N MAGAZINE May 2020

N Nantucket Cottage Hospital’s CEO

GARY

SHAW

On the Front Lines

DR. BOB ARNOT

Prognosis Prognosis on of the the Pandemic Pandemic

DAVID SMICK Economic Economic Outlook Outlook

The The Perseverance Perseverance of of

PAUL DUTRA

Community Community Heroes Heroes

Nantucket Nantucket Magazine Magazine May May 2020 2020

N magazine

AMONG US

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THE ART OF LIVING WATERFRONT

WATERFRONT

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DIONIS | $17,500,000 7 Bedrooms, 7.5 Bathrooms

WAUWINET | $9,995,000 7 Bedrooms, 7+ Bathrooms

DIONIS | $9,995,000 4 Bedrooms, 4.5 Bathrooms

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

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Each Office is Independently Owned and Operated. Equal Housing Opportunity.

“First Republic is part of almost every aspect of our life and business. We wouldn’t want it any other way.”

H A M E L FA M I LY W I N E S

Pictured right to left: John Hamel, Managing Director; George Hamel, III, Managing Director George Hamel, Jr., Vintner; Pamela Hamel, Vintner

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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FROM OUR FAMILY

TO YOURS.

@jdnphotography

We will donate 10% of your purchase to a local restaurant of your choice! *Please provide name, city, and state of the restaurant in notes section of your order. Offer valid until July 4th.

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Contact us at (707) 591-0782 / mail@donelanwines.com

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Wine is a journey. Join us at www.donelanwines.com

NANTUCKET REAL ESTATE • MORTGAGE • INSURANCE

NANTUCKET

REAL ESTATE • MORTGAGE • INSURANCE

A sure sign that a Nantucket Summer is just around the corner!

Whether you are looking to rent, buy or sell, William Raveis has you covered. We know that your time on the island is valuable. Let our team of experts and our cutting edge technology do the work for you.

N magazine

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 Over 12.2 Billion Residential Sales

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A N G U I L L A | A N T I G U A | P U E RT O R I C O | S T B A RT H | S T T H O M A S M A RT H A’ S V I N E YA R D | N A N T U C K E T | N E W P O RT | N E W Y O R K | S T O W E CONTACT

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N magazine

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NANTUCKET REAL ESTATE • MORTGAGE • INSURANCE

dionis

Historic Starbuck Mansion l 8 bedrooms, 7 full and 1 half baths $11,950,000 l Robert Young

North Swift Rock l 4 bedrooms, 3 full and 2 half baths $8,000,000 l Robert Young

madequecham

brant point

Madequecham Valley Road l 5 bedrooms, 6 full and 1 half baths $7,995,000 l John Arena

Hulbert Avenue l 6 bedrooms, 3 baths $7,500,000 l Robert Young

town

west of town

Washington Street l 6 bedrooms, 3 full and 1 half baths $5,299,000 l Robert Young

Dukes Road l 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

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

17 MAIN STREET | NANTUCKET, MA | 02554 | 508.228.9117

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N magazine

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6 NORTH ROAD · $1,999,000

8 CRESTWOOD CIRCLE · $2,990,000

Tucked in on a quiet lane. Walk to Sconset Village and the beaches.

A true compound with room for extended family and friends.

26 OKORWAW AVENUE · $4,700,000

14 PIPPENS WAY · $4,995,000

Private turn-key estate nestled in Surfside and just moments to the beach.

New Shimmo home with exceptional style offered beautifully furnished.

16 WALSH STREET · $3,500,000

1A CROWS NEST WAY · $9,950,000

Spacious Brant Point home on an oversized lot in a coveted location.

Exceptional beachfront estate in Squam with gorgeous ocean views.

SALES & RENTALS

1 NORTH BEAC H STREET

6 MAIN STREET

NANTUCKET, M A 02554

SIASCONSET, MA 02564

508.228.2266

508.257.6335

GREATPOINTPROPERTIES.COM

C

P

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Estd.

S

TE

IS

L Y L , A W C I E N L H R E T P I O E R 2002

but what we’re really selling is confidence.

With unparalleled knowledge of this market, and more than two dozen experts on staff, 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.

N magazine

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2020 NUMBERS N 22

A numerical snapshot of Nantucket in the spring.

N NEAT STUFF 24

Boston Stone Restoration has an unbeatable counter offer.

N TOP TEN 26

Ten relief initiatives helping the community amid the coronavirus.

KIDDIN’ N AROUND 28

Local children’s book author Wendy Rouillard gives her top tips to keep your kiddos entertained while at home.

N NECESSITIES 30

Here’s what you need for your Nantucket beach basket.

TRENDING N 32

While sheltering in place, Nantucketers have taken to social media to lift the spirits of their neighbors.

N NGREDIENTS 34

Cru’s Executive Chef Erin Zircher dishes her secret lobster roll recipe.

HEALTHNWELLNESS N 36

Local fitness instructor Johnna Holland gives her tips for mindfulness practice.

N magazine

NEED TO READ N

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Nantucket’s beloved bookworm Tim Ehrenberg shares his spring reading list.

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

May 2020

N

The Local Magazine Read Worldwide

Nantucket Cottage Hospital’s CEO

SHAW

DAVID SMICK Economic Outlook

The Perseverance of

N magazine

Nantucket Magazine

PAUL DUTRA

Community Heroes

1

AMONG US

Nantucket Magazine May 2020

N magazine

The Nantucket Cottage Hospital's new CEO Gary Shaw appears on the cover of this May issue with a photograph taken by Chief Photographer, Brian Sager.

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44 LITTLE MERMAID

A special edition highlighting the tremendous work of island organizations amid the coronavirus.

NOSH NEWS

On the Front Lines

DR. BOB ARNOT

MURRAY'S TOGGERY SHOP 62 MAIN STREET 508-228-0437

NSPIRE

GARY

Prognosis of the Pandemic

VINEYARD VINES 2 STRAIGHT WHARF 508-325-9600

NBUZZ

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Island Kitchen keeps an island tradition up and running at the Pharmacy.

Mya Kotalac extends her family’s nautical legacy way down south.

49 HEROES AMONG US

While doctors and nurses work on the frontline of the coronavirus, everyday Nantucketers have also been emerging to meet the needs of the community in their own ways.

$3,650,000

343 POLPIS ROAD | 5BR 5.5BA

$2,995,000

14 DARLING STREET | 3BR 3.5BA

$2,775,000

2020

N magazine

7 COFFIN ROADÂ | 4BR 4 FULL 2 HALF BA

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DRESS: CURRENTVINTAGE HAT: MILLY & GRACE RINGS: JEWEL IN THE SEA EARRINGS: CJ LAING

NQUIRY 54 TAKING CHARGE

The Nantucket Cottage Hospital’s new CEO Gary Shaw takes the helm amid stormy seas.

61 CORONAVIRUS PROGNOSIS

Summer resident Dr. Bob Arnot draws upon his decades of covering pandemics to weigh in on the coronavirus and its implications for the future.

68 ECONOMIC OUTLOOK

Macroeconomist David Smick shares his views on the economy amid the coronavirus.

NDEPTH 72 TREASURE HUNTERS

Two local women redefine the meaning of Big Dig on Nantucket.

78 PERSEVERANCE

The harrowing medical ordeal of summer resident Paul Dutra.

NVOGUE 84

N Magazine’s fashion squad hits the Nantucket Historical Association’s oldest properties to showcase the newest spring styles.

NHA 96

A tip of the cap to the headwear of island yesteryear.

NUPTIALS 104 Islanders Carey Brown and Brian Sager tied the knot this winter.

NOT SO FAST N magazine

108 A quick chat with island

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photographer and landscaper Burton “Spruce” Balkind.

TIMELESS MEMORIES

Vacation Rentals & Real Estate Sales www.centrestreetrealty.com

N magazine

34 Centre Street Nantucket, MA 02554 508.825.5741

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Publisher & Editor-in-Chief Bruce A. Percelay Editor Robert Cocuzzo Art Director Paulette Chevalier Managing Editor Emme Duncan Chief Photographers Kit Noble Brian Sager Digital Editor Leise Trueblood Contributors Tim Ehrenberg Josh Gray Emily Denny Sarah Fraunfelder Rebecca Nimerfroh Wendy Rouillard Leise Trueblood Photographers Pedro Blanco Wayne Chinnock Bill Hoenk Dan LeMaitre Laurie Richards Kati Rosado Director of Advertising & Partnerships Emme Duncan Advertising Sales Fifi Greenberg Publisher N. LLC Chairman: Bruce A. Percelay

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Nantucket Times 17 North Beach Street Nantucket, MA 02554 508-228-1515

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©Copyright 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 MAGAZINE

DELIVERS! SUBSCRIPTIONS NOW AVAILABLE! N Magazine delivers you the most compelling stories on the island. Now we’re going to deliver them directly to your door. For $29, receive all six issues of N Magazine shipped to your mailbox hot off the presses.

All profits will be donated to local relief efforts.

GO TO N-MAGAZINE.COM TO SUBSCRIBE

Nantucket

STRONG

Over the centuries, Nantucket has survived the Great Fire of 1846, persevered through the total collapse of its whaling economy in the late 1800s, overcome the effects of the Great Depression, and endured the spread of Lyme disease and the impacts of rising sea levels—but a global pandemic is a first.

Mathematical modeling suggested a scenario that under the wrong circumstances, Nantucket could have experienced as many as four hundred coronavirus cases, which would have overwhelmed our new hospital. The unexpected surge in population of thousands of people fleeing the New York City area raised the alarm, and Nantucket had to act fast and decisively to avert a potential healthcare disaster.

Our cover story featuring Nantucket Cottage Hospital’s new CEO Gary Shaw tells of a person who was tailor-made for the times. Prior to leading a number of hospitals and healthcare providers around the country, Shaw spent twenty years as a lieutenant commander in the Navy Medical Service Corps. Here on Nantucket, he used his platform as head of the hospital to urge summer residents against coming to the island and was a vocal advocate for a shelter-in-place policy to help halt the spread of COVID-19. Thanks to Gary Shaw and his dedicated staff at NCH, the spread of the disease on the island has been held in check at this point.

In this issue, we also interviewed Dr. Bob Arnot, a summer resident who has appeared regularly on national news broadcasts regarding this and other medical crises. Having witnessed pandemics such as Ebola, HIV/AIDS, cholera and other lethal viral outbreaks first-hand around the world, Arnot shares his perspectives on the coronavirus and what we might expect in the future.

The other side of the COVID-19 story is its massive economic impact. Summer resident David Smick, a macroeconomist who predicted the 2008 financial collapse, shares his thoughts and prognostications as to how the forces of capitalism will likely expedite a cure or treatment for the virus, and gives an encouraging picture of the likelihood of economic recovery.

In an inspiring story, we celebrate how everyday Nantucketers rallied together to help support the hospital and those in need during the virus outbreak. Time and time again, we have seen how the strength of the Nantucket community becomes most evident at times of crisis. N Magazine profiles a number of individuals who have gone to extraordinary lengths to help fellow islanders navigate this challenging time.

Nantucket stands as a shining example of the power of neighbors helping neighbors. It is this spirit of caring that truly sets this island apart. From the hospital workers who have put the safety of others before their own, to Gary Shaw whose decisive leadership may have ultimately saved lives on the island, to the special individuals who pulled together for the benefit of the community, we salute each and everyone who has helped minimize the impact of a disease that could have devastated Nantucket.

Stay well and be safe,

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 PEDRO BLANCO Pedro Blanco picked up his first camera, an old Pentax K1000, twenty-one years ago when he moved to Cape Cod with his wife. He photographed landscapes for a decade before turning his focus on studio portraiture. Today, Blanco specializes in fitness and sports portraiture as well as boudoir and fine art photography. He first met Johnna Holland (see Brighter Horizons, page 36) five years ago at a fitness competition and has photographed her on a couple occasions in studio and in the field.

BILL HOENK Bill Hoenk has been capturing the island in breathtaking images for well over a decade. After studying photography at the Art Institute of Pittsburgh, Hoenk began his full-time freelance and fine art career on Nantucket. His freelance work has graced the pages of many local, national and international publications including on the cover of a special edition of Time. For this issue of N Magazine, Hoenk photographed Paul Dutra at his home in Madequecham. Starting this summer, Hoenk is launching Nantucket Photo Tours, offering guided, private photography tours and workshops on the island. Book a picture-perfect outing with Hoenk at billhoenkphotography.com.

N magazine

KATI ROSADO Kati Rosado is a fine art film and digital wedding photographer based in Melbourne, Florida. Traveling throughout the United States for weddings and sessions over the past eight years, Rosado has photographed nearly two hundred weddings. Named one of the top wedding photographers in Miami by BRIDES magazine, Rosado most recently turned her camera toward capturing the wedding of Nantucket residents Carey Brown and N Magazine’s Chief Photographer Brian Sager (page 104).

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NUMBERS

NUMBERS NANTUCKET BY THE

7,000

50

Bushels of scallops were collected this season, more than double than the year before.

Viewers have watched Laura Cunningham, Lorna Dollery and Chris Wendzicki’s #CoronaSongChallenge, which launched a viral song sensation on Nantucket.

102

More cars from New Jersey and New York came over to the island in March compared to the same time last year.

100

The price that the Sconset Beach Preservation Fund paid for 38.9 million pounds of sand for its bluff preservation project.

of trails + Miles can be walked around the island.

N magazine

8,247

of Hy-Line ferries % Reduction going back and forth to the island in response to the coronavirus.

$240,100

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144

People signed up to volunteer on Nantucketneighbor.com, a new website designed to connect people in need with those who want to help.

6lbs. 3oz.

Weight of the first baby born on Nantucket this year.

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624

Tickets were sold on both February 8th and February 15th at the Dreamland, tying for the busiest days of the year.

1755

The year the island changed its name from Sherburne to Nantucket.

1”

Snow fell on Nantucket during the “Capescraper” blizzard in early March.

National Guard service members were assigned to help the Nantucket Cottage Hospital.

Cheers to our 20th Year K at h l e e n H ay D e s i g n s •

boston

•

beyond

@kathleenhaydesigns

N magazine

nantucket

Interior of the new 167 Raw Oyster Bar • Charleston, SC

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t 50 8.228.1 2 1 9

www.kathleenhaydesigns.com Follow us

I

NEAT STUFF SPONSORED CONTENT SPONSORED CONTENT

AFTER

BEFORE

COUNTER

OFFER WRITTEN BY ROBERT COCUZZO

BOSTON STONE RESTORATION BRINGS NEW LIFE TO MARBLE COUNTERTOPS

M N magazine

aintaining marble countertops can seem hard, if not impossible. Like an exotic car rolling off the lot, pricey, newly installed marble starts diminishing in value once the installers leave the kitchen. After a few years, the stone begins losing its luster, scratches set in and unfortunate acid etch marks begin to show. While many homeowners will eventually resort to replacing the stone entirely for a costly sum, there is a much easier, faster and far less expensive option to make your kitchen counters rock once again in all their gleaming glory.

