PETER WELLS
During the mid-sixties, as my brothers and I would roam across Chappaquiddick we would stop to visit with Hugh Jones as he was constructing Mytoi Garden. The pond was only about half full and the little island was only about half its current height. Mr. Jones was a perfectionist. He actually had a semicircular form pivoted at the center of the island, which he used to shape the island into a symmetrical dome. The access to the island was a pair of staging planks over which he wheelbarrowed the fill to create the island that you see today. He had started on the babbling brook that runs down to the pond on the eastern shore. There was a gigantic pine on each side of the brook and he had hung a rope swing between them. The ropes were at least 40 feet long. The brave souls who dared to take a ride on the swing would start from a sawhorse up at the top of the brook, go whistling rapidly through the air just above the brook, rise gracefully to a dizzying altitude out over the pond, hang momentarily in what felt like very thin air, and then as gravity suddenly remembered us, go hurtling back in what always appeared to be a certain collision with either the cement lined brook or the sawhorse.
Hugh Jones was a very interesting character from my perspective as a seventh grader. He owned a shop on lower Main street called the Orient Trader where he sold objects that came from the other side of the world. Each summer I would buy a brand new set of pastel crayons and a tablet of sketch paper from him and toss the pennies among my change into the wishing well in the adjacent alley. He lived in the very small cottage right next to Doctor Nevin’s office on Simpson’s Lane. The whole house was smaller than our dining room. He drove a Volkswagen Bus and spent his free time building an island in a pond. In my view, that guy had it made. Everything he did appealed to me. He died while hiking through the marsh on Chappy and is buried in the cemetery overlooking Cape Pogue Pond.
His legacy lives on at Mytoi Garden. The Trustees of Reservations invites you to their Mytoi Spring Planting and Garden Cleanup this Saturday, May 5, from 9 a.m. to noon. It will be a great way to celebrate spring. Spend the morning caring for the island’s only public Japanese-style garden. Bring your own work gloves, rakes and shovels. Join them at any time throughout the morning, and please let them know if you plan to attend by calling 508-693-7662.
There has been an increase in activity in the waters of Edgartown harbor. Last week a small group of porpoises made an appearance. They seemed to be feeding on the same fish that the loons were after. Occasionally a loon would burst out of the water and skitter away. Next the porpoises would come up in the same spot. They would surface three times in close succession and then disappear for a few minutes. Each day they seemed less concerned about the presence of the ferries.
Then came the squid. Sunday evening the Memorial Wharf parking lot was packed so full of vehicles that it looked just like the last day of the Derby. Even though the fishing boat Quitsa Strider lay across the face of the wharf, at least two dozen people with fishing poles crowded the waters’ edge. There were big buckets half full of squid and big splotches of ink everywhere. The importance of squid is readily evident this time of year. Almost every sentence that Colin Floyd utters these days includes the word squid at least once.
After the day of rain this past Tuesday the ferry line puddle sprang back to life. You can be sure that our highway superintendent has some plans up his sleeve for dealing with it. If you saw the many lines that Dig Safe painted in that area indicating buried wires you can appreciate the challenge ahead. It would require nerves of steel to operate a backhoe there.
The puddle is just one of many issues tackled by the Chappy transportation committee. This small group has spent hours and hours over the winter discussing in great detail items such as parking and traffic flow at the point, the ferry waiting line, even delving into ideas for organizing the whole area as if you were starting from scratch. If you are already a member of the Chappaquiddick Island Association you will soon receive e-mails presenting the results of their efforts thus far. The committee is eager to include all those interested. If you are not a CIA member and want to receive the e-mails, send your e-mail address to Fran Clay at fclay_2000@yahoo.com. The committee is planning half a dozen open public meetings throughout the summer to discuss issues and ideas. Everyone is encouraged to participate.
So far the fundraiser for purchasing a fire tanker for Chappy has received over $14,000 dollars. Thanks to all contributors for your generous support. And thanks in advance to those who are just now writing their checks to the Edgartown Firemen’s Association, P.O. Box 1064, Edgartown, MA 02539. Remember to write Chappy Tanker on the memo line.
I’ll end with a joke. How many Chappaquiddickers does it take to choose a Cable TV channel? What’s Cable TV?
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