Music on Main Street

It couldn't have been a more perfect weekend - perfect weather, a perfect blend of friends and music, and a perfect variety of guest stars who happened by - including (but not limited to) the group of dancers who walked in off the street last night; my cousin Edson Rodgerswho blew us out of the water with a guest appearance with his horn; the lass - Katrina - who stepped up and sang us a song; and last but not least, the young man from Brazil who was apparently moved to tears by the music he heard coming from the porch and stopped and sat with us a while. It was great to have Mary Wolverton on board, too, with her friend Tim from Iowa. With a special thank you to my guests Rosanne, Wynter, and Dan - who made the trek down from Boston and environs - no easy feat on an August Saturday, particularly when the president of the USA is pulling into town on the same day. The plu-perfect weekend was topped off by a showing of the super Sturgeon Moon on Sunday night.

Street Troubador

I left the house yesterday afternoon - camera on shoulder, just in case. Not much happening downtown, except for running into Mike - guitar on back - who was headed down to Memorial Wharf to do a little strumming and singing. The irony of course, is that Mike lives at my house, so I didn't really need to go anywhere to photograph him playing his guitar. Oh well, it was great seeing Mike in his element. The only things missing were an audience and a little warm sun. Oh, I get it - methinks the two are directly related. Mike is now Edgartown's un-official street troubador, taking up the slack where Dave Corcoran left off.

It was a fine concert, though hampered somewhat by the cold. Mike definitely has his own inimitable style - his gravely voice being reminiscent of Tom Waits - and I loved the song he wrote about giving the rooster the day off. Word has it, Mike has quite a following in Costa Rica, his home for the past ten years, and for whose climate he is beginning to yearn.

Captain Alexander Weeks

Boylston house, circa 1950


I recently found the Gazette clipping to which I have referred in previous posts regarding the moving of my Main Street house from Ocean Heights, which I share here (from a 1948 edition of The Vineyard Gazette -  printed, I assume, as a centenary item):

May Snowstorm That Took an Unkind Turn

The cold May storm, a proverbial part of the Vineyard spring, took an especially unkind turn about a century ago, on May 26th, the date being recalled because it coincided with moving day for an old house which found a haven on Main Street, Edgartown.


The house, then owned by Capt. Alexander Weeks, once stood at Ocean Heights, but yielding to that irresistible urge which seemed to overtake both houses and their owners in the olden days, it was decreed that it should become a town dweller. Propelled by forty yoke of oxen and a large force of men, the house made its slow and stately way over the sandy roads until it reached its present site, on the corner of Green Lane, where it is now the home Mrs. Herbert M. Boylston.


"The usual barrel of New England liquid refreshments as was the custom in those halcyon days," the Gazette recalled wistfully a quarter of a century ago, "flowed freely and when spirits rose to the point that when the new location was reached it was decided to hold a dance then and there. A fiddler was procured, fair ladies recruited, and the evening passed all too swiftly, the home-going guests finding to their surprise that a heavy snow had fallen while they were celebrating and that many of the weary and hungry oxen had dispersed, leading to a chilly chase on the night of the great snow, before the beasts were stabled their masters housed."

I love this story. I love it that this old home's first day of existence at its present location was celebrated with dancing and fiddle music, and that the fiddling that is now taking place here is creating a succinct and wonderful connection to the house's 200 year history.

More information about Captain Alexander Palmer Weeks, from my mother's file, includes the facts that he was born on May 18, 1804 and died on August 29 or 30, 1856, lost at sea in a hurricane, and that in 1835 Captain Weeks was skipper of the ship Leader whose home port was New Bedford. I have also learned - from the National Maritime Digital Library (link) - that Leader, a whaling bark,  with Captain Weeks listed as its master, departed New Bedford for the Pacific Ocean in May of 1835, and returned in April of 1838, reporting 480 sperm, and 138 whale.  Leader is listed as having been built in 1815 in Fairhaven, and that she broke up in 1851.

I've always assumed that the house was moved from the vicinity of what is now Weeks Lane.




Present-day fiddlers at the former Captain Alexander Weeks house.

Music to My Ears

Twelve o'clock and all is well.

12 Noon, Edgartown. from Sara Piazza on Vimeo.

Related stories here, and here.

Picking Up Where I Left Off

I've been desperately trying to get back to my Edgartown News, an idea that was hatched last summer (born from the fact that I've got Dektol and ink in my veins) but which was quickly relegated to the back burner due to my summer having been hijacked by massive kitchen renovations, also by my train trip to California. Then there was Brookline, and school, all winter...

...but I'm back and somewhat settled in my Main Street aerie, and I guess mid-to-late July is better late than never.  And now that I'm finished with school and the thought of writing is not so repulsive to me, I'm ready to dive back in.

I've a back-log of entries that I've been both working on and mulling over, and hope to find the discipline to crack down on this project, something I've been craving for some time now; the idea of engaging with this little town of mine with photographs and words - the land of my roots, my ancestors, and now, my descendants - engaging with its people, its places, and its happenings. My goal is to catch up on the back-log and become current as soon as possible so as to clear my mental clip-board and begin working on the daily-emerging ideas.

So, here goes - and ironically, I start again where I began, with Mr. Dave Corcoran.

Dave Corcoran

I found Dave pretty much in the same location on Main Street as last summer, on this particular evening, heading with his duct-taped, finger-worn guitar (really, there is a hole worn clear through where the finger-rest should be), down towards the harbor, perhaps to his bench on North Water Street.

A few nights later - hot night, couldn't sleep, so I wandered downtown around midnight (the deserted streets of Edgartown at midnight on a sultry night in July = magic!) and there in the shadows - I heard him before I saw him - on his bench outside the paper store, sat Dave, playing lip-trombone and accompanying himself on his guitar, as fine a rendition of  It's All Over Now, Baby Blue as any. 

I sat and talked with Dave for a bit, even played and sang a couple of songs for him for a change. See? There's a reason I always have a Fender medium tortoise-shell pick in my pocket.

Dave has a whole new batch of stories to tell, having ridden his bicycle this past winter down to Key West and back.

I'm quite impressed that a fellow my age manages to ride a bike cross-country, as he did last year, and then this year, to Florida and back. He says he rides about 3-10 mph, and is in no particular hurry, content to meander, stopping along the way to meet people, and camping out where and when is necessary.

I wonder if it's easier pedaling south, downhill, than it is riding north, uphill?

There will be more from Dave (and from me too), I am sure. Stay tuned.