Boston Stone Restoration (BSR) has perfected the process of restoring and coating countertops, vanities and bar tops. Wielding cutting-

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edge equipment, BSR’s team of trained technicians descend upon a kitchen and seal it off from the rest of the house. A sander fashioned with a HEPA (high efficiency particulate air) vacuum then hones away all the scratches and etch marks from the marble before a proprietary coating known as MORE AntiEtch is applied.

Forming a durable, ultra-low visibility, super-thin coating, MORE AntiEtch brings the marble vibrantly back to life while protecting it from future etches and stains for at least the next decade. Clients can choose from a range of finishes such as high-gloss, satin and matte in making their marble look brand new. Cured with a special ultraviolet light, the whole project takes about one to two days, after which BSR leaves your space cleaner than they found it.

This restoration service has become more and more popular in Nantucket homes where the cost of replacing marble is especially expensive and time-consuming. While it’s an effective option for old surfaces in need of a facelift, the MORE AntiEtch coating can also be applied to brand new marble to provide a layer of protection from future etching and staining. In a Nantucket home, where carefree entertaining is a way of life, that protective peace of mind is truly rock solid.

BOSTON STONE RESTORATION BOSTONSTONERESTORATION.COM MELISSA BUNIS 781-793-0700

NANTUCKET REAL ESTATE • MORTGAGE • INSURANCE

west of town

Main Street l Commercial / Residential $5,250,000 l Robert Young

Vestal Street l 5 bedrooms, 5 baths $4,950,000 l John McGarr

town

town

Easy Street l 2 bedrooms, 1 full and 1 half baths / Commerical $4,495,000 l Josh Lothian

Francis Street l 7 bedrooms, 5 full and 1 half baths $4,195,000 l Robert Young

town

west of town

Woodbury Lane l 5 bedrooms, 4 full and 1 half baths $3,995,000 l J.Arena/M.Gowen

Hedgebury Lane l 4 bedrooms, 4 full and 2 half baths $3,395,000 l John Arena

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 25

17 MAIN STREET | NANTUCKET, MA | 02554 | 508.228.9117

N TOP TEN SPECIAL WAYS TO HELP DURING COVID-19

1 NANTUCKET COTTAGE HOSPITAL’S COVID-19 RESPONSE FUND Help NCH care for the island, defeat COVID-19, and emerge stronger than ever as a tight-knit community. If you cannot donate financially, medical supplies, homemade face masks and volunteer time from reserve physicians and providers are also needed. For more information, visit givenantuckethospital.partners.org/donate.

2 COMMUNITY FOUNDATION FOR NANTUCKET’S NANTUCKET FUND FOR EMERGENCY RELIEF The Community Foundation for Nantucket has always been a loyal supporter of the island’s nonprofits, but in their time of need, CFN is doubling down on their commitment with the Nantucket Fund for Emergency Relief.

The fund will award grants on a rolling basis to nonprofits that are addressing the community’s most important needs, with ReMain Nantucket matching new donations up to an additional $250,000. For more information, visit www.cfnan.org.

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KEEP THE ROCK SOLID The Nantucket Chamber of Commerce has teamed up with ReMain Nantucket to launch the “Keep the Rock Solid.” Go to their website and discover ways to contribute to local businesses and nonprofits, whether by buying gift certificates, offering assistance or making direct donations. Visit www.keeptherocksolid.com to get involved.

4 NANTUCKET FOOD, FUEL & RENTAL ASSISTANCE Though the NFFRA typically welcomes food donations, at this time, the safest and most helpful way to help is with monetary gifts. Funds will help vulnerable community members struggling with the cost of food and rent during the pandemic. Volunteering to help distribute items is also always welcome!

5 RALLY FOR RESTAURANTS Restaurants all over the country are suffering from the effects of COVID-19, and eateries on Nantucket are no exception. Rally for Restaurants connects you directly to your favorite restaurants so that you can buy a gift card, order takeout or rally government officials to take action. For more information, visit www.rallyforrestaurants.com.

7 A SAFE PLACE Stay-at-home orders, while keeping us safe from COVID-19, can have an adverse effect for victims in unhealthy relationships. A Safe Place helps to combat this by providing free and confidential services for survivors of domestic violence and sexual assault.

For more information, visit www.asafeplacenantucket.org.

8 FAIRWINDS COUNSELING CENTER Though Fairwinds regularly helps many people with chronic anxiety and mental health issues, COVID-19 has caused a sharp uptick in the number of people searching for help. Donations help to increase their capability to host online services and free support sessions. For more information, visit www.fairwindscenter.org/donations.

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HOUSING NANTUCKET Healthcare professionals, Town employees, teachers and school employees, artists and musicians, postal workers, retail and service workers, nonprofit employees, families and single people are just a few of the groups on the long list of those who benefit from Housing Nantucket. Donations will help to assist these groups facing insurmountable living costs on Nantucket for months to come. For more information, visit www.housingnantucket.org/donate.

MEALS ON WHEELS Vulnerable seniors are at the greatest risk amid COVID-19, and the efforts needed to protect them require additional emergency funds. The Meals on Wheels COVID-19 Response Fund ensures local communities like Nantucket have what they need to continue to deliver a vital lifeline to our elderly. For more information, visit www.mealsonwheelsamerica.org.

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LOCAL ARTISTS

Creative spirits of all kinds are hurting in the wake of the coronavirus.

Support visual artists on Nantucket through Artists Association of Nantucket (www.nantucketarts.org). For musicians, ask them if you can give a tip directly through their Venmo account, or ask if their music is on a site like Bandcamp, which has a fair trade music policy. For more information, visit www.bandcamp.com.

DO YOU HAVE AN EVENT FOR THE N TOP TEN? CONTACT US AT EDITOR@N-MAGAZINE.COM

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

N magazine

To join our team to save our friends or for more information visit www.acksaves.org.

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N AROUND TOWN KIDDIN’

PRESENTED BY

KIDDIN’ AROUND HOME HOW TO KEEP YOUR LITTLE ONES ENTERTAINED INSIDE AND OUT WRITTEN BY WENDY ROUILLARD

THE SESSION: DRAMA CLASSES LIVE

The Nantucket Dreamland’s Laura Gallagher Byrne is offering live virtual classes every Tuesday and Thursday at 3pm on Instagram @dreamlandstagecompany.

Geared toward kids ages eight and older, these free classes focus on warm-ups, acting skills and scenes. This is a great way to hone your theatrical skills while staying connected to the Nantucket community and the Dreamland.

NANPUPPETS

No matter where you are, you can keep your little ones dancing and moving around by joining Lizza Obremski and her whimsical Nanpuppet friends for their virtual music classes. By visiting Lizza’s YouTube channel Out to See, you can not only watch Music with Lizza, but you can also find her four episodes of Out to See. This is a great way for your kids to stay connected to Nantucket and its community. For more information you can also visit nanpuppets.com.

NANTUCKET CONSERVATION FOUNDATION SCAVENGER HUNTS

The Nantucket Conservation Foundation has put together a wonderful series of scavenger hunts among their ten properties. These free self-guided, self-paced exploration adventures will introduce you and your child to each one of their unique conservation lands while teaching you a little something new about each property. Start by visiting nantucketconservation.org and select “Family Stay-cation Scavenger Hunt” under the “Events” tab. You can print out the packet and take it with you. There is a different scavenger hunt for each property from Squam Farm to The Serengeti with a checklist of natural objects, plants and species to find. You can also download their free mobile app, ACKTrails, for more information about their properties.

STORY WALKS

AT HOME WITH EXPLORATION STATION

The Exploration Station’s Melanie Hajjar has a host of fun, at-home Kitchen Science projects for children of all ages. From homemade play dough to her popular Rainbow Milk Races, you can keep your young scientist busy for hours. A favorite experiment is Clouds in a Jar, which demonstrates how clouds create rain. You’ll need the following materials: • A cup of water • A clear mason jar • A small spoon • Shaving cream • Cookie tray • Blue food coloring

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On top of the cookie tray, fill ¾ of the jar with water. Spray some shaving cream on top of the water to fill the jar to represent the clouds. Add two drops of blue food coloring to a separate cup of water. Now drop a few spoonfuls of blue water onto the shaving cream. Repeat this several times until you notice the blue water dripping down through the “clouds.” For a list of other science projects, please visit explorationstationnantucket.com.

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Get outside and enjoy the beauty of Nantucket with the Linda Loring Nature Foundation’s Story Walks. These popular half-mile, trail-side adventures are self-guided and are open year-round. Each month, a new story is posted along the trail for families to read along the way.

This is a perfect family outing with its pristine views of Nantucket’s sandplain grasslands. Each story is also translated into Spanish. This wildlife sanctuary is open from sunrise to sunset and is located at 110 Eel Point Road. To learn more, visit llnf.org.

LAND BANK’S FAIRY TRAIL

Head outside with your little ones and build a fort along the Land Bank’s Fairy Trail. This circular trail located off Milestone Road directly across from Tawpoot Road is open to any child who would like to create their very own little tree house in nature. You’ll see a Land Bank Sign marking a cobblestone apron with a parking lot. You can start building where you see the Fairy Trail sign. Have fun and happy building!

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.

One island, one economy. Let’s keep it solid.

Visit KeepTheRockSolid.com to play your part.

ideas • investments • initiatives

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It takes an island.

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N NECESSITIES SPONSORED CONTENT

NECESSITIES N Put these items on your wish list this spring

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A special offer for Nantucket year-round residents, enjoy one ticket to each of TWN’s Main Stage productions — the most affordable way to see great island theatre all season long!

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Theatre Workshop of Nantucket 508-228-4305 theatrenantucket.org

GOOD VIBES RAINBOW TEE Get your spring off to the best possible start by giving and getting good vibes with this cute tee! currentVintage 508-228-5073 currentvintage.com

Invest In the nantucket Fund.

Invest In nantucket.

Make a dIFFerence here.

“During the Winter Monday Night Suppers, which included a warm clothing drive, 30-45 folks attended. I met at least 10 people who told me they were sleeping outdoors and 10 others who told me they were living in very inadequate and unsanitary conditions. We are so grateful to the Nantucket Fund for supporting our effort to help them” ~ Linda Simmons Unitarian Universalist Church

"The Media Make Program of My.Future, which was funded by the Nantucket Fund, allowed over 300 club members to learn about online safety, digital literacy, coding, and typing while exploring the world of digital photography. It was so gratifying to watch students learn to express themselves through art and learn invaluable life skills." ~Phyllis McInerney Nantucket Boys and Girls Club

Invest in the Nantucket Fund and ensure the Community Foundation is able to make a difference to those organizations that are most critical to the Island’s well-being.

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Community Foundation for Nantucket | PO Box 204 | 9B Bayberry Court | cfnan.org | 508-825-9993

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TRENDING N

WHAT’S HAPPENING ON

#NANTUCKET?

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WRITTEN BY LEISE TRUEBLOOD

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#ACKTOGETHER

#CLAPFORTHECARERS

It’s usually right around this time of year that Nantucket restaurants start to fill up their seats with guests again and chefs prepare their menus for the upcoming season. But this year, our community is collectively missing the warm feeling of eating in a restaurant and enjoying a delicious cocktail with friends. Well, that FOMO just didn’t sit right with a few island restaurants, so they created #ACKtogether to fix it.

Encouraging people at home to whip up a favorite meal or drink over social media, the teams behind @iknantucket, @nautilusnantucket, @ciscobrewers, and @lemonpressnantucket created a movement that’s keeping friends connected while sheltering in place. Their virtual campaign has gone completely viral, generating hundreds of posts, especially for their #tACKoTuesday celebration.

Nantucket friends have uploaded shots of eating tacos while social distancing in San Francisco, pouring homemade margaritas in Miami, and making guacamole as far north as Vermont. There have even been a few posts from Europe. Local bartenders have also been hosting Instagram Live sessions to share the secrets behind their famous cocktails. It’s all in the name of fun and enjoying two things that bring us together no matter what: delicious food and festive beverages.

You have to hand it to Simon Shurey... he likes to think big. Whether it’s competing in an Ultra Iron Man (that's swimming 6.2 miles, cycling 264 miles, and running over fifty miles!) or simply helping his fellow man, Shurey doesn’t do anything on a small scale. So when it came to finding a way to boost the spirits of the island community on social media, Shurey got hands on—quite literally.

Inspired by viral videos of Europeans clapping for their healthcare heroes, Shurey created a Facebook group called “Clap for the Carers” and organized a digital wave of applause in honor of Nantucket's healthcare professionals. What started with one night and a few hundred people clapping on their doorsteps has turned into thousands of Nantucketers cheering nightly for their heroes.

Shurey’s Facebook group has grown to over 2,300 members, many of whom post daily about who they clap for, including hospital staff, local business owners, and the island’s essential workers who are working tirelessly to keep Nantucket running while many of us stay home. Shurey has remained committed to the cause, regularly posting about different groups on Nantucket who could use a little extra love.

#CORONASONGCHALLENGE Many Nantucketers have taken to song to connect with the community outside while they remain safely at home. In early March, the talented husband-and-wife team behind @yellowproductions —Chris Wendzicki and Laura Cunningham—joined @lornadollery in their very own rendition of @meghan_trainor’s song Dear Future Husband. Using their video production skills, they created a short and simple music video to share on social media.

The catchy and perfectly performed song not only raised awareness for social distancing measures on Nantucket, but it also launched a fundraising campaign for @ackhospital. The trio put out a “song challenge” calling on other local musicians to put their own spin on a tune for love of Nantucket.

Generating over six thousand views, their music video was quickly shared on multiple accounts and the #CoronaSongChallenge went viral. Hundreds of others created their own videos and then nominated other musical friends to keep the challenge going. Now, you can find hilariously remixed versions of songs like Eric Carmen’s “All By Myself” and 4 Non Blondes’ “What’s Up” on the challenge’s Facebook Group, titled “The #CoronaSongChallenge Raising Awareness for COVID-19 on Nantucket.” Their musical talents paid off: At press time, the group had raised over $7,366 for Nantucket Cottage Hospital.

FURNITURE • ANTIQUES • LIGHTING • PILLOWS • TABLETOP • ACCESSORIES

EVB HOME 99 FRANKLIN ST, WESTPORT, CT | 14 EASY ST, NANTUCKET, MA | EVBANTIQUES .COM

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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 NGREDIENTS

STARRING

ROLL PHOTOGRAPHY BY WAYNE CHINNOCK

Perfect for your family picnic, Cru’s Executive Chef Erin Zircher shares her secret recipe for legendary lobster rolls

DIRECTIONS

• Fill two large stock pots halfway with water and bring them to a boil over high heat. Once the water is rapidly boiling, add two lobsters to each pot, turn off the heat and cover the pots with their lids. After 30 minutes, drain the lobsters and allow them to cool completely on a sheet tray.

