I sat recently at my best of all possible desks, in my best of all possible jobs, as editor of the best of all possible magazines, devoted to the best of all possible islands, surrounded by the best of all possible oceans, contemplating the lobster roll. Not just any lobster roll, of course, but, that’s right, the best of all possible lobster rolls.

Now, the best of all possible jobs such as this would be even better were it the case that my superlative colleagues and I were dispatched with plenty of someone else’s money in our pockets to the far corners of the Island to consume, compare, and ultimately pass metaphysico-theologo-cosmolo-gastrigolo judgment on the thirty-four lobster rolls nominated by readers.

Yes, you read that right: among the nearly sixty thousand individual ballots cast in this, the nineteenth annual Best of the Vineyard readers’ poll, no fewer than thirty-four worthy lobster rolls were nominated. If there is a Vineyard lobster roll out there that did not make the list, it is a sorry lobster roll indeed.

We might not be in the best of all possible states of health with nearly three dozen lobster rolls under our belts, mind you, but at Martha’s Vineyard Magazine we are always willing to bear any burden in the pursuit of journalistic excellence and categorical truth. Arteries be damned! Once more into the bun! We pudgy few shall settle the pesky butter versus mayonnaise question once and for all.

Alas for us, we are saddled with that best of all possible systems: democracy.

(The operative word here, as in Washington, being “possible.”) Democracy in lobster rolls is sort of like crowd sourcing the digestive process, but it’s the American way and the Vineyard way, too. And the winner is…I’ll never tell, but you can find the results starting on page forty.
That there are thirty-four nomination-worthy lobster rolls is an example of the essential ingredient (other than lobster) that makes the Vineyard not just an editor’s choice winner, but the best of all possible islands. That ingredient is diversity. Hand-massaged kale? In a lobster roll? No thanks for me, but as the old song goes, “you can be happy if you’ve a mind to.” In addition to our piebald parliament of rolls, we have a diversity of landscapes, architecture, tastes, flora, fauna, ethnicity, waspitude and hippitude, preppitude and urbanitude, snobitude, locatude, and zenitude. We even have, down certain up-Island dirt roads, varieties of snobby zenitude. (“I’m entirely comfortable being more serenely in the moment than you are, my friend…”) To which I say, namaste.

Which brings me reliably to the point in this letter where I get to say that none of this is inevitable or by accident. Every piece of open space on this Island is being preserved by somebody, and every great new library (or roundabout) was first envisioned by someone. Every book or beautiful bauble bought on-Island rather than online doesn’t just make you look literate and lovely, it helps preserve the Vineyard we all cherish. If the Gay Head Light falls into the sea and its red-white flash is lost forever, it will not be because, as Pangloss said to Candide, “things cannot be otherwise than as they are.” It will be because not enough of us who could make a difference did all we could to treasure what is good and improve what is not.

Never let the best be the enemy of the better, I say.