N magazine
G A R D E N DE SI G N • L AND SC AP E C O NST RUC TIO N C ONTAI N E R GAR D ENS • L AW N & H ED G E
PHOTO BY CARY HAZLEGROVE
TO M H A N L O N
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June
N
2020
LIN HILDERBRAND
Queen of the Beach Read
The Local Magazine Read Worldwide
Local bestselling author Elin Hilderbrand appears of the cover of this June issue in a photograph taken by Chief Photographer Kit Noble.
BARRY STERNLICHT
The Future of Hospitality
COVID-19 Update
DR. PETER SLAVIN
Aviation Pioneer
CROCKER SNOW SR.
ISLANDERS Stand Strong
N magazine
Nantucket Magazine
VINEYARD VINES 2 STRAIGHT WHARF 508-325-9600 MURRAY'S TOGGERY SHOP 62 MAIN STREET 508-228-0437
Nantucket Magazine June 2020
1
NQUIRY 58 TRUE ROMANCE
New York Times bestseller Elin Hilderbrand discusses her career, her love of the island, and the stories she still has left to tell.
64 ROOM FOR DISCUSSION
One of the world’s most influential hoteliers Barry Sternlicht weighs in on the future of the hospitality industry in the wake of the coronavirus.
68 CORONAVIRUS CHECKUP
The president of Massachusetts General Hospital Dr. Peter Slavin shares his insights on the coronavirus pandemic.
NDEPTH 74 THE AVIATOR
How an aviation pioneer landed on Nantucket.
81 COMIC RELIEF
During these challenging times, Nantucket’s comedians stand up.
NVOGUE 86 SWOON FOR JUNE
N Magazine’s fashion squad takes summer fashion to ‘Sconset
NHA a look at the games of 104 Take yesteryear courtesy of the Nantucket Historical Association archives
N magazine
NUPTIALS 108
Christine and Mike Athens tied the knot on Nantucket last season.
NOT SO FAST
A quick chat with local children’s 16 112 book author Robert Cameron.
DRESS: CURRENTVINTAGE BAG: A SALTY SOUL GLASSES: ACK EYE EARRINGS, RING: THE VAULT
N magazine
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Publisher & Editor-in-Chief Bruce A. Percelay Editor Robert Cocuzzo Art Director Paulette Chevalier Managing Editor Emme Duncan
NANTUCKET STRONG NANTUCKET STRONG Ack as One
Ack as One
Chief Photographers Kit Noble Brian Sager Digital Editor Leise Trueblood Contributors Tim Ehrenberg Josh Gray Sarah Fraunfelder Rebecca Nimerfroh Wendy Rouillard Leise Trueblood
Let's Rock This.
Photographers David DuPuy Kaity Farrell Bill Hoenk Lucille Lawrence Jonathan Nimerfroh Director of Advertising & Partnerships Emme Duncan Advertising Sales Fifi Greenberg Publisher N. LLC
NantucketStrong.com is an online community resource designed to connect our readers with ways to help the island amid the coronavirus.
Chairman: Bruce A. Percelay
N magazine
Nantucket Times 17 North Beach Street Nantucket, MA 02554 508-228-1515
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ŠCopyright 2020 Nantucket Times. Nantucket Times (N Magazine) is published six times annually from April through December. Reproduction of any part of this publication is prohibited without written permission from the publisher. Editorial submissions may be sent to Editor, Nantucket Times, 17 North Beach Street, Nantucket, MA 02554. We are not responsible for unsolicited editorial or graphic material. Office (508) 228-1515 or fax (508) 228-8012. Signature Printing and Consulting 800 West Cummings Park Suite 2900 Woburn
N NantucketStrong.com is an N Magazine initiative.
The
GREAT
ESCAPE
Perhaps now more than ever before, Nantucket represents a great escape. Amid the global coronavirus pandemic, the island is a welcome refuge from the stark reality of our current lives. And while our summer may look and feel different from those in the past, the island still possesses the same natural wonder and sense of community that might just be the best medicine. On the subject of great escapes, our June cover story highlights author Elin Hilderbrand whose wildly popular novels have been transporting readers to Nantucket—both literally and figuratively—for decades. While many of her fans enjoy the island vicariously through her books, the local author has also cultivated a loyal group of readers who venture to Nantucket in the off-season for so-called Elin Hilderbrand Weekends where they see the world she writes about firsthand. Speaking of travel, N Magazine interviewed summer resident Barry Sternlicht, the founder of Starwood Capital Group and perhaps the most legendary figure in the hospitality world. Sternlicht’s ability to create unique and captivating environments for his guests enabled him to build the largest hotel chain on the planet. As the hospitality sector faces enormous challenges due to the coronavirus, Sternlicht shared his thoughts on the future of the hotel industry and the economy as a whole. Speaking of flights of fancy, few have risen to the heights of the late Crocker Snow Sr. Considered one of America’s most accomplished pilots, the high-flying exploits of Snow are what Hollywood movies are made of. From his heroic bombing missions during World War II to his unlikely landing on Muskeget Island, the life of Crocker Snow Sr. is the stuff of legend. From an aviation pioneer to today’s real-life heroes, we are humbled by the healthcare professionals who are putting the well-being of others ahead of their own. As the population on Nantucket begins to swell in anticipation of summer, these frontline medical professionals and staff at the Nantucket Cottage Hospital are working to keep the island healthy. In that vein, Massachusetts General Hospital’s president Dr. Peter Slavin provides us with an update on COVID-19 and the virus’s status on Nantucket. While we all have an eye on our physical health, Nantucket provides a wonderful antidote for our mental well-being. N Magazine encourages everyone to use common sense and follow safety protocols, while at the same time enjoying what makes this island truly a great escape. Sincerely,
HEIDI
WEDDENDORF Available at
Erica Wilson • The Artists Association heidiweddendorf.com
774-236-9064
Heidiweddendorf@yahoo.com Follow me on
N magazine
Bruce A. Percelay Publisher & Editor-in-Chief
4 EASY STREET I 508.228.5073 WWW.CURRENTVINTAGE.COM
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CONTRIBUTORS BILL HOENK
T
his is hardly the first time Bill Hoenk
he says. “It is the project’s aim to highlight the
has contributed to N Magazine, but his
faces of our community during this time of social
work featured in this June issue might
isolation. Participating in this project is also an
just be the most meaningful of his career. “While observing all of the positive virtual outreach our island community is creating and providing amid the coronavirus,
in our community in the days and weeks ahead.” At press time, Hoenk was on pace to photograph more than two hundred families and
dering how I could
raise nearly $10,000 for
utilize my own
the Nantucket Cottage
skills to contribute
Hospital. N Magazine
to the outpouring
is honored to feature
of love,” Hoenk
the first one hundred
says.
Inspired
of these family por-
by Cara Soulia’s
traits in a special edi-
Front Steps Proj-
tion of Foggy Sheet,
ect, Hoenk began
which begins on page
photographing
96. Beyond his service
island families sit-
to the families and the
ting in front of their
island’s hospital, Hoenk
ment for these family portraits, Hoenk asked only that they make a donation to the Nantucket Cottage Hospital. “The purpose of this project is to bring us together virtually when we might feel isolated,”
N magazine
help to those who will need it most
I found myself won-
homes. In lieu of pay-
20
opportunity for you to step up and provide
is documenting an unprecedented moment in the history of mankind (and Nantucket) through his photos. To book a session with Bill Hoenk or to make a donation, visit billhoenkphotography.com/thenantucket-portrait-project.
PEACE OF MIND IS OUR BUSINESS
Whether it is office, play or home, clean environments have never been more critical to our well-being. BioClear Pathogen SolutionsTM uses the latest in technologies and protocols to treat a wide variety of work, living, transportation and construction spaces. Our company utilizes hospital grade disinfectants, UV and a wide array of cutting edge systems to manage your disinfectant requirements. We serve Nantucket, Cape Cod and Martha's Vineyard. For further information call 617-420-4444 or visit our website at Getbioclear.com.
103 North Beacon Street, Boston, MA
N magazine
TM
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NUMBERS
3,600+
NUMBERS NANTUCKET BY THE
274
People participated in the “Solo Run for Hope,” raising $26,460 at press time for the Nantucket Cottage Hospital’s Oncology Department and PASCON.
323
Meals were donated to the community through the various food assistance initiatives in March and April.
30-50%
5,000+
Reduction in Hy-Line Ferry’s allowed occupancy for social distancing.
6
People had been tested for COVID-19 at the Nantucket Cottage Hospital at press time.
Days it took to raise $150,000 for the Dreamland’s drive-in theater campaign.
Masks were made through the “Nantucket, Let’s Get Sewing” initiative within a month of launching.
$300,000+ Raised by ACK Saves since launching in April.
21
Real estate transactions took place in the month of April, amounting to $43.4 million, according to agent Jen Shalley Allen.
12,000+
People viewed the Chamber of Commerce’s video produced by produced by Yellow Productions celebrating the community’s heroism amid the pandemic.
N magazine
22 22
Days Nantucket went continuously without a new diagnosed case of coronavirus in the month of April.
1
Nantucketer—Wendy Hudson—sits on Governor Baker’s committee tasked with planning the reopening of the state’s economy.
$3.4 Million Federal grants received by Nantucket Memorial Airport.
Murray’s Toggery Shop 62 Main Street Nantucket, MA 508.228.0437 www.nantucketreds.com
From Harbor to Home. Guiding you home on Nantucket, to Washington, DC and beyond.
Katrina Schymik Abjornson
202.441.3982 katrina@compass.com katrinahomes.com
Katrina Homes of Compass Katrina Schymick Abjornson is a real estate broker affiliated with Compass, a licensed real estate broker and abides by equal housing opportunity laws.
N magazine
Vice President RealtorÂŽ Licensed in Washington DC, Maryland, Virginia, and Massachusetts
23
NEAT STUFF SPONSORED CONTENT SPONSORED CONTENT
W
hen Jimmy Lambert launched Okaicos, his mission was so much more than creating a comfortable pair of swim trunks. Lambert wanted to sew his fashionable summer wear with a positive state of mind. He sought to create a lifestyle brand that empowered people, making them feel not only comfortable in his apparel, but also comfortable in their own skin. Indeed, unlike any of his competitors, Lambert boldly took aim at improving his customers’ mental health by helping them feel “Okaicos.” The brand got its start during a family trip to the islands of Turks and Caicos eleven years ago. As someone who has battled with his own bouts of life’s ups and downs, Lambert found the tropical islands to be a soothing balm to his mental angst. The pristine beaches, the mesmerizing waters, the joys of traveling with family and friends—just made him feel good inside. So when his parents asked how he was doing, Lambert began saying, “I’m
Wharf location. Above all, Okaicos resonates with the unique island attitude found on Nantucket. As Lambert himself says, “When you’re on Nantucket, you feel Okaicos.” Some might scoff at Lambert’s commitment to serving mental health as just another marketing ploy—but they would be wrong. Lambert has formed an affiliation with Active Minds, a national nonprofit dedicated to supporting mental health awareness in young adults. His social media feed booms with positive energy and has earned thousands of faithful followers. And Lambert doesn’t just talk the talk. Most recently, when the coronavirus gripped New York City, where Lambert’s headquarters are based, he singlehandedly repurposed extra materials from his swimsuits to make hundreds of masks that he handed out for free on the street.
LIFE’S
SHORTS WRITTEN BY ROBERT COCUZZO
N magazine
HOW ONE OF THE HOTTEST SUMMER BRANDS BECAME SO MUCH MORE THAN A SWIMSUIT
24
feeling Okaicos.” The more he said it, the more he thought about how he could share this optimistic feeling with others. So began his luxury apparel company. Along with its positive branding, Okaicos is built on a line of swim trunks that combine high performance and high fashion. Made with comfortable stretch material, the swimsuits are equipped with a signature waistband that transitions from beach to street seamlessly. The trunks are accompanied by a line of ultralight, supersoft T-shirts, as well as a fun selection of so-called dad hats. Okaicos continues to grow exponentially with new lines of sweatshirts, button downs, accessories and co-branded products currently in the works. While Okaicos might have been inspired by the Turks and Caicos, Lambert was quick to bring his brand to his other favorite island. Three years ago, he showcased his swim trunks on Nantucket, where he has vacationed with his family for the last six years. This summer, he will return to The Skinny Dip where he plans to unveil a new line of Okaicos styles. Lambert will also launch a signature swim short made in collaboration with CRU Restaurant that will be available at their 1 Straight
So while swimsuits and T-shirts might not seem like a vehicle for positive thinking, consider the motivation behind each stitch. What makes a product a brand, and a brand a lifestyle, is the core values held and promoted by its founders. Jimmy Lambert reminds us that life is short, and while times like these might be tough, there’s still plenty to feel Okaicos about. Shop online at okaicos.com or on island at the Skinny Dip. The signature CRU swim trunks will also be available for purchase at CRU Restaurant. And if you want to feel Okaicos, follow @okaicos on Instagram.
Whaling Museum
Quaker Meeting House
Oldest House
Greater Light
Hadwen House
Host your event at the Whaling Museum or one of our downtown Historic Properties
LEAD PHOTO: RUNAWAY BRIDE NANTUCKET
N magazine
Contact rentals@nha.org or (508) 228–1894, ext. 115
25
N TOP TEN
SPECIAL BOOK FESTIVAL “AUTHORS AT HOME” EDITION
1 DIANE REHM From one radio host to another, this interview is sure to be the talk of the town. Legendary host of NPR’s longtime series, The Diane Rehm Show, Diane Rehm will be chatting with podcast and radio host of CNN Profiles Michael Schulder about her brand-new autobiography When My Time Comes. Her thought-provoking read examines the hotly contested cause of the Right-to-Die movement, and Rehm’s thoughts on the misrepresentations of end-of-life care.
2
SAMANTHA POWER Samantha Power’s impressive resume features highlights like serving in President Barack Obama’s cabinet from 2013 to 2017, acting as a US Ambassador to the United Nations, and being named by TIME as one of the world’s 100 Most Influential People. But in her latest book, The Education of an Idealist, she goes beyond her career accolades to reveal her most valued and personal life lessons. Michael Schulder will be interviewing the author and foreign policy expert on her “highly personal and reflective memoir” (as reviewed by Obama himself).
3
N magazine
ANN NAPOLITANO N Magazine’s resident bookworm and NBF Social Media Manager Tim Ehrenberg will be sitting down with novelist Ann Napolitano to discuss Dear Edward, her coming-of-age story with a heartbreaking twist. When twelve-year-old Edward Adler becomes the sole survivor of a plane crash causing 183 fatalities, including his family, he struggles to find his place in the world and feels that a part of him will forever be left in the sky. But after a surprising discovery, he learns the answers to some of life’s most profound questions in a way that will surely make your heart soar.
26
10 BARBARA WHITE
4
SARAH M. BROOM In 1961, Sarah M. Broom’s mother Ivory Mae bought a shotgun house in the thenpromising neighborhood of New Orleans East and built her world inside of it, only for the house to show her it had a mind of its own. The Yellow House, Broom’s memoir, tells the story of a hundred years of her family and their relationship to home in a neglected area of one of America’s most mythologized cities. This June, Michael Schulder will host a dialogue with Broom touching on the book’s themes of place, class, race, inequality, and shame.
5
MITCHELL JACKSON We’ve done the math for you, and this addup is going to make for a riveting result: author and cofounder of the NBF Mary Haft will be in conversation with author Mitchell Jackson about his latest book, Survival Math. Jackson’s memoir, a unique combination of narrative, poems composed of historical American documents, photographs, and short stories from Jackson’s male relatives, takes its name from the calculations he made to survive feeling disenfranchised during his youth in Portland, Oregon.
