Summer of 1968

My longtime friend Mark Dalton has reminded me that forty years have passed since the summer of ’68.

Indeed, a momentous time for the nation with Viet Nam, the assassinations of Martin Luther King, Jr. and Robert Kennedy, riots across America and the chaotic Democratic convention in Chicago.

Alas, there was a softer side to that summer. Simon and Garfunkel loved Mrs.Robinson, flower power was in the air (… if you're going to San Francisco ~ be sure to wear some flowers in your hair) and Mark and I were twenty year olds headed for a season on Martha’s Vineyard.

We quickly learned our place in the sun: the year ‘round residents of the island scorned the summer folk, the 3 month visitors despised the short-term people, the July or August guests loathed the weekly renters and everyone hated the day-trippers from Hyannis with their picnics and rental bikes. It didn’t matter ~ we had a toe-hold in this sandy, snobby paradise.

Over the Fourth of July weekend I met a lissome blond who was at Vassar. We were watching the fireworks and probably kissing and she told me her parents sailed up to the Vineyard every summer from Sag Harbor before moving on to Kennebunkport. The moon was rising above Chappaquiddick and for a nanosecond I imaged myself a young Jay Gatsby whom I had studied that spring in Freshman Lit. ‘Lissome’ disappeared later in the evening along with the gold and silver bursts that had lit up the water over Edgartown Harbor.

We rented a cottage from a couple named Bob and Mary Lucas. He held a position of some renown on the island and she was a dreamy woman with pretty brown eyes. Without children yet, she seemed to dote on our needs. Mary had an infectious laugh and even in June her arms and legs were deeply tanned.

From their porch on the high bluff you could see the lighthouse at East Chop. Truth be told, the ‘cottage’ we had was just a small but tidy annex to their garage. After a few weeks Mary recognized us for what we were ~ two slipshod college kids who had not advanced beyond hamburger-helper and nightly six-packs of beer. Coming back from work one evening, we discovered the place to be immaculately clean, a vase of flowers and a big pot of pasta, fresh bread and salad on the small table. In a summer of sparkling nights Mary Lucas was the mother goddess who looked after us, wishfully our own Mrs. Robinson perhaps.

By early September, college beckoned and the ferry to Cape Cod and the mainland was full on every sailing. Looking back one last time across the waters of Vineyard Sound, the swaying trees up on the bluff seemed to frantically signal that this was a once in a lifetime idyll not to be forgotten.

I haven’t ~ that was the summer of ’68.