INGREDIENTS

4 1½-lb. live lobsters (makes 8 lobster rolls) ½ cup mayonnaise 2 lemons, zested & juiced 8 split-top buns Softened butter

GARNISH

1 tablespoon fresh tarragon leaves, lightly chopped right before using

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1 tablespoon chopped fresh chives

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2 tablespoons celery leaves (pale ones only), lightly chopped

• Split the lobster tail down the back using a pair of kitchen scissors; remove and discard the intestine. Using the kitchen scissors again, remove the meat from the lobster knuckles. Cover each claw with a dish towel and crack them with the back of a chef’s knife. After removing all the meat from the shells, check it carefully for pieces of shell.

• Cut the meat into bite size pieces.

• In a large bowl, mix the chopped lobster meat with the mayonnaise, lemon zest and juice. Cover and chill until ready to serve (the lobster salad can be stored in the fridge for one day).

• Preheat a griddle or large sauté pan over medium heat. If using split-top rolls instead of sliced brioche or challah bread (lightly toasted and buttered), slice the tops of the rolls open one-inch deep. Butter the sides of each roll and toast them lightly until golden on all sides. Watch closely so they don’t burn.

• Divide the lobster salad among each of the toasted rolls and garnish with the chopped tarragon, chives, and celery leaves. Serve immediately.

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Photo courtesy of Barbara Clarke photography.

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HEALTHNWELLNESS N

BRIGHTER HORIZONS PHOTOGRAPHY BY PEDRO BLANCO

Personal trainer Johnna Holland shares her top tips for healthy living Fall in love with yourself and life will fall in love with you. As we act in kindness to ourselves, we may be able to better accept our weaknesses as well as our strengths; have compassion for ourselves as human beings struggling to find personal meaning; be more centered in our life purpose, priorities and passions; and get rid of the clutter that gets in the way of living our best lives.

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SET INTENTIONS & FIND PURPOSE When you set intentions, you are more likely to act with purpose and drive. By intending to do something or become something, you are that much closer to living the life that you desire. What I have found to be helpful is writing down my daily, weekly and monthly intentions. This practice allows you to gain a clear vision of what you want and leaves little to no worry about the future. Living in the moment surely does make life more rewarding!

PRACTICE SELF-FORGIVENESS Easier said than done, but you must be ok with letting things go wrong before you allow things to go right.

Life is made up of ups and downs, gives and gains, learning and letting go, patience and persistence. I encourage you to give yourself permission to fall and fail.

This teaches you how to empower yourself to rise.

2 INVEST IN YOUR HEALTH You can learn to embrace happiness and achieve inner peace simply by changing and incorporating some healthy habits into your life. Focus on nourishing your body rather than starving it or punishing it.

Move your body and appreciate the amazing things your body can do rather than focusing on what you consider to be your “flaws.” Enjoy the outdoors; it can magically make your mind and your body feel so much better! When you’re ready to embark on a more conscious health journey, I suggest starting small and slowly incorporating change. Baby steps are necessary in seeking balance when it comes to sustainable healthy habits. When you feel good, you look good. After that, there’s almost nothing you can’t accomplish.

3 BE PREPARED TO WORK HARD FOR WHAT YOU WANT That’s all it comes down to—the effort you put in, the resiliency you have against the world and the drive to learn, to grow, to succeed. What sets you on fire? What is it you love to do? Life will only change when you become more committed to your growth than you are to your comfort zone. Embrace the joy of learning and discover your passion in life!

5 DO ONE GOOD DEED A DAY This is one exercise we practice regularly as a family. I always ask my kids, what is one small thing you can do today to make the world a better place? Whatever it may be, go and do that. Help people in need and help people when they least expect it and without reason. Share the love with everyone!

6 FIND YOUR TRIBE & LOVE THEM HARD Say no to toxic people and connect with positive, inspiring, encouraging people. Often a tribe can help provide you with insight that will support your ideas and shine clarity upon your hopes and dreams. Being part of a collective of people you click with can make you feel empowered and strong, enhancing your life and cultivating it with positivity.

7 MAKE TIME FOR YOURSELF Most people find that they themselves are at the bottom of their priority list, which is one of the greatest roadblocks to healthy living. While it’s true that consideration of others is important, looking after your own needs first will always allow you to look after others better. Begin by making a list of things you enjoy, then make the time to do some of them. Your “me time” should be as big a priority as anything else in your life.

It will give you something to look forward to through those challenging days.

Johnna Holland is an AFAA-certified personal trainer, sports and fitness nutrition specialist and a consultant for the skincare company Rodan and Fields. She also competes in both the bikini and figure categories for the WNBF/OCB Fitness Federations. Holland lives on Nantucket with her husband and two sons.

NBUZZ SAVING GRACE

Tom McCann has a history of trailblazing philanthropic initiatives on Nantucket, beginning with Holidays for Heroes. In the face of the coronavirus, McCann quickly recognized that many of the people who make the island run—the landscapers, tradespeople, hospitality workers, cleaners, shopkeepers, grocers, personal care workers, drivers, childcare providers and countless other year-round residents—were going to suffer a devastating blow.

“The reality is that they’re not going to be back in business next week—it is going to be a long procedure here,” McCann said at the beginning of April. “And these folks were already hanging on by their fingertips as it was—they couldn’t work all winter, now the season is here to make their living and they’re ready to crush it…but then they get kicked in the teeth.”

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WHAT A RELIEF

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So McCann dug in. Within a week, he formed a citizen coalition and launched ACK SAVES, a privately funded community initiative coordinated through the Community Foundation for Nantucket that’s dedicated to meeting the immediate and emergent financial needs of individuals and their families on the island. Along with his co-founders Chris Yates and Katie Keith, McCann formed an advisory board to raise funds that would be distributed through the Nantucket Food, Fuel and Rental Assistance Program. Any individual on Nantucket struggling to survive financially can apply for assistance through the program.

ACK SAVES launched with a $50,000 gift from the Yates and Boling families, followed by an anonymous milliondollar match pledge. “It took a long, hard week with about twenty-five individuals to get this fund up and running as fast as we did,” McCann said. “I truly expect great things to happen, and happen fast, for the families that need help so badly.

The need on the island is immediate. It’s not tomorrow. It was yesterday or the day before.”

nonprofits, the Community Foundation has provided critical support for human services providers during the pandemic. The mightiest of these efforts comes by way of the Nantucket Fund for Emergency Relief.

“The goal of this fund is to sustain critical care and services during this pandemic,” says the Community Foun dation's executive director, Margaretta Andrews.

The very first safety net to appear as the “The Foundation is committed to collabocoronavirus gripped Nantucket came by rating and coway of the Community Foundation. Even ordinating with before the nonprofit organization formally the Nantucket comlaunched its Nantucket Fund for Emergen- munity to ensure we cy Relief, the Community Foundation was work together to serve those already nimbly supporting emerging relief who are vulnerable during this time efforts pursued by local philanthropists and of great need.” organizations. For instance, when Patrick After the Community Foundation dedicated $100,000 to Ridge announced that his restaurant Island launch the fund in early April, ReMain Nantucket generously pledged to match Kitchen would lend support to the Nantuck- donations up to $250,000. The fund also gained generous support of Todd Bolet Public Schools’ food program to ensure ing and his team at Island Energy Services, which pledged a portion of its sales that no student on the island went hungry, to Emergency Relief. As more donations are needed to expand the safety net the Community Foundation became the cast by the Community Foundation, board president Geoff Verney insists that portal for donors to support Ridge’s efforts. “The Nantucket Fund for Emergency Relief is the easiest and most efficient Championing over a hundred island way to support our vital organizations and year-round community.”

LIFTING THE ROCK

While the Nantucket Cottage Hospital has been caring for the health of the island, the Nantucket Chamber of Commerce has been working triple-time to keep small businesses alive. Chamber interim president Kristie Ferrantella and her team have been the first point of contact for many small businesses navigating the federal relief packages. “The Chamber has been trying to decipher the different federal programs and get that information to our members as quickly and as accurately as possible,” Ferrantella says.

“We’ve put together a task force and had industry calls to identify the cracks where people are falling.”

One of the main cracks that have emerged, as far as the federal relief packages are concerned, relates to the two ends of the small business spectrum on Nantucket. Many of those people who were about to launch businesses this spring do not meet the criteria to apply for the federal relief packages, while more mature business owners who were planning on selling their businesses do not want to enter into a long-term loan with the government at this late stage. Given these blind spots, the Chamber of Commerce has been developing local business relief programs that could help address these unmet needs.

“While giving money to individuals based on current laws is actually relatively easy, you cannot simply give money to businesses—it’s always considered an investment or a loan,” explains Karen Macumber, the Chamber’s business consultant. “So it’s much trickier to set up programs that can directly impact some of the small business owners here.” At press time, the Chamber was working with their lawyers to develop an LLC where relief funds could possibly be distributed to small businesses.

In line with that effort, the Chamber partnered with ReMain Nantucket to launch “Keep the Rock Solid,” an online resource for business owners and donors.

“It’s the giving and getting hub where we have links to all the possible programs, both for accepting donations as well as small businesses applying,” Macumber says. “We’re trying to make business owners aware of other programs like ACK SAVES, so if they have employees who are falling through the cracks, they have someone to turn to.” As the Chamber continues to develop ways to champion the local business community, KeeptheRockSolid.com will be an important cornerstone supporting the island economy.

IN THE NEWS

ter and her team introduced "Nantucket Pulse," a series produced in collaboration with the Nantucket Cottage Hospital Community Health Initiative to deliver regular and reliable updates on COVID-19’s impact on the island. To ensure that the information reaches the greatest amount of people possible, NCTV has included Spanish and Portuguese translations to their broadcasts. As dismal as the news has been nationally, these local outlets have been a bright light by sticking to the facts and serving the public good.

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With the coronavirus impacting communities in different ways throughout the country, communicating local information has never been more critical. Along with the diligent reporting by The Inquirer & Mirror and DayBreak Nantucket, both NCTV and 97.7 ACK-FM have emerged as essential platforms for the Nantucket Cottage Hospital, the Select Board, the Chamber of Commerce and other community leaders to broadcast the most up-todate information to island residents. NCTV’s executive director Lisa Get-

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NTERTAINMENT

NEED TO READ PORTRAIT BY BRIAN SAGER

BOOK PHOTOS BY TIM EHRENBERG

Nantucket’s most beloved bookworm shares the reads that got him through the winter

AMERICAN DIRT BY JEANINE CUMMINS My year of reading began with this highly controversial novel by Jeanine Cummins. American Dirt was an Oprah Book Club Pick and slated to be one of the most anticipated reads of 2020—but then the book faced major backlash. Critics cited cultural appropriation and harmful stereotypes that degrade the immigrant experience. I debated adding the book to my “Need to Read,” but I feel it is an important pick in today’s society. I loved American Dirt for its fast-paced, fictional storyline complete with vivid characters. I also welcomed the controversy surrounding the book. It encouraged me to dig deeper into American Dirt and listen to those voices that oppose it so passionately. I include it here not to divide us as readers, but to inspire healthy conversation.

DARE TO LEAD: BRAVE WORK. TOUGH CONVERSATIONS. WHOLE HEARTS. BY BRENÉ BROWN This winter, WE CAN Nantucket and the Nantucket Island Chamber of Commerce hosted a book club featuring Brené Brown’s Dare to Lead, a playbook for “developing brave leaders and courageous cultures.” This book is not just about leadership; it is about a skill set that we should all learn and practice in our daily lives. I found Dare to Lead extremely useful in a work setting as well as my personal life. After two decades of research, intimate studying of the human experience, and the daring “to choose courage over comfort,” this four-time #1 New York Times best-selling author gives us the tools to step up and realize who we are is how we lead.

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HERE FOR IT OR HOW TO SAVE YOUR SOUL IN AMERICA; ESSAYS BY R. ERIC THOMAS

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The creator of Elle’s “Eric Reads the News,” R. Eric Thomas didn’t know he was different until the world told him so. He was black in his mostly white suburban high school. He was gay in his conservative black church. And he grew up seeing the world differently, finding unexpected hope and experiencing every awkward stumble along the way. This collection of essays was a hilarious and heart felt memoir perfect for Black History Month this past February, but also a worthwhile read all year round.

THE BOOK OF LONGINGS BY SUE MONK KIDD There was no better way to celebrate Women’s History Month this past March than with a novel about the power of women’s stories and how many of those stories have been written out of history. In that spirit, you will meet the fictional Ana, a brilliant and rebellious young woman living in the first century who becomes the wife of Jesus. Ana writes, “When I was finally able to read the scriptures for myself, I discovered (behold!) there were women. To be ignored, to be forgotten, this was the worst sadness of all.” Whether you want to believe Jesus had a wife or not, this meticulously researched account of a woman way before her time is still very relevant today.

THE GLASS HOTEL BY EMILY ST. JOHN MANDEL Station Eleven by Emily St. John Mandel was one of my absolute favorite novels of 2014, so I was eager for whatever she wrote next. The Glass Hotel achieves the same gorgeous prose that had me so enthralled reading Station Eleven. You never quite know where the story is going, how it's all connected or where the characters will end up, but you are in the hands of an author who casts a powerful spell with every sentence, every character and plot development. I was in a literary trance and read this in one sitting.

THE DEEP BY ALMA KATSU

Support your Island Indies. All books are available at Mitchell’s Book Corner & Nantucket Bookworks!

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The Deep by Alma Katsu is a haunting, psychological twist on one of the world’s most renowned stories: the sinking of the Titanic and the ill-fated sail of its sister ship, the Britannic. The twist? Someone, or something, is haunting the ship. I am obsessed with Titanic stories and I appreciate author Alma Katsu’s books that mix history with horror elements. She perfectly captures the class divide, the real-life characters and the mystery that is key to every Titanic story. I am picky with my supernatural fictional, but the author’s historical research makes this book a worthy addition to the Titanic canon.

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NOSH NEWS SPONSORED CONTENT

T

hrough a set of farmhouse-style screen doors at the top of Main Street, you’ll find a laminate lunch counter that’s exactly the same as it’s been for decades. With cat clocks twitching their tails on the wall behind the counter, every stool will likely be occupied by diners taking their first bite of a cheesy tuna melt or toasted PB and J. Located within Nantucket Pharmacy downtown, The Counter on Main Street is one of the steadfast connections to old Nantucket. And thanks to Patrick Ridge of Island Kitchen, that’s not changing anytime soon.

This winter, former Counter owner Pete Van Dingstee decided to step down after twenty-two years at the helm of this community hub. When Nantucket Pharmacy’s owner Alan Bell, who also owns the pharmacy location across from Island Kitchen, asked if Ridge was interested in taking it over, the answer was easy.

“I think for us it was a nice extension of what we already do,” WHY PETRICHOR says Ridge, WINE BAR IS THE who reopened PERFECT PLACE TO The Counter SIP INTO SOMETHING this past January.