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ALICE HOFFMAN An accomplished author of more than 30 works of fiction, Alice Hoffman will take part in the 2020 Nantucket Book Festival to discuss not one but two of her New York Times bestselling books: The World That We Knew, a longlist recipient for the 2020 Andrew Carnegie Medal, and The Rules of Magic, a Reese Witherspoon Book Club pick. Two very different tales, the former takes place in Europe in 1941 during humanity’s darkest hour, while the latter explores the powerful magic of love.
7 JAMI ATTENBERG Two top titans of text will join together for a rare tête-à-tête this June. #1 New York Times bestselling author and local literary legend Elin Hilderbrand will sit down with fellow New York Times bestselling author Jami Attenberg to discuss Attenberg’s latest work of fiction, All This Could Be Yours, a timely and piercing exploration of what it means to be caught in the web of a toxic man who abused his power, and how to break free from it.
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ROBERT COCUZZO Experience the rolling hills of the Italian countryside from the comfort of your own home during this dynamic one-on-one. N Magazine’s own Robert Cocuzzo will be speaking with Michael Schulder about his most recent release, a travel memoir titled The Road to San Donato. Chronicling his cycling adventure with his father across Italy, San Donato captures not only the heroic feat of traversing 425 miles of Italian backroads by bicycle, but the unbreakable (and sometimes complicated) bond between father and son.
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GABRIELLA BURNHAM This matchup gets an A+ in our book. Gabriella Burnham, a 2005 graduate of Nantucket High School, will be discussing her debut novel It is Wood, It is Stone with Anne Phaneuf, her former English teacher. A full circle moment for both educator and student, this conversation will explore the novel’s complex relationship between two women in São Paulo, Brazil. *Check out all of these "Authors at Home" talks and more virtual Nantucket Book Festival content by visiting nantucketbookfestival.org.
Two historians meet up for a book chat, and the rest, as they say, is history. Nantucket writer and history buff Mary Bergman will be speaking with Barbara White amid the release of her latest book, Disturber of Tradition: A Portrait of Anna Gardner. No stranger to Island archives, White is also the author of A Line In The Sand – The Battle to Integrate Nantucket Public Schools 1825-1847.
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PRESENTED BY
KIDDIN’ AROUND HOME HOW TO KEEP YOUR LITTLE ONES ENTERTAINED INSIDE AND OUT WRITTEN BY WENDY ROUILLARD
NANTUCKET BOYS & GIRLS CLUB ACTIVITIES
The Nantucket Boys & Girls Club has a plethora of virtual programs for kids to keep them busy for hours. Eleven different programs are available daily on Zoom and YouTube. Their BookNook program, Photo Club, Power Hour, Doodle Dash, Junior Chefs and Daily Athletic Challenge are just a few of the offerings. The schedule is posted every Friday for the upcoming week. To learn more, visit nantucketboysandgirlsclub.org.
CREATE WITH THE ARTISTS ASSOCIATION
The Artists Association of Nantucket has a variety of offerings for your budding artist. Nicci Aguiar hosts the #NantucketDailyDraw on Instagram @ackartists and on the association’s Facebook page. And Elizabeth Buccino has put together a series of step-by-step projects centered on the elements of art that are included in the association’s weekly blog. Visit nantucketarts.org for information about summer programming.
WHERE, OH WHERE, IS BARNABY BEAR HUNT
I’m excited to have partnered with the Nantucket Conservation Foundation to offer a Where, Oh Where, Is Barnaby Bear Hunt for the month of June. We’ve put together a local scavenger hunt around the island to help get the kiddos out in nature. They can search for Barnaby in ten locations, including Squam Farm, the Oldest House and Sankaty Head Light. You can download the form for this self-guided hunt by joining the Where, Oh Where, Is Barnaby Bear Hunt Group on Facebook; the link for the form is also in my Instagram bio @barnabybearbooks. Once your child has completed the hunt, they’ll receive a free copy of Barnaby & Wood Lily and additional Barnaby treats. For more information, email me at barnabybearnantucket@gmail.com.
STRAWBERRY PICKING AT BARTLETT’S FARM
N magazine
Strawberries are ripe and ready for picking, so head out to Bartlett’s Farm starting in mid-June to purchase a quart or two from the market or begin filling your bucket. This is a great way to kick off summer with your littles ones.
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Strawberry picking is open daily from 8:00 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. (Strawberries are farm-grown so their availability depends on the weather.) Call ahead at (508) 901-1793 for social distancing guidelines or visit bartlettsfarm.com.
‘STAY AT HOME’ DISCOVERY CENTER
The Nantucket Historical Association has put together some wonderful digital programs for kids. Learn more about the history of Nantucket with their downloadable “Stay at Home” Discovery Center, which offers a variety of ACKtivities such as historic house cut-outs, lighthouse coloring pages and the art of scrimshaw. They have also created grade-level lesson plans focusing on Nantucket history for kindergarten through twelfth grade. Be sure to check out their 1800 House of Home, which celebrates early American decorative arts with how-to videos and downloadable template kits. All of these programs can be found at nha.org.
COOKING AT HOME WITH NANTUCKET CULINARY
Chef Greg Margolis from Nantucket Culinary and The Corner Table has provided a great easy-at-home recipe for homemade crepes. Be sure to visit nantucketculinary.com for an up-to-date schedule of their summer kids classes. Ingredients: 2 eggs ¾ cup milk ½ cup water 1 cup flour 3 tablespoons melted butter You can also make these dairy and gluten-free by using almond milk, glutenfree flour (by Cup4Cup) and coconut oil (instead of butter). Combine all the ingredients in a blender and mix together. Store the batter in the refrigerator for one hour to reduce bubbles. When ready to cook, use a nonstick pan and butter as needed to coat the pan. Cook crepes on medium heat. Pour a thin layer on the pan and allow to cook until the crepe begins to dry around the edges, then flip and quickly cook the other side. You can add your favorite condiments like whipped cream, maple syrup, Nutella or fresh fruit.
Launched in 2018 by fourth generation Nantucketer, Stephany G. Hunter, Peachtree Kids is a children's boutique located at 19 Main Street carrying a selection of timeless and classic children's clothing, as well as toys, shoes, and accessories. And for our island visitors, Peachtree Kids offers a full spectrum of baby equipment rentals at nicervacation.com, making trips to the Grey Lady seamless and easy for those traveling with little ones. Visit peachtreekidsnantucket.com to shop online or call them at 508-228-8555 for gift cards, phone orders and home deliveries.
FURNITURE • ANTIQUES • LIGHTING • PILLOWS • TABLETOP • ACCESSORIES
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E L E I S H VA N B R E E M S H O M E
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N NECESSITIES SPONSORED CONTENT
NECESSITIES N Put these items on your wish list this summer
TOM FORD SPECTACLES KIDS’ SUNSET TEE
These glasses offer dynamic style, packaged with a leather-wrapped magnetic sun clip, easy to pop on for bright days! What’s more, the standard lenses filter blue light to reduce digital eyestrain and may be customized for prescription wearers. ACK Eye 508-228-0844 ackeye.com PRINTED MELAMINE PLATES Nothing says beach picnic quite like these summery, mix-and-match plates painted by local artist Meredith Hanson. From bicycles to hydrangeas to sailboats and more, collect your own Nantucket set!
This classic sunset kids’ tee, from local Nantucket brand A Salty Soul, is incredibly soft and the perfect summer staple for your little one. Bonus: A Salty Soul gives back a portion of profits to organizations providing kids access to saltwater activities! A Salty Soul @asaltysoul asaltysoul.com
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IT IS WOOD, IT IS STONE This captivating debut novel from Nantucket High School graduate Gabriella Burnham is perfect for your summer beach bag. And be sure to catch Burnham in this month’s virtual Nantucket Book Festival! Nantucket Book Partners 508-228-4000 nantucketbookpartners.com
CUSTOM NANTUCKET BACKGAMMON BOARD Inspired by Nantucket Island, Nine Fair’s custom, hand-crafted and hand-painted backgammon boards are heirloom pieces made to last a lifetime. Nine Fair @ninefairbackgammon ninefair.com
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CUSTOM WEDDING CANDLE
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Give a sneak peek of your upcoming nuptials (or treat guests to a special parting gift) with a custom wedding candle from Nantucket Candle Co. Just pick your signature scent and let local artist G Riley Art create the perfect, personalized watercolor packaging! Nantucket Candle Co. @nantucketcandleco nantucketcandleco.com
IPSWICH WEEKENDER Built with 18oz. dry waxed canvas and sturdy bridle leather, this weekender is ready to make the trip backand-forth on the ferry all summer long. Long Wharf Supply Co. @longwharfsupply longwharfsupply.com
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TRENDING N
WHAT’S HAPPENING ON
#NANTUCKET?
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WRITTEN BY LEISE TRUEBLOOD
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TIM’S TALKS
FLOWER POWER WOWER
While we explore literary worlds from the comfort of our couches, N Magazine’s beloved bookworm and Nantucket Book Partners’ Marketing Director Tim Ehrenberg is exploring the minds of the authors behind the prose. Earlier this spring, Ehrenberg launched Tim Talks (@timtalksbooks), an Instagram account featuring weekly video interviews with top authors. A self-professed bibliophile and never one to do things on a small scale, Tim started off with a bang by chatting with New York Times bestselling authors Elin Hilderbrand, Nat Philbrick, and Jodi Picoult. His account drew in over 1,000 followers overnight, and as we continue reading at home this summer, we’ll keep turning to Tim to help us read between the lines.
COVID-19 may have rained on the parade planned for this spring, but that didn’t stop one party from blooming all over social media. N Magazine (@nantucket_magazine) and the Nantucket Historical Association's (@ackhistory) annual Flower Power Party, held the Friday of Daffodil Weekend, made the move from the dance floor of the Whaling Museum to living rooms all over Nantucket (and the country). With the help of music from 97.7 ACK FM (@97.7ackfm), promotion from the Chamber of Commerce (@ackchamber), and festive cocktails from Island Kitchen (@iknantucket), DJs David Martin and Chris Reiser created one big house party on Instagram Live, as more than 1,000 people tuned in to get their groove on. Here’s to #FlowerPowerACK 2021!
TOP DOG After Tom Brady’s painful departure from the Patriots this past spring, New England fans were hoping for a new GOAT to come on board in April’s 2020 NFL Draft. Never one to disappoint, Bill Belichick delivered something better: a top dog. Belichick and Linda Holliday (@lindaholliday_)’s Alaskan Klee Kai Nike became an unexpected draft star when he popped up at their ‘Sconset dining room table during the broadcast. The shot immediately went viral, and the @Patriots even posted @thecheckdown’s artistic rendition of the pup to their own account, generating more than 173,000 likes and 600 comments at press time. But this wasn’t Nike’s first brush with fame – he has his own Instagram account, @theswooshdog, boasting more than 16,000 followers. His catchphrase? Just Dig It.
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PHOTOGRAPHY BY KAITY FARRELL
N magazine
PRIVATE CHEF KAITY FARRELL PUTS HER OWN TWIST ON AN OLD FASHIONED AMERICAN CLASSIC WITH HER SEMOLINA LILAC STRAWBERRY SHORTCAKE
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Recipe and photography by Kaity Farrell. Follow more of Kaity’s delicious creations on Instagram at @FareIsle
INGREDIENTS
Strawberries
Lilac Semolina Shortcakes • • • • • • •
1-1/2 cup all-purpose flour • 1/2 cup semolina flour 1/4 cup granulated sugar 1 tablespoon baking powder • 1/2 teaspoon kosher salt • 1/2 cup vegan butter alternative 1/2 cup fresh lilac blossoms (optional) plus more for garnish
2/3 cup + 2 tablespoons full fat coconut milk (plus more for brushing biscuits) 2 teaspoons apple cider vinegar 2 tablespoons violet sugar (or more granulated sugar)
• • • • •
2 quarts fresh strawberries 1 tablespoon vanilla extract 1/2 cup maple syrup (or sweetener of choice) 2 tablespoons fresh lemon juice splash of your favorite liquor (optional)
Whipped Coconut Cream • 2 cans of full fat coconut milk, chilled overnight • 2 tablespoons sugar • 1/2 teaspoon vanilla bean powder or seeds scraped from 1 vanilla bean
DIRECTIONS 1
Preheat oven 425˚F.
2
Line a sheet pan with parchment paper.
3
In a medium-sized mixing bowl stir together flours, sugar, baking powder, and salt.
4
Cut butter into small cubes. Cut butter into flour mixture using your fingertips or a pastry cutter until the mixture resembles coarse breadcrumbs with some pea-sized bits. If adding lilac flowers, stir them into mixture with a fork.
5
Add vinegar to coconut milk and stir to thicken. Pour coconut milk mixture into flour mixture and stir to form dough. Finish combining dough by hand until it comes together. Be gentle and don’t overmix.
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Bake shortcakes on center rack for 15-20 minutes until they are light golden brown.
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Remove sheet pan from oven and transfer shortcakes to a cooling rack using a spatula. Cool
shortcakes to room temperature before serving. Prepare strawberries by removing the leaves and stems and quartering them. Mix them together with the maple syrup, lemon, vanilla extract and liquor if using. Let them sit for 10 minutes to macerate in their juices. 11
6
Turn dough out onto a floured surface and roll out to 1/2” thickness.
7
Cut out shortcakes using a round biscuit cutter or drinking glass and transfer rounds to baking sheet so that they almost touch each other. Gently rework scraps and cut out more shortcakes until all of dough is used up.
8
Brush tops of shortcakes with more coconut milk and sprinkle with the violet sugar with violet sugar (recipe here: fareisle.com/wild-violet-sugar) or use more granulated sugar.
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To make whipped coconut cream, scoop out coconut cream from chilled cans of coconut milk. Add sugar and vanilla bean and whip in a handheld or stand mixer until light and fluffy, about 5 minutes. Tip: Chill bowl and beater(s) first to help keep the cream cold during whipping.
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To assemble shortcakes, split them with a fork (like you do with English muffins). Spoon macerated berries and juice onto bottom half of shortcake. Dollop on whipped coconut cream. Place top of shortcake on whipped cream. Sprinkle with lilac flowers to garnish. Serve right away. Enjoy!
• Serves 8 • Prep 25 mins • Cook 20 mins • Total 45 mins • Shortcake is best eaten the day it’s made. The shortcakes themselves will keep in an airtight container at room temp for a few days. • Replace strawberries with other seasonal berries and stone fruits throughout the summer. Replace lilacs with other edible flowers like roses for example. Make sure any edible flowers you use are not sprayed and avoid harvesting from roadways because of spraying and chemically polluted water runoff from the roads.
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Notes
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HEALTHNWELLNESS N
STAY ACKTIVE Personal trainer Johnathan “JRod” Rodriguez gives his top tips
Staying active is one of the most important ingredients for living a healthy life. This becomes particularly important as you get older. You want to stay strong, keep your heart healthy, and maintain a balanced weight. The trick is to find something you enjoy doing and then not be afraid to mix it up. Here are some simple strategies you can use to get active and stay active.
1 TAKE IT SLOW If you haven’t been active in several years, start out slow. Always talk to your doctor before starting an exercise program, as there may be precautions you should take. In general, you’ll want to start out with sessions of only five or ten minutes. You can gradually increase the length of your sessions over time.
2 EXERCISE THIRTY MINUTES Your goal for physical activity should be thirty minutes each day. Remember three ten-minute sessions are just as good as one long session. So you could dance ten minutes while you get ready for the day, walk ten minutes to work and then take a ten-minute bike ride before dinner. Of course, more exercise is fine as long as you take precautions to avoid injury. It’s better to work out a little less one day if it will help you do it again the next.
