True Nantucketers - Harvey Young
by Sarah Teach
Let us revisit a time-worn Nantucket question: what does it take to be a real Nantucketer? Must you be born on the island? Raised here? “Neither is necessary,” according to Harvey Young, who, incidentally, could boast both of those credentials if he wanted to. But he’s not the boasting kind. Rather, he’s a humble, happy guy with a lively sparkle in his eyes and a unique outlook on this island he’s called home from birth. “Nantucket society is much like the erosion of the island itself. You can’t stop it; you can’t change it. It just happens. People come and go. This place isn’t for everyone, but as for those who love it here? Those are the true Nantucketers.”
Old Mr. Young on the Farm.
The first Harvey Young on Nantucket was better known to my interviewee as Grandpa Young, and to his employees as “Old Mr. Young.” Grandpa Young initially arrived on the island in 1929, after having lost his shirt on the mainland. He found it again as a Nantucket entrepreneur in 1931, when he began refurbishing and renting out people’s bikes. Of course, this was during the height of the Great Depression, so island parents’ priorities were not on fixing their kids’ broken bikes. Grandpa Young struck a deal with bike owners; he’d fix up a bike then rent it out until the repair costs had been covered. The bike owner could then choose to get their bike back free of charge, or continue to let Grandpa Young rent it out and receive 50% of its rental profits. Thus, Young’s Bicycle Shop was born! As the Depression eased and Nantucketers rekindled their love for cycling, both business and blissfulness hit the roof. Let’s fast-forward 80 years to 2011, a year when we find the third and fourth generations of Nantucket Youngs keeping pace with Grandpa Young’s vision.
After our modern-day Harvey Young was born in the Nantucket Cottage Hospital, he had what he calls “an idyllic childhood” on the island. Young says, “Day care for me was hanging around in the shop. I actually just got in the way a lot, so eventually my older brother taught me how to fish. I’d go over to Glidden’s to pick up some bait and then head to the water! One thing I never got there, though, was lobster. Even to this day, I don’t particularly care for lobster. Our parents taught us not to like it.” I exclaim, “What!” to which his simple answer is, “Six kids.” He nods meaningfully and continues about his childhood on ACK.
“I was a wharf kid,” he says. “I spent a lot of time fishing on the wharf and diving for coins. More often than not, there would be six or eight or even twelve of us there, all chanting to the folks on the steamship, “Toss the coin! Toss the coin!” Then the steamship passengers would toss money out for us, and they just loved watching us scramble to get it. Though usually, about the time I reached out to grab a coin, another kid, and I won’t say his name because he’s still here on the island, would elbow me in the face and snatch it out from under me! He might let me get it if it was a nickel or a dime, but if it was a quarter, forget it.” And what did kids on Nantucket do with their days’ earnings? They’d spend them at the candy shop, of course! “We’d head over to the Penny Patch on the corner of Hussey and India. They had all kinds of candy, like those little dots on paper, you know? A dollar bought you a whole lot of candy back then!” I am sure that Momma Young just loved those days when sugar-filled children filled her house.
With more than a touch of sweet nostalgia, he says, “You see, kids on Nantucket had to make their own fun. But we worked, too. My first job was, of course, at Young’s. I was maybe 12 when I was first working 40 hours a week during the summer. The year before that, I was fixing flats for 25 cents a tire. That went on ‘til I got fast enough to get paid minimum wage, which I think was $1.65 at the time.” My calculations show that that amounts to 660 pieces of penny candy every week.
Fortunately for Momma Young, little Harvey had far better things to do than munch on candy all evening. Bowling was one of his favorite pastimes, and he became quite skilled at it. Islanders nicknamed him “The Bowler,” and he’d often head to Boston to participate in televised competitions. The Bowler asks if I’ve ever heard people talk about the old Nantucket bowling alley on Easy Street. “My father built it for me!” he exclaims with an addendum: “Well, I was five at the time, so it sure seemed like he built it just for me.”
