Winter Traffic

The first out-of-state plates are showing up in the grocery store lot. That means it's time to talk about "Winter Traffic," which I once described here as half of a two-song truce with tourist season.

It's a complaint song that loses the argument with itself. The verses are exactly what you'd expect from a local in January. There's the bridge backed up by ten in the morning and the rental Jeeps. There's a man at a light who needs twenty minutes to turn right. There are visitors asking where the locals go, and the honest answer is that we can't tell you, because then it would be gone too.

Then the chorus turns on me. Somewhere in the middle of all that grumbling I admit I understand why they come. The weather is perfect and the water is warm. You can hear three different accents in one bait shop line. Yes, it's chaos. But the town is alive at night in a way it isn't in August.

That's the real feeling, I think, for most people who live here. You spend the summer wishing for company and the winter wishing everybody would go home, and neither wish is quite true.

So if you're one of the ones heading south this fall: welcome back. Tip your server. Use your turn signal. The good beach is the one you're already on. That's as far as I'll go.