COMFORTABLE “And that’s what was so appealing to us.”

Ridge recalls the first time he came to eat at The Counter on Main Street nineteen years ago when he first moved to Nantucket. He was working as a cook at Le Languedoc and enjoyed popping into The Counter between shifts to slurp down a delicious chocolate frappé. Nearly twenty years later, Ridge is committed to continuing this tradition of serving up NantucketPHOTOGRAPHY BY BRIAN SAGER flavored nostalgia.

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SECOND 42

HELPING WRITTEN BY REBECCA NIMERFROH

Island Kitchen keeps The Counter on Main Street cooking

“First and foremost, we wanted to make sure that The Counter was here to stay...keeping the standard classics: the simple grilled cheeses, toasted peanut-butter-andjelly sandwiches, and tuna melts.”

— Patrick Ridge

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“First and foremost, we wanted to make sure that The Counter was here to stay,” Ridge says. “With that was the idea of keeping the standard classics: the simple grilled cheeses, toasted peanut-butter-and-jelly sandwiches, and tuna melts.” The Counter will also keep turning out the staples like a toasted onion bagel sandwich with scallion cream cheese, tomato, salt, pepper and bacon. “We also wanted to expand the offering to pressed sandwiches, salad bowls and add our homemade ice cream,” Ridge explains.

Perhaps in honor of the frappés he loved all those years ago, Ridge has made ice cream a cornerstone to the new and improved Counter. Whipping up as much as eighty gallons of handmade ice cream every day, all year-round at his Island Kitchen location, Ridge will be serving up ten to twelve homemade flavors at The Counter this summer. So while licking the sprinkles off your double scoop of rocky road, you can still relish in the idyllic version of America that is often only found in a Norman Rockwell painting. “There’s a nice sense of connection and community there,” Ridge says, “and that’s what I really like.”

Due to the coronavirus, The Counter at the Pharmacy is closed until shelterin-place safety measures are lifted.

In the meantime, Ridge and his team have been helping feed Nantucket’s students who depend on the school breakfast and lunch program. Read about Ridge and his IK Team’s inspiring work on page 49.

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NSPIRE

MERMAID WRITTEN BY ROBERT COCUZZO

PHOTOGRAPHY BY KIT NOBLE

N magazine

The high-seas adventures of one of Nantucket’s favorite daughters, Mya Kotalac

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Most rehen it cently, Mya and comes to her family put their Nantucket natives, seaworthiness to the ulMya Kotalac is akin timate test by sailing from Saint to island royalty. Her family line goes back to the very first settlers, with Martin to Tahiti, an eight-month, openher and her brother Zach representing the ocean voyage that took them a quarter of the tenth generation of Nantucketers. As leg- way around the globe. Their departure was end has it, she is a direct descendant of originally scheduled for the fall of 2017, but Christopher Hussey, the first islander to then a Category 5 hurricane named Irma ever successfully harpoon a sperm whale completely destroyed their fifty-foot catamore than three hundred years ago. Until maran, Alexandra, while it was docked in that time, only humpbacks were hunted. By Saint Martin. Rick spent the next six months slaying the oil-rich sperm whale, Hussey painstakingly rebuilding the family’s boat by hand. By the effectively changed fall of 2018, they the trajectory of “We’re oceangoing, were shipshape Nantucket history. island people...Growing up, once again and While you our backyard was the harbor ready to set sail. won’t find her with boats, swimming, surfing.”

The route hurling a harpoon, — Mya Kotalac would take them Mya still possesses five hundred a deep connection with the sea that is nothing short of ge- nautical miles from Saint Martin to netic. “We’re oceangoing, island people,” Haiti, where they dropped off humanitarshe says. “Growing up, our backyard was ian aid for earthquake victims. They then the harbor with boats, swimming, surf- continued another 550 miles to Cartaing.” Mya’s parents, Rick and Melanie, gena, Colombia and then on to the Panhave owned and operated Brant Point ama Canal. They sailed for a thousand Marine for more than forty years, and miles across the equator to the Galaparaised her and Zach in and around the gos. From Darwin’s fabled islands, the water. While other kids their age headed Kotalacs embarked on the long, threeto the mainland for school vacations, Mya thousand-mile haul to the Marquesas Iswas helping her parents deliver sailboats lands in French Polynesia. A number of back and forth to the Caribbean. “We al- people rotated on and off the boat during most took it for granted, but my brother the nearly seven-thousand-mile journey and I developed a deep understanding of from the Atlantic to the South Pacific, the ocean that not many people have,” she but only Mya and her father stayed onboard for the entire duration. says. “It’s almost a sixth sense.”

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Together, daughter and father gawked at the heavens above. “We saw a meteor shoot by low in the sky, leaving a long red tail,” she wrote. “Flying fish were jumping past and landing on the trampolines. The blackish-blue sky behind me began to turn smoky purple and encroach into my peripherals. Venus rose up with the light as if it were pulling the sun up from the sea. It continued to rise as the sunrise transitioned through the color

“We all romanticize this idea of sailing in really stormy weather, but in reality, open-ocean sailing is more of a mental game than anything else."

— Mya Kotalac

Photo by Dan LeMaitre

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e all romanticize this idea of sailing in really stormy weather,” Mya says, “but in reality, open-ocean sailing is more of a mental game than anything else. It’s the opposite of exciting.

You wake up and it’s the same thing every day. It’s like a recurring dream.” Mya always opted for the 3 a.m. to 7 a.m. shift at the helm, so she could watch the sunrise.

During those sublimely silent nights when her mind would wander, the tedium gave way to an intimate connection to her surroundings.

As she wrote in her log during the three-night sail to Haiti, “the full moon fell behind a cloud to the northwest and the Milky Way came into full bloom. Orion was high in the sky and Venus was brighter than ever, directly on our tail a few feet above the water. Bioluminescence was sticking in little glowing globs to the sides of the almas. Once in a while, a horse-sized glob would swing past the boat a few feet under the water, making my imagination rumble about sea creatures.” To see the stars better, Mya reached over and dimmed the GPS chart plotter, but in the process, mistakenly flipped off the autopilot, causing the steering wheel to spin wildly. She jumped to arrest its turn, but before she could reach the wheel, Rick already had it in hand. “He swung us back on course without a flinch,” she wrote in her logbook.

spectrum, until it was lost in the light of day. And it was 7 a.m., my shift was over.”

The seven-thousand-mile voyage wasn’t all smooth sailing. Sailing on what’s known as the Coconut Milk Run, their route from Panama to Marquesas typically enjoyed favorable winds and minimal storms. However, about two hundred miles north of Colombia, a major storm emerged on the horizon. “We would have to either go through it or all the way around it,” Mya recalls. “Knowing my adventurous dad, he figured if we just went right through the storm, we’d get a lot of speed from the wind—so that’s what we

did.” For the next two days, Mya and her father fought through fifteen-foot swells and thirty-threeknot gusts. Their refurbished catamaran, though seaworthy, was not designed for fending off such rough seas. “We’d climb up these fifteen-foot waves and then slide sideways down them,” Mya says. “If the seas were any bigger, I don’t think we would have made it.”

After seven months, the Kotalacs finally arrived in French Polynesia, where Nantucket whalers once roamed in search of liquid gold.

They spent six weeks exploring the islands, during which time Mya began to process the adventure she’d just logged with her family. “It was like meditation in a way, a mental endurance,” Mya reflects. “I learned a lot about patience and ways of keeping my mind steady when there was nothing to look at.” She continues, “It also taught me a lot about my love for

the physical world. It sounds cheesy, but it’s real.

I feel more connected to the physical planet now.”

Ironically enough, in the wake of her high-seas adventures and after graduating from Berkeley, Mya decided to pursue a profession not at sea, but very much on land. Today, she’s work-

ing as a landscape architect in Nosara, Costa Rica, a community that’s become a winter enclave for more and more Nantucketers. Employed by John Johnson, another with Nantucket roots, Mya is helping cultivate native plants. “A good friend of mine said to me once that my whole life has been on the ocean, so now I’m trying to root myself in the ground,” Mya says.

Yet no matter how far she goes or how deep she digs, Mya Kotalac’s roots will always trace back to the island of Nantucket. “I have thought about my legacy on Nantucket a lot,” she says. “It’s up to me to either break this legacy or continue it. But there’s also something kind of romantic about that fact that there were ten generations of us on Nantucket, and they were a good ten generations.

But, maybe now, it’s time for a new chapter.”

“It also taught me a lot about my love for the physical world. It sounds cheesy, but it’s real. I feel more connected to the physical planet now.”

— Mya Kotalac

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From Harbor to Home.

Guiding you home on Nantucket, to Washington, DC and beyond.

Katrina Schymik Abjornson Vice President RealtorÂŽ Licensed in Washington DC, Maryland, Virginia, and Massachusetts

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202.441.3982 katrina@compass.com katrinahomes.com

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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.

HEROES AMONG US WRITTEN BY ROBERT COCUZZO

PHOTOGRAPHY BY KIT NOBLE & BRIAN SAGER

When the going gets tough, Nantucketers step up

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hoods while also protecting their health. Nonprofit leaders have launched relief funds, teachers have held digital classes, and countless people have made personal sacrifices for the benefit of the community. One islander launched a website— Nantucketneighbor.com—designed explicitly to connect those in need with those who wanted to help. More than a hundred people immediately signed up to volunteer. Indeed, there are so many individuals rising to meet the occasion, showing courage under fire, and representing the best of our community. Here are just some of the everyday Nantucketers who have emerged as heroes in their own ways.

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esiliency is in Nantucket’s DNA. This island has always been defined by its ability to come together like few other places in the country and face a challenge. When someone on Nantucket gets knocked down, hands immediately unite to lift them right back up. In the face of the coronavirus, Nantucketers have emerged to fight the pandemic in their own unique ways. On the frontlines, the doctors, nurses, caregivers, administrators and staff at the Nantucket Cottage Hospital have been serving the community with courage and compassion. Town officials have been making complex decisions about how to protect islanders’ liveli-

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PATRICK RIDGE & ISLAND KITCHEN Days before it was announced that all Nantucket Public Schools would be closed, Patrick Ridge took to social media and pledged that his restaurant Island Kitchen would ensure that no child went hungry. He recognized the imminent need of thousands of island kids who depend on school breakfast and lunch each day. “This was right in our wheelhouse,” Ridge recalls thinking. “This is one very small subset of the

island’s population that was going to need help and we had the best team and the best infrastructure to do that.”

When the schools closed a few days later, Linda Peterson, who runs the school food program, reached out to Ridge for assistance. “Linda is really the unsung hero in all this,” Ridge says. “She immediately tasked out what she needed and stepped right into a leadership role.” Peterson had the food, but she needed help cooking and distributing the meals. Ridge sent a team of Island Kitchen chefs to help her cook as well as a fleet of food trucks to distribute the meals to hundreds of kids.

As the need has continued to grow, Ridge has received vital support from the Community Foundation of Nantucket to keep the operation running. “There’s never been a better time to step up and try to make an impact,” Ridge says. “Nantucket has been very good to me and my team over the years, and we’re just trying to help in doing what we do best.”

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NATE BARBER & BARBER AND SONS

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When Nantucket Cottage Hospital’s president Gary Shaw called on the community to start making medical masks, Nate Barber and his family-owned building company responded. After donating all their own gloves and N95 masks to the hospital, the Barbers converted their workshop into a mask-making operation. They turned work benches into sewing stations, sourced materials donated by Weatherly

Design and began enlisting sewers.

From morning to night, Barber and his mother sat behind sewing machines making hundreds of masks. His father delivered them to the hospital each day, while his wife Ayesha enlisted more and more sewers through a Facebook group she and Alli Mitchell launched called “Nantucket, Let’s Get Sewing.” Providing instructions on how to make masks, the group gained hundreds of participants, who not only sewed masks for the hospital, but also for local postal workers, airport workers and grocery store clerks. “Now, there’s too many people to name who are making the masks,” Barber says.

While the Barbers may only be a handful of the hundreds of people making masks on the island, their connection to the Nantucket Cottage Hospital is especially personal. “I was born there. My kids were born there. The staff are my colleagues in EMS. My friends work there,” says Barber, who also serves as a Nantucket firefighter alongside his brother. “And Dr. Lepore saved my life when he found my cancer.” Amid this coronavirus crisis, Nate and his father are both fighting cancer, making them all the more vulnerable to the virus.

“I’m blown away by how people are responding during this crisis,” Barber says. “Our doctors, nurses and first responders are showing us their commitment to humankind and their courage in the face of a pandemic.

Tradesmen, retailers and landscapers are showing us their sense of responsibility by shutting down their operations for the health of the island residents. People are making masks and hand sanitizers. Businesses are adapting to provide essential services in a safe manner. I feel very proud to be from Nantucket right now.”

HEATHER FRANCIS & OUR ISLAND HOME Heather Francis serves as the director of nursing at Our Island Home where caring for Nantucket’s most vulnerable population has raised a whole new set of challenges. With their residents no longer able to have visitors, Francis and her dedicated team moved in to fill the void by helping them connect with family through FaceTime and doubling down on activities to keep them entertained and engaged. “We’re learning so much from our residents,” Francis says, “especially how we can do more with less.”

To minimize the risk of exposure, Our Island Home has kept their staff small each day, which has put more demand on those attending.

“I’ve watched directors wash dishes and witnessed aides provide compassionate care

RANDY HUDSON & CISCO BREWERS While many beer lovers might disagree with him, Randy Hudson admits that he felt a little uneasy about Cisco Brewers being deemed an essential service in the wake of the coronavirus shutdown in Massachusetts.

“We’re stocking liquor stores,” he says, “how is that essential?”

So seeking some way to help, Hudson took matters into his own hands—quite literally.

“Everywhere is in need of hand sanitizer,” the master distiller says, “so I made my own batch.” Using bulk spirits, Hudson

consistently,” describes Francis. “The nurses and aides are here 24/7—without a single complaint.”

Francis and her team at Our Island Home are just an example of the many people caring for Nantucket’s elderly population. Whether at Sherburne Commons, The Saltmarsh Senior Center or in hundreds of private residences, caregivers are taking extraordinary measures to serve our most vulnerable population during this most distressing period. “This is a tough time for all, mentally and physically,” says Heather Francis, “but sometimes our greatest struggles bring about our greatest successes.”

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followed the World Health Organization’s recipe to create hand sanitizer for those in the community who need it most. The first batch was given to the fire department and the police station. His second batch went to Myles Reis, for their rubbish removers to have on hand. At press time, Hudson was considering making batches for the Stop & Shops.

Ironically, Hudson spent most of his life railing against the use of hand sanitizer, but given the circumstances, he appreciates its value for those at risk of contacting infected material who might not have immediate access to soap and water. Of course, as one might expect of a world-renowned master distiller, Hudson has improved his recipe for his family’s own batch, adding such elements as citronella aroma therapy drops—a recommendation from his daughter Evelyn, who was busy stitching medical masks at home.

