from Offshore: The Social Event of the Week
by Eva Murray
Eva Murray lives, works and writes on Matinicus Island. I have come to despise, for no good reason except over-use, the term “hearty souls” as it applies to the residents of any wind-blasted and remote outpost. Maybe it’s “hardy” souls. Doesn’t matter, it could be either, and both have been exhausted in human-interest journalism to the point of hopeless cliché. Therefore I will not call the 29, at last count, who remain here “hearty souls.” Whatever it is we are, perhaps we are not that. We are, however, dump-pickers. Some of us, I fear, are also bored.