3 WORK YOUR MUSCLES You need more than aerobic exercise. Resistance training or weight lifting is also important. This type of exercise helps strengthen your muscles and bones and improve your balance and coordination while also reducing your risk for osteoporosis. Not sure how to get started? Hire a trainer for a onetime session. If you write down the routine, you can refer to it later. Also keep track of your progress.
4 4 EXERCISES THAT CAN BE DONE ANYWHERE Home-friendly workouts that require little or no special equipment include: • • • •
walking or jogging • weight training with found objects (bags of beans, a heavy jumping rope book, a water bottle) dancing • jumping jacks squats • pushups
5 STRETCH Stretching after a workout should always be part of your routine. Stretching improves flexibility and range of motion. It may also cut down your risk of injury or muscle cramps while also improving circulation throughout the body. If you need guidance on the best ways to stretch, ask a trainer for a quick tutorial.
Named "Best Personal Trainer" two years in a row by the Inquirer & Mirror, Johnathan Rodriguez offers his fitness expertise at The Nantucket Club.
NBUZZ
FUN DRIVE
As all island organizations were planning how to adapt and safely do business this upcoming season, the Dreamland decided to take a page out of an old playbook. Reaching out to the community, Joe Hale and his team at the Dreamland got rolling on a drive-in movie theater concept for the island. Within a week of launching a GoFundMe campaign to raise the $139,000 necessary for construction, projection equipment and opening costs, the Dreamland exceeded their goal by roughly $20,000. “I've got to admit that I’m stunned,” executive director Joe Hale said in a video address. “Here I am, just five days [since launching the GoFundMe page,] so proud to tell you
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ZOOM BOOM
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As with the rest of the country, Nantucketers have taken to Zoom and other online conferencing platforms to stay connected while social distancing requirements are in place. In addition to helping keep businesses going, the rise of these platforms has also yielded a whole new form of local entertainment. From Tim Ehrenberg’s Tim Talks (read more on page 32), to Supta Yoga’s daily classes, to N Magazine’s own chief photographer Kit Noble’s virtual art show, there are now more ways than ever to stay engaged in mind, body and spirit from the comfort of your home.
that we as a community have come together to make the Dreamland Drive-in a reality.” With one screening planned per evening (around 8:45), there will be about eighty parking spots for folks to enjoy a good old-fashioned drivein movie experience courtesy of a twenty-foot-by-forty-foot screen. Tickets were estimated to cost $10 for adults and $5 for children. “In these extremely challenging times we’ve all been forced to become very creative, and it’s with that in mind the idea for the drive-in was conceived,” said Hale. At press time, the Dreamland team was looking for a new location for their drive-in theater, which had been originally planned for Bartlett's Farm.
HIGH HONORS FOR
SABELHAUS Earlier this spring, Nantucket summer resident Melanie Sabelhaus received the Harriman Award for Distinguished Volunteer Service, the highest honor bestowed on volunteers by the Red Cross. Sabelhaus earned the award from her fifteen years of extraordinary service with the Red Cross on the local, national and international levels. "I'm honored to present Melanie with the Harriman Award for Distinguished Volunteer Service," said Red Cross Board Chairman Bonnie McElveen-Hunter. "She is a woman of extraordinary gifts and talents, who truly embodies the meaning of philanthropy and service to others. We are thankful for her dedication to our mission and look forward to her continued service."
ROCK
As part of its Keep the Rock Solid campaign, the Nantucket Chamber of Commerce launched a weekly radio program on 97.7 ACK-FM called “The Road to Recovery.” Hosted by Melissa Murphy, the show features interviews with business leaders on the island who are navigating the new economy amid the coronavirus. The debut show featured Liam Bruno of ACK Eats, MJ Moser and David Bartlett of Bartlett’s Farm, and the team from Lemon Press (the latter of which you can read more about in NOSH NEWS on page 48.) The Road to Recovery is one of the many ways that the Chamber of Commerce has risen to the challenge in helping guide the island economy toward a brighter future.
RADIO
SCONSET
and accompanied by his partner Linda Holliday and their four-legged companion Nike, Belichick led the Patriots on their mission to restructure the team after the departure of Tom Brady. Some of those watching the telecast spotted a framed photo of Belichick and Holliday on the top corner of their shelf. The photo was taken by Kerry Brett three years ago for the July cover of N Magazine.
WAR ROOM
With the NFL Draft going completely virtual earlier this spring, Coach Bill Belichick made his draft picks from the comfort of his home in Sconset where a makeshift war room was set up in his dining room. Wearing his trademark sweatshirt with cut sleeves
NANTUCKET
STRONG This Memorial Day, N Magazine launched NantucketStrong.com, an online community resource designed to connect our readers with ways to help the island amid the coronavirus. Along with a listing that highlights the various philanthropic initiatives serving the community, NantucketStrong. com also profiles a number of the individuals helping to meet the needs of their neighbors in their own creative ways. As the summer continues, NantucketStrong.com will also be a digital space for consumers to connect with island retailers so that they can buy local even while they’re off-island.
STILL POPPING OFF N magazine
Although folks will not be enjoying the Boston Pops on Nantucket concert on Jetties Beach this August, there will still be ways to celebrate. At press time, the Nantucket Cottage Hospital was developing a virtual event that will enable people to applaud the selfless work of the Nantucket Cottage Hospital team during these incredibly challenging times.
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NTERTAINMENT
NEED TO READ PORTRAIT BY BRIAN SAGER
BOOK PHOTOS BY TIM EHRENBERG
In this special edition, TIM EHRENBERG taps his fellow Nantucket Book Festival Author Advocates for their insights on the top reads for June
DEAR EDWARD BY ANN NAPOLITANO Dear Edward, you will definitely be one of my favorite books of 2020. I am proud to be your advocate. I loved all of the characters that we meet in your pages. Dear Ann Napolitano, you managed to write a whole story about people I knew were going to die from the beginning. It was the first book I have read with that plot device, which added a layer of suspense to the story that I have never experienced. Death and grief are realities we rarely discuss as a society, and yet it is such a part of life. When you lose someone, you’re like Edward, you’re the survivor, and it’s a struggle to understand how to go on living when faced with such loss. This book helped to answer these profound questions and give us hope as we grieve along with Edward and the victims’ families.
THE WORLD THAT WE KNEW BY ALICE HOFFMAN Jill Karp, a member of NBF’s board of directors, writes, “The World That We Knew is an amazing read filled with Alice’s magical realism that will keep you on the edge of your seat, will fill your eyes with tears and will often make your heart ache. It takes place during the Second World War and follows three women who use love and courage to get through the war. Alice weaves into her story old Jewish folk tales, the supernatural and the ugliness of evil, yet her message is always clear: Love will find a way. And you should find your way to reading this extraordinary book!” Trust Jill on this one, this was my favorite Alice Hoffman book to date.
N magazine
LEADING MEN BY CHRISTOPHER CASTELLANI
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Karl Krueger, field sales manager for Penguin Random House, recommended Leading Men to me, and I fell in love with this story based on actual events and real-life people. “Come join the world of Tennessee Williams and Frank Merlo,” says Krueger. “You’ll be swept into their lives of joy, turmoil, heartbreaks and triumphs. What does true love really mean? It’s a journey that will stay with you forever.” You will be transported to the literary and film circles of the 1950s and discover one of the great literary love stories you might not have known about before.
TRICK MIRROR BY JIA TOLENTINO My friend Annye Camara of Annye’s Whole Foods and my go-to bookworm, writes, “Jia Tolentino, the author of Trick Mirror: Reflections on Self-Delusion, writes intricate sentences that turn into remarkable, prescient paragraphs, and after chewing on them, you get her entire glorious gist. She’s a powerhouse thinker! Tolentino made me check some of my convictions and assumptions. I love when a writer does that, and she does it so incredibly well!” Trick Mirror is a book for right now, as it examines the fractures at the center of contemporary culture.
THE YELLOW HOUSE BY SARAH M. BROOM The Yellow House won the 2019 National Book Award for nonfiction and appeared on pretty much every reading list for nonfiction last year. Liz Schaeffer writes, “The Yellow House made me think about the profound connections we make to where we are born and raised, to those who are with us along the journey and, of course, to the buildings that house our spirit and frame who we become. Pick up a copy and explore all of the rooms that fill Sarah M. Broom’s house and heart with emotions, from respect and adoration to just plain shame.”
SURVIVAL MATH BY MITCHELL JACKSON
Support your Island Indies. All books are available at Mitchell’s Book Corner & Nantucket Bookworks!
N magazine
Mitchell Jackson’s second book, Survival Math: Notes on an All-American Family, starts with a question: What is the toughest thing that you survived? Mary Haft, president of the Nantucket Book Foundation, advocates: “This nonfiction series of essays is an exploration of ideas, of the calculation of survival, of the connective thread of family and community; a complex web that encompasses race, inequality, prison, poverty, violence, addiction and the choices made in the hustle of life. Literature is humanity’s great call. Mitchell Jackson answers that call with honesty and blistering truth that cracks open a world we enter through the pages of his books.”
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NOSH NEWS
B
efore the coronavirus pandemic descended on Nantucket, Lemon Press was scheduled to reopen for the season on March 16th. That same day, Governor Charlie Baker announced the statewide closing of restaurants, bars and other dine-in eateries due to the coronavirus. While many in the hospitality industry scrambled to create more robust take-out services, Rachel Afshari, Darya Gault, Taylor Minore, Chef Anna Montgomery and their team at Lemon Press leaned into another dimension of their business that they’d established years earlier. “We’d done Lemon@Home before, so we already had the process in place and were planning on offering it year-round,” Afshari said of Lemon Press’s at-home cooking kits. “It wasn’t our response to the coronavirus, but it was clutch that we had it in our pocket.”
homeplate WRITTEN BY ROBERT COCUZZO PHOTOGRAPHY BY RACHEL ELIZABETH
The team at Lemon Press delivers home cooking directly to your door.
N magazine
“We do all the planning, prepping, shopping and chopping. All you have to do is cook it and eat.”
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— Rachel Afshari
Modeled after popular meal kit delivery services like Blue Apron and Purple Carrot, Lemon@Home provides folks with all the ingredients they need to prepare delicious dinners in the comfort of their own kitchens. Except unlike Blue Apron, Lemon Press’s ingredients have all been freshly prepared that day. “We do all the planning, prepping, shopping and chopping,” Afshari says. “All you have to do is cook it and eat.” Most meals take about twenty minutes to prepare. With each of the ingredients measured out to satisfy the number of people dining, nothing goes to waste—neither food nor money. In keeping with the health-focused ethos that helped make their Main Street location an overnight institution, Lemon@Home offers guilt-free, goodfor-you meals Tuesday through Friday. At press time, there was Wednesday’s sweet pepper lemongrass glazed pork served over garlicky basmati rice with a cool cucumber salad. Thursday boasted their Mediterranean flatbread complete
with arugula pesto, feta, roasted sumac eggplant and caramelized onions with balsamic glaze. They then capped off the week with Friday’s buffalo-glazed salmon with blue cheese scallion kale salad and roasted carrots. Lemon@Home also offers kits for baked goods, smoothies, soups, salads and small bites. “All ingredients are sourced as locally and organic as possible,” says Taylor Minore, Lemon Press’s manager. “There’s no muss, no fuss.” Each of the items are prepared and delivered with the highest level of care and safety. At press time, Lemon@ Home was beginning alcohol delivery as well. Yet of all their offerings, Lemon@Home’s tacos might just be the most popular—and not simply because they’re finger-licking good. Yes, Chef Montgomery’s crispy sheet pan tacos with roasted cumin tomatoes and adobo-marinated chicken thighs or chickpeas alone make them a crowd favorite. But the meal also connects to a broader community initiative called ACKtogether that Lemon Press and their fellow restaurateurs started to keep people on the island connected. “On TACKo Tuesday we have a virtual party,” Afshari explains. “People livestream themselves making tacos on the island, and it lets us reconnect with one another.”
— Patrick Ridge
And that’s what has always been the main ingredient to Lemon Press’s recipe for success: community. Since they started on Centre Street five years ago, Lemon Press has always been a place where people love to gather. The team radiates positive energy that leaves diners feeling fulfilled and refreshed. While they wait to welcome people back to their bright location on Main Street, Lemon Press is still serving up a delicious sense of community— that can now be delivered directly to your door.
— Taylor Minore
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“All ingredients are sourced as locally and organic as possible.”
To place an order for your Lemon@Home meal, visit orderlemonpressmarket.com. Learn more about Lemon Press at lemonpressnantucket.com and follow them on Instagram and Facebook (@LemonpressNantucket) for updated specials and menus.
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GROWTH POTENTIAL WRITTEN BY ROBERT COCUZZO
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The newest name in award-winning wine has Nantucket roots
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PHOTOGRAPHY BY LUCILLE LAWRENCE
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hile the Nantucket Wine Festival might have been forced to postpone its annual bacchanal due to the coronavirus, one winemaker with island roots has only continued to thrive heading into the spring. Mark Wentworth, who has summered on the island since he was a kid, has achieved an uncommon level of success for a first-time winemaker. Since launching his 2018 vintage this spring, both of Wentworth’s debut pinot noirs scored in the nineties in Wine Enthusiast—an impressive accolade for any winemaker, let alone a novice.
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The Wentworth men have been known to make headlines. Many will recall when Mark’s brother, Grant, became the first person to swim from Cape Cod to Nantucket, raising more than $150,000 for the Nantucket Cottage Hospital. Mark accompanied Grant for all thirty-three miles in a kayak to monitor his stroke and fend off great whites. Some three thousand miles to the west of Nantucket, Mark trades his paddles for farming equipment as he and wife Katie tend to their remote property on Mendocino Ridge in Elk, California. A largely self-taught winemaker, Mark's hard work and dedication have yieled high-scoring pinot noirs that critics have lauded as “lively, complex, charming and vibrant.” Much of his experience came from collaborating with award-winning winemaker Jason Drew, his neighbor on Mendocino Ridge who has served as his mentor on viticulture and winemaking. “I wear many hats—handling everything from strategy to aspects of vineyard maintenance, working on winemaking, marketing, sales and general administrative needs,” Mark says. “Thankfully, I have my wife Katie to help with raising our daughter and to weigh in on all the big decisions we make.” Originally from New Jersey, Mark took a circuitous route on his journey into the world of wine. After graduating from St. Andrews University
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the grounds of an old horse farm, which enriched the soil with years of natural fertilizer. He has been dedicated to using organic and biodynamic farming methods in creating wine that is vibrant, balanced and perfect for sipping on a summer night. Moreover, he and his wife Katie have committed the fruits of their labors to a greater cause by joining 1% for the Planet, whereby 1 percent of their annual sales are donated to the Save the Redwoods League.
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in Scotland and working on Obama's 2008 campaign, Mark pursued a series of corporate jobs before working in New England breweries. After a year helping tend to a small organic farm in Vermont, Mark decided to pursue a finer craft outdoors. “I always wanted to get into agriculture and winemaking,” he says. “The idea originated as a small kid when I was influenced by my grandmother who grew up in France and came to the United States after World War II. She had a love of wine, a love of life, infectious happiness, and always had a glass of wine in her hand. I dreamed of someday having a vineyard.” On a ridgetop less than four miles away from the Pacific Ocean, surrounded by towering redwoods and Douglas firs, Mark is fulfilling his childhood dream. Wentworth Vineyard is planted on
“I can think of few things better than getting together with some friends on a summer evening, opening a bottle or two of bright, balanced, energetic Wentworth Pinot Noir, grilling a nice piece of fresh fish along with some Bartlett’s veggies, and watching the sunset.” — Mark Wentworth
Though Mark and Katie now make their home on the picturesque Mendocino Ridge, they return to the island each summer where their wines offer a perfect pairing. “Nantucket is such a beautiful place with some of the best seafood in the world,” Mark says. “Having spent a lot of time there over the years, I can think of few things better than getting together with some friends on a summer evening, opening a bottle or two of bright, balanced, energetic Wentworth Pinot Noir, grilling a nice piece of fresh fish along with some Bartlett’s veggies, and watching the sunset.” Indeed, we can all toast to that.
