To the Editor:
A dear friend died last week, maybe while I was writing the West Tisbury town news column. Everyone on the Island knew Buzzy Blankenship. He installed your telephone or got you into your locked car or home, then made you an extra set of keys. He made the best clams casino from clams he dug and opened himself, then served them with “bachelor napkins,” otherwise known as paper towels. He always laughed when he said that, and so did everyone who heard him.
Buzzy made everyone laugh. He sent jokes on email, many of them about the indignities of getting older or remembering funny things about growing up in the 1950s and ’60s. He knew loads about Island history, especially about his beloved Oak Bluffs, much of it learned from his Uncle Bob, another letter writer, and often read to us during dinner. I swear he knew every road on the Island.
His workshop was like something out of Harry Potter, a wizard’s den of tools and key blanks and whatever may have come along at any time during his 70 years. I wouldn’t have been surprised to find magic potions bubbling or a stray dragon down there. Buzzy never threw anything out, believing rainy days came without warning and best to be prepared.
Everyone who knew him learned a lot from Buzzy: kindness, integrity, honor, hard work, self-sufficiency, friendship. He always carried dog biscuits in his pockets, and played silly games with Talley and Nanuk. He loved his daughters; being a good father to them was the most important thing in his world. His three grandchildren, too. I hope they will remember him. I know I will.
Hermine Hull
West Tisbury
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