By The Sea Salt - a unique food seasoning, created and blended on Martha's Vineyard MA

From the Sea or the Land

Cherilla's Second Coming...

quiet launching of "Jose’ Can You Sea Salt" was held on the Vineyard this past June and it was really well received. The first sale is easy, it’s the return customers that tell the tale and things are going really well. There was, however, one little glitch, more like another incident, I’d say.

t about the time it was decided that the rest of the world , and the Web site, might be ready for "Jose’" the island of Cuttyhunk (remember them?) Called Cherrilla to ask her to be the honored guest at annual " I’m Sorry I Called You An Idiot On Broadway In July But I Was Stressed Out" dinner in an effort to make amends for her near death experience of the previous winter.

They hold it every year and only elite "idiots" are invited. Cherrilla may be the first off islander ever invited since they are considered to be the source of the problem in the first place. It’s an effort to erase all of the stress-related hard feelings that have accumulated during tourist season. Truth be known, it’s the only way to ensure that you’ll get heating oil delivered or not have your mail returned to sender with a homemade "Does Not Exist" sticker on it or your golf cart roll itself off the end of the dock. The list goes on.

Anyway, I digress. Cherrilla, the eternal optimist, thought it was a great idea, "No hard feelings here!" She headed for Cuttyhunk. This time she was escorted by Bung Ward himself, the chief of police, in his own boat and got to the island and all the way up to the town hall without incident. There was one rather uncomfortable moment when Cherrilla realized that the life boat strapped to the roof of the pilot house was just a "one - holer" Sears kayak. "Who gets the kayak?" she wondered. Bung goes three hundred pounds, sharing was out of the question. She decided not to think about it, attributing the worry to her ignorance of matters of the sea. Cherrilla Brown is the only person who has ever dismissed that worry, ignorant or not.

The dinner started off well enough. Cherrilla had brought lots of "Jose Can You Sea Salt?"

hich was being spread liberally on all those fine variations of macaroni casserole and one large bowl of short, therefore illegal, steamed lobsters which appeared out of nowhere. A few suspected (too few) that since Bob Tilton had just been nailed by the clam cops for trying to sell a bushel of short lobsters to another clam cop who really couldn’t be described as undercover since he had his uniform on, it just might have been him.

Bob can’t see too good. As the apricot brandy and "vino wonderful" flowed liberally and secretly from the sippi cups and coffee mugs, the buzz about those lobsters became an undertone and speculation started to spread. Nobody touched those lobsters. All eyes were on ‘em, though. Except for? You guessed it, Cherrilla’s. No clue. It would be guilt by association, the first person to eat one "did it!"

his whole thing went completely over Cherrilla’s head, she had no idea what was going on. She doesn’t know a lobster tail for a Hojo’s clam strip. So, guess who took the first one, and then another? You got it again, Cherrilla Brown.

Bung slapped the cuffs on her before she even finished chewing. (At least he let her eat the first one.) She was speechless, even after she finished chewing.....for days. Pure speculation here, but I think the arrest was, at least in part, to divert attention from the recent shootout Bung had with his brother on the dock over a kayak....nobody hit. ( Another story for another time. Remind me.) Then, of course, came all that business about honored guest and possible amnesty and that they kind of owed her for that last little fiasco, for which they were not sued, but "the law is the law."

Remember, now, this supper is held every year in order to diffuse all that pent up anger from the summer and that can go any number of ways. Someone could have explained that Cherrilla couldn’t catch a lobster if it was latched to her finger. Someone could have remembered that all she carried in was a box of "Jose’ Can You Sea Salt?" and a forgiving smile. Someone could have noticed a pair of blood shot eyes and a nose pressed up against the rear window while balancing on a pile of empty Schlitz cans and having the time of their life. But that’s not what happened. Bung threw her into the concrete slammer in the basement while it all hit the fan upstairs and another fight broke out, quite reminiscent of an earlier incident. There was a lot more going on, here, than a few short lobsters.

Sunshine on Martha's Vineyard

The most enlightened moment came when Bob Tilton rolled his ankle on one of those empty Schlitz cans that wasn’t empty, fell through the window, and passed out right there on the floor.

t got dead quiet in there and the place emptied out real quick, except for Bob. Pretty soon the cell door seemed to ease itself open, almost imperceptibly, but Cherrilla didn’t move. It was the middle of the night. "Maybe it’s a trap." And where would she go, anyway? She curled up on the slab and went to sleep without ever knowing that she was the first person to spend the night in that cell since November of 1932. More’s the pity. When she got up in the morning and wandered out it was as if nothing had happened. "Good morning!" "How you been?" "Great salt!" "Coming next year?" Bung was waiting to give her a ride home. Not a word passed between them........speechless.

Speechless? No way. This girl can bend an ear! If it’s true, we here at the salt mines, think an annual trip might not be such a bad idea. We could tailor a product to the occasion like some rip-roaring, 100-level hot cayenne pepper-laden spice guaranteed to close the throat up so bad that not even a cold Schlitz could sneak through or something like that.....just a thought.

ll of this craziness does seem to take the attention away from the whole purpose of this little note and that is to tell you that "Jose’ Can You Sea Salt?" is now available for you to try. A lot of people have, most of them have come back for more, and that’s a good sign. If I get the opportunity, sometime, I’ll tell you what happened to Bob.

...........................................

, you talked me into it. Well the word got to Bob’s nephew, Dickie, who came up to the town hall to take the old buzzard home. Dickie is not an idiot but he does have his limits. When he got there, he shook Bob to wake him up. Bob opened his eyes a crack and punched Dickie in the nose, hard. It took Dickie about less than a second to be transformed from rescue angel to psychopath. He rolled Bob over on to his back, grabbed him by the ankles and dragged him out of the town hall. Thud, thud, thud, thud, thud, thud, thud, the sound of each of the seven steps down to the road and the back of Bob’s head meeting. Thump, thud, thud, thump, thump, thud, thud, thump. That tune is off the sidewalk and onto the road and up from the road and on to the sidewalk and back again all the way to Bob’s house, which was definitely not close enough.

Bob wasn’t seen around for a few days, but when he finally appeared all he could say was, "Worst hangover I’ve ever had. Not another drop." We’ll see.