Laurie Eagan of Vineyard Haven was driving home one evening from her job at the Council on Aging when traffic came to a standstill on the Edgartown–Vineyard Haven Road, but not for the usual reasons. “We had to stop for two male turkeys that were fighting in the middle of the road,” she says. “It was the oddest thing to see, because these two toms had wrapped their necks around each other’s, and their beaks were in each other’s mouths. It went on for at least five minutes and neither lane could move because they danced back and forth across the street. It was so unusual – people in the cars were just sitting there laughing at this turkey sashay. Only on Martha’s Vineyard.”
Liz Delaney remembers one particular squirrel at her grandparents’ house in Chilmark that would visit their deck and refuse to go away. “It would lay down on its stomach with its legs draped over the sides of the railing and just stare into the house at my grandparents,” she recalls. “And when they would try to get it to leave, it would just sit there, staring. What was really weird was that the thing kept coming back. It seemed every day, there it was, splayed out on the deck, staring. We were convinced it
was possessed.”
Mary Nada dislikes any critter that dares enter her Chilmark garden gates. Sherif’s interest in them can be counterproductive.
“The fence around one of Mary’s
gardens keeps most of the rabbits away, except for the very little ones,” he says. “One day I went out to the garden and
noticed a tiny little rabbit. I sat down
and started talking to it, and it didn’t run away.” This went went on every day for a month. The rabbit seemed to grow accustomed to his voice. He called it Moxie. “Unfortunately for me, but not for Mary, Moxie stopped coming to see me when the hole in the fence got to be too small.” Sherif misses his friend, but Mary’s flowers are doing quite well.
Stan Hart of Chilmark tells this one
about a rather intrepid cat:
“The late Charles and Edith Foote
of West Tisbury were leaving the Island for a short trip and had to board their
cat at the old Shady Oak Kennels in Edgartown. When they got to the kennel and opened the carrying case, the cat sprang out of it and ran into the woods.” The cat had no identification, and they feared it was lost forever. “So imagine their surprise when they returned to the Vineyard days later to find the cat meowing at their door – on Old County Road
in West Tisbury. Can you imagine that cat walking all that way and finding
its home?”
Jib Ellis, an owner of exotic birds
who lives in Oak Bluffs, recalls a
parrot owned by Thea Hansen, also of Oak Bluffs, that died singing patriotic anthems. “I remember her bird, in the
final clutches of death, sang – and I
believe completed – a rather rakish version of either ‘My Country ’Tis of Thee’ or ‘America the Beautiful’ or maybe even ‘God Bless America,’” he says. “But I recall that it was a song heartfully sung by the parrot who had come to this fine country from South America, only to die a mariner’s death at the jaws of a bloodthirsty hound of some sort.”
Alison returned to her Farm Pond home late one winter night and heard breathing. “We have cats, but you don’t hear cats breathe,” says Sue Dawson, her
partner. “It sounded human. It freaked her out.” Alison screwed up the courage to investigate. She found a duck in a far corner of the office. Evidently it had come through the cat door. It was 2 a.m. Alison had to catch a ferry at seven. She needed to pack and get some sleep. “So she left it there, and wrote a note to our roommate, Amy Callahan, saying, ‘Amy, this is going to sound a little strange, but can you please deal with the duck in the corner of our office this morning? Signed, Alison. Have a nice weekend.’ ”