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Nantucket’s campaign to eliminate single-use plastics launches this June
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vidence shows that more than ten million tons of plastics ends up in the oceans annually, leading scientists to predict that there will be more pieces of plastic than fish in the sea by the year 2050. Eighty-nine percent of those plastics are of the single-use variety. They take hundreds of years to break down and leave behind microplastics that end up in the bloodstreams and digestive tracts of wildlife, currently endangering more than 1,200 species and
possibly ending up in our bloodstreams as the top of the food chain. On a macro-scale, plastic-filled gyres the size of small cities swirl for millions of miles in the Pacific Ocean. Here on Nantucket, a committed group of residents, politicians and civil servants is on a mission to address this global crisis while also protecting the island’s underground aquifer from the toxic chemicals that leach from plastics over time.
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his summer, the island will become the latest of a small group of towns in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts to ban single-use plastics. More comprehensive than the other laws in the state—the first of which was established by Concord in 2013—Nantucket’s ban goes beyond the commercial sale of single-use water bottles and includes nonrecyclable coffee pods, commercial cups and lids, straws and drink stirrers, plastic yokes on six packs and bottles, and non-compostable plates and utensils. “We just want Nantucket to be a safe place to grow up and live in terms of the water we use and drink,” said Bruce Mandel, the Madaket resident who filed the original citizen’s petition for the bylaw in October 2018. “The Town has always acknowledged that plastics represented a danger to our aquifer and water supply, and I hope this whole process establishes Nantucket as a leader on these issues.” When Mandel first launched the campaign, he wasn’t met with a lot of support. “But after I collected the hundred signatures needed, and it was voted on at the Special Town Meeting, the Town and the Select Board really jumped on board.” In the months following the bylaw’s passage, Town Manager Libby Gibson formed a working committee comprised of Mandel, Emily MacKinnon of the Nantucket Land Council, Kristie Ferrantella of the Nantucket Select Board and Chamber of Commerce, Rita Higgins of the Select Board, Rachel Hobart of ReMain Nantucket, as well “We just want Nantuckas a collection of et to be a safe place Town employees to grow up and live in terms of the water we including Public use and drink.” Outreach Manager — Bruce Mandel Florencia Rullo, Recycling and Solid Waste Coordinator Graeme Durovich and Health Director Roberto Santamaria. “It is our hope that by banning certain products, we will see fewer plastics littering our streets, clogging our landfill and contaminating the harbor and ocean,” Rachel Hobart said. “And, of equal importance, the 2020 ban illustrates to our year-round and seasonal communities that living without these plastics is easy and impactful, even on an individual level. We want to change people’s habits permanently—no matter where they shop or live.” While the island’s major retailers have been receptive to introducing alternative products and services to their shelves, there have been inevitable challenges. “Businesses have definitely felt the difficulty of trying to find appropriate alternatives for products they’re currently selling,” Kristie Fer-
Bruce Mandel
Kristie Ferrantella
Rita Higgins
rantella said. “But even now, you’ll see a lot of the businesses and coffee shops have already adapted. These companies are looking at the big picture, too.” Choosing new products wisely is important. Some products that appear to be eco-friendly can actually be
“It is our hope that by banning certain products,we will see fewer plastics littering our streets, clogging our landfill and contaminating the harbor and ocean.” — Rachel Hobart
reuse, repair and refill, so we are getting a lot more use out of items that will eventually end up in the landfill.” Durovich explained that the Town is currently in the middle of a contract with Waste Options to handle operations at the dump and landfill facilities through 2025. Almost all of Nantucket’s refuse is shipped off-island, some ending up buried as far away as Ohio. The only refuse that stays on-island are the plastics and other non-biodegradable materials that end up making their way through the facility’s large composter. This machine heats up much of the island’s biodegradable waste to 160 degrees for three days before turning it into viable soils, fertilizers and mulching materials. While Bruce Mandel is certainly pleased with how his fledgling campaign has taken off since he first proposed it two years ago, the Madaket resident still believes the ban hasn’t gone far enough. In the years to come, he hopes that other insidious
for the environment.” “At the end of the day, “The ban is not geared we are just asking all toward the public, but it is these folks to join us in really a message to take a the effort to reduce the step back and think about use of plastics on the island and in our lives...” waste management on — Janet Schulte Nantucket,” said Graeme Durovich, who manages the single-use plastics like nips found in Town’s recycling program and plays liquor stores will also be prohibited. a strategic role in how Nantucket As with his fellow committee memmanages what happens to its solid bers, Mandel hopes Nantucket will waste. “The landfill and recycling serve as an example for towns offcenter are the last options available island and beyond. Because when to us, so we’re encouraging people it comes to preserving the beauty of to think about this as an opportunity Mother Nature, a little plastic surto get away from this ‘single use’ gery will go a long way. and disposable mentality. We should be thinking about how to repurpose,
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just as bad or worse for the environment than the plastics they are replacing. For example, boxed water that’s been marketed as an alternative to single-use bottles contains other petroleumbased waxes and metals that are extremely difficult to break down. With that in mind, Ferrantella said that consumers should look for their own alternatives to plastic water bottles, like the aluminum bottles that the Town and a number of nonprofits will be giving out for free. These aluminum bottles can then be filled at new water stations and fountains that the Town is in the process of installing. “At the end of the day, we are just asking all these folks to join us in the effort to reduce the use of plastics on the island and in our lives, no matter if you’re a retailer, resident or even a visitor,” said Janet Schulte, the Town’s director of Culture and Tourism, who has helped educate the community through flyers, email blasts and in-person meetings. This call for citizen participation high-
lights a key distinction of the new bylaw, namely that it only governs commercial operations such as retailers, restaurants, nonprofits and food vendors/caterers. The bylaw does not prohibit residents from buying bottled water and other banned single-use plastics through Amazon or other off-island retailers. “People still have to make the choice to conserve and preserve Nantucket for themselves,” Libby Gibson said. “We’ve received strong support with only a little resistance from some businesses at first, but most people understand that this is going to be good for the island and
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Support the ISland you love donate to the nantuCKet Fund For eMergenCy relIeF A COVID – 19 Response Fund
The Nantucket Fund for Emergency Relief makes grants to alleviate the immediate and long-term needs stemming from the COVID-19 crisis. As this pandemic continues to impact Nantucket, the importance of this fund is clear. Our grant making is a vital resource to our human service organizations and year-round community. INVEST IN THE NANTUCKET FUND FOR EMERGENCY RELIEF INVEST IN NANTUCKET MAKE A DIFFERENCE TODAY
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Community Foundation for Nantucket www.cfnan.org PO Box 204 508-825-9993
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IN THE FACE OF COVID-19, NANTUCKETERS ANSWER THE CALL OF DUTY
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orking on Nantucket has always required enduring extremes. The feast or famine dynamic of the island’s seasonal economy puts tremendous demand on its residents who earn the majority of their yearly income in a matter of months. When the coronavirus gripped Nantucket in early spring, islanders were already in a particularly vulnerable position. They had waited all winter to start working again, and now just as the season was about to kick off, they were forced to stay home.
The tremendous sacrifices countless people made for the sake of the community exemplify Nantucket exceptionalism, which might just prove to be the reason why the island emerges from this pandemic as healthy as possible. At the same time, while many people sheltered in their homes, others responded to the call of duty with inspiring resolve. Here are just some of the countless Nantucketers who have stood tall to serve the community.
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DR. DIANE PEARL NANTUCKET COTTAGE HOSPITAL Dr. Diane Pearl didn’t have a chance to think about what her leadership style might be serving as Chief Medical Officer at the Nantucket Cottage Hospital. “The position came about very unexpectedly,” Dr. Pearl said. “It happened within seconds of CEO Gary Shaw wanting someone in this position at his side when we started to see that trouble was on the horizon with the coronavirus.” During their last face-to-face medical staff meeting in March, Dr. Pearl was nominated for the position by one of her colleagues and she accepted. “Within days of that, the world shut down,” Dr. Pearl said. “Everything changed, and we have just not been able to look back.” Born and raised on Nantucket, Dr. Pearl ran her own private practice for twenty years before joining the ranks of the Massachusetts General Physicians Organization in 2009. Specializing in internal medicine, primary care, cardiology, oncology, infectious disease and geriatrics, Dr. Pearl served as physician unit chief at Nantucket Cottage Hospital. Yet no amount of experience could have prepared anyone for quarterbacking a medical staff fighting a global pandemic at a rural hospital on an island thirty miles out to sea. “It’s been nonstop trying to prepare Nantucket and the hospital for what was coming our way,” Dr. Pearl said. “But it has been really gratifying how this team and these people have worked together seamlessly without any discord or disgruntlement. It’s been a lot of work for everybody, but I’m overwhelmed by just how enthusiastic and helpful everyone on this team has been.” Each day begins with reviewing new policies, new procedures, new protective equipment
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ROBERTO SANTAMARIA NANTUCKET HEALTH DEPARTMENT
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Roberto Santamaria was one of the very first town officials to sound the alarm about the coronavirus’s potentially catastrophic impact on Nantucket. As the town’s director of public health, Santamaria was trained as an epidemiologist and recognized the lethal damage the virus could wreak on the island all the way back in December. Monitoring the global situation alongside Nantucket’s emergency management coordinator Brendan Coakley throughout January, Santamaria helped mobi-
recommendations and new guidance on how to treat, test and prevent the disease. These updates happen overnight, sometimes hour to hour. Along with focusing on how to test and treat COVID-19 patients while staying safe themselves, Dr. Pearl and her team also grapple with how to treat patients not impacted by the coronavirus. In leading the medical teams through these uncharted waters, Dr. Pearl has empowered those around her to lean into their expertise. “I have found quickly that asking for the advice or input from people in each specialty when forming a policy is really effective,” she described. For instance, after building their drivethrough COVID-19 screening clinic, Dr. Pearl has continued to rely on the three physicians assistants who run the operation to fine-tune the process as they deem fit. “Because they are doing it and they would have the best insights,” she said. As for Nantucket as a whole, Pearl points to the actions taken earlier as part of the island’s success in flattening the curve and preventing a surge in the hospital. “I fully expect that we’re still going to have quite a busy summer,” Dr. Pearl said. “But practicing social distancing, wearing masks, washing our hands, and following the very simple strategies might allow us to go through the rest of the summer without a surge of cases of this virus.”
lize a meeting with the police chief, the fire chief, and the hospital on the fourth of February that set in motion the island’s preventative measures. This was at a time when there were only ten confirmed cases in the country, long before the federal or state government had acted in any significant way. Thanks to this decisive leadership early on, Nantucket is facing a much different prognosis today than most other communities in the country. “We put so many brakes on this that instead of flattening the curve, we bulldozed it,” Santamaria said at the end of April. “The proof was in the pudding as we went twenty-two days without a case.” Santamaria has emerged as a trusted voice for the community by regularly serving as the host of Nantucket Pulse, a broadcast on NCTV made possible by the Nantucket Cottage Hospital Community Health Initiative.
TESSANDRA de ALBERDI FAIRWINDS - NANTUCKET’S COUNSELING CENTER Even before the coronavirus hit, Tessandra de Alberdi and her team at Fairwinds— Nantucket’s Counseling Center already had a waitlist for their critical mental health, addiction, and family services due to the long winter season. Yet as the virus gripped the island, demand rose and de Alberdi anticipates it will continue to do so, potentially skyrocketing. “There’s been an increase in crisis,” de Alberdi said. “People who were working on sobriety have been tested and there have been many relapses. Those who were isolated and depressed previously, now feel that it’s unbearable and we’ve had some very close calls.” She and her team have also witnessed an increase in protective services required for situations of domestic violence, neglect, and sexual abuse due to sheltering in place. Moreover, islanders who have never sought out Fairwinds now find themselves desperate for someone to talk to.
To meet this critical need, de Alberdi and her team have made all their clinicians available virtually on a HIPAA compliant digital platform where they offer free online support groups and flexible appointments— and they are taking on new clients. “There’s a lot of research out of the UK that tele-health can be as effective or more so for many people,” de Alberdi says. “As long as you’re still having that eye contact and you’re slowing down to make this a priority, it can be a wonderful connection.” Indeed, as de Alberdi expects the need to continue to grow, telehealth will be a lifesaver. In addition to their virtual counseling services, Fairwinds has been collaborating with Faregrounds restaurant to provide meals to their clients by way of the Community Foundation’s Nantucket Fund for Emergency Relief. Yet while serving the community, Fairwinds itself is in need of support. With the canceling of its summer fundraisers and the closing of the Seconds Shop, the thrift store on Sparks Ave that helps underwrite free services and general operating costs, donations are more vital now than ever to allow Fairwinds to continue meeting the emerging mental health needs on the island.
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Though optimistic, Santamaria insists that Nantucket’s work is hardly finished. As the island’s population prepares to surge and as the economy comes back online, the need for vigilance will be that much greater. Without a vaccine or any proven therapies, Nantucketers will need to operate with a whole playbook that Santamaria and the Town leadership are developing each day. Along with social distancing measures remaining in effect at least through the fall, Santamaria anticipates stringent policies around occupancy, workplace protocols, and civic behavior. While he sometimes faces harsh scrutiny from the business community that is eager to reopen, Santamaria has faith that Nantucket will continue to follow the guidelines designed for the health and safety of the island. “The community has come together in a way that I’ve never seen before,” Santamaria said. “They’ve come together in a way that most people in the country will probably never see.”
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LINDA PETERSON NANTUCKET PUBLIC SCHOOLS FOOD SERVICES Linda Peterson is used to having a lot of little mouths to feed. For the last thirty years, she has worked as Nantucket Public Schools’ head of food services. Over that time, Peterson has overcome many unique obstacles to ensure that all island children get fed, occasionally even reaching into her own pocket to pay for their meals. But with the closing of schools due to the coronavirus, Peterson faced an entirely unprecedented set of circumstances in serving her little diners.
Along with the logistical challenges of safely distributing breakfast and lunch into the hands of children, the demand on her kitchen grew exponentially as more and more working families were forced to forgo paychecks. “With each passing week, we’ve seen new families in need,” Peterson said. “And they’re so grateful for these meals for their children.” The success of the breakfast and lunch program is a credit to Peterson’s quick thinking and innovative leadership. With many of her normal staff members forced to stay home due to their own vulnerabilities to the virus, Peterson sought out the assistance of Patrick Ridge, who had publically pledged that his restaurant Island Kitchen would help ensure that no child went hungry on Nantucket. While Ridge’s inspiring commitment was quick to grab headlines, Peterson continued working quietly behind the scenes. “Linda is really the unsung hero in all this,” Ridge said. Coordinating two new chefs whom Ridge sent over, Peterson created a whole process for cooking wholesome, healthy meals that she now distributes by way of Ridge’s Island Kitchen food trucks. As children pick up their lunches with their parents, Peterson is reminded every day that she and her team are a critical cornerstone of the island's food pyramid.