“My dad was the real character in the family,” Young discloses. “People used to come to the shop all the time to get air in their tires. My dad had a special contraption set up for this very purpose. There was a hole in the roof, and the air hose would come down through the hole. Every single time someone would come in to get a tire pumped, my dad would say, ‘Pull it down, Charlie.’ He’d perform a secret maneuver and the hose would ‘magically’ come down. Then once the tires were done, he would say, ‘Let it up, Charlie!’ And much to the delight of any kids who were watching, the hose would ‘magically’ go back up and back through the hole!” (For the record, there was never, in fact, any person named Charlie; but Young remarks that the hose will always be “Charlie” to him!) Young’s eyes well up a little bit as he tells me the story of his return to Nantucket after 17 years away. He walked into the bike shop to see a father carrying his small son on his shoulders and telling him the story of “Pull it down, Charlie!” And with that glisten still in his eye, Young confesses, “When you come back to the place where you grew up, every road you go down brings a flood of memories.”
What did he do during that 17-year sabbatical from Nantucket? With a chuckle and that never-ending gleam in his eyes, Young divulges, “That was my Jack London-ish, John Steinbeck type journey. I was a roughneck on an oil rig; I crabbed in crab boats and fished off of the coast in the Pacific Northwest, in Alaska, all around there. I worked in the woods a lot, too, doing some reforestation. I also worked in a cannery in California. I was the one male fish filleter on a line of 50 women.” I’d say his odds were pretty good at that cannery; but it was in San Diego where he found his true love, Ellen Kouletsis. They met on the 1980 weekend just before John Lennon was killed, but it was not a bad omen for their love; they remain life partners to this day. After having their first child, a son named Jasper, the Grey Lady called them back to the other coast. And so in 1992, The Bowler-turned-adventurer came home. The youngest Young, Emma, was born a Nantucket native the following year.
While Harvey was off experiencing the world outside of Nantucket, the business had been passed around and shared by the other Young siblings. But they each had their own dreams to follow, too. Harvey said, “Sure, I’ll take my turn as the Young at Young’s!” And for the past 19 years, he has been just that. This is a family business through and through, and now the fourth generation of Youngs is up to bat. “I want you to meet someone very special,” he says with a gleam in his eyes as he leads me to the back end of the store, where the bike workshop is located. “This is my son, Jasper!” The younger Young exudes just as brilliant an air as his dad. It takes him a moment to decide if he wants to extend to me his bike grease-covered hand. (He opts to just flash the warm Young grin with a “Nice to meet you!” and, in true Young fashion, keeps on working.)
As Young and I continue to peruse his shop, a windblown but blissful couple comes in to return their rental bikes. The husband approaches Young and comments on how comfortable the bike seats are. “My wife and I have been riding all around the island, and we feel great! We will absolutely be back here next year.” Young jokes with the man, saying he was paid to say that in front of a reporter; but the truth is that similar interactions happen several times during my short time at the shop. Customers are not shy to express their satisfaction to Young or to the bike-loving experts at the front desk. It is evident that Young’s ability to share Nantucket with others is what satisfies him the most.
Where do you find Young’s Bicycle Shop? As soon as you get off the ferry, you find yourself along a row of shops called “the strip.” Young’s isn’t bright or flashy, but you can recognize it by the big wheel outside, along with the very same sidewalk sign that Grandpa Young crafted many decades ago. Like Grandpa Young himself, who remained determined to fix bikes even into old age (despite the blindness that he heartily denied) the family business is steadfast. When asked what Grandpa Young would say today if he stepped off the ferry and onto the strip, it doesn’t take Harvey long to reply: “You should be coming to work earlier and staying later. And not taking so many vacation days!” And as we sit together on a bench along the Wharf, Young the Third confesses to me, “I’m constantly trying to measure up. It’s not easy to carry on a family tradition that has very high standards. But I wouldn’t want to be doing anything else. Overall, I’d like to think that Grandpa Young would be proud of us.” I have a feeling that Harvey’s hopes are valid; Grandpa Young would flush with pride at his four-generation island legacy. The Young family has certainly spread its roots in the sandy soil of Nantucket.