“I’m impressed by our people at Cisco trying to keep things going and keep some semblance of normal,” Hudson says. “But I’m also impressed by places like Bartlett’s and Annye’s Whole Foods who are taking orders that people can pick up. Then there’s the individual stories of people stepping up, bringing food to the elderly. Honestly, when I hear those stories, I feel that I am just not doing enough.”

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OR, THE WHALE & SAND BAR This time of year, the owners of or, the Whale on Main Street and Sandbar on Jetties Beach would normally be preparing their kitchens for the first wave of Daffodil

Festival diners. But when the coronavirus seized the island in late March, owners Nick Nass, Jamie Nass, Chef Manny Rojas, George Kelly and Emily Kelly redirected their efforts to serving a different segment of the island community.

Collaborating with Taylor Hilst and Laura Stewart of the Saltmarsh Senior Center, Sandbar and or, The Whale began cooking and delivering dinners to islanders over the age of sixty who don’t qualify for Meals on Wheels.

Each morning, Nick Nass sends menus to Stewart at the Saltmarsh Senior Center, who takes orders that she then sends back to Nass and his team. “We prepare the food by 2PM for packaging and then it’s out the door by between 3:00 and 3:30,” Nass explains.

“We’ve been delivering to between thirty and thirty-five homes a day.”

When other members of the restaurant industry heard what Nass and his team were doing, they stepped up to help. Amy Young of The Beet and Chef Erin Zircher of Cru have helped cook dinners, while Anna Worgess, Jo Dodd, Todd Billing, Joe Snowey and other restaurant professionals have made deliveries. “We have heard from many other friends in the industry wanting to help,” Nass says. “This powerful feeling of unity has been our inspiration to keep this community connected, safe and healthy.”

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CHEF NEIL FERGUSON AMERICAN SEASONS

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As a lifelong member of the hospitality industry, American Seasons owner Chef Neil Ferguson was looking for a way to serve the many doctors, nurses and hospital staff working so valiantly on the front lines of the coronavirus. “I wanted to do something super positive, kind, caring and friendly,” he says. Yet with his restaurant's spring opening postponed, Chef Ferguson had to get creative. In the beginning of April, he launched Care for the Carers, a gift drive initiative in which people can buy gift certificates or services from local businesses that Chef Ferguson will then package and ship to the Nantucket Cottage Hospital’s 250-person staff. Businesses themselves could also donate products, gift certificates or services to be included in the gift bags, which Chef Ferguson planned on delivering to the hospital administrators on Mother’s Day to be distributed to each recipient accordingly. “We want to reward everyone there—doctors, nurses and all the teams behind the scenes,” Chef Ferguson says. “I know it will be a significant number, but I think this community can make it happen.”

ANNYE CAMARA & OUR LOCAL GROCERS Outside of the Nantucket Cottage Hospital, the frontlines of the coronavirus on the island have been largely at local grocery stores. Every day, the

staff of Stop & Shop, Bartlett’s Farm, Nantucket Meat and Fish, and Annye’s Whole Foods have been putting themselves at risk to ensure that islanders have food in their fridge while they shelter in place. “We've refined our process,” Annye Camara explains.

“My staff are working furiously and empathetically, the food stream to the island is steady, and customers, well, they have been flexible and grateful.” Annye’s as well as Bartlett’s Farm and Nantucket Meat and Fish all introduced curbside pickup, enabling islanders to place orders online or by phone that they can then scoop up from the safety of their vehicles. “As our wonderful Atheneum executive director said in a recent email, ‘previously hidden skill sets are emerging,’” Camara concluded. “We love that!”

to a family in need. While beginning small by word of mouth, the Culinary Center’s Family Meal inspired a larger, more encompassing program for the island.

Joy’s coordination with the Community Foundation ultimately yielded a broader reimbursement initiative that encouraged nonprofits to partner with local restaurants. Modeled after the partnership between The Saltmarsh Senior Center and or, The Whale, the program enabled non-profits to order pre-made meals for their clientele from restaurants that would then be reimbursed by the Community Foundation’s Nantucket Fund for Emergency Relief. “This will not only benefit different organizations and their demographic,” Joy explains, “but also the restaurants who can then reemploy their employees.” Indeed, Joy and Greg Margolis have found the right recipe for serving the community.

JOY & GREG MARGOLIS THE NANTUCKET CULINARY CENTER

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From their Corner Table Café downtown, the Nantucket Culinary Center’s Joy and Greg Margolis have always had a unique insight on the comings and goings of the community. With the coronavirus shutting down most island businesses, the husband-and-wife team anticipated that there was going to be a whole new segment of the population who would soon need food assistance for the first time in their lives. “These are teachers, builders and restaurant workers,” Joy said. “They’re people who are a lot less likely to ask for help.”

To meet this quiet need, the Margolises created a confidential order form on their website where islanders can request dinners-for-four free of charge. With the help of a private donor and the Community Foundation, “The Family Meals” were part of a buy-one, give-one program in which for every meal sold, one was donated

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NQUIRY

TAKING CHARGE INTERVIEW BY BRUCE A. PERCELAY

PHOTOGRAPHY BY BRIAN SAGER

CEO Gary Shaw takes the helm of the Nantucket Cottage Hospital amid stormy seas

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hen Gary Shaw arrived for his first day on the job as the new CEO of the Nantucket Cottage Hospital this winter, he was walking into a good situation. The hospital had just completed a herculean construction campaign that delivered the island the most sophisticated and well-equipped facility of its kind in the country. Shaw had come out of retirement to take the position, having previously served as president or CEO for a number of hospi-

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tals and healthcare providers around the country. Prior to that, he spent twenty years in the United States Navy, serving as a lieutenant commander in the Medical Service Corps assigned to hospitals and ambulatory clinics in the United States, Asia, Caribbean and Europe as well as with NATO peacekeeping forces. After the coronavirus pandemic hit the United States, Shaw drew from his years of experience to lead the Nantucket Cottage Hospital with calm decisiveness and military efficiency.

"I’m working with the best of the best.

When a crisis starts to emerge, the stars become superstars...It’s quite an honor to be beside these folks who are performing miracles every day."

— Gary Shaw

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N MAGAZINE: What past experience are you bringing to Nantucket that is shaping how you are managing the coronavirus?

SHAW: I bring a former public health perspective and an understanding of how disease can be transmitted and how to prevent that once you’ve identified what you’re dealing with. I bring organizational skills that were honed in the military. I understand all of the personal protective measures that need to be put into place to protect individuals and workers. Part

"We don’t see a short-term out in this. It’s more of a long-term play."

— Gary Shaw

of my work in the Navy was in industrial hygiene, where we looked at everything that people are exposed to in the workplace—whether it’s biological hazards, lasers, chemicals, mist fumes, vapors, sound or light— and created environments that are safe and minimize risk. When you have a background working in the safety and prevention arena, it bodes well for situations such as this. You stand up, you lean into it, you dust off your old skills and then you put to work what you’ve learned over a lifetime.

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about COVID-19 on the island?

SHAW: My biggest fear is having a large pool of virus circulating within the population that’s not checked from growth because of a lack of de-socializing. My fear is that if we don’t break the chain of transmission, you have unchecked growth and development of a virus that has shown to be extremely communicable and that we know certain age populations are highly vulnerable to. Data is starting to evolve that shows that even healthy people are starting to have difficulty surviv-

ing the coronavirus. So my worry is that we could have a number of cases that could rapidly overwhelm our health system here on Nantucket. That is my biggest fear.

seen whether there’s an attrition to the coronavirus that would be more impactful in the Northern Hemisphere or subtropical climate than the tropical. More to come on that, but it’s just too new to know.

N MAGAZINE: Has the virus mutated in a way that it’s affecting young people in serious ways?

SHAW: I’m not reading anything that says the virus has changed. What’s fascinating is the fact that it hasn’t really changed. What we do know is that it started circulating in one culture and moved to another culture. We’re starting to see people of different cultures have different impacts. I don’t know if it’s related to culture, but as it gets to different countries, it seems to present in different or broader ways. I think we’ll learn over time what that means and the significance of it as we see a case load. But it isn’t mutating, as I read about it today, which is promising for chemical control or vaccine control in the future. If it’s not going to be mutating like the flu does, it might be able to be controlled or eliminated.

N MAGAZINE: Will the coronavirus become

N MAGAZINE: When will we know when we’re out of the woods on this?

SHAW: Unfortunately, we’re at a point where we have so many vulnerable people facing a disease that can be transmitted pretty easily. The goal is to not have a spike in a population, which then creates such a surge of cases that it overwhelms medical capacities and the community’s ability to deal with it. We’re trying to knock it down by social distancing and taking actions that keep us physically apart from one another and those who are most at risk. So if we knock it down, we’ll see it circulating in the population a little longer, but in probably fewer places. We can then control its outbreak and give us time to get a vaccine in place. Right now, we’re trying to buy time to knock it down, focus on vaccine development and learn if it’s receptive to any of the other drugs that have been used for Ebola or the other types of viruses that have emerged. So we’re buying time. We don’t see a short-term out in this. It’s more of a long-term play.

an annual occurrence like the flu?

SHAW: It’s my understanding that different types of coronaviruses have been in play for many years. This is one of an array of coronaviruses N MAGAZINE: People are wondering that has emerged. Flu is never actu- whether Nantucket’s summer will be ally gone. It circulates in the tropic canceled. Do you care to hazard a guess belts year-round. As such, we study as to what the summer holds? it to deterSHAW: That mine how it’s takes a shifting to crystal ball "My worry is that we’d have a try to predict at this point. number of cases that could rapidly how to drive overwhelm our health system here on I don’t have a vaccine to the right Nantucket. That’s my biggest fear." prevent broad answer. We — Gary Shaw infection. know that Sometimes right now we we get it right, sometimes we get do have a circulating pool of virus. a percentage of it right, but that’s We have a slow rise in cases. We how flu behaves. We haven’t yet expect more. I think we’re in the

we have any breakthroughs in honeymoon phase of under"When you have a large background handwashing or use of personal standing this virus. Our hope working in the safety and prevenprotective gear, then we have is that by asking for the social tion arena, it bodes well for situato look at how we isolate and distancing early enough, we tions such as this.

You stand up, you protect in order to keep our serminimize the spread and we’re lean into it, you dust off your old vices going. The big goal is to going to see a focus of cases. skills and then you put to work what put to work all of our high-tech The goal would be to find you’ve learned over a lifetime." equipment. It can help guide us cases, but fewer than in other — Gary Shaw through what we are facing. parts of the country, and then to Personal protective see the virus go back down to a gear helps us prevent infection and transmission of low level and possibly disappear. I can’t put a crystal this virus. And then communicable control, within ball to how the officials of Nantucket will want to the community through the public health department, handle moving into the springtime and summer, checks the spread of disease so it doesn’t overwhelm other than to know that the town is doing its best and the population, which could potentially overwhelm we are playing our part in supporting the community the hospital. So I think we’re really well positioned. to try and minimize the impact here.

N MAGAZINE: We’re coming to realize the needs of hospitals

equipment to helping support your efforts?

SHAW: When you go from older to new, you increase the capability of limiting disease spread. There’s a whole host of upgrades that bring us up to an ultramodern age, the best that money can buy. We’re very well equipped. Our laboratory is state of the art. With our connection with Partners and how we share resources back and forth, it’s the best support connection you could ever have in the world. So we’re extremely well positioned to weather what we have here. My only worry is that even a facility can’t protect you from individual transmission. If

around the country, whether it be ventilators or medical masks. Are there any needs that are unique to the Nantucket Cottage Hospital from the rest of the country?

SHAW: Staff. Our challenge is that we have a spring and a fall fluctuating population. The virus chose to pick us when we had the least amount of people here and also when we had the least amount of staff resources. So when we look at what our needs are, our needs are to be able to keep the staffing in our departments whole, our nursing staff whole, our operating rooms going and our emergency room open.

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N MAGAZINE: How important are the new facility and the new

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"I have to say that I have never seen a community step in to meet a hospital’s request for help like I have on Nantucket."

— Gary Shaw

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you and your staff that you’re just getting to know. What are your impressions of the people around you?

SHAW: We have a fantastic team of leaders who are extremely proactive. Nantucket is their home.

They see their friends, their elderly folks, their coworkers all impacted. Nobody wants to see this happening to anybody in the community. There are extremely well-trained people focused sharply on this issue. I’m working with the best of the best. When a crisis starts to emerge, the stars become superstars. The people doing the day to day become the new stars.

Folks are working way beyond their normal hours because they want to do everything they can to

protect their community. It’s quite SHAW: Stay in your homes. Listen for an honor to be beside these folks information. Keep yourself aware of who are performing miracles evwhat’s going on. Listen to your town ery day. And the community itself officials related to their expectations is stepping up. I have to say that I to help you be safe. This is a public have never seen safety issue; this a community is a public safety "When you face adversity in step in to meet time. So we here at life, make the choice to lean a hospital’s the hospital will be into it and make the best of request for help putting on a numthe situation that you can... like I have on ber of videos, we’ll We’re doing that on NantuckNantucket. be on the radio staet and we’re going to come tion, we’re in print. out of this showing that we N MAGAZINE: People Our website will are the best of the best." in the community continue to evolve want to help, but it with all the current — Gary Shaw seems like the best information that we way to help is for have. Stay away them to stay in their homes. Are there any from hype. Focus on the facts. I think other ways Nantucketers can support the that’s the best way to be prepared and hospital? go through a daily routine.

N MAGAZINE: You made a call to the community for retired physi-

SHAW: Until there is a medication, a vaccine or herd

cians to come out of retirement. How have people responded?

SHAW: We’ve had over fourteen individuals call, indicating that they could do different things. Not all can go into practice, but they’re all willing to pick up telephones and do contact tracing, or help in different ways. So we’re reviewing where those needs are now, but it’s been a fantastic response.

immunity, we will need to keep the curve flat by distancing, handwashing, wearing a mask and praying for medicine.

This is not one and done.

staying at home. Conversely, will the rate increase when people start to normalize? Is vaccine the only real solution?

with the community?

SHAW: When you face adversity in life, make the choice to lean into it and make the best of the situation that you can. That will develop your mettle and guide you well for the rest of your life. We’re doing that on Nantucket, and we’re going to come out of this showing that we are the best of the best.

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N MAGAZINE: The infection rate is dropping because people are

N MAGAZINE: Are there any other words of wisdom you’d like to share

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NQUIRY

CORONAVIRUS PROGNOSIS INTERVIEW BY BRUCE A. PERCELAY

PHOTOGRAPHY BY BRIAN SAGER

Dr. Bob Arnot shares his perspective on the coronavirus pandemic

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Fauci, the longtime director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Disease who has emerged as the country’s most trusted voice in the coronavirus epidemic. Today, Dr. Arnot has been helping scale the manufacturing of much-needed hospital ventilators while also producing an in-depth course on coronavirus and passing on lessons learned from physicians in London, New York and cities bearing the full brunt of the pandemic. N Magazine spoke to Dr. Arnot at the end of March to get his insights on the virus and what it may look like in the future.

