MARGARET KNIGHT

508-627-8894

(margaret02539@yahoo.com)

Spring continues to make inroads into the winter landscape. All along the main road and elsewhere, the wild honeysuckle bushes are covered with little green leaves. At the edges of wet areas, the swamp maple branches are red with their spring flowers. The sassafras branches end in tiny balls of leaves like newborn fists, just starting to swell. We’ve been lucky with continued spring weather — definitely not a usual Island spring.

On Tuesday, our annual town meeting passed with no serious controversy arising. We were like a well-mannered family on its best behavior. Most articles were passed with a unanimous vote, and many without any discussion. Either we trust our town officials and committees, or we don’t want to make waves, or we don’t care that much. We mostly left the questioning up to Peter Look, who does a great job minutely examining the warrant for possible discrepancies or unknowns. Edwin Seabury (dubbed Mr. Chappaquiddick by moderator Jeff Norton) brought up a few issues, including the historical value of the library building. He was invited, along with anyone else, to come to library planning meetings on Monday mornings at 8:30. The funding was passed for architectural plans for a future library expansion.

Shirley Dewing, board member for the Martha’s Vineyard Center for Living, was passing out flyers in the lobby of the Whaling Church on Tuesday evening. The flyers describe some of the many programs and services available through the towns’ Councils on Aging and other Island agencies, including emergency food, medical taxi, and the Supportive Day Program. For more information, you can call Leslie Clapp, director, at 508-627-9440.

The next potluck at the Chappaquiddick Community Center will be on Wednesday, April 21, starting at 6 p.m. Hatsy Potter and Ruth Welch will be the hosts. All are welcome.

On Monday, April 19 at 5:30 p.m. the Chappaquiddick bike path committee is sponsoring a public presentation by the Northeastern University transportation engineering department. The engineering students who have been working on the bike path design project will present their evaluation and design concepts for Chappaquiddick and Dyke Roads at the community center.

The new Martha’s Vineyard Hospital has been open for public viewing. It’s mostly finished except for much of the equipment and some furniture and, of course, all the people who will work there and those who will be the patients. It’s quite impressive, with many single bed emergency treatment rooms, and single person patient rooms. There is an outdoor porch and patio on the second floor.

We went to the Saturday evening opening party, and were treated very well with food, drink and music, and a chance to roam the corridors looking everywhere. It was a little odd to be having a party in the place which will most likely be associated with one’s own or someone else’s pain and difficulties in the future. However, from the looks of the building, they will make it as positive an experience as possible.

At the opening we met up with Mary DiMattia, who is a nurse in the maternity department. She’s really excited about the new facilities for women giving birth and for newborn babies. She showed us the two birthing tubs for women in labor. There are three birthing rooms, and a roomy nursery, although Mary said mostly the babies stay in with their mothers now.

In my work as a census taker, I continue to wander the roads of Chappaquiddick along with Scott Goldin and Liz Villard, assistant crew leader for our group. Although I’ve been to other complicated areas of the island, the Enos lots still get my vote for the most obscure mapping. I’ve seen one place listed with the same house number but three different street names — and two of the streets only exist on paper.

The Chappy ferry will start its summer schedule on May 27, the Thursday before Memorial Day weekend. For the two weekends before that (May 14 and 15, and May 21 and 22) the ferry will run extra hours on Friday and Saturday, continuing to run straight through the evening until 11:15 p.m. Thank you, Peter Wells.