HOLLY NADLER

508-687-9239

(hollynadler@gmail.com)

To borrow from Rudyard Kipling, when you can keep your head when all around you are losing theirs, that would mark a successful summer in Oak Bluffs. Before we fully commit our hearts and minds to the cooler seasons, we might wish to look back on the hot season of 2008 by deciding who among us kept our heads.

First of all, we’ve always tacitly granted each other one or two major meltdowns in July and August. An Island musician told me he had a row with a waitress in a cafe — which we’ll leave unnamed — where he’d eaten breakfast for the past, oh, 187 years. The row was something about how the cost of two eggs needed to be commensurately priced against the cost of three eggs; at two-thirds, in other words, rather than the three-quarters itemized on the menu. The manager, after explaining about the same amount of labor, dishware, and seating capacity needed to produce two eggs as well as three, asked him to leave. The customer complied but, halfway to his car, turned back for one last word, maybe about the price of four eggs? When he re-entered the dining hall, he found “his” table, the one at which he habitually seated himself, had been removed from the establishment, whisked away to some undisclosed location where perhaps Dick Cheney enjoys his daily meals.

A woman, a retired administrator with a house in Major’s Cove, was exiting the Corner Store one early afternoon in August when a group of nine-year-old boys started to push their way in as if she were not only invisible but weightless. “Halt!” she cried, barring the entrance with out-stretched arms. “Since no one has ever taught you manners, I will now undertake that chore! You will stand to the side of the door until everyone leaving has filed out!” She glanced back into the store. “Is anyone else planning to go?” A couple in their twenties, clad in cargo shorts and Black Dog T-shirts, lined up behind her. She led them in a slow-moving parade between the chastened boys who, she noticed, waited an extra few seconds before charging into the store.

Speaking of manners, I’ve come to the conclusion that the rudeness we attribute to summer crowds derives from one particular lack of courtesy among a small but irritating fraction of the human community. Bear in mind that 94.7 per cent of us (estimates are mine and totally without scientific merit) are wonderfully polite and gracious. We understand that it takes two to complete a transaction of apology and forgiveness, so that if on a crowded sidewalk I brush you accidentally with a shopping bag, I say “Oh, sorry!” and you say “That’s okay!” or something equally exonerating, we smile at one another, and sunshine inevitably and miraculously bursts through the clouds.

But there is that virulent 5.3 per cent who refuse to complete the exchange, who leave feathers ruffled. You lightly jostle this person, apologize, and he or she simply glares back as if to say, “You should be, you clod.” This is rudeness. If you do this, you need to understand that you’re depressing to know, at least casually, and I’m willing to bet personally as well.

Fortunately we Islanders are in the 94.7 per cent of kindly folk; if we weren’t, we wouldn’t complain about the rude people who during the summer book expensive vacation packages to come over here to glare at us.

The Oak Bluffs School invites parents who haven’t yet had the opportunity to sign up for the many volunteer committees serving the kids and curricula throughout the school year, to do so. The sign-up sheet is conveniently displayed in the school lobby.

At the next PTO meeting on Oct. 16, principal Laurie Binney will be showing his short film on his recent trip to Brazil, and discussing the impact this experience has had on his understanding of our Brazilian community here in Oak Bluffs. Because he visited towns from which many Island Brazilians derive, he has an interesting perspective to share on their inclusion in our school community.

Also at the school, K-5 Open House Pasta Dinner will take place from 5 to 7 p.m. on Oct. 1 in the cafeteria. Proceeds will benefit the eighth grade trip to Philadelphia.

The Martha’s Vineyard Film Society will present the Manhattan Short Film Festival 2008 at the Katharine Cornell Theatre on Sept. 27 at 7:30 p.m. Get set to judge the 12 finalists. Also, for the committed cineastes, Che’s Lounge will be open late for people to congregate and discuss their picks.