Martha's Vineyard Reprieve

     The waves lap longingly on the shore. Sand pipers skitter in and out of the water.
Sounds of shore birds tingle in the sky.  I feel home. I've come to celebrate the Fourth of July in the best way I know.  With far away friends and Norman Rockwell leading the parade through Edgartown.  Blooming privet hedges scent the air. It is the smell of freedom to me. Of long ago dreams and dances with the moon.
     Chappy's ferry line swells to thirty cars.  Originally a row boat, the Chappaquiddick
ferry and it's line is a sure sign that summer has arrived on Martha's Vineyard. Holding only three cars at a time, with room for ten bikes and twenty walk-ons,  the On-Time Ferry, located at the end of Dock Street in Edgartown, faithfully moves to and from Chappy all day and into the wee hours of the summers' night.
     Long ago I learned it was best to take a bike over and peddle the 20 minutes to the wind swept Wasque beach that barriers the Edgartown Harbor on the easternmost side of things.  Chappy is much more than a long ago car accident on the Dyke Bridge. It is the Mytoi Japanese gardens, homes without electricity and plenty of fly fishing. Adventuresome kayakers bob in and out of sight. Children squeal with delight and fear from the large waves that crash into shore. This is the Atlantic.
Big and loud and proud of itself.  It has eaten hundreds and hundreds of boats down along this western shore.  It is not to be taken lightly.  
     Today I decorated my friends' porch which faces the harbor and is a main hub
during the parade. Everything from pide pipers to firemen will make their way along the parade route, stopping just in front of her porch with their merriment and folly.
It's a good day to be an American.
     I am blessed once more.