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Richard’s Almanac: Spotlight on Jenifer E. Maxon

RICHARD LOMUSCIO PHOTO
Richard chats with Jenifer E. Maxon.

What I’d like to do is get hold of a bus and offer tours during the summer to Island visitors, but while I was pointing out the sites of interest, I would also do stand-up comedy. I’d call it Motor Mouth Tours.”

This is on the top of the list of things that Jenifer E. Maxon would like to do since she entered her retirement.

“We can do so much after 65,” she said, adding that with all the medical advances, “we have a good 30 years in front of us.”

Jenifer recently retired from a career as an English teacher at Shelter Island School. She also directed school plays and was involved in community theater on and off the Island for many years.

No stranger to the Island, she started out as a “summer kid” in Silver Beach. Her parents built a house there in 1948 when she was two. The family came out from Roslyn every summer after that. “Then when I became a teenager, they sent me off to girls’ camp for the summers,” she said.

Then life happened in New Jersey with marriage, children and divorce. Jenifer moved back to the Island and bought the Youngs’ house on West Neck Road in 1982. She and daughters Johanna and Karena settled into year-round Island life. Jenifer started her own business, Brightworks, which did boat detailing She used her maiden name, Eklund, in an ad in the Reporter because her brother was known here.

She quickly became connected with the Shelter Island Players, a now defunct community theater that was flourishing here in the ‘70s and ‘80s. Jenifer’s high energy and love for theater kept her doing plays long after the Shelter Island Players dissolved.

She said that she directed 20 years of plays at the school and acted in some one-woman shows including Edna St. Vincent Millay’s “Belle of Amherst” and “Coming of Age,” which she wrote. Jenifer also wrote “Boomerology,” which she considers particularly timely.

Her off-Island credits include work with the Wild Thyme Players in Greenport and all over the East End. She performed in “On the Front Porch” at Bay Street Theater and in New York. Jenifer has also been a regular at the library’s Friday Night Dialogues and deeply appreciates the support she has received from senior citizens.

“An open-mike stand-up night is scheduled there for Friday, August 8,” she said, adding that she hopes for many attendees. “And I’d love to have kids do stand-up routines.”

Her desire to be a catalyst and a provocateur created some difficulties for her in the past. Like when she directed an all-girl cast in Clare Booth Luce’s “The Women.” The parents of two cast members pulled them from the show after opening night.

“We eventually put on the play with two others,” Jenifer said. She was also the center of controversy at the school when she was suspended for almost two years.

“It was eventually settled and I was reinstated, but it was unsettling,” Jenifer noted. She retired in 2012 and now regularly substitutes.

The grandmother of four (two live on the Island) says she became ambitious after Obama. She adds that the country is important to her and she is concerned about “where we’re going.” She thinks that our tech tools are “good and bad” and must be handled carefully.

“And all the time I want to write, do theater and make a difference,” is the statement Jenifer gave to me before I left.

Jenifer’s energy and enthusiasm are infectious. I left this interview feeling strongly uplifted.

Meanwhile, movies returned to the Senior Center last Tuesday. This will be a regular feature every Tuesday at 1 p.m. Snacks and soft drinks will be available. If you need a ride, just call (631) 749-1059.

Next Tuesday’s movie is “The Shape of Water.”