Dr. Bob Arnot

N magazine

ong before the coronavirus outbreak, Dr. Bob Arnot had already been on the frontlines of many dangerous epidemics. From the ravages of cholera in Zaire during the Rwandan Genocide, to sleeping sickness in Southern Sudan, to malaria in Mozambique, to the devastation of AIDS in Haiti, Zimbabwe and Thailand, to the terrifying Ebola outbreak in Uganda, Dr. Arnot has firsthand knowledge of the insidious ebb and flow of infectious disease.

In many of these epidemics, he had consulted with or interviewed Dr. Anthony

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Dr. Arnot has spent decades covering pandemics around the world.

meet the demand in New York City. We found the ventilators in the national stockpile were missing parts and had older hoses which didn’t work.

N MAGAZINE: Where were the

N MAGAZINE: Other than the writers of the movie Contagion, who else saw this coming?

DR. ARNOT: Bill Gates saw it and warned the World Economic Forum in 2017 that a huge epidemic would break down all supply chains. I wrote a book about it called Your Survival. The Centers for Disease Control, which is the finest disease surveillance organization in the world, was always on the lookout for it. They warned us, but we didn’t listen. The states and the federal government were expected to plan for it—but didn’t. New York state needed 15,000 ventilators in reserve. The federal government needed 100,000. They failed. I liken it to someone sitting out on Cisco Beach with a tsunami a couple hundred feet offshore, and everyone is playing volleyball, surfing and talking to their friends—and they don’t realize until the last second that the wave is going to wipe them out. The trouble with a pandemic is that it defies the imagination. Planners and governments cannot justify draconian isolation measures and expensive preparations until they see it with their own eyes.

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N MAGAZINE: The United States has been largely immune to these kind of pandemics up until

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now. Why have we not been able to prevent this and was this avoidable?

DR. ARNOT: The great difficulty is that at each stage we’ve had a staggering amount of warning. We knew a virus like this was going to come. The Chinese saw it in Wuhan and did not act anywhere near as quickly enough. Then the South Koreans saw it. Then the Italians, the French and the British. Now we’re seeing it. So we had very good fair warning. The tragedy is that there is “just-in-time planning” and “just-behind planning,” and everything we’re doing now is “just-behind.” Everything was late, late, late. We had the information, the technology, the manpower and the money to have beaten this thing, but "I liken it to someone sitting now we’re paying the price in hundreds of thousands out on Cisco Beach with a of dead. The tragedy is how avoidable much of the tsunami a couple hundred feet fallout was. I’ve been working on ventilators. The idea off shore...they don’t realize was to have nearly zero inventory of parts. Now that until the last second that the wave is going to wipe them out." they need to scale production, these parts are scattered all over the world. One key part is in Malaysia under — Dr. Bob Arnot lock and key. They couldn’t be scaled fast enough to

specific failures?

DR. ARNOT: Failure number one is that local bureaucrats in Wuhan did not alert their own authorities in Beijing. Then the Chinese failed to warn us early enough. The World Health Organization was too conservative in their warning. Even with late warnings, the US didn’t cancel flights from China early enough and didn’t screen and test those who arrived. We thought it was a Chinese problem. The biggest mistake of all was not having tens of millions of tests deployed. When the Chinese were going through their crisis, we should have stockpiled millions of those tests. Why? What stopped the epidemic in China was widespread testing.

Everyone who tested positive, who was symptomatic or who was in contact with those people were all isolated.

Now they’re down to zero cases. We didn’t warn our own people to isolate weeks

before they did. We valued instilling calm over saving lives. To calm people, New Yorkers were told to wash their hands when they should have started distancing, canceled schools, stayed off the subway and buses instead of believing that handwashing would save them. We ridiculed using masks until the beginning of April.

Our own CDC lost an entire month with a badly flawed test. Even at the height of death in New York City, there was only enough testing for healthcare providers and patients. Doctors and disease modelers are blind without testing. We flew blind through the major stages of the pandemic in the United States. We could only test those with active infection. There was no approved antibody or PCR blood test to determine the scope of the infection. This would have detected those who never had symptoms and shown us the background number of those infected. [As of the first week of April,] the current test only shows active infection.

N MAGAZINE:Why doesn’t anyone understand this virus and its behavior?

DR. ARNOT: It’s like a young child; you don’t know exactly how it’s going to turn out. It’s a very

young virus and we really don’t know all its characteristics so far.

We also have several experiences that are vastly different in each country effected. What are the variables? In Italy, for instance, it’s a multigenerational country where kids and grandparents live in the same house or same neighborhood. In New York, you have millennials who are all super social who may also infect their elders. In Germany, young skiers brought the virus back, so the initial death rates were lower. So there are different situations, different healthcare systems, different capacities.

"The biggest mistake of all was not having tens of millions of tests deployed."

— Dr. Bob Arnot

If you look at the data from St. Thomas’s Hospital in London, people who have a high BMI, high metabolic syndrome, or women who are pregnant or have just delivered are on ventilators because their immune response is compromised. Most intriguing, the older individuals on respirators in London all had very old biological ages, meaning that an accumulation of risk factors and illnesses put them at high risk. The hope is that the very fit, lean older person who battles back their risk factors may have a lower risk of serious illness.

N MAGAZINE: Are we learning anything new about how the virus behaves that is important to keep in mind?

DR. ARNOT: The most important watch word of all is that the virus

"At each stage we’ve had a staggering amount of warning. We knew a virus like this was going to come."

— Dr. Bob Arnot

N magazine

kills quickly once you start to get short of breath. Many die at home not realizing that their blood oxygen levels are plummeting. After four to six symptomatic days with the virus, when they start to get short of breath, they have only eight hours to get on a ventilator. It’s eight hours between when you get short of breath to when you’re either dead or on a respirator. The advice should be that when you start to get short of breath, know which hospitals have ventilators and high flow nasal oxygen devices and head there quickly. The most frightening aspect is the number of asymptomatic individuals who may spread the disease.

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The disease may also be spread by breathing alone without the need for a cough or sneeze. So, you may be in a bar or restaurant or airplane with a carrier who has no symptoms and doesn’t even cough, yet become infected.

N MAGAZINE: Many believe that the coronavirus is behaving like the Spanish Flu, which came in two waves, the second of which was far more devastating. Do you believe that’s the case, and if so, how do we lessen the impact of that second wave?

DR. ARNOT: There were three different waves of illness during the pandemic. Ironically, the first started in March 1918, much like ours began in March 2020. The pandemic peaked in the fall of 1918 and caused most American deaths. Dr. Fauci now sees a fall and even annual resurgence. There is hope that drugs now in huge clinical trials plus widespread testing and isolation techniques may blunt this wave. The other theory is that we are experiencing these waves right now, as the virus first washed through Washington State, then New York City, New Orleans and then smaller cities.

N MAGAZINE: Do you think this will return on an annual basis like the flu?

DR. ARNOT: Dr. Fauci now says this will likely come back as an annual occurrence, like the flu. With summer coming in the Northern Hemisphere, we hope it will dissipate here but may continue in the Southern Hemisphere during their winter, then return here in the fall.

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N MAGAZINE: Beyond social distancing and other precautionary measures, is

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there a regimen that folks should be doing to help ward off the virus?

DR. ARNOT: China saw the risk of traditional risk factors like high blood pressure, chronic lung disease and diabetes. If you have a risk factor, the biggest thing you can do is reduce that risk factor as much as possible. Now is the time to get as healthy as you can. Call your doctor, and if they’re not slammed, ask them what you can do to address your risk factors. So let’s say you have asthma like me, make sure you’re taking your steroid inhalers to make sure your lungs are as clear as possible.

Second, eat a highly, "It’s a very young virus and we really don’t highly anti-inflammatory know all its characteristics so far." diet. One of the easi— Dr. Bob Arnot est things to do is make a smoothie in the morning with cantaloupe, blueberries, kale, spinach and Greek yogurt. That will give you a stunning amount of antioxidants. Get regular exercise. It’s also about distance, distance, distance. If you can get a delivery service to get your groceries, you should. Whoever is going out of your

house is the biggest danger to your family, so I’d stay ten to fifteen feet away from people.

Be extremely careful.

N MAGAZINE: Are we coming to know any new risk factors?

DR. ARNOT: In talking with doctors in London, Italy and New York, several new risk factors appeared. In New York City, vaping, smoking cigarettes and marijuana put younger patients at highest risk of becoming seriously ill because smoking attacks the air sac or alveolus, the same target as the virus. In London, young people who were overweight were at higher risk of ending up on a ventilator as were some pregnant women. If you are young, you’re not immune to very serious disease if you smoke. For baby boomers, it’s their kids.

"If you have a risk factor, the biggest thing you can do is reduce that risk factor as much as possible. Now is the time to get as healthy as you can."

— Dr. Bob Arnot

N MAGAZINE: From a behavioral standpoint, how do you think this will change life in America?

DR. ARNOT: Life is going to go in a different direction than it was. I think people are going to rethink city life. They’re going to say, ‘This is dangerous. I’m killing myself out here. Spending 80 percent of my day fighting to make a living, going into the subway, going to meetings, not accomplishing as much. Shouldn’t home be in a place like Nantucket where you have an opportunity to enjoy quality of life and still have a job?’

The digital workplace will evolve with stunning speed. Employers who see the tremendous productivity of those working at home will rethink spending money on expenses, offices and flying people to meetings. Older people and those at risk won’t want to travel on planes, trains, buses or ferries to Nantucket. Senior executives will rethink living in New York.

I think it’s going to be a long time until a baby boomer with risk factors gets on an airplane or a cruise ship. But millennials may go back to work and social life as usual, sensing less of a risk. I do think it will also be a tremendously exciting time as digital innovations bring a completely new way of thinking about work and a myriad of new jobs we never imagined.

Support the ISland you love donate to the nantuCKet Fund For eMergenCy relIeF A COVID – 19 Response Fund

Keep CrItICal Care MovIng on nantuCKet The Nantucket Fund for Emergency Relief makes grants to alleviate both immediate and long-term needs stemming from the COVID-19 crisis. Grants from this fund will provide assistance to our nonprofit human service providers.

ReMain Nantucket will match donations up to $250,000 to this fund.

Give Now: N magazine

Community Foundation for Nantucket www.cfnan.org PO Box 204 508-825-9993

FOR EMERGENCY RELIEF

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NQUIRY

ECONOMIC OUTLOOK

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INTERVIEW BY BRUCE A. PERCELAY

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PHOTOGRAPHY BY KIT NOBLE

David Smick was interviewed during the first week of April.

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STRATEGIST DAVID SMICK SHARES HIS VIEW ON THE FUTURE OF THE ECONOMY TO AVOID NEAR-REPETITION

antucket summer resident David Smick predicted the global financial crisis of 2008. His New York Times bestseller The World Is Curved: Hidden Dangers to the Global Economy was lauded by critics as “eerily prescient” when it came to forecasting the financial collapse that unfolded mere months after the book was published.

Yet no amount of foresight could have helped Smick predict the economic tumult in which the country is currently embroiled as a result of the coronavi-

rus pandemic. Indeed, Smick says that this financial crisis and the response are historically unprecedented. Yet as a respected global macroeconomic strategist, investor and chairman of a leading macroeconomic advisory firm in Washington, D.C., Smick has an important perspective on the crisis. Moreover, as he’s currently producing a full-length documentary on partisan hate, national division and their threats to America’s future, Smick has compelling insights into how the country should respond.

N MAGAZINE: Washington, D.C. has produced three fiscal rescue packages, so

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far the latest costing a whopping $2.2 trillion. Can you put that in context?

SMICK: We are in a war against COVID-19. Fighting World War II, we spent about $4 trillion in today’s dollars. This latest package was a bazooka. But this is not an economic and financial meltdown in the classic sense. This was a deliberate effort to put the economy into a medically induced coma. The plan is that at the appropriate moment, once the horrific health situation begins to subside, they’ll bring the economy out of the coma. But we’ve never done this before. Success will depend on whether average folk—consumers, investors and small business employers—retain the same level of confidence and optimism that they had about America’s future before the crisis. Will they have short memories and forget the pain and suffering and joblessness … and death? That’s the essential question. I’m on the cautiously optimistic side.

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in the banking system to dry up. People and businesses couldn’t get loans. The situation today is just the opposite. Think of it as the Fed having a million fire hoses shooting water at a burning house. In the 1930s, they practiced water conservation.

My gut tells me that if we hit the turning point in the health crisis relatively soon, the stock market and the economy will come back relatively quickly even if the actual employment and other data continue to look horrible throughout the summer. If the medical models are wrong and the turning point comes in months not weeks, this will be one hell of an ugly summer. But the bottom line: Never before in history have we marshaled this much fiscal and monetary firepower. I’m betting that Fed Chairman Jay Powell is the hero when the historians write about this crisis.

David Smick at the Great Harbor Yacht Club

N magazine

N MAGAZINE: What’s a critical part of our

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N MAGAZINE: While you are not a doctor, are you optimistic on the health front?

SMICK: You can’t look at things the way you would a still photograph. The situation is highly fluid. New York Times columnist Tom Friedman had it right when he said you have exponential health developments on both sides. You have the disease increasing exponentially, but you have our knowledge of the disease—coming medical breakthroughs, new drugs, new combinations of old drugs, vaccines—increasing exponentially. If the latter quickly catches up with the former, we could suddenly be seeing a much more positive picture. Too much of the 24/7 cable news coverage presents a simplistic static snapshot of the horror show. Remember, in 1980, during the AIDS crisis, a major news magazine argued in a cover story that by the year 2000, onethird of the country would be HIV-positive with unimaginable death counts.

Never happened. Habits changed and new drug treatments appeared. That’s why medical forecasts are tricky. The announcement of the problem with grand overstatement becomes the cure.

economic recovery?

