Not much we won't do
Cost, clutter disappear in magic of Cape, islands
HYANNIS -- I was talking to a guy last Thursday named Michael
"Get used to it," advised an aging husband nearby.
Both were in line for the 1 p.m. car ferry to the island. The summer scene never changes at the Steamship Authority dock. A line of cars snakes bumper to bumper, row after row, waiting to make the trip. Doors are open to catch some air in the heat. Desultory music wafts from a dashboard radio. Men stretch after long drives. Children demand food. Women walk dogs on the tarmac. (I asked one woman cradling a bichon frisé what its name is. Tehya, she said. "That means precious in Native American.")
It begins.
The car ferries from Hyannis to Nantucket were booked solid from 7 a.m. last Thursday morning through tomorrow evening at 7:30, a reservation voice informed me. And the hordes won't arrive in strength until the following weekend for the Fourth.
Some people made their reservations while the moon was still in Capricorn. John Lowles out of Hendersonville, N.C., booked on Jan. 15. There's a big family wedding he couldn't miss without entering a witness protection program. "That woman with the white hair over there reminded me every day," he said, pointing to his wife.
To bring a car to Nantucket these days is not for the faint of heart, but then skirting the McMansions there is challenging, too. Vehicles 17 feet and under, which includes most cars and sport utility vehicles, run $360 round trip, not counting $15 a pop for adult passengers.
The father in a family of four from California told me their round trip bill will run close to $500. If your car is over 17 feet, maybe a Chevy Suburban, think $410 round trip, plus passengers. Said father, who would not give his name, rented a Ford Escape, a small SUV, in Boston for the entire season rather than doing so on Nantucket. Smart man.
I called up Hertz to find that an Escape rented at Logan will run you, with taxes, $513.63 for the third week in July. That's a serious dent in your wine budget. But Hertz also informed me that, with taxes, an Escape rented on island runs a breathtaking $940.47 for the third week in July. Even I can do that math.
The Steamship Authority has this car thing down to a science. But there is also the game of stand-by roulette. In the words of Dirty Harry, "You've got to ask yourself one question: 'Do I feel lucky?' Well, do ya, punk?"
Veterans like Jim Hagan and his wife have appealed to the standby gods over the past 15 years with success. I don't know if they sacrifice a bull every time or what, but they almost always end up on island the same day they show up.
I've been linked to the Cape longer than I care to admit, but have stayed away for the usual reasons: overdevelopment, crowds, traffic. It is a truism that almost every special place goes to the dogs over time, so why should the Cape and the islands be any different?
Route 132 alone will do it for me. I hadn't driven it for years, and it's just ghastly. This is the main road linking the Mid-Cape Highway with Hyannis, and you haven't a clue you're even on Cape Cod. Route 9 maybe. It will be forever a case study in planned disaster.
The main street of Hyannis has fared better, but then it was never much to write home about. There's a Hooters now, and the miniature golf still lives. I think it has all been downhill for Hyannis since they started pushing turquoise JFK ashtrays all these many years ago.
But Kennedy still graces the street. There's the tiny John F. Kennedy Hyannis Museum devoted to his time spent in Hyannisport. Its charm is its modesty, and its value is enlightenment. It is very moving in its own way.
Here, we see a different Kennedy. He laughs with his eyes along with his teeth, unlike the photo-ops in Washington. He sheds focus. His posture in a chair is languid. He loves his cigars.
You forget he really was a good sailor. Clips of him at the helm of his sloop, Victura, show a man who knows what he's doing. He had a sweet golf swing and played in preppy pink pants and a blue polo jersey. He wore good casual clothes beautifully.
You revisit Stanley Tretick's great photo of him squiring around a gaggle of kids on a golf cart and know it again for the first time. The footage of him leaving a helicopter to greet his son is also fresh, because it happened here.
There's a wonderful bronze statue of Kennedy by David Lewis in front of the building. Lost in thought, he is trudging the beach in a polo jersey, his pants rolled up above his ankles. It reminds me of the bronze of Samuel Eliot Morison in foul weather gear atop a rock on the Commonwealth Avenue mall.
Kennedy was at home in and on the waters of Nantucket Sound. You can't fake that. He partook of their regenerative powers. We do, too. That's why we put up with the madness and return for more, year after year. You can't fake that, either.
Sam Allis is a Globe columnist. He can be reached at allis@globe.com. 