For teen, winter on Kelleys Island can be pretty quiet

KELLEYS ISLAND, OHIO — Brian Terry was running late for school again, but it wasn’t his fault. Really, he had a good excuse:

It was foggy and the plane he rides to school wouldn’t take off.

During the winter, when Lake Erie fills with ice, a tiny airplane is the only way for Brian to get from his house on Kelleys Island to the mainland for classes at

EHOVE Career Center in Milan, Ohio, 21 miles away. Delays are inevitable.

As the only high school senior on the island, whose population shrinks to about 130 in the winter, he’s used to doing things a bit differently than most. Like the island’s other upperclassmen — all three of them — Brian takes courses on the mainland. But back on the island at this time of year, it’s a completely different

world.

Many people think of Kelleys Island as a getaway place for summer fun with golf carts whizzing around its streets, boats filling its marinas, and hikers enjoying its

famous glacial grooves. In winter, it goes into hibernation.

“Summers are fun. I really like summers. There’s a lot more people and things to do,” Brian said. “Winters are kind of the opposite.”

There’s no movie theater. No shopping mall. No fast food joints. At this time of the year, there’s only one restaurant even open on the island.

Slim pickings for your typical teenager.

“It’s a lot different, I guess, than most places,” said Brian, one of a dozen teens on the island. “It’s a lot more quiet. A lot more slowed down. A lot fewer people.”

He’s not alone among the few young people on the island in this observation.

“There’s really not much to do at all,” said Mallory Coulon, the lone member of the Kelleys Island sophomore class. “I have one other friend [on the island] ... usually we just drive around looking for something to do. Really, there’s not much.”

Some kids go to open gym at the island’s school building or watch movies back home, even though their rental options are limited.

And don’t even ask about the dating scene.

“There’s nothing to choose from ... I had a girlfriend over on the mainland, but living on an island, it doesn’t work out so good,” said junior Kyle Joyce.

At least he can see an upside to the situation.

“I save money because I don’t have to spend any on a girl,” he said. “Then again, I don’t get to hang out with a girl.”

More often, the guys stick together. Brian and his friends, Kyle and J.P. St. Julian, like to head outdoors. Some of them hunt and fish; Brian is partial to riding around on four-wheelers.

Zipping through the snow on a recent afternoon, flecks of white flying in his wake, Brian cruised around the island on his all-terrain vehicle. Ahead of him, Kyle and his sister scooted around on a snowmobile.

Despite warnings from his mother, Brian revved the vehicle, then rushed it into a huge pile of snow. It got stuck, and he jostled it back and forth with his body to free it. Then, being a teenager, he had to try it again, and it wasn’t long before he was trapped in another pile.

Island regulations allow kids to drive ATVs on the road between Labor Day and Memorial Day once they’re 14 years old and pass a safety class.

“It gives them something to do,” explained Brian’s mom, Cindy Holmes.

There’s not much else. Most businesses on the island close for the winter, and even those that are open, like the Island Market, are challenged by the expense of flying over supplies. Fresh produce is a hot commodity, and heavy items like milk can get expensive due to the cost of flying them over.

Principal/Superintendent Phil Thiede admits it can be a difficult place, and some families find that it’s not for them.

“It’s a quiet place for the kids, but after about a year, they realize it’s a hard place, too,” he said.

Around this time of year, even the adults start to get spring fever. You can see it in their faces as they crowd around tables at the Village Pump, a local watering hole that opened for the season earlier this month. You can hear it in their voices as they talk about the latest attempt — unsuccessful but encouraging — for the ferry to make it across the lake.'

“This time of year, everybody’s just looking at the lake all the time, going, ‘When is that boat going to run?’” Mrs. Holmes said from her century-old home.

Last year, it happened on March 26. She can recite the date without having to look it up.

In a way, Brian has the best of both worlds. It’s expensive for most people to escape the island’s winter isolation. Flying costs $84 round trip through Griffing Flying Service in Sandusky, so most residents keep it to a minimum.

When Mrs. Holmes visited the mainland to oversee her son’s senior pictures, she stayed for a week until the proofs were ready and she could order them rather than make the trip twice.

Brian’s school district pays for him to make the trip every day (part of the $60,000 transportation bill it foots annually).

This semester, Brian actually stays on the mainland quite a bit. Because his high school parliamentary procedure team and a college class he takes at Bowling Green State University’s Firelands campus meet later than the final flight to the island, he has no choice. His parents own a home in Sandusky, but most of the time he stays with an older brother in Huron.

It means access to more people and all the conveniences of the modern world. For Mrs. Holmes, though, it’s a reason a worry.

“I don’t like him staying on the mainland,” she said. “Is he eating? Studying?”

For Brian, who is getting plenty of practice making Ramen noodles, it’s like an early start on college.

“It’s a little more freedom,” he said. “I like it more.”

And he can still bring his dirty laundry home — as long as he remembers to tuck it in his backpack before getting on the plane home from school.