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WENDY HUDSON NANTUCKET BOOK PARTNERS & CISCO BREWERS
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When Wendy Hudson’s name first appeared on a seventeen-person committee tasked by Governor Charlie Baker to strategize the reopening of the Massachusetts economy, some people off-island might have wondered how a bookseller from Nantucket was appointed to such an important position. Yet beyond her work as the owner of Nantucket Book Partners and co-founder of Cisco Brewers, Hudson has been an influential advocate for small businesses for decades. She has served on a slew of local and state civic groups and retail organizations, from the Nantucket Chamber of Commerce where she served as president, to the Nantucket Planning and Economic Development Commission, to the Rural Policy Advisory Committee, to most recently, the Retailers Association of Massachusetts, among several others. “My interest has become more macro-level as I am very vocal about how policy decisions can disadvantage small businesses,” Hudson said. “My style is to try and get along with everyone while also pushing for progress…it helps that I’m in the beer business.”
Amid the coronavirus, Hudson has been living proof of the burdens being shouldered by small businesses. While participating in long committee meetings led by Lieutenant Governor Polito, Hudson has been the only one allowed in her stores to fulfill online orders at Nantucket Book Partners. “I am the small business person in this group who is still hands-on, day-to-day,” Hudson described. “While we are on these Zoom meetings, I am literally packing puzzles and books up to be shipped. So I can speak to the challenges of an owner.” Matched with her newly minted MBA from Babson and her decades of experience serving on state and local committees, Hudson has emerged an important champion for small businesses throughout Massachusetts as well as specifically on Nantucket. “I’ve been vocal about how fragile our seasonal economy is,” Hudson said, “and how close to the wire we’ve been getting.” During these committee meetings, where Hudson and her fellow delegates sit through dozens of presentations from trade organizations, some of the most pressing issues were related to child care, public transportation, and whether the state could play a role in ensuring that there is sufficient personal protective equipment for businesses to meet new safety requirements without taking away from the inventory needed at hospitals. In reopening the local economy, Hudson recognizes that Nantucket will be required to join the rest of the state under a unified standard of best practices and protocols for doing business as safely as possible—as opposed to having their own rules and regulations. This has been a topic Hudson has discussed with another delegation she serves on made up of representatives and business owners from the Cape and the Islands. On both committees, Hudson said, the sense of urgency has been palpable. “The stakes are so high right now,” she said. “The health risk is still great, yet everyone’s livelihoods have been thrown into question. I definitely feel the great responsibility of what we are doing.”
JONELLE GURLEY NANTUCKET HIGH SCHOOL With the mandatory statewide school closings in place for the remainder of the year due to COVID-19, Jonelle Gurley has held her high school science classes virtually through Zoom. Like countless other teachers on Nantucket and beyond, Gurley is tasked with teaching her lessons in honors chemistry and biology while also trying to help her students adjust to the new normal. “We are just driving this theme home that we are all in this together,” Gurley said. “It’s not normal for any of us.” Although not assigning tests or exams, she has continued to grade her students on the completion of their assignments. “For me, it’s more about the social-emotional balance of my kids, making sure they are checking in,” Gurley described. “A lot of the students really depend on that formal structure of the school day. Without that, it's hard to connect.” Teaching classes with an average of twenty-two students, Gurley has used Zoom to meet students individually who may speak English as a second language or who have special needs. During these sessions, she’s been inspired by their resiliency. “I don’t think these students get enough credit for the amount of grit that they do have,” Gurley said. “Our kids have a strong sense of self and that’s something I wish I had more of at their age.”
Jeanne Miller & Margaretta Andrews
COMMUNITY FOUNDATION OF NANTUCKET
est hit industries on Nantucket. “CFN can only provide funding to 501(c)3 organizations so we developed a program that partners nonprofits with restaurants serving food to help feed our community,” described Jeanne Miller, CFN’s program director. “This
helps both the restaurant workforce, who have been hit so hard during this time, and the clients, patients and constituents of our island’s nonprofits.” At press time, the Community Foundation had matched seven restaurants with seven human service nonprofits. Within the first week, the Food Relief Initiative had distributed a total of seven hundred meals. “The inspiration for this program came from the amazingly unselfish work of Or, Whale and the Sandbar, who fed our seniors in coordination with the Saltmarsh Center out of their own pockets for weeks,” said Margaretta Andrews, CFN’s executive director. “Our staff, primarily Jeanne Miller and Carlisle Jensen, are the driving forces behind this program, which has grown exponentially.” A subset of CFN’s Nantucket Fund for Emergency Relief, the Food Relief Initiative received a $100,000 pledge from an anonymous donor that could keep the program operating through the beginning of June. “The way things are going,” Andrews said, “there is every chance that we’ll need more funding.” Indeed, at press time, CFN had already reached out to a number of other nonprofits to create more of these restaurant partnerships. As seasonal residents seek ways to support the community during this incredibly challenging time, the Community Foundation’s Food Relief Initiative might just give them the biggest bang for their buck.
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Margaretta Andrews, Jeanne Miller, Carlisle Jensen and their entire team at the Community Foundation for Nantucket (CFN) are used to working quietly behind the scenes as a critical support system to more than one hundred island nonprofits. Yet in the face of the coronavirus, they’ve emerged on the frontlines, not only serving nonprofits but also one of the hard-
This spring marks four years since Gurley began teaching at Nantucket High School, which means her first-year students will be graduating this June. “It’s been incredible to see how much they have evolved and transformed, not just as students, but as young people,” Gurley said. “I’m probably going to cry a lot this year for the graduates. They are my first set of babies and, yep, they are growing up.” — Written by Rebecca Nimerfroh
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TRUE ROMANCE INTERVIEW BY ROBERT COCUZZO
PHOTOGRAPHY BY KIT NOBLE
How Elin Hilderbrand turned her love of Nantucket into a literary empire
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antucket has more than its fair share of famous writers. From David Halberstam to Russell Baker to Nathaniel Philbrick, there has never been a shortage of literary genius on the island. And yet few island authors have earned a fan base quite like Elin Hilderbrand. The New York Times bestseller has built a cottage industry producing page-turning novels set on the island. Penning each book by longhand on legal pads, Hilderbrand publishes two books every year, a bewildering pace for even the most prolific author. Despite her success, Hilderbrand says she still has much more to conquer and stories to tell.
N MAGAZINE: Tell us about first arriving on Nantucket. HILDERBRAND: My first summer on Nantucket was in 1993. I was writing my first “novel” that never saw the light of day. At that time, I was living in Manhattan and that’s where the novel was set — because in the nineties, all the big literary books were set in Manhattan. It was the era of Jay McInerney. My novel was called Girl Stuff and it was horrible. Thankfully, it’s gone forever. I could never have guessed at that time how important Nantucket would become to me and how it would come to define and inspire my writing career.
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"Would my novels be successful without Nantucket? No." — Elin Hilderbrand
N MAGAZINE: Your breakthrough appeared to happen
N MAGAZINE: Do you base some of your characters off of
relatively quickly with The Beach Club? HILDERBRAND: The Beach Club was my first published novel, but my breakout novel was my sixth book, Barefoot, which was published in 2007. My first five novels, published by St. Martin’s, were solidly mid-list, selling in the four figures. Back then, I had to pay for my own travel when I had an event where only a handful of people would show up. It was demoralizing. When my contract ended, my agent, Michael Carlisle—who grew up summering in his family’s home at 75 Main Street—insisted that we shop Barefoot around. I ended up at Little, Brown, and my life completely changed. They are responsible for my “Hilder-branding.” I remember in my first months at Little, Brown, the publisher, Michael Pietsch, said, “We are going to bring Elin Hilderbrand to the world.” I thought that was hyperbole. But they made it their mission to get me to the top and last summer, my novel Summer of ’69 debuted at No. 1 on The New York Times Best Sellers list, fulfilling a lifelong dream.
people on the island? And if so, have you ever had a bad reaction from someone who recognized themselves in one of your books? HILDERBRAND: Never, ever. Fiction is crafted to make narrative sense, and for this reason, real life and real people don’t fit. The notable exception is when I wrote my novel The Rumor. I was so sick of the rumor mill on Nantucket that I set out to write about it and include every single person who gossips on this island in the book. I did—but I had to change the “real people” so much to fit into the story that the only person who knows who they actually are…is me. And nobody has ever approached me to say they were upset about how they were portrayed in my book.
N MAGAZINE: You’ve attained a level of literary success that most writers don’t even dream about. What’s at the heart of your books that appeals to so many? HILDERBRAND: Two things: One is the portrayal of the uniquely American summertime that we have here on Nantucket. Two is flawed characters with humanity. They do terrible things but we love them anyway.
N MAGAZINE: Would your novels be as successful without
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being set on Nantucket? HILDERBRAND: Nantucket brings the long beach days, the outdoor showers, the farm truck selling tomatoes and bouquets of flowers on cobblestoned Main Street. It’s a summertime fantasy that most people can only dream of (or read about). Would my novels be successful without Nantucket? No.
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N MAGAZINE: What’s a misconception some people have about you or about your work? HILDERBRAND: Because my books have been characterized as “beach reads,” people think they’re “fluff” or even “trashy.” This used to bother me, but in recent years, the word people have chosen to use to describe my work is “escapist.” And that’s a word I embrace. The reader escapes to Nantucket, escapes into the lives (and troubles) of my characters. And who among us doesn’t need an escape these days. My readers are 93 percent female. My guess is that most men find them too “girly” or “feminine.” But I promise, if you like good fiction, no matter what your gender, you will get sucked into one of my books.
N MAGAZINE: Your readers will come far and wide to see you—including coming to Nantucket during the dead of winter to spend the weekend with you. How have you cultivated this following?
N MAGAZINE: Indeed, those weekends give a boost to the
tucket Hotel & Resort, Mark and Gwenn Snider, approached me to see if I would be willing to do an Elin Hilderbrand fan weekend. I said, “Okay, but no one will come.” We sold out in four days. I was undergoing treatment for breast cancer that year, and I had a huge complication that required multiple surgeries that fall. I had a surgery two days before
local economy during a time when it needs it most. Was that by design? HILDERBRAND: When we started the Elin Hilderbrand weekend, we had no idea the economic impact it would provide. Wow, have we learned! The women who come to the weekend come to experience and to spend (and, many of them, to drink). I think it
the weekend, so I was on Oxy the whole time, but I showed up and that was all that mattered. The weekend was a success. I’m thrilled to say it has only grown from there. This past January’s weekend was positively epic!
was year two or year three when the owners of island businesses started thanking me. For the past three years we’ve had nights that take place at island restaurants and a shop-n-sip that takes the attendees through downtown on Saturday afternoon.
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HILDERBRAND: Back in 2014, the owners of the Nan-
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HILDERBRAND: I am personally donating to the Nantucket Food Pantry and to the Food, Fuel and Rental Assistance Program because I worry greatly for the most vulnerable among us. All I can hope is that, in a larger sense, my books will bring visitors when we are once again ready for them. My readers tend to come in the shoulder season. I’ll often get a call from Rocky Fox at the Chicken Box saying he has a group of women from Kansas at the bar and can I please swing by? I’ll do anything for Rocky.
N MAGAZINE: Given the circumstances we find ourselves in today with the coronavirus, have you found yourself pondering any unexpected story ideas for the future?
The Sniders and I have made it a mission that the weekend be good for Nantucket as a whole. And I always feel I must point out: I do not get paid one penny for doing it. It’s a labor of love for my fans and for the island that has given me everything I have.
N MAGAZINE: Local businesses are going to need support now more than ever before. Do you have any ideas on how to give them a boost in the wake of the coronavirus?
"All I can hope is that, in a larger sense, my books will bring visitors when we are once again ready for them."
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— Elin Hilderbrand
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HILDERBRAND: I have no plans for a coronavirus storyline. I feel oversaturated with news about the virus and it’s only been a month…
N MAGAZINE: Are there any other literary genres that you’d be interested in trying your hand at? HILDERBRAND: I’m thinking about a long-con thriller set out in Pocomo—like The Talented Mr. Ripley—but I’m not sure I can pull it off. I’m friends with James Patterson and have toyed with asking him to write it with me. We’ll see.
N MAGAZINE: You’ve experienced your fair share of trauma and tragedy in your life. How has writing served as a catharsis?
HILDERBRAND: When I was undergoing treatment for cancer, writing gave me something to do, something to focus on. It was my normal. I didn’t have to think of myself as a person with cancer. I could just be myself: a writer on deadline as always, who also happened to be undergoing treatment for cancer. I used
"My dealings with Hollywood thus far have been frustrating." — Elin Hilderbrand
to take my legal pads to my appointments at Mass General and write while I was waiting for my medical oncologist (Dr. Steve Isakoff—he’s a wonderful doctor and now a friend, but he always runs late!).
N MAGAZINE: What can you tell us about any television series or movies being developed from your books? HILDERBRAND: My dealings with Hollywood thus far have been frustrating. The deal at Hulu for three books fell through. I think the best way to put it is: they just weren’t that into me. That script is brilliant (written by André and Maria Jacquemetton of Mad Men) but has hit the dead letter office. I have a script for The Perfect Couple
that is being developed by Side Car Entertainment. It was slated to go to Fox, but then Fox got a show in about Martha’s Vineyard that they went with instead, so that script is being packaged and shopped around. This is the kind of thing that happens all the time. I’m just trying to be both patient and hopeful. I have two projects that are in development that I can’t even talk about. The good thing for me is I have a lot of material.
N MAGAZINE: 28 Summers comes out this month. What can you tell us about this next book? What should your fans look forward to? HILDERBRAND: 28 Summers is my favorite of any book I’ve ever written. It’s a reimagining of the classic play/movie Same Time, Next Year. A couple meets on Nantucket in the summer of 1993 and then meets every summer up until 2020. The twist: The man is married to a woman who is running for president in this year’s election. The book has lots of great pop culture references from the past three decades, and there are cameo appearances by characters from my other books. People who have lived or summered on Nantucket for the past twenty-seven years will like the references to the way things “used to be.”
N MAGAZINE: What goals are still on your docket?
HILDERBRAND: The last thing I’d like to do before I retire is see one of my novels make it to the screen—big or little, I’m not picky. When or if that happens, I will make sure that the Nantucket we know and love is represented authentically. No one cares about the character and the history and the rich, textured fabric of this island more than I do. I am 100 percent Team Nantucket.
N MAGAZINE: How is Nantucket’s literary community different than what you encounter elsewhere? HILDERBRAND: I can’t stress enough how special and extraordinary Nantucket is, how authentic, how singular. I’m writing (and living) in a place that people dream their whole lives of visiting. Those qualities extend to the Nantucket Book Festival. I’ve been to many a book festival across the country—Savannah, Miami, Winston-Salem—and with
"I can’t stress enough how special and extraordinary Nantucket is, how authentic, how singular." — Elin Hilderbrand
all due respect to those festivals, the Nantucket festival stands head and shoulders above. I’m biased, I know, but I give the NBF an A-plus and it’s been that way since the very first year.
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DISCUSSION INTERVIEW BY BRUCE A. PERCELAY
One of the world’s most powerful hoteliers weighs in on the future of the hospitality industry
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arry Sternlicht is credited with having revolutionized the hotel industry. Creating emotional connections with his consumers, Sternlicht’s hotels have raised the bar throughout the hospitality business and have made him one of its most influential figures. In the wake of the coronavirus, Sternlicht has emerged a vocal thought leader as to how the economy should reopen. Most recently, he was enlisted by a White House committee tasked with strategizing how to put
the country back to work. Having spent close to forty years summering on Nantucket, Sternlicht is also keenly aware of the challenges the island faces in the months to come. N Magazine spoke with him during the last week of April to get his insights on the future of the hospitality industry, the economy as a whole, and what Nantucket could look like a year from now.
