Nantucket 2003

John got hold of a home for 2 weeks, and we spent 5 days with him and Pat. Very pretty old house, and of course Nantucket is pretty, if ridiculously overpriced in every regard. But since we were freeloading, it was great.

There's a serious social disconnect between the true locals and the "squatters" from the mainland who bought places for their vacations and have driven prices up through the clouds. (The house we stayed in was $4.5M, but if you moved it here to Leominster, it'd only be maybe $350k.) It's sad, but the price of housing and the general cost of living there has skyrocketed so much that people whose families have been there for 200 years cannot afford it anymore and are being forced to sell out and move off the island..... which explains the local bad feelings..... the locals are not money-wanting people, they would just rather live quietly and be left alone, but that is no longer possible.

We did manage to get out into a "real" town and cafe for one breakfast .... all local, native Nantucketans (?). That's where i saw a crusty older woman pour malt vinegar (instead of ketchup) on her french fries and learned "that's how the old timers do it".

This was the last vacation event that I photographed on film.

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