SMICK: Some doomsayers, after the stock market’s March meltdown, were whispering the N MAGAZINE: Obviously, the virus was not deliberate on China’s behalf, but it did word “depression.” But this lacked credibility expose flaws such as their secrecy, their health care and their sanitation codes. for one reason: The Federal Reserve. The Fed Does this pandemic hurt China’s stock in the long term? responded in such a major way that the package SMICK: Yes, it definitely hurts China globally. Given the dimensions and is, in effect, much larger than $2.2 trillion. It's severity of their problem, the Chinese leadership’s lack more like $4 trillion to $6 of transparency was a global disgrace. For at least a trillion. In a crisis, people "Never before in history have month if not longer, healthcare professionals worldwide expect the Fed to come we marshaled this much fiscal were operating based on belief in China’s misleading to the rescue as a lender and monetary firepower. I’m data. Many nations avoid criticizing China because the of last resort. This time, it betting that Fed Chairman Jay ruthless leadership has a history of being vindictive. One also came as the buyer of Powell is the hero when the his- reason for that leadership’s frequent outbursts and threats last resort. The latest fiscal torians write about this crisis." against the United States is that the Chinese economy is package allows the Fed to a lot weaker than they are admitting. Chinese economic — David Smick inject unlimited amounts of data are deliberately misleading, too. liquidity to keep the credit system from freezing up. The Fed is not only N MAGAZINE: Do you think this crisis will cause American companies that have buying bonds, including corporate bonds, it done manufacturing in China to bring those operations home? is actually going in and lending to businesses SMICK: I’m already hearing from German industrialists who have major through the banking system. The Fed and Treadealings with China, who privately are asking, “Does it really make sury are saying that if you are a small business sense to have our most vital supply chains on the other side of the and you retain your employees during these try- globe?” In every boardroom around the world, corporate executives ing times, we’ll forgive the loan. That’s never are rethinking their approach to various unstable and ruthless governbeen done before. ments. They are also worried about not being prepared for the next It’s a different ball game compared crisis. After all, we are living in a world that’s become a paradox to the 1930s. During the Depression, the wrapped in a riddle—where things we thought could never happen central bank mistakenly allowed liquidity are happening.

N MAGAZINE: Do you see a quick V-shaped or protracted U-shaped U.S. recovery?

SMICK: It is all dependent on when we hit the coronavirus apex—the downside of the curve—and whether coming medical breakthroughs are dramatic enough that we can handle a return of the virus in the fall or early next year. Even before COVID-19, the global economy was changing. For the major economies, industrialization and trade were in decline with the advent of artificial intelligence and the cloud. Economic powers like Germany, China, Japan and South Korea were increasingly at a disadvantage since manufacturing and exports are still a relatively large part of their GDP. They are now being forced to restructure their economies. America’s highly nimble, flexible and innovative service-and tech-oriented economy was already poised to thrive in this new environment—and it still is.

"The equity markets will continue to be erratic until the full picture of the country’s medical condition becomes clear."

— David Smick

The nightmare scenario for us is that, as a result of the crisis, we become like Japan. Thirty years ago, Japan was hit with a nasty financial crisis. The economy, overloaded with debt, went into a long-term, disinflationary, low-growth funk. The question now is this: Will we be different and come out of this economic crisis with our confidence intact? Will we still want to dream big and dare big?

N MAGAZINE: Why is the stock market in the

N MAGAZINE: When the dust settles, what do you see as the long-term economic changes in this country?

SMICK: There will be hundreds of changes to our daily lives. An obvious example: The workplace will be redefined. We’ll do a lot more electronic meetings using sophisticated screens. We’ll either become closer or more distant from each other as a society. At this point, I’m not sure which way we’ll go. Clearly we’ll lose a lot of our privacy as governments increase their efforts at surveillance.

What I hope is that our leaders in Washington stop their partisan circus of hate and begin to work together. The stakes now are too high to continue the status quo. Look at how quickly the coronavirus turned our lives upside down.

If you look at the list of other threats to America, they’re terrifying. What if we faced a threat even worse than the coronavirus? Would we be prepared? Or will our leaders be mired once again in their culture of contempt—our civil war of hate? Our leaders need to wake up.

COVID-19 changes everything.

We need to rethink some aspects of global capitalism. Does America want essential global supply chains to be so vulnerable to parts of the world that lack our value structure? Can we as a people psychologically withstand global financial meltdowns that seem to come like a giant wrecking ball every decade or so?

There’s got to be a better way.

The American economy is clearly out of balance. Over the last thirty to forty

years, finance and banking have become more important than actually thinking up revolutionary ideas—more important than inventing and making things.

Consider this: Seventy-five years ago, financial firms made a buck for every

"If ever there was a time for national unity, the time is now."

— David Smick

$40 the economy produced in GDP. Today, they make a buck for every $12 the economy produces in GDP. But is this windfall sustainable? We now have a “velvet rope” financial aristocracy of brains and money that has cut itself off from the rest of society. But this is risky for our democracy.

I worry that we are transitioning to some dangerous geopolitical times. Democracy is on the run. And if ever there was a time for national unity, the time is now. But my gut tells me that real change will have to come from the bottom up, not top down. It will come when voters choose leaders willing to put country before party. The coronavirus crisis may have pushed us in that direction a bit—we came together temporarily—but we’re not there permanently. I am fully aware that the American hate industry, where people are making money and gaining power and fame exploiting our divisions, is formidable.

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current crisis so erratic?

SMICK: The equity markets will continue to be erratic until the full picture of the country’s medical condition becomes clear. The medical profession uses models for their predictions. In economics, econometric models of the macroeconomic outlook have been largely discredited. In general, our financial markets are now compelled by computer-driven

investors. Algorithms, not people, are driving the stock market—sometimes driving it into the ground.

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NDEPTH

TREASURE

HUNTERS

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WRITTEN BY REBECCA NIMERFROH

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PHOTOGRAPHY BY BRIAN SAGER

STYLING BY SARAH FRAUNFELDER

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Two women on Nantucket redefine the meaning of Big Dig

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ikoline Bohr and Karen Russell are definitely not who you’d picture hunting for buried treasure on Nantucket. Fashionably dressed and as striking as runway models, these two island residents can most often be found knee deep in dirt, waving a metal detector in search of arrowheads, colonial coins and gold rings

that slipped from the fingers of Nantucket’s earliest settlers. Together, they’ve amassed an impressive collection of brooches, lockets, knives, belt buckles, medallions and harpoon tips. Their most recent discovery, however, was never on their radar, but might just be most valuable of all: television stardom.

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Local treasure hunters Karen Russell and Nikoline Bohr make metal detectors fashionable73 with the help of looks by Sarah Fraunfelder

“You have no idea what you’re constantly walking over and how much it can teach you.”

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— Nikoline Bohr

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Some of the booty from recent hunts.

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here’s this notion that account—@dig_holes—where she metal detecting is an began posting photos of their daily ‘old man hobby’ and booty. “You’re constantly learning therefore an odd thing for a woman and saving little pieces of history as to do,” Bohr says. “But that’s silly. you go along,” she says. “So I think Digging in the dirt is something it’s nice to have people to share it both men and women of all ages can with.” What started as a simple way equally enjoy.” Bohr moved to Nanto document her findings and edutucket year-round nearly three years cate herself on their historical value ago after visiting every summer durended up grabbing the attention of a ing her childhood. With a bachelor’s Hollywood filmmaker. degree in physics, she first began “I immediately realized I was using a metal detector in her backdiscovering dynamic characters,” yard in search of meteorites but was says Chris Berkenkamp, a Hollyamazed by all of the other items she wood-based director and film prodiscovered. ducer whose “You will latest film “There’s this notion that be surprised Cut Throat metal detecting is an at just the City star‘old man hobby’ and quantity of ring Ethan therefore an odd thing trash that is Hawke and for a woman to do… so close to We s l e y but that’s silly.” the surface,” Snipes was — Nikoline Bohr she says. released “You have in theaters no idea what you’re constantly walkthis April. After meeting the girls, ing over and how much it can teach Berkenkamp pitched them on filmyou.” By chance, she also found a ing a docu-series about their treafriend who was interested in getsure hunting adventures. “Ultiting her hands dirty. Karen Russell mately, we didn’t want to joined Bohr in roaming the many put this show through the yards and hillsides of Nantucket in Hollywood machine, search of tiny, sacred artifacts. “You but rather empower make about six cents an hour until and champion their you get lucky,” Russell jokes. story and vision Russell and Bohr always from their quirky, ask permission to hunt on private artistic, charmproperties, what they call “good ing and defidirt.” Bohr says her background in nitely Nantucket science, especially in the areas of point of view,” soil mineralization and its effect on he says. So now metals, has helped identify promiswith a film crew ing dig locations. As they unearthed trailing them on more and more interesting findtheir hunts, Bohr ings, Bohr created an Instagram and Russell set off

in boots, rugged denim, oversized sunglasses and fanny packs—armed to the teeth with metal detectors and digging tools.

They look like a cross between Indiana Jones and punk rockers from the Seattle grunge years of the early ’90s.

Once the metal detector indicates a target of interest beneath the earth’s surface, a small plug will be dug just around the perimeter, sometimes as small as two inches in diameter. The earth will be flipped over, and Bohr and Russell will then inspect it for treasure, using the pinpointer, which beeps as it gets close to something. When an item is located (most often a pull tab, a nail or a nip bottle cap), the plug—dirt, grass and all—is replaced so it looks as though nothing ever happened.

“It takes a lot of patience,” Bohr says. “You need to realize you will be digging a lot of holes until you find something that you can identify, that you think is interesting, but I have to say a lot of things you can’t identify are really cool too, all the bits and bobs and pieces of metal.”

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he oldest artifact the duo has unearthed is a Spanish colonial half real, a piece of currency dating back to 1737 that Bohr speculates was dropped by one of Nantucket’s very first settlers. The coin is nearly weightless, an uneven circle darkened by time, with two holes through the middle (likely used as a button at one point). They found the rare coin within two feet of three other distinctly colonial buttons.

With their docu-series still in production and their social media following continuing to grow, Nikoline Bohr and Karen Russell will be digging for the foreseeable

“Every time I go out, everything I find is the coolest thing I’ve ever found…I think of it as a bag of jelly beans—you never know what flavor you’re going to pull out.”

— Nikoline Bohr

— Dave Dunn

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Karen Russell and Nikoline Bohr bring high fashion to treasure hunting with looks from Gypsy

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future. But it’s obviously not for the monetary reward, or the fame for that matter, that keeps these two women on the hunt. They have a deep passion for discovery that becomes more and more intense with each hunt. “Every time I go out, everything I find is the coolest thing I’ve ever found,” Bohr says with a smile. “I think of it as a bag of jelly beans—you never know what flavor you’re going to pull out.”

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PERSEVERANCE WRITTEN BY ROBERT COCUZZO

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A NANTUCKET SUMMER RESIDENT’S LONG JOURNEY TO GET BACK ON HIS FEET

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aul Dutra always did more than most. He worked hard, played hard, moved fast and traveled constantly. A high-powered pharmaceutical exec, Dutra hopscotched from coast to coast and country to country for meetings with head-spinning regularity. Apart from lying on the beach at his home on Nantucket, movement was the forty-nineyear-old’s MO. But in the fall of 2018, Paul Dutra’s high-paced life came to a screeching halt. In a matter of hours, his body began shutting down until he was completely paralyzed.

For the next six months, Dutra would be trapped in his own body battling an extremely rare condition that first took hold of him on Nantucket.

The third weekend of September 2018 exem-

plified Dutra’s especially active way of life. After a business conference in Colorado, he spent the weekend in the Hamptons where he played thirty-six holes of golf for two days with fifteen friends. He then flew back to his home on Nantucket where his wife, Stacey, and two daughters hosted a dozen people for a dinner that stretched late into the night.

Early the next morning, Dutra was back on the golf course for another eighteen holes at Miacomet. After dinner with a friend that night, Dutra felt uncharacteristically tired. “I must be getting old,” he thought as he climbed into bed.

“I mean…I am turning fifty this year…I should really slow down.” As Dutra drifted off to sleep that night, he never could have imagined how terribly prescient that thought would prove to be.

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“W

the charcoal off. When he closed hen I swung my feet out of bed his eyes to wash his face, sudthe next morning, my hamdenly his legs gave way. Dutra fell strings felt like I had just run two through the glass shower door and marathons,” he recalled. His feet nearly hit his head on the corner of also felt painfully sore and numb. the vanity.

“I just figured I had Stacey sped Dudone too much that "The problem was past week and had that it was progressing tra to the emergency room at Nantucket so rapidly and I was to loosen up.” So told that it could Cottage Hospital Dutra drew himself shut down the muscles where, after hearing a bath and soaked controlling my his symptoms, for a while, but his diaphragm and I wouldn’t the attendlegs only felt probe able to breathe.” ing phygressively worse.

N magazine

— Paul Dutra Throughout the day, he started mysteriously tripping and falling. When Stacey returned home that evening, she took one look at him and sensed something was wrong.

She suggested that he get back in the bath and she would add some CBD with activated charcoal to help relax muscles. After soaking in the tub for some time, Dutra emerged covered in black. He hobbled into the nearby shower to rinse

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sician immediately ordered a CAT scan, which came back normal. “At this point, it was past midnight and I had no feeling in my legs and couldn’t walk,” Dutra recalled. “The doctors were getting super scared.” The doctors called in an MRI technician out of bed. Dutra spent fifteen minutes in the tight MRI machine, hoping for answers, but that too came back normal.

In the meantime, the doctors called up the attending neurologist at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston.

According to the neurologist at Mass General, Dutra appeared to have the symptoms of an incredibly rare neurological disorder called Guillain-Barré syndrome (GBS), in which the body’s immune system mistakenly attacks its nerves, which can cause complete paralysis. “I’d never heard of GBS,” Du-

tra recalled. “And the problem was that it was progressing so rapidly and I was told that it could shut down the muscles controlling my diaphragm and I wouldn’t be able to breathe.” Dutra needed to get on a MedFlight to Mass General immediately, but because of the weather, a helicopter couldn’t arrive until nine the next morning.

For the next five hours, a nurse in the ER sat by his side monitoring his every breath.

By the time he landed on the rooftop helipad at Mass General at 10 a.m. the following morning, Dutra was paralyzed from the waist down. To confirm that he was indeed suffering from GBS, the doctors administered a lumbar punch, a brutal procedure in which fluids were drained from his spine.

“They couldn’t give me any pain meds, just a basic topical cream,” Dutra recalled. “It was the most painful thing up to that point that I’ve ever experienced.”

After a couple of hours, the results confirmed their worst fears.

Doctors told Dutra he had an aggressive case of GBS. At that moment, they couldn’t give him a prognosis or tell him if he’d ever fully recover. There is no quick cure for GBS, the syndrome shuts down a patient’s body for weeks or months at a time. In most cases, a

“Imagine waking up tomorrow and you can’t move and then not knowing if you’ll ever walk again—that was the hardest part.”

— Paul Dutra

patient will regain movement, but there’s no telling how long it might take and what degree of mobility will return. “Imagine waking up tomorrow and you can’t move,” Dutra said, “and then not knowing if you’ll ever walk again—that was the hardest part.”

Treatment options for GBS are limited. Regardless of which treatment Dutra chose, the doctors told him that he should prepare to be in the hospital for the next two to three months—and that was in a best-case scenario. Ultimately he chose intravenous immunoglobulin (IVIG), an extraordinarily expensive five-round treatment created from the blood of 1,000 or more donors per batch.

