Regular readers of Vinalhaven’s weekly paper, The Wind, are avidly following the ad campaigns that broke out this winter between two competitor purveyors on the island.
Island Spirits had enjoyed a niche all to itself, both in clever ad copy and in the sale of gourmet specialties. But Fishermen’s Friend has entered the fray, not only boasting its inventory, but suggesting cheaper is better. Island Spirits fired back. Proprietor Phil Crossman suspected a hostile takeover of his business, after reportedly uncovering bottles of Thunderbird, Boones Farm, and Ripple mixed in with his “fine wine,” and crudely carved Velveeta in the display case trying to pass for a “gourmet cheese.” Phil publicly disparaged this act of invasive insult, and declared the butter he sells is from cows hugged by someone shoppers would undoubtedly prefer to the person at the Friend hugging cows. The Friend then proceeded to do a little checking up on Phil, who was, after all, saying Bud Lite wasn’t “real beer.” After donning a “clever disguise” as a browser in the nearby Paper Store in order to spy on Phil’s merchandising, the Friend reported in its next ad that it also features wines “that require some sort of tool to remove the cork.” The Friend is obviously not called the Friend for nothing. The ad notes that for customers “challenged by a corkscrew, we offer a cheap hammer/screwdriver combo that I know from personal experience will work in a pinch.” Now that’s service with a smile. To be fair, Phil does offer an incentive to buy wine with corks and successfully extract them whole; he sponsors a prize-winning drawing using corks from bottles purchased at his store. If anyone misheard Phil referring to his customers as “daft,” let me set the record straight; he was probably bragging they’re “deft,” at least removing corks.
With the risk of island residents becoming polarized into two camps of specialty shopping, I wondered how the community is responding to this sparring. Weekly we are chastised in The Wind, by Vinalhaven’s Town Manager Marjorie Stratton, to “Remember, be kind to one another!” It’s a town motto of sorts, though not one brandished on bumper stickers (the way, for example, Phil’s book title “Away Happens” brazenly is). I’ve been reading copies of The Wind even more closely now to detect the undercurrent of impact this issue surely is having on islanders. Is it mere coincidence, I wondered, that the Pleasant River Chapel is sponsoring a series called “Conversations on Peace?” And what about those “chair massages” offered at Go Fish; responding to the need for stress reduction? How about the Historical Society’s column with a vignette describing the amorous act of two sweethearts at the steamboat pier in the 1880s? I thought it might reveal a subtext representing wistful thinking of current truce brokers on the island: “They were two souls with but a single thought…their lips clung together like doubled up fly paper…” Yes, I concluded, all the island is stressing over this conflict, visualizing peace, and imagining a similar embrace with “but a single thought:” that the island is surely big enough, and hungry and thirsty enough, to accommodate both victualers existing in harmony. In fact, now I worry the ads could be just a clever ploy — a scam? — schemed as distraction from Phil’s long-desired and now possibly imminent hostile takeover of the Paper Store. Carlene, you’ve been warned! Winters are far from dull on Vinalhaven, and this one heated up considerably.