Great Days: My friend Ginna called me up at 5p and said “you have a tux, right? You’re the only person who can come with me tonight.” Two hours later I was in a room of four hundred at the annual gala for the Mayflower Society. Top shelf alcohol, delicious food, tons of smart people, and sixteen new “debutantes” about to be introduced as the next generation of the Society. My friend brought me because she thought I could hold my own in any conversation, knew the social rules of staying ‘close to home’ or roaming if needed, could tie a bowtie, that I would find the concept of a group of elites gathered to celebrate their impenetrable sect fascinating. She also knew that I would find the whole thing as ludicrous as she (a Society member) did. The only other thing she told me was, “you’re going to love the end”.
The night rolled on, the debs enthusiastic, and the crowd seemed more interesting and accomplished than pretentious. And then, the closing event. The oldest living member of the Society (rocking a youthful 97) took a seat on stage, and in a hushed room he read the Mayflower Charter, the original organizing document of the Plymouth Colony. Moving and magnificent.
A close second to that wonderful reading happens each August in Sag Harbor during an annual public reading of Moby Dick that culminates in the senior most city resident sharing the final conflict between Ahab and the white whale.