Ten days later, after two rounds of treatment, Dutra was completely paralyzed from the neck down. The IVIG treatment had done nothing to slow the disease’s onslaught; instead, it caused his breathing to plummet and sent him to the ICU where he was monitored closely by nurses twenty-four hours a day. With no control of his body, hooked up to machines that beeped incessantly, and with no help from pain meds or sleeping pills, Dutra had barely slept or eaten in nine days.

N magazine Strolling on the beach today with his dog, Dutra had to learn how to walk again during his long recovery.

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T

hey had lots of problems with me,” he recalled. “I was on so many different drugs at MGH because every time they would fix something, something else would go wrong. It was really, really, really hard.”

After Dutra spent nearly three weeks at Mass General, his doctors explained that he would need to enter a rehabilitation facility to learn how to do everything again, from walking to feeding himself. Dutra was lucky to get a bed at the Spaulding Clinic, in Charlestown, the second best rehab facility in the country, where he was put on the floor

dedicated to spinal cord injuries. Staring up at the ceiling, surrounded by machines and incessant beeping, despair consumed him. “I started feeling really sorry for myself,” he recalled. “I was stuck in a bed twenty-two hours a day, not being able to do anything for myself. I mean I was a super active guy. I had been to India over a hundred times, been to five continents.”

And now all he could do was stare at a spot on the ceiling ten feet from his face.

Going stir-crazy, Dutra asked to be taken out of his bed. Nurses hoisted him with the lift, placed him in a wheelchair and rolled him out into the hallway where

N magazine

Photos of Dutra with the many friends who visited him from Nantucket.

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other patients were sitting. “That was a turning point for me,” he recalled. He met a twenty-year-old guy who had been in a plane crash where his brother died, and another man who had fallen off a rail car onto the tracks. Both were completely paralyzed. “Neither of them will ever walk again,” Dutra thought to himself. “I’m going to get better, but they will never walk again.” From that moment on, he refused to pity himself and turned his full attention toward his recovery.

At the beginning of his rehabilitation, Dutra didn’t want any visitors. He had lost over forty pounds and feared what people would think when they entered his room. But soon, the Nantucket community came knocking. “The outpouring of support from Nantucket was nothing I ever expected, but boy did it change everything,” he reflected.

“Whenever someone came for a visit it was like I was given a lifeline.” Dozens upon dozens of friends traveled from Nantucket to see him, bringing him his favorite Nantucket treats. Evan and Maria Marley cooked up boxes of Dutra’s favorite Pi Pizza and delivered it with island pilot Jeff Turner who flew them over to Boston. Stacey started an Instagram account called “@thedailyteeshirt” that encouraged those who couldn’t make the trip to Boston to mail fun t-shirts. He received more than 250 and wore one or two each day for photos posted on social media that allowed his friends to follow his progress. “It was mindboggling the amount of people that reached out,” Dutra said. “It really sustained me.” To keep him motivated, his sister placed a framed photo of the view from his home on Nantucket at the end of his bed that she had captioned: “All Roads Lead To Home.”

The recovery was slow, but three months after he was rushed to Nantucket Cottage Hospital’s emergency room, Dutra woke up one morning in the Spaulding clinic and looked over to his

right hand. He’d been completely paralyzed for nearly all that time, but now as he stared at his arm, it began to move ever so slightly. A week later, his left arm be-

“The outpouring of support from Nantucket was nothing I ever expected, but boy did it change everything. Whenever someone came for a visit it was like I was given a lifeline.”

— Paul Dutra

gan to move. Slowly he regained the use of his hands and was placed in an electric wheelchair, which gave him his first taste

would literally be in the fetal position crying because I was in that much pain. It felt like somebody was hitting my back with a baseball bat and the pain was going down my legs and shooting out of my toes.” Three days after taking his first steps in a walker, Dutra was forced out of the Spaulding clinic by his insurance company. He and his family relocated to Florida where he continued his arduous recovery.

Two years later, Dutra has regained most of his mobility. His feet are still numb and he still trips on occasion, but he has

Devil’s Pool at the edge of the 355-foot Victoria Falls. He helicoptered over the falls and then bungee jumped 364-feet off the Zambia Bridge—eleven seconds of freefall. “It’s a big F U to GBS,” Dutra said.

“I’m not hesitating…I’m just going.”

Only four GBS patients have ever had the syndrome return, but Paul Dutra isn’t taking

Dutra today surrounded by gifts from well-wishers in his kitchen on Nantucket

reclaimed his active way of life and only upped the ante. “I’m not letting anything slow me down,” he said. Since recovering his mobility, he is back to his world travels: China, England, Switzerland, France, South Africa. Most recently, he volunteered at an animal sanctuary in Zimbabwe for three weeks, caring for sixteen lions, four cheetahs, monkeys, baboons and a hundred different types of birds. He then flew to Zambia and soaked in the legendary

any chances or anything for granted. He’s continuing to move on to more and more adventures. Yet no matter how far or wide he travels in the days to come, Dutra will always return to his home on Nantucket where the view of Madequecham Beach continues to fuel his recovery. Throughout all the trials, it was the support of his family, friends and this island community that kept him moving forward even while his body wouldn’t budge.

N magazine

of independence. As more of his body returned, Dutra invested himself fully into his physical therapy sessions. Each stride toward learning to walk and regain his bodily functions came with unspeakable pain and demoralizing mental burdens.

“Every single day between doses of medication when one would be running out and before the next one would start, I would have a three-hour gap,” Dutra described. “During that three-hour gap, I

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NVOGUE

SPRING CLEAN

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N MAGAZINE’S STYLE SQUAD BRINGS FRESH LOOKS TO THE ISLAND’S OLDEST SPACES

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PHOTOGRAPHY: BRIAN SAGER PRODUCTION: EMME DUNCAN STYLING: SARAH FRAUNFELDER HAIR & MAKEUP: EMILY DENNY OF EMILY NANTUCKET ASSISTANCE: LEISE TRUEBLOOD PHOTOGRAPHY ASSISTANCE: BALI BOCK LOCATION: NANTUCKET HISTORICAL ASSOCIATION PROPERTIES

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TOP: CJ LAING PANTS: FAHERTY NECKLACE, EARRINGS: JEWEL IN THE SEA RING: SUSAN LISTER LOCKE

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COAT: SHARI’S PLACE EARRINGS: SUSAN LISTER LOCKE

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TOP: CURRENTVINTAGE PANTS: SHARI’S PLACE NECKLACE: MILLY & GRACE

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ROBE: CJ LAING EARRINGS, NECKLACE: JEWEL IN THE SEA

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SWEATER: SHARI’S PLACE NECKLACE: HEIDI WEDDENDORF RING: CJ LAING

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NECKLACE, DRESS: GYPSY RING: SUSAN LISTER LOCKE

DRESS: CJ LAING EARRINGS, NECKLACE, RING: JEWEL IN THE SEA

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MAHON DOWN

FOGGYSHEET

This off-season, one of Nantucket's most beloved islanders, Gene Mahon, fell on some incredibly challenging times. With Mahon facing serious medical hardships, the Nantucket community rallied behind him.

Friends Beth English, Mark Donato and Kristen Cambell launched a fundraising campaign that quickly amassed more than $150,000. Part of the campaign was the widely attended "Mahon Down!" event at The Chicken Box.

nantucket

ANDREW & JILL VISELLI

NEIL & LAURA MARTTILA WITH BETH ENGLISH

JULIE & JOHN JORDIN WITH DOUG COTE

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PETER GREENHALGH & STACEY STUART

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HEATHER DUVALL & JOHN ARENA

CARL & SARAH LINDVALL

HAFSA LEWIS & STEFAN MANDLE

TOM PROCH & ROCKY FOX

MARSHA EAGAN, REBECCA BARTLETT & ELIN HILDERBRAND

RANDY HUDSON & REBECCA BARTLETT

TOMMY BRESETTE & ANGELA RAYNOR

KATHY AYERS WITH THE SUSSEKS

TESSA CRESSMAN & ANNA JAY

KRISTEN CAMPBELL & GRETCHEN CALLAHAN

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NANCY BEAN AND HER DAUGHTER

AMBER & DAVID CANTELLA

MELISSA MURPHY & JENNIFER COHEN PHOTOGRAPHY BY LAURIE RICHARDS

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WINTER ADVENTURES

FOGGYSHEET

Perhaps more than in most places in the country, many Nantucket residents take their winter travels to the extreme. In true whaler fashion, islanders explore far and wide during the quiet months of the off-season.

From fly fishing in New Zealand to scuba-diving in the Great Barrier Reef, check out the high-flying adventures of these year-round islanders.

nantucket

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TIM EHRENBERG IN GREAT BARRIER REEF

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MAX HERBST IN TURKEY

JEN SHALLEY ALLEN IN NEW ZEALAND

MIKE ALLEN IN NEW ZEALAND

SANTI SCHEURELL IN GREAT BARRIER REEF

GARY LANGLEY & LINDA SIMMONS IN THE CALIFONIA'S SAN BERNARDINO MOUNTAINS

JOSH GRAY & DAVID BRENNER EN ROUTE TO MICHOACAN MONARCH BUTTERFLY RESERVE IN CENTRAL MEXICO

THE QUINN GIRLS IN NOSARA, COSTA RICA

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JOE & LINDA HALE IN PATAGONIA

CAVEL MATTISON IN ROME'S PIAZZA NAVONA

THE WEST BROTHERS IN JOST VAN DYKE (BVI)

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NHA

OLD HAT IMAGES COURTESY OF NHA ARCHIVES

A tip of the cap to Nantucket's historical headwear

N magazine

With the Daffodil Festival's annual Hat Parade taking a hiatus this year, we reached back into the NHA archives to dust off some of the top caps of the past.

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Mildred Burgess wearing a fancy blouse, jacket and skirt, and a large flowered hat.

B

A

C

A Elisha Pope Fearing Gardner, the poet of Poet's Korner, wearing a very festive straw hat, and carrying a square basket on his arm, which has a Poets Korner sign on it.

B Florence Ceely as a young girl.

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C Obadiah in his elder years wearing a straw hat.

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A

B

C

D

A Billy Bowen smoking a pipe, seated and holding a Mirror newspaper while wearing fishermen's attire.

C Unidentified actress wearing a large black hat with netting.

B Actress Persy Haswell Fawcett wearing a large hat with feathers.

D John Francis Sylvia, who once owned the Old Mill, wearing a large straw hat and overalls.

F

E

H

I

G

J

E Admiral William Mayhew Folger wearing fur hat and collar.

F Woman in hat reading.

G Woman sitting for a portait in a feathery hat.

H Lady posed with a large feathered hat and a white dress.

I

J John R. Sylvia's daughter in July of 1891.

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From 1889, Annie Dunham wearing an unusual hat decorated with many bird wings.

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l a u t r i v r u o f o t r a p Be a ! l a v i t s e F Book y

s with man w ie v r e t in nline Featuring o 0 authors.

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Nantucket’s newspaper since 1821

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NOT SO FAST

Spruce Up INTERVIEW BY ROBERT COCUZZO

A QUICK CHAT WITH PHOTOGRAPHER AND LANDSCAPER BURT “SPRUCE” BALKIND

N MAGAZINE: How did you get the nickname Spruce?

BALKIND: I have a small landscaping company called Spruce Landscaping—that’s how I got it.

N MAGAZINE: What’s one thing most people don’t know about you?

BALKIND: I was a medic in the Army National Guard in the eighties.

N MAGAZINE: If you could bring back one thing from your early days on the island what would it be?

BALKIND: My early days only go back to the early nineties, so, with that in mind, I would like to bring back the uncrowded Nantucket that I only caught a glimpse of.

N MAGAZINE: You’ve been capturing the island for many years now

you here?

BALKIND: I came here for "one summer" after graduating Montana State University and the ocean and people kept me here.

with your company Kindflow Productions—what’s one photo or reel of footage that you’ll never forget?

BALKIND: I caught a super full moon rising with a gull flying through the middle of the moon. I recently took pictures of the full moon lighting up the bulb-less Sankaty Light.

N MAGAZINE: What do you think poses the greatest threat to the

N MAGAZINE: How would you sum up Nantucket’s surfing scene

future of the island?

BALKIND: The greatest threat to the island is being loved to death.

The second is sea-level rise.

in three words?

BALKIND: Eclectic surf tribe.

N MAGAZINE: How did you end up on Nantucket and what’s kept

N MAGAZINE: You’re very active in the year-round community.

What are some of the organizations you are proud to be a part of?

BALKIND: Nantucket Coastal Conservancy, Marine Mammal Alliance of Nantucket, the Nantucket Tipping Point, the American Red Cross, and the Nantucket Amateur Radio Association where we provide emergency communications when needed.

N MAGAZINE: What’s the most underrated part of the island?

BALKIND: Eel Point.

N MAGAZINE: What three items would you put into a time capsule so that people would understand Nantucket two hundred years from now?

BALKIND: A scallop shell, jeep keys and a bottle of Cisco beer.

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N MAGAZINE: What’s one local secret that summer people

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N MAGAZINE: You pulled papers this winter for the Nantucket Land Bank, but have since decided not to run. What would you want the Land Bank to be doing differently?

BALKIND: If I were on any Nantucket board, I would bring an ecological and environmental viewpoint to counterbalance the development-centric direction we seem to be heading down.

might appreciate?

BALKIND: Get to the beach before 10 a.m. and you will have your choice of spots.

N MAGAZINE: What’s your favorite saying or words of wisdom?

BALKIND: It’s a play on my last name: Be all kind.

LIFE

CHANGING

Cara and Ryan Scotto with their kids Mason and Frey photo: Lindsay Murphy Photography

A

s we were celebrating our son’s 3rd birthday, a freak accident resulted in head trauma and left him non-responsive with his eyes rolled back in his head. Due to our proximity to the hospital, we decided not to wait for 911 to come to us and we got to the Nantucket Cottage Hospital emergency department before its staff could be notified of our arrival.

Not only was the medical care our son received at NCH critical to saving his life, but the kindness and support we received was incredible. The NCH staff was also exemplary in communicating and coordinating the complex logistics of a transfer by Coast Guard helicopter to Boston Children’s Hospital for emergency brain surgery.

As we were told by our son’s neurosurgeon in Boston, it was the immediate actions by Nantucket Cottage Hospital that were critical in saving his life and amazingly avoiding any long-term brain damage. We are forever grateful and know that every smile, laugh and special moment from here on is due to the efforts of the many people who worked together to care for our son on that day.

– Cara and Ryan Scotto Read more of the Scotto Family’s story by visiting NantucketHospital.org/NCHFund

N magazine

On Nantucket, we are your healthcare home. We care for your everyday and ongoing needs – primary, surgical and specialty care – provided by our own doctors, as well as experts who come to the island from Massachusetts General Hospital and other premier mainland hospitals. For emergencies and urgent care, our state-of-the-art capabilities are here for you 24/7. We do it all – save lives, monitor your health, perform diagnostic tests and offer top-tier specialty care, right here.

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THE ART OF LIVING

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