August People

There’s a buzz phrase that you might hear on Martha’s Vineyard at this time every year. It has to do with a certain type of visitor that shows up and ruins the season for everyone else, like ants at a picnic. They are pushy, loud, demanding, and hardly ever crack a smile. It’s as if they are on a mission to spread misery and anger where ever they go. They are the “August people” of Martha’s Vineyard.

Since I arrived on the Vineyard in 1999, I began to understand that the locals and the workers have a distinct language that describes things, places, and people in a sort of code that is short, clear and concise. Whether it is a beach like “Squibby,” a town like “VH” or where they will be, like “off island,” there are people that get the terminology, and others that have become part of the terminology.

I was speaking to someone the other day that kept hearing the phrase “August people” in conversations and reading it on social media sites. She had been visiting Martha’s Vineyard for a few seasons, but had not heard the term until this year, when she made the acquaintance of a number of locals. Well, it being August and all, I was quite happy to discuss the vitriol that these visitors spread throughout the island. I described them as locusts, vermin, cretins, and other, less polite terms. Needless to say she said that she was surprised to hear such a thing. Of course, I said, you visit in July.

So how can you differentiate this class of visitor from others? Quite simply, they have no class. Allow me to elucidate. If there are four people waiting to be helped in a store in August on Martha’s Vineyard and a fifth person enters the store, begins complaining loudly, pushes their way to the poor soul working at the store and demands to be told why there is no parking in downtown Edgartown so that they can spend their good money in this crummy little store, you just might have found an “August person.”

But I digress, for the good of us all. The island of Martha’s Vineyard in August is a half gallon jug trying to handle a gallon’s worth of people. It is the end of the season, when employers are losing their help to school, housing issues, and young love, the locals have had more than their fill of answering the same questions about winter on the island, and just about everyone is still trying to get the last few days of summer in before the end of the fair weather. After all, this is New England.

Growing up in a farming community that was adjacent to the seasonal big city get-away of Mystic, Connecticut, I was used to the occasional summer snobbery from people sporting out-of-state plates on their fancy cars. However, living and working on Martha’s Vineyard year-round for all of these years, I have become part of the community that can identify an “August person” with just a glance. Sure, you can say that I’m passing judgment, but until you have been on the service side of the counter, don’t take the “holier than thou” attitude, lest you be classified as an “August person” yourself.