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We rode our bikes through a gateway, between two old whale lookouts linked by a twenty-foot-long banner — “Welcome to Summer” — a trident-wielding mariner standing sentinel over the final “r.” A few island moms were fussing over deep tin dishes, removing foil from littlenecks, adjusting burners under weakfish stew and Jersey corn chowder. A double- decker barbecue belched saffron-shrimp smoke. Girls jumped double Dutch in the side lot, and high school kids played basketball against the old Coast Guard building at a hoop with a metal chain net.
