It’s Called Second Bridge not Jaws’ Bridge
Keep your hands off of my Martha’s Vineyard childhood
Recently, I found myself drawn into a social media pissing contest about Martha’s Vineyard history and culture. Specifically, the sparring match involved a debate regarding the name of that infamous expanse between (Joseph Sylvia) State Beach and Sengekontacket Pond.
Before I begin, I think it’s fair to say that island folks are quite territorial. Much like New Yorkers, Martha’s Vineyard folks tend to recognize claims of those with rooted rights and subscribe to a somewhat strict nativism. We can talk about the reasons for this (and might touch on it in a bit). Your island cred and history will come up in conversations. Like a kind of ground scratching and Quint and Hooper one-upping competition, you better be ready to put up or shut up. Birth place, years in, seasons experienced, all amount to type of island calculus that is used to determine how much, if any, island standing you will be permitted. For example, you might lose credibility for years or generations of tenure IF your time in can only be attributed to summers. In other words, if you haven’t done serious winter time, sit down. If you haven’t struggled with housing, done a teenage shit summer job that made you swallow your dignity while your rich up-island peers enjoyed summers off, or participated in a rite of passage, like coin diving at the Oak Bluffs’ Steamship Pier, sit down.
So when a benign image of folks bridge jumping off of second bridge appeared in my social media feed, I could almost cue the chorus of new jack comments that popped up by every island n’er do well that ever day-tripped on my beloved homeland. Forty seven “look it’s ‘Jaws’ Bridge’ with five exclamation points and shark emjois” later, I could not resist my compulsion to chime in. “It’s Second Bridge, not Jaws’ Bridge” was all it took for torrent of island flexes (both with legimite credentials and not) to light up my notifications.
I grew up in Oak Bluffs. Our family moved to Oak Bluffs before Jaws was released. I was an adolescent, and I remember driving along Edgartown/Oak Bluffs beach road and seeing the cabana striped beach huts staged for production.
I also remember endless miles of trekking from OB either by bike or, during my running days, running. six miles headed to Second Bridge for a day of bridge jumping, floating under the bridge, and swimming like hell to the left or right to escape the draw of the tide and return to the beach to do it over and over again.
As OB kids, when we were making plans with our other OB friends, we arranged to meet at Second Bridge. Second Bridge pre-dates Jaws’ Bridge — -I go back far enough to know that there needed to be a name for the location that existed before the pop culture point of reference. There was no Jaws, hence there was no Jaws’ Bridge.
It’s Second Bridge. It’s Second Bridge for people who go back far enough. It’s Second Bridge for Oak Bluffs kids and townies who know that the first little bridge and Second Bridge needed a distinction. It’s Second Bridge because it always assumed that Oak Bluffs was the center of the universe and that one would always be traveling from Oak Bluffs TO Edgartown. Oak Bluffs was always the starting point because OB was home.
The social media battle, which I just checked, is still receiving comments, I had to lay down the gauntlet in a humorous-only-island-folks-would-probably-understand leveling up of my territorialization of the bridge naming. In the movie Jaws, when the son of Chief Brody, Mike, is instructed to take his sailboat to the “pond,” what follows is the scene where the shark enters the jetty space leading up to, and under, the “Second Bridge.” I would guess that this was the moment folks started the gradual creep toward a next gen attempt at a name change for this island landmark.
Mike, Chief Brody’s son in the movie, was an island kid named Chris Rebello (Rest In Peace, Chris — -condolences to the entire Rebello family). The island was a smaller place then and more than ever, our lives in those days were connected. Chris was the first boy I ever kissed. He was chewing grape Bubbleyum and we were on a rusted metal swing set in the backyard of his aunt’s house on that particular evening. Like a lot of island happenings back in the day, everyone was involved in each other’s lives. It was a petty flex to toss this innocent and intimate island personal moment into the social media scrum, but I could not stop myself. Not only did I pre-date the Jaws reference, I also “dated” (well, smootched) the Jaws connection.
All of this is to say, that Oak Bluffs folks who grew up during a pre-Jaws time, have no f%^&*#$ patience for people who call it Jaws’ Bridge. You sound like wash-ashore (waiting for people to @ me about this one) and a summer dink.
I concede that I was not born on the island — which will draw its own island ire. This means that I will immediately be losing any and all traction I have with true islanders and multi-generational island families (unless you only summered on the island — I’m not giving you that).
There is a warm and fierce tribalism and pride of place that comes with people who grew up on MV. It is downright militant and seriously radicalized for those same people IF they have lost family homes, housing, and island ties because of the immoral gentrification that the island has witnessed over the last 40 years. When the masses off-island dinks start rewriting our stories, the names of our childhood places, and our co-opting our memories they can kindly go … well … you know … jump off a bridge.
For the last time, it’s Second Bridge.