N MAGAZINE: The hotel business is certainly in the
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crosshairs of the coronavirus. The effect of COVID-19 on the hospitality business is catastrophic. How does the industry right itself after this? STERNLICHT: The nation is now split into the pessimists and the optimists. Some people think we’re going to change our habits forever. I’m not one of those people. I think Americans are blessed and cursed with a short-term memory. People will go back to the way they were. The other question is: How long does it take to get there? The first thing that will come back are the drive-to hotels. In favor of Nantucket, vacations will be favored over business travel. But then that means a whole bunch of things have to change along the route, from the house to the hotel. How do they get there? Do they feel safe on the plane? Were they temperature-tested? Was everyone wearing a mask? But I think this will pass. I’m going to hold onto that hope, because there’s no reason to be pessimistic about it. Because if [the pessimistic view is] true, then we’re headed toward the Great Depression, because the service industry employs something like 35 million people, whether it’s in restaurants or hospitality or cruise ships or airlines.
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Photo courtesy of The Nantucket Project
N MAGAZINE: How do you think hotels will need to adjust when they reopen? STERNLICHT: In the beginning, hotels are going to learn to operate with 35, 45, 55 percent occupancies. We will learn new ways to clean and disinfect. But everyone’s going to do something to restore and instill confidence with the whole value chain. I urge the entire industry to come up with one standard. It’s silly for Marriott to have one cleaning program and Hilton to have theirs and for us to have our own. Everyone should get together to standardize these practices and make them consistent. Because it’s consistency that breeds confidence.
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"The nation is now split into the pessimists and the optimists. Some people think we’re going to change our habits forever. I’m not one of those people." — Barry Sternlicht
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"We have to open. We don’t really have a choice in my view. Otherwise you could see a disaster scenario for the U.S. hotel industry." — Barry Sternlicht
don’t have the resources to not be open. They’ll have to figure out how they can break even at 30, 40, 50 percent occupancy. So we have to open. We don’t really have a choice in my view. Otherwise you could see a disaster scenario for the U.S. hotel industry. Yes, that would be an opportunity for us to buy assets, but I’d rather not see that happen because that means there will be such destruction in the economy that we won’t recognize the country.
N MAGAZINE: How do you think this compares to the Great
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N MAGAZINE: The hospitality business at large has a
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lot of highly leveraged operators where the failure rate in hotels could be as high as 50 percent nationally. That’s both a problem and an opportunity. Do you believe that the hotel business will be decimated to that extent? STERNLICHT: I’ve said that this is World War III for three months and we’re about halfway through that. If we don’t reopen, yes, the hotels will fail. Looking at my own hotels that are closed today, it’s one thing not to pay interest expenses, but we still have to pay real estate taxes, insurance comp and maintenance expenses. We have to keep our hotels and systems operating. So it’s not net zero—we are actually losing money. We tried to pay our employee benefits for as long as we could, so they could get their healthcare even while they weren’t employed. It’s a huge cash drain, and the average hotel owner probably doesn’t have that kind of money. Every Holiday Inn in the United States is owned by a family, usually with the family working there. They
Depression? STERNLICHT: I had a conversation with Charlie Munger from Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway a couple days ago on a Zoom video. He’s ninety-six, so you can actually ask him what it was like during the Great Depression. He said that years into the Great Depression, you just didn’t have any idea how anyone was going to get a job. But right now, you know exactly how people are going to get a job. They’re going to go back to the job they left, whether it was in the hotel, airline, restaurant, cleaners, barbershop or the gym. And so the question is, what’s the pace of getting them back to work?
N MAGAZINE: Other than the major drop when the virus hit, the stock market has rebounded substantially. You’ll see headlines that are dire, and then you’ll see the market go up. Is there a disconnect or is the collective wisdom of the stock market telling us something? STERNLICHT: On March 13th, I said the stock market would rocket up. I had no idea I’d be so right about that. It’s rallied further and faster than I would have thought. I cited five reasons and I think they’re all in play. Interest rates are as low as they’ve ever been in U.S. history, which means there is no place to put cash except maybe in the stock market. Oil prices were down then and have crashed since then. Then you have global stimulus where there has been something like 380 stimulus packages passed around the world. The world is swimming in cash and all that money has to go somewhere. It’s going into debt and
equities, and it’s inflating the value of stocks again. Then, it’s the flu and it’s going to pass. The market has decided [the coronavirus is] going to pass faster than most of us think. They look at China, at Spain, at Italy, at France and see that it’s got an eight- to twelveweek life cycle. Finally, you have technology. I hear these guys go on TV and talk about the Spanish flu in 1918. Think about the technology in 1918 compared to the technology a hundred years later. We have all the world’s laboratories and scientists and doctors combining resources to find either a vaccine or a cure or both. The odds of them succeeding faster than we think are quite high. I think the collective wisdom of the market is that, “yeah, earnings are going to be down, probably really down for a while, but coming out of this, it could be like a spaceship.” I don’t see that by the way. I think the market is ahead of itself. People aren’t quite internalizing the damage.
N MAGAZINE: America is
N MAGAZINE: What is going to be critical to keeping
Barry Sternlicht is a regular speaker at The Nantucket Project.
people safe as we reopen? STERNLICHT: Tracking is so important because of the delay in getting this disease. I was speaking with a technology executive a couple nights ago, and we had this discussion about technology where you could be at a dinner party and then two weeks later somebody at the dinner party gets COVID-19. This technology could send you an email and say, “You were in contact with somebody who had COVID-19. You should get yourself tested.” It won’t identify you. It won’t even tell you where
"The nation is now split into the pessimists and the optimists. Some people think we’re going to change our habits forever. I’m not one of those people." — Barry Sternlicht
you came in contact with that person to protect identities. It will just have your GPS code on your phone and will just say: “You should go get tested.” Americans don’t like having their privacy invaded, but this is something that should almost be required. If we’re going to continue to be panicked about this, then we should track. They’re doing it in China and it’s probably one of the smartest things we can do.
N MAGAZINE: The summer that we’re facing on Nantucket is going to be unlike any summer that maybe we’ve ever had. A year from now, how do you see life on Nantucket? STERNLICHT: I think next summer will be fine. As I said, I come from the optimistic school. I think it will be more or less back to normal. The hysteria will die down and this will go into the bag as a really, really bad flu. Nantucket is going be great. It’s a spectacular place. I expect people will stay a little longer, and I can’t wait to get to the island.
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known for its exceptionalism. Are you disappointed with the fact that the United States was not more prepared, and is probably a lot worse off than a number of lesser developed countries in the world? STERNLICHT: Yeah, I’m devastated. It’s ridiculous. We had a pandemic council under Bush, and then they basically disbanded it under Obama. Of course, Trump had his own cuts to the health care system. George W. Bush gave a speech about pandemics where he said this was going to happen. In a multi-trillion-dollar budget, you’d think we could find some money to prepare the country.
It’s unconscionable that we let this happen. But it kind of goes to one of our weaknesses: our short-termism. We did a terrible job, just terrible. When the flu hit, we knew about it and we didn’t do anything about it. We could have at least prepared the masks and the ventilators and the low-tech stuff that we could prepare in the trillions if we had done it on time. We knew it was coming; we just ignored it.
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r. Peter Slavin has become a national voice regarding COVID-19, having appeared regularly on a variety of network news outlets. As president of Mass General Hospital, Dr. Slavin is in a unique position to provide commentary on the progression of the coronavirus and shared his latest thoughts on the disease with N Magazine during a discussion at the end of April.
N MAGAZINE: Nantucket has been largely
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CHECKUP N magazine
INTERVIEW BY BRUCE A. PERCELAY
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PHOTOGRAPHY BY JONATHAN NIMERFROH
Massachusetts General Hospital president Dr. Peter Slavin diagnoses the current state of the coronavirus in Massachusetts
spared of the virus, but the summer is upon us and the island’s population will swell. What do you foresee for a native population that has largely sidestepped COVID-19 when people from all over the country arrive? SLAVIN: Nantucket is a special, unusual situation relative to the rest of the country. It has a terrific new hospital, but a hospital that still doesn’t have the capacity to care for large numbers of COVID-19 patients, particularly the ones that are very sick and require ventilators. So if an outbreak of significance occurred on Nantucket, not only could it potentially overwhelm the hospital, but it would require lots of patients to be transferred off the island—and how easy or difficult that would be I guess depends on what’s happening on the mainland at the time. So Nantucket, although as you said has been relatively spared by this disease, is a potentially vulnerable place, if the disease were really to take off. Gary Shaw, the head of the hospital, has been making these points laying out the risk that exists. Ultimately, it’s up to the leadership of the town to determine what it wants to do in light of those risks. The decisions that are made on the island about how to manage COVID-19 and prevent an outbreak just need to take what healthcare capabilities exist on the island into significant account.
N MAGAZINE: Massachusetts’ infection numbers seem stubbornly high. Are you surprised by that? SLAVIN: There are two aspects of your question. One is that Massachusetts has more cases than you might expect based on our population, which is probably due to a couple of reasons. We think the BioGen conference spread this pretty heavily in the community. We also are an international destination and have people from Asia and Europe coming here. Because of those things, I don’t think it’s a big surprise that our cases are on the high side. And in addition to that, we’ve done more testing than a lot of other states on a per capita basis, so we’re finding more cases than they are. In terms of how rapidly the number of cases of hospital admissions are coming down, this is not unusual. I mean, sometimes pandemics or epidemics like this will fall off very quickly, but there are also models that show that they fall off much more gradually. I think we are sort of at or slightly beyond the peak of this wave here in the state of Massachusetts, but that the numbers are coming down gradually and will probably continue to come down gradually over the coming weeks.
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you do with reopening. What industries reopen? What people are allowed to reengage in their activities? Younger people, people without medical comorbidities? What kind of personal protective equipment (PPE) do you use in all these different settings? What kind of physical distancing do you use? So there are countless issues to be sorted out and I’m glad the governor has created a committee and advisory board to advise him on the subject. Our head of infectious diseases is one of the people serving on that group.
N MAGAZINE: What are your thoughts on colleges opening?
SLAVIN: It does seem iffy. We’ll know more in the next month or two that can inform those decisions, but having lots of kids together in college dorms and classrooms shouldn’t happen right now. Whether it will make sense come the early fall, I just don’t know.
N MAGAZINE: What good has come out of this crisis? SLAVIN: There are a number of silver linings in this pandemic. The use of online learning as a whole field has been advanced dramatically. Similarly, in medicine, the use of telemedicine has been advanced dramatically. Prior to this pandemic, less than 1 percent of our outpatient visits were happening via telemedicine. As we sit here today, 83 percent of our
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now as to when we would be ready to open up? SLAVIN: Part of the answer to the question is how much risk are you willing to take? Clearly if all you cared about was preventing COVID-19 infections and COVID-19 deaths, then you would keep everybody locked down until a vaccine was available in eighteen months or hopefully sooner. That obviously is not possible; our economy
would implode. The social, political and health care unrest that that would cause is unfathomable, so we can’t do that. So, the question is how much risk are you willing to take for the sake of maintaining our society in some fashion? I think the countries that have waited until the number of cases in the community spread is relatively small have tended to do better. We need to wait for our curve to get substantially lower than it is now. And then there is a series of complicated questions about what do
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outpatient visits are being delivered virtually over the internet. And patients love it, doctors love it. It’s more convenient, doesn’t require commuting into Boston, and doesn’t require us to use PPE. When this is over, that 83 percent is certainly not going to return to 1 percent. Telemedicine is here to stay.
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SLAVIN: COVID-19 is a clinical con-
dition that people are experiencing, yet the name of the virus is called SARS-CoV-2. That virus is very infectious and also N MAGAZINE: From what I understand, Mass General is still quite deadly. It’s “I think we are sort of not doing elective surgeries. What do hospitals do now probably at least at or slightly beyond with all of this extra medical capacity? the peak of this wave ten times more here in the state of SLAVIN: A significant amount of it has been redeployed. deadly than the Massachusetts.” It was written up in The Boston Globe that our chief influenza that we — Peter Slavin of orthopedics has been serving as a scribe in one of experience. It’s not our respiratory infection clinics that sees and screens as deadly as SARS COVID-19 patients. As I round the various wards where COVID-19 patients or MERS, but it’s a pretty nasty are cared for, we have neurologists, radiologists and people who do outpatient virus. Now, there are obviously large numbers of cases that have been documented in this country. The numbers in the country are over a million, and the numbers here in Massachusetts are forty thousand, if I recall correctly. Those numbers sound very big, but if you look at them as a percentage of the population, nationally it’s about 0.3 percent. Now, medicine helping out on the inpatient units under the supervision of people who we know that those numbers are an do inpatient medical care full-time. And that’s also true for nursing staff as well. underestimate because there are a Although we’ve been very busy with COVID-19, we continue to see other medlot of people who have never had ical emergencies; we do emergency surgery, so there is a fair amount of other symptoms with the disease who clinical activity going on within the hospital that physicians in those areas are have had it, and there are people performing as well. who have had symptoms that never got tested who have had it. So how N MAGAZINE: There’s already talk of a second wave when the first wave hasn’t even many people at this point have been finished yet. What is your take on this notion that there will be a second wave? infected is significantly higher than
0.3 percent. The highest estimate we’ve seen in any population is in Chelsea where we’ve been doing some testing work—it’s probably about 30 percent. To achieve herd immunity— which is basically what’s necessary for the virus to slow down in transmission to really decrease dramatically—you need to get to
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way of saying I think COVID-19 is going to be around for a while. Once we’re over this wave, we need to not do anything that allows another wave of even greater magnitude to develop, because there are certainly enough unexposed people in the population for “I think COVID-19 is going that to be possible. We to be around for a while. just need to stay on top of Once we’re over this wave, it, do contact tracing and we need to not do anything a whole bunch of other that allows another wave of even greater things to prevent that In this particular crisis, our staff magnitude to develop.” disastrous situation from is applying clinical expertise as — Peter Slavin unfolding—as if what it has in the past, but the fear that we’ve been through isn’t is in the minds of our healthcare about 60 percent or 70 percent. disastrous enough. staff is about what impact this is There are two ways to get there: going to have on them. Are they One is through a vaccine, which N MAGAZINE: Is COVID-19 likely to going to contract the disease? Are would be the most desirable way. become a part of our lives? they going to spread it to their The other way is for people to SLAVIN: I think COVID-19 is going family? That adds a dimension to get infected, which is obviously to be around for the foreseeable this that is challenging for them. less desirable. So until a vaccine future. Whether that is up to a It’s the same challenge that people arrives, we just need to make sure year from now, I just don’t that the number of people infected know. I think we are certain“Until a vaccine arrives, at any given point in time does not ly looking at it being around we just need to make overwhelm the health care system. probably through the end of sure that the number We need to particularly protect this calendar year. If we’re of people infected at any older people and people with cocareful, hopefully we won’t given point in time does not overwhelm the morbid conditions who are particexperience anything like healthcare system.” ularly vulnerable to the ravages of we’ve been through in — Peter Slavin this virus. recent months. If you look at all the deaths in Massachusetts, only 5 percent N MAGAZINE: Healthcare workers who are in the military face on of them have come from people have become the real heroes a regular basis. Certainly during fifty-nine years of age or younger. here. What can you say about my lifetime, healthcare workers Ninety-five percent of the deaths their performance? have generally never faced these have occurred in people sixty and SLAVIN: What’s unusual about this kinds of clinical situations where older, so we just need to be particsituation is that we’re used to their own welfare is so starkly on ularly careful about exposing older responding to disasters or crises the line. It’s a defining moment in folks to the disease. like the Boston Marathon bombour lifetimes. Hopefully, we’ll be This is a long-winded ing or the Station nightclub fire. proud of how we handled it.
