Earning the Applause of Crabs

Fortune favors the fool. Briefly.

Fortune favors the fools.

I know this for a fact. In my familiar past, when the insurance was affordable and there was a collection of part time athletes, the island hosted the Muse Ironman on one of these weekends in June. I only run when chased, I fall off of bicycles, and I didn’t own a surfboard. But I could swim. I was selected to swim across the harbor to Pocomo Point and run up the road.

Now, I am a pool swimmer, lulled into the false security of lines, walls, and clear water. In my ignorant youth, I could tick off the miles between one wall and another. However, open water swimming removes all of those secure elements and tosses you into great blue briny. After swimming a few practice swims off of Pocomo Point, a wiser and more considerate friend gifted me a Farmer John wetsuit. With the wet suit I was buoyant and had a day-glo green stripe across my back. My benefactor joked that now, they would be able to find my body easier.

So, with my new suit and a growing comfort of swimming where there were no lines, walls, or chlorine, I began swimming along the north shore, from the Jetty to the watertower and back. My Aquaman suit let me swim further than I had before, and securely, knowing that I could just float if I was getting tired. My hubris bobbed along in the water.

One problem with being a pool swimmer is that I breathe to one side, my right. Yes, I was coached to breathe to both sides, but when the coaches abandoned me to adulthood, I returned to breathing where I felt comfortable.

So I swam west from the Jetty, breathing to my right and looking out to Nantucket Sound. In the shallow water to the north of the island, I watched thousands of crabs applaud as I swam over them. They opened their claws as is disturbed the water over their heads. I knew what they wanted. I wasn’t going to let them snack on my feet.

But after I slipped into some deeper water, I could no longer see my hungry audience. So I stopped swimming..

And the houses, on the island, were the size of match books. Further, having stopped swimming, I was able to sense how the tide was assisting my progress. Quickly.

So, I swam with the current angled towards the shore and landed, finally, much further west of the water tower. I sat on the beach, looked out at the various channel markers, and was happy that I didn’t wind up on Tuckernuck, Muskeget or Chappaquiddick. Wisdom washed over me in cold water. You have to walk a long way to get back to the Jetties parking lot from Wasque Point. On that day, fortune favored that fool.

When you are a fool, you don’t know that you are a fool. You think you are making reasonable decisions along the way with the information you have. The fool, however, doesn’t consider what he doesn’t know. The open water swimmer that I was once didn’t think about tides or currents. Nor did he think it was important to breathe to his left, or leeward, side. The blessing of the Farmer John meant that I could survive my foolishness. It also enabled me to feel confident enough to make dumb decisions over the applause of the crabs.

The phrase “Fortune Favors the Fool” has a long and proud history that goes through Shakespeare and Virgil. Most often, it is translated as “Fortune Favors the Bold.” For me, it took several years and two children to realize that there was no difference between being bold or being a fool. Perhaps just the ending. If you learned your lesson, you were a fool. If you didn’t, you were bold. Momentarily. Wisdom’s cold water awashes off the blood and salt water to reveal the fool, if you’re lucky.

Nantucket has moved boldly in the last few years. We have boldly built hundreds of houses and sold them for billions of dollars. We have boldly pushed the edge of the law to the edge of our supports. Now, like me, we are turning around and noticing how out to sea we are. The infrastructure is buckling.

In the last three weeks, electricity has browned out in some areas and in others, thanks to a house move, stopped completely. The land lines that almost every business relies on for charges and orders have glitched and stopped for hours. Cell phone connections have been noticeably spotty for years. This spring, the hospital has been a notable dead zone. Traffic is bad, the SSA continues to have trouble with their boats, and the sharks are circling

This morning’s paper bring the news that the massive composter at the dump is broken. The compostable trash is now being dumped in the open. We will continue dumping the trash in the open until the fall when the composter can be fixed. We will spend the entire summer, 80,000 people here each weekend, with all of their (and our) trash piling up in a heap.

Most concerning, the main water pump at Wannacomet broke last week. The water tanks drained over the island. Now, it broke in June, before the full crush of everyone arrived after paying $50,000 a week for a house with a pool and a hot tub. But a broken water pump and empty tanks spells disaster if the Woodbox burns.

Every island dies by fire. Other events, like hurricanes or depression wound islands. But, in the end, fire is the one disaster no island can survive because every fire is a one alarm fire. Now, if the Woodbox burns while the pump is broken, the firemen will run out of water before the fire trucks can come over from Hyannis. The Veranda House was a warning. Did we hear it?

For years, growth advocates on island have enjoyed a booming real estate market, and every other market that happily feeds off it. Concerns were hand-waved away. It is a two month problem. By September, everything will be calm again.

Unfortunately, we have boldly welcomed more paying visitors to the island than have ever come before. And we have boldly underfunded most of our infrastructure. Further, we are no longer living in the benevolent climate of 1975. Fifty years later, we have seals, we have sharks, we have heat waves in June and we have droughts. Perhaps we will have a hurricane.

Bold can topple over into foolishness with one unlucky step. Fortune has smiled on the island up until now. We have been lucky as we got bolder and bolder. But we live in a new time, when the cold water of wisdom waits to teach the fools.

Some of my writing…

Barr’s For Life: A substack of essays and claptrap

The Boat at the End of Lover’s Lane

or the Substack version: The Boat at the End of Lover’s Lane

The Fire on Derrymore Road

or the Substack (free) version: The Fire on Derrymore

Winter: A Collection of Island Living Essays set between January and April 1.

Spring: The next collection of Island Living Essays set in April and May

(My newest collection of essays, June, is available.)

The Boys: A collection of essays about my two sons, written as they grew.

Rolling in the Surf: Essays on Teaching.