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One island, one economy. Let’s keep it solid. Visit KeepTheRockSolid.com to play your part. N magazine
It takes an island.
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ideas • investments • initiatives
ACK SAVES is a privately funded community initiative established by year-round and seasonal Nantucket residents to help serve the immediate and emergent financial needs of our individual islanders and their families during and in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic and Nantucket’s subsequent Stay at Home order. A charitable fund has been established with the Community Foundation for Nantucket, and donor support will be pooled within this fund to be distributed to those in need through the Nantucket Food Fuel and Rental Assistance Program.
A heartfelt thanks.
www.acksaves.org
www.cfnan.org
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To join our team to save our friends or for more information visit www.acksaves.org.
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NDEPTH
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The
AVIATOR
WRITTEN BY ROBERT COCUZZO
PHOTOGRAPHY COURTESY OF THE SNOW FAMILY
How one of the greatest American pilots landed on Nantucket
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ate last fall, a single prop plane crashed on a makeshift runway on the island of Muskeget, west of Nantucket. Although the incident was kept out of the papers, many of those who caught wind of the story were surprised to learn that this tiny spit of sand even had a runway to begin with. Despite being entirely uninhabited, save for a rickety beach shack and thousands of gray seals, the “Muskeget Island Airport” is indeed registered with the Federal Aviation Administration and the International Air Transportation Association. Yet what makes this bumpy stretch of beach grass even more fascinating is the fact that it once belonged to one of the most storied aviators in American history. Today, more than two-thirds of Muskeget Island remain in the possession of Crocker Snow Jr., a former international correspondent for The Boston Globe and Newsweek who is also a featured author at this June’s virtual Nantucket Book Festival. Snow is the foremost expert on Muskeget, having written several books about the island’s unique ecology and history that has been sewn into his own family’s lore. He first sighted Muskeget from the co-pilot seat of his father’s single-engine plane in 1947. His father, Crocker Snow Sr., had managed to buy the island as a duck hunting retreat and created the airstrip that remains today. While owning an island might seem an extraordinary feat, it is but a minor footnote in a high-flying life of adventure that would land Crocker Snow Sr. in the annals of aviation history.
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Next came the woman. As the sun was setting over the airfield, she took off, performed a big arc across the horizon, and then made for the runway. Snow must have winced as the woman landed the plane with all the grace of a sack of potatoes—but she landed! The feat won him that $1,000 prize and local acclaim—but it wouldn’t be the last headline connected with his name. As he soared over Massachusetts throughout the 1920s, Snow flew many passengers, but none became more famous than a social worker from Boston’s Denison House that he picked up one afternoon. Amelia Earhart asked Snow to fly her over the city to drop leaflets advertising a fundraiser she was promoting for the Denison House. He agreed and the next day Earhart’s name was plastered across The Boston Globe on account of her flight with Snow. Four years later, Earhart flew into the history books by becoming the first woman to complete a transatlantic flight. As for Snow, he Crocker Snow Sr. was a decorated World War II pilot.
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orn in Buzzards Bay a year after the Wright brothers made their first successful flight in Kitty Hawk, Snow Sr. had aviation in his blood. He grew up idolizing his older brothers, both of whom became pilots. His eldest brother, Bill, flew antisubmarine missions during World War I while his closest brother, Kick, served in the Air National Guard. Kick and Crocker built their own open-cockpit Avro biplane together, in which Crocker would sit co-pilot as Kick soared them over Massachusetts. But after Crocker went off to study law at Harvard, Kick tragically crashed and became the first fatality ever recorded at Logan Airport. With his idol gone, Crocker Snow dropped out of Harvard and pledged to fulfill his late brother’s dream of becoming a decorated aviator. After having his pilot’s license signed by none other than Orville Wright, Snow was quick to make a name for himself in aviation. He challenged a local newspaper—The Boston Traveler—$1,000 that he could teach two random people in a crowd to fly and land a plane in a single day—completely on their own. The Traveler took the bet and ran a promotion in the paper. Sure enough, Snow pulled a man and a woman out of the crowd gathered at a Massachusetts airfield and spent the day teaching them to fly. By late afternoon, he felt confident enough in the man’s abilities to send him up by himself. The man took off and landed without incident.
went on to launch Massachusetts’ first commercial airline— Skyways—before being named the first director of aeronautics in Massachusetts in 1939. Then came World War II. The mortality rate of the early B-29 bombers in World War II was horrific. Whether flying bombing missions or test flights, hundreds of pilots were killed in crashes every single day. What made the B-29 Superfortress so lethal, both to the enemies and pilots alike, was that it could climb to 31,000 feet where Japanese Zeroes couldn’t reach. Despite soaring at altitudes that required pilots to don oxygen masks, the B-29s could still theoretically drop bombs with astounding accuracy. As a flight commander in the Air Force, Snow literally represented the tip of the spear on these bombing raids over Japan. With the fleet of B-29s off either wing, Snow piloted the lead plane taking off from Saipan in the Northern Mariana Islands. During one of these early raids, the American aces were targeting a ball-bearing factory south of Tokyo. When they got within a hundred miles of the target, Snow commanded his navigator to begin the bombing sequence, but they couldn’t get the bomb doors open. Confounded but undeterred, Snow
Yet what makes this bumpy stretch of beach grass even more fascinating is the fact that it once belonged to one of the most storied aviators in American history.
looped the whole fleet around, descended to a lower altitude, and then manually dropped the bombs using dead reckoning. When they returned to the base to debrief, Snow and his team deduced why the bomb doors wouldn’t open. At that high altitude, they’d discovered a mysterious wind speed, which later became known as the jet stream. Snow flew twenty bombing missions during World War II, but one in particular changed the course of humanity. Five teams of B-29s were selected for a covert mission designed to put an end to the war. While Snow’s team was ultimately not chosen to drop the atomic bomb on Nagasaki, he did accompany the bombardiers on that fateful flight, soaring behind them in a separate plane to provide
(Clockwise from top left) Snow and his wife Janice; Snow's home on Muskeget before it was moved further inland; Snow (right) with Lt. Robert Baker of the Air National Guard.
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protection. So it was that from the cockpit of his B-29 on August 9, 1945, Snow witnessed only the second atomic bomb in history to be dropped, killing upward of 80,000 people and forcing the Japanese to surrender. When World War II came to an end, Snow returned to the family he had started before entering the service. He had met his future wife Janice Vaughan at a dinner party in Boston in 1936 and was immediately smitten. Janice was already married at the time, ironically to an aviator in England. She was in Massachusetts visiting her family in the North Shore, where she was born. Snow took her out on his plane two days after they met and a romance quickly ensued. When it came time for her to sail back to her husband waiting in England at the end of the summer, Snow agreed to fly her to Long Island where she would board the Queen Mary bound for the UK. As tugboats pulled the Queen Mary into the harbor, Snow soared his plane around
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that Snow had never heard of. After a thrilling day of shooting ducks on the ship’s smokestacks and put on an air show for the Muskeget, Snow thought the island would be the perfect retreat for his famship’s passengers. Watching Snow wag his wings at ily and asked Holdgate who owned it. Holgate explained that three busiher, Janice made a decision that would change the tranessmen from Philadelphia did, but jectory of her life. they would never sell it. Not one to She spontaneously take no for an answer, Snow started disembarked the to scheme a way to buy the island. Queen Mary onto Over the next six months, he one of the tugboats made stop-offs in Philadelphia durand never returned ing his cross-country flights for the to her husband in explicit purpose of taking MusEngland. Snow and keget’s owners out to lunch. DashJanice were maring and charismatic, Snow built a ried amid a flood rapport with the three businessmen, of tabloids in 1938 insisting that if they ever wanted to and eventually had sell their island, he would gladly buy a son named after Along with his aerial escapades, Snow was an amateur race car driver. it from them. After their third lunch, his father. the men started coming around. They eventually agreed to sell MusSnow speaking at an aviation keget to Snow for $12,000. Snow dinner. Flying to the very end, brought in two partners to split the he had logged 15,000 cost of the island, agreeing that the hours in more than last man alive would become its full 140 types of aircraft, owner. For the next fifty years, the covering 900,000 miles. Snows spent summers and almost every Thanksgiving on Muskeget.
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Crocker Jr. spent much of his childhood in the skies, flying with his father to the mountains of New Hampshire and the beaches of Cape Cod. The family settled in Ipswich, where Crocker helped his father plow an airstrip in their backyard registered with the FAA as Snow International Airport. “I was only in one pileup with him,” Crocker recalled. During the summers, Snow would load up his family to fly six minutes away to Cranes Beach where they would land on the sand. On one of their return flights, Snow put Janice on the controls. As he sorted things in the back of the plane, Snow told his wife to land. There was just one problem: She had forgotten to put the wheels down. The plane crashed in their backyard, resulting in a small fire, no injuries and the conclusion of Janice Snow’s flying career. When he and Janice first married, Snow had agreed to move to the North Shore of Massachusetts so long as he would someday buy a home in his native Cape Cod. When he went searching for that home on the Cape—usually by air—an unexpected location appeared on his radar. Snow was invited to go duck hunting by Alan Holdgate, who ran Nantucket Memorial Airport. Holdgate explained that they wouldn’t be hunting on Nantucket, but rather a much smaller island to the west
Snow (fifth man standing from the left) with his men.
Snow lived to be ninety-four years old. Flying to the very end, he had logged 15,000 hours in more than 140 types of aircraft, covering 900,000 miles. As for Muskeget, while the island has changed shape over the decades, with its sandy shores growing and retreating with each storm, the island will remain in the Snow family for as long as it’s above water. The forgotten airstrip continues to be a way point for pilots, one where only the most daring and skilled attempt to land.
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NDEPTH
COMIC RELIEF INTERVIEW BY ROBERT COCUZZO
During these trying times, Nantucket’s comedians stand up.
T
hese days, we could all use a good laugh. So when N Magazine asked four Nantucket comedians to answer a quickfire round of questions, they flexed their comedic muscles. Think of this interview as a standup routine where our opening act is David Hayes, the host of Nantucket’s Open Mic Night at the Nantucket Culinary Center. Hayes is followed by Sarah Fraunfelder, one of the unlikely comedic
stars to have emerged this off-season. Representing the home team, we then have Nantucket native Brian Glowacki, who launched his comedic career on the island before touring comedy clubs around the country. Finally, for the main event, we have none other than Kevin Flynn, the founder of the Nantucket Comedy Festival and Stand-Up & Learn, who has kept islanders in stitches for years. Let the show begin!
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Dr. Bob Arnot
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David Hayes
N MAGAZINE: Can anyone be a come-
N MAGAZINE: If you were charged with putting together a
dian if they work hard enough at it, or does it require a certain genius? HAYES: No, only geniuses can do it.
time capsule so people would understand Nantucket two hundred years from now, what three items would you put in it? HAYES: A Tito’s and soda with a splash of cranberry, one cobble stone from Main Street and Jason Bridges.
DAVID HAYES
N MAGAZINE: What’s your biggest fear before stepping on stage? HAYES: Diarrhea. N MAGAZINE: What’s the best thing you can do when you’re bombing on stage? HAYES: Be funny. N MAGAZINE: Who is the funniest person—alive or dead? HAYES: Alive but dead inside. N MAGAZINE: Some say that great comedians have a dark side. True? HAYES: I hope so.
N MAGAZINE: What’s one thing you could
never live without on Nantucket? HAYES: Morning buns. N MAGAZINE: What’s one thing most people would be surprised to know about you? HAYES: I’m doing the best I can.
N MAGAZINE: What’s your best knock-knock-style joke? HAYES: A guy goes to the doctor for a check-up. The doctor says, “I have good news and I have bad news. Which do you want first?” The guy says, “Give me the good news.” Doc says, “They’re going to name a disease after you!”
N MAGAZINE: What’s one thing you would change about yourself? HAYES: I would want to be better looking because everyone likes people who are better looking and I want everyone to like me.
N MAGAZINE: Have you learned anything new about yourself while quarantining? HAYES: Turns out, I’m an extrovert.
N MAGAZINE: There once was a man from Nantucket… HAYES: …who was actually from western Massachusetts but he would tell everyone he was from Nantucket because he had lived there for a summer and it sounded cooler than “Easthampton.”
N MAGAZINE: What beach would you be on Nantucket? HAYES: The nude beach because everyone appreciates an even tan line. N magazine
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N MAGAZINE: Where does your best material come from? HAYES: The Nantucket Year-Round Community Facebook page.
Photos by Brian Sager
N MAGAZINE: If you opened a comedy club on
Nantucket, what would you name it? FRAUNFELDER: I only have a good strip club name: The Cobblebone.
N MAGAZINE: Describe your comedy style in five words. FRAUNFELDER: Vegan absurdist shares dating advice. N MAGAZINE: How would you describe dating on Nantucket? FRAUNFELDER: Have you ever been to the Take It or Leave It?
N MAGAZINE: What’s the best way to over-
come stage fright? FRAUNFELDER: Vodka. Wait, wine! No, vodka. N MAGAZINE: What’s it like
N MAGAZINE: What’s one thing most people don’t
SARAH FRAUNFELDER
to bomb on stage? FRAUNFELDER: You know that moment when you ask a woman who is not pregnant when her baby is
know about you? FRAUNFELDER: I carried the Olympic Torch for 100 yards in 1996. N MAGAZINE: Really? FRAUNFELDER: Yeah, I grabbed it from Muham-
mad Ali when he stopped to go the bathroom. Really, though, the torch relay came through Saratoga Springs when I was a freshman at Skidmore. The opportunity was offered to any athletes who wanted to participate. I was like, “Hold my beer… let’s make some history!” N MAGAZINE: What’s the biggest fashion faux pas come summertime? FRAUNFELDER: Women’s bathing suit bottoms don’t seem to cover butts anymore.
I miss them. Bottoms, if you’re reading this, please come back! N MAGAZINE: What’s one thing summer people would be surprised to learn about
spending a winter on Nantucket? FRAUNFELDER: Sometimes the wind blows so hard the water in the toilet bowl moves. N MAGAZINE: What’s been your quarantine comfort food? FRAUNFELDER: I’ve been making a lot of lasagna. Then I eat it out of the pan in
bed like Garfield. N MAGAZINE: What’s one secret about Nantucket that most summer people don’t know? FRAUNFELDER: We think your ACK vanity license plate is just adorable. N MAGAZINE: Who wins in a fight: Sconset
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due? It’s like that, except it lasts for fifteen minutes under hot lights and people paid money to be there. N MAGAZINE: When do you get your best material? FRAUNFELDER: While I’m falling asleep… which is inconvenient.
or Madaket? FRAUNFELDER: Sconset. They fight old school with croquet mallets. N MAGAZINE: What’s one Nantucket tradition that just wouldn’t translate on the mainland? FRAUNFELDER: Unlocked cars. And is anyone really cruising around the mainland with a Lightship Basket? N MAGAZINE: Have you found any silver linings to quarantine life? FRAUNFELDER: My look—caftan and messy hair—is suddenly all the rage! Plus, I get to pick up my booze curbside and bread is delivered right to my door... is it wrong that I’m loving this?
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N MAGAZINE: What’s one misconception people have about
GLOWACKI: I spend my days teaching math
growing up on Nantucket? GLOWACKI : As soon as I tell people I’m from Nantucket, they automatically think we are spoiled and rich. I have to tell them that I grew up digging holes and filling them back in for a living. Nantucket is one of the only places where a millionaire will cut a billionaire’s grass.
to children. We are doomed!
N MAGAZINE: Where do your best jokes come from? GLOWACKI : They come from all the times when I fell flat on my face. Falling down and getting back up. There’s plenty to draw from and I never run out of material.
N MAGAZINE: What’s your favorite kind of joke? GLOWACKI : The best joke ever written was by Mitch Hedberg: “I used to do drugs. I still do, but I used to, too.”
N MAGAZINE: If you could have one super power, what would it be? GLOWACKI: I’d love the ability to see into the future to next year when we are all singing and dancing together under the Figawi tent again. Natives, locals and Chads living in perfect harmony.
BRIAN GLOWACKI Brian Glowacki
N MAGAZINE: Who is Chad?
GLOWACKI: Chad shows
up to Figawi with a thirty-pack of Bud Light and thinks the cobblestones should rise to meet his boat shoes. He has severe amnesia because he always asks, “Do you know who I am?”
N MAGAZINE: What movie character do people confuse you for? GLOWACKI: Everyone tells me that I look like Despicable Me or that guy from This Is Us.
N MAGAZINE: What’s one thing you
N MAGAZINE: What have you learned about yourself in quarantine? GLOWACKI: I learned that I would never make it as a hostage. I also learned how far five people can stretch a single roll of Charmin Ultra Soft.
N MAGAZINE: Outside of toilet paper, what’s been critical to your
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quarantining routine? GLOWACKI: Playing music, going for walks and sneezing on the doorknobs of my enemies.
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N MAGAZINE: In the lives we’re leading today, what’s an example of a truth that’s stranger than fiction?
would change about the island? GLOWACKI: I’d limit cars. Not my cars of course…but other people’s cars. They need to go! N MAGAZINE: What’s in the ultimate Nantucket cocktail? GLOWACKI: As Chad would say, “vodka, soda…close it.” N MAGAZINE: What’s something that only someone originally from Nantucket would understand? GLOWACKI: We might gossip about each other, steal each other’s wives or husbands. We might hold grudges and cut each other off in traffic. But when one of us is in need, the rest of us show up. The way Nantucket people support each other in times of need is the thing I’m most proud about.
N MAGAZINE: Many up-and-coming comedians look up to you as the so-called O.G. of Nantucket’s comedy scene. How does that make you feel? FLYNN: OG means an “Outstanding Gentleman,” right? Oh, it means Original Gangster? Well, that makes me sound like I’m either really old or in prison.
N MAGAZINE: What are some funny lines you've heard during your Stand Up and Learn children's program? FLYNN: Oh, there are so many great jokes from the kids over the years, but here’s a few quickies. James Dutra has a bit about his dad working on the computer. His Dad told him to stop bothering him because he was “working.” “Well, I looked over my Dad’s shoulder and said, ‘gee where do you work Dad, Facebook?’” Kathryn Shure has a bit about talking to people who have a Boston Accent: “When someone from Boston asks where are their ‘car keys’ it sounds like they’re looking for a pair of pants.” Kyle Steele also does a bit about his family mistakenly getting stuck on a nude beach in Hawaii. “Let me tell you something, I love my parents but I do not want to see them nude! Come on Mom, next time check the brochure!” Max Margolis once said, “My grandpa is really old. I know because he cut himself shaving and I counted the rings!”
N MAGAZINE: What’s one of
KEVIN FLYNN
Photo by David DuPuy
N MAGAZINE: What goes into the recipe for a good joke? FLYNN: I encourage the Standup & Learn kids to basically write a short story and then we can work on, “finding the funny” within the story. It’s a little bit of reverse engineering and seems to really work well for them. If you haven’t seen one of the free kids shows we do you’ve gotta come. It’s hysterical.
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your unniest memories from the Nantucket Comedy Festival? FLYNN: Being heckled (lovingly) by the great Dick Cavett. I was telling the audience about the invoice that I received to fly him to Nantucket from the Hamptons. The invoice read PASSENGER: CAVETT’S DICK. And I said, “My god, this guy is so important even his d*ck gets its own airplane?” N MAGAZINE: Sorry to be lame and predictable, but what's your favorite knock-knock joke? FLYNN: You’re asking a comedian for a knock-knock joke? Really? How about a quick riddle that I use with the kids instead? “Where do you find a turtle with no legs? Right where you left it.”
Kevin Flynn
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NVOGUE
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SUMMER FASHION HITS 'SCONSET
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PHOTOGRAPHY: BRIAN SAGER PRODUCTION: EMME DUNCAN STYLING: LEISE TRUEBLOOD ASSISTANCE: CHAD HUDNUT PHOTOGRAPHY ASSISTANCE: CAREY SAGER
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DRESS: CURRENTVINTAGE SUNGLASSES: ACK EYE EARRINGS, RING: THE VAULT
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BATHING SUIT, SHIRT: MURRAY’S TOGGERY SHOP EARRINGS, BRACELETS, NECKLACE, RING: JEWEL IN THE SEA 88 SUNGLASSES: ACK EYE
SHIRT: A SALTY SOUL PANTS, SWEATER, BELT, BRACELET: MURRAY’S TOGGERY SHOP SUNGLASSES: ACK EYE RING, NECKLACE: ANNA P. JAY EARRINGS: HEIDI WEDDENDORF
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DRESS: REMY CREATIONS EARRINGS: JEWEL IN THE SEA NECKLACE: THE VAULT
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DRESS: MILLY & GRACE EARRINGS, NECKLACE: HEIDI WEDDENDORF BAG: MURRAY’S TOGGERY SHOP GLASSES: ACK EYE
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SHIRT, SHORTS: GYPSY EARRINGS: ANNA P. JAY BRACELET: JEWEL IN THE SEA GLASSES: ACK EYE
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SWEATER, PANTS: GYPSY NECKLACES: JEWEL IN THE SEA BRACELETS: HEIDI WEDDENDORF EARRINGS: THE VAULT
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EARRINGS, NECKLACE: HEIDI WEDDENDORF SWEATER: REMY CREATIONS 94
DRESS: CURRENTVINTAGE EARRINGS: JEWEL IN THE SEA BRACELET: THE VAULT
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THE NANTUCKET PORTRAIT PROJECT
FOGGYSHEET
Shortly after the stay-at-home advisement was issued by the Town, photographer Bill Hoenk began the Nantucket Portrait Project. Following strict social distancing precautions, Hoenk photographed families with a long lens while they were standing on their front porches. In return for the family photos, Hoenk asked that his subjects make a donation to the Nantucket Cottage Hospital. At press time, Hoenk was on track to photograph two hundred families on the island, raising upwards of $10,000.
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YELVERTON FAMILY
CONGDON FAMILY
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BILLINGS FAMILY
JOHNSON FAMILY
BRIDGES FAMILY
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COFFIN FAMILY
NORWOOD (KNAPP) FAMILY
ZILYTE FAMILY
HUDSON FAMILY
WEBBER FAMILY
EVANS FAMILY
MOFSEN-LAMBERT FAMILY
JILL SANDOLE
CAITLIN MARCOUX AND HER SON GRIFFIN
BRANNIGAN FAMILY
CLARKSON FAMILY
EVANS FAMILY
BURLESON FAMILY
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VALLE FAMILY
RAY FAMILY
LIZ HILLGER
LESTER FAMILY
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THE NANTUCKET PORTRAIT PROJECT
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WALKER FAMILY
MEDEIROS FAMILY
KLING FAMILY
LAU FAMILY
VOIGT FAMILY
STEWART FAMILY
RAY FAMILY
KATE O'BRIAN & DAUGHTER
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REID FAMILY
BARRETT FAMILY
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MARJORY TROTT
BOYES FAMILY
COPY FAMILY HAFSA LEWIS & STEFAN MANDLE
PATERSON FAMILY
KEELER FAMILY
STARR FAMILY
BARRETT FAMILY
GETTER FAMILY
SMALL FAMILY
DREW FAMILY
CROWELL FAMILY
HARNISHFEGER FAMILY
DUTRA FAMILY
OLIVIA GALLUGI
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PROCH FAMILY
MELISSA LONG
POWERS FAMILY PHOTOGRAPHY BY BILL HOENK
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THE NANTUCKET PORTRAIT PROJECT
FOGGYSHEET nantucket
O'DELL FAMILY
BADDERS-PERRY FAMILY
TRIPP FAMILY
JOHNSON FAMILY
MACDONALD FAMILY
MARRERO FAMILY
GONNELLA FAMILY
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POLVERE FAMILY
SANDERSON FAMILY
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DWYER FAMILY
VANCE FAMILY
ARSENIJEVIC FAMILY
WALKER FAMILY
MARCHANT ALMODOBAR FAMILY
DUNBAR FAMILY
KATT FAMILY
HOEFFEL FAMILY
GAMMILL FAMILY
CREESE FAMILY
ROETHKE FAMILY
HICKS FAMILY
FRAZER FAMILY
HARTMAN FAMILY
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GABRIEL FAMILY
DALEY FAMILY
HOOD FAMILY
OTTANI FAMILY PHOTOGRAPHY BY BILL HOENK
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THE NANTUCKET PORTRAIT PROJECT
FOGGYSHEET nantucket
RAY FAMILY
TURCOTTE FAMILY
CHIP WEBSTER & SARA BOYCE
SAMUELS FAMILY
MORNEAU FAMILY
BELL FAMILY
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COLLETTE FAMILY
MCKERROW FAMILY
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RUDD FAMILY
DAMIAN FAMILY
MYNTTINEN FAMILY
DAILY FAMILY
HARIMON FAMILY
MOORE FAMILY
CHAMBERS FAMILY
TRUDEL FAMILY
LOWELL FAMILY
MCKENN FAMILY
GERARDI FAMILY
MCEVOY FAMILY
MANCHESTER FAMILY
VADOKLIS FAMILY
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PETERS FAMILY
SPARKS FAMILY
DUSSAULT FAMILY PHOTOGRAPHY BY BILL HOENK
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Miss Mary Shaw and Miss Comstock playing medicine in front of Miss Shaw's cottage in Siasconset. David Watts and Floyd Smith at the Shipwreck Ball explaining the finer points of a game.
PlayTime IMAGES COURTESY OF NHA ARCHIVES
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From bowling to board games, Nantucket has always let the good times roll
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Men sitting and playing drinking games at a beach party. Bowling League team Allen's TV: Betty Ryder, Nanette Small, Phyllis "Bea" Caton, Carol Stojak, Shirley Stojak, and captain Margaret Eger.
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The former Mid-Island Bowl, candlepin bowling alley, on Young's Way.
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A Unknown man and woman playing checkers in the parlor.
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B Two boys playing a game of ping pong at the Sankaty Head Golf Club caddy camp.
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C Group of men play pool. D Group portrait of five women playing cards. E Men playing poker.
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F Johnnie Ward and his grandfather playing checkers. G Three women and a man playing a board game.
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H Interior of cottage on the north bluff of Siasconset with a pool table. I Girl shooting targets. J The National Checker Champion, Joseph Viera, seated outdoors with his dog. N magazine
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NUPTIALS Featured Wedding
BRIDE & GROOM: CHRISTINE & MIKE ATHENS PHOTOGRAPHERS: MARK & WENDY, ZOFIA & CO. PHOTOGRAPHY WEDDING COORDINATOR: HANDY & DALLAIRE EVENTS VENUE: ST MARY’S CHURCH FLORIST: WINSTON FLOWERS BRIDAL HAIR & MAKEUP: JOANNA MAKOWSKI BRIDAL GOWN: MONIQUE LHUILLIER GROOMSWEAR: 9 TAILORS RING BEARER JACKETS: HANLEY RD. JACKET FLOWER GIRL DRESS: ISABEL GARTEN CAKE: WILDFLOUR BAND: THE SULTANS
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NOT SO FAST N MAGAZINE: Can you tell us about your neurological
Whale
Tale
INTERVIEW BY ROBERT COCUZZO
A QUICK CHAT WITH CHILDREN’S BOOK AUTHOR, ROBERT CAMERON
N MAGAZINE: How did you discover Nantucket? CAMERON: My wife, Margi, had been coming to Nantucket during her college summers in the 1960s. After we got married in 1974, we came back many times on visits and vacations. In 1990, we bought a summer home on Nantucket and have been coming each summer since then.
N MAGAZINE: Before you became a children’s book author, you used to work on the high seas? CAMERON: Since I was a child, I lived near the ocean. I loved fishing, boating, surfing, swimming and everything about the ocean. When it came time for college, I received a congressional appointment to the U.S. Merchant Marine Academy at Kings Point, New York. After graduation, I went to work for a shipping company transporting oil in the global trade. I rose through the ranks from third officer to ship’s captain fairly quickly and commanded five of the company’s ships.
N MAGAZINE: Were these big ships? CAMERON: These ships were almost three football fields in length, with speeds of 16.5 knots, carrying almost 15 million gallons, fitted with satellite navigation, collision avoidance systems and a crew complement of around thirty. In addition to the duties and responsibilities of commanding a ship, there were perks, too. One of them was [that] during many of the voyages I got to see beautiful, magnificent whales swimming around those waters.
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N MAGAZINE: Obviously a whale became the central figure in your
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Tuckey books. What inspired you to write a children’s book series? CAMERON: First, I wanted to do this for my grandkids Jakob and Nathan. Second, I am losing my short-term memory due to a rare neurological condition. I wanted to keep my mind active and thought writing children’s books would help me.
condition? CAMERON: It is called superficial siderosis and was diagnosed in 2005. I have a meningocele (a tumor the size of my fist) in the middle of my back where it bleeds into my spinal fluid. This contaminated spinal fluid travels to my brain where the blood hardens. This hardened blood in and around the brain causes the nervous system to shut down. This adversely affects my hearing, short-term memory, stability and balance, and a range of other bodily functions. My condition continues to worsen. I am being cared for at the Mayo Clinic by the head of Neurology.
N MAGAZINE: How have you enjoyed your experience with the Nantucket Book Festival in years past? CAMERON: The Nantucket Book Festival is a super event! For me, the highlight of the event is reading to the kids, parents and grandparents on the Atheneum lawn. The book festival and weekend is a great opportunity to meet with so many people and share the stories behind each of the Tuckey books. This year, I was looking forward to introducing my new book, Flag Football with Tuckey the Nantucket Whale.
N MAGAZINE: What’s the story behind the flag football book? CAMERON: When I started to write about flag football for my fifth Tuckey book, I reached out to Bill Belichick. I wrote him a letter about wanting to write him into the story about flag football for kids. A short time later, his personal secretary emailed me and said Coach Belichick got my letter and gave his permission to write him into the story. You can imagine how super excited I was. I wanted to tell everyone!
N MAGAZINE: What’s a story that you hold dear about the response your readers have had to Tuckey? CAMERON: There are so many touching stories. I love when readers write to me saying they read the Tuckey book to their children or grandchildren and now they want to come to Nantucket. And I love getting the thank you notes from children in elementary school and teachers on Nantucket; in Bismarck, Missouri; Naples, Florida; and even overseas in Singapore and Jakarta, where they have incorporated the Tuckey books into their school curriculum. My main goal is to bring happiness and fun to all the kids, parents and grandparents through Tuckey’s adventures.
e m o At Huthors A h t i w Join us for online videos and podcasts with many of our 2020 authors.
Jami Attenberg
Sarah M. Broom
Gabriella Burnham
Christopher Castellani
Robert Cocuzzo
William D. Cohan
Skip Finley
Alice Hoffman
Mitchell S. Jackson
Imbolo Mbue
Ann Napolitano
Nathaniel Philbrick
Samantha Power
Diane Rehm
David Rohde
Kate Russo
Richard Russo
Crocker Snow
Nancy Thayer
Jia Tolentino
Betsy Tyler
David Wallace-Wells
Daniel Weiss
Barbara Ann White
Enjoy the conversations today: NantucketBookFestival.org The Nantucket Book Festival is grateful for our 2020 sponsors. N magazine
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