Summer Begins

A soft blanket of heat and humidity settled over the Island on the weekend in an onset of early summer weather that preceded even the solstice on Monday. Suddenly the beaches looked more like July than June, filled with families and small children clad in bright bathing suits that could have been colored from the crayon box. The sea is already tolerable for swimming, although it would be a stretch to call the water warm; let’s just call it warming. Downtown Oak Bluffs was indeed the heart of the Island this weekend with its festive annual harborfest celebration. Cottage City was transformed into a vibrant street fair that was a feast for the senses; the smell of grilling food mingled with the strains of blues and the throaty sounds of muscle cars and antique cars revving their engines for the start of the annual power cruise. The cool cars were the best metaphor for the weekend: perfectly detailed and magnificent.

In the quiet woods of West Tisbury, picnickers relaxed beneath flowering trees at the Polly Hill Arboretum annual solstice celebration. At the First Congregational Church in the West Tisbury town center, strawberries and cream were piled high on paper plates and a line formed down the block for the annual strawberry festival. At Seven Gates Farm a young couple exchanged wedding vows, surrounded by family. On North Road the first orange daylilies of the season began to bloom.

Ah, summer.

This is one of the best times of year on the Vineyard, the time when a new season begins, full of hope and promise. Businesses have thrown their doors open, and everyone, it seems, is wearing a smile to match their shorts, T-shirts and light summer dresses. On the other side of the sound in Woods Hole the ferries are filled to the gunwales with straw-hatted visitors, bicycles, dogs, strollers, laptop computers and cell phones, leaving little doubt that the anthropologists of the future will wonder why on earth the human race was accompanied by so much stuff.

It also is useful to remember that summer is not such a lighthearted affair for everyone. This is a stressful time for many year-round Islanders, many of whom do not have stable year-round housing and must move out of their winter homes to make way for the warm-weather tenants that pay the landlord’s bills. This is of course a longstanding vicious cycle, fueled by sky-high real estate values, lower-than-average salaries and the cost of doing business on an Island. A quiet thanks goes out to the county rental assistance program that has helped to create affordable year-round housing for dozens of people. More help is needed on this front.

. . . And School Ends

The last day for most Island public schools is Thursday. This translates to barefoot summer freedom for Vineyard children and also a spike in the hazard index on Island roads. A word of caution to motorists: please watch out for kids on bikes and on foot from now until September. You will be doing your part to help keep the Island a safe place.

And as the school year comes to a close, the Gazette has come across a bit of verse by a young poet named Lila Jasny, a sixth grader at the Martha’s Vineyard Public Charter School, which makes a fitting commentary to mark the moment.

The School Garden

School is a garden where a child is planted,

As a seed she will grow on the supports of school walls,

And knowledge like water is sprinkled on,

As the sun and fun are soaked up,

By the outstretched arms,

Of leaves basking in the presence,

Of friends to lean on,

And to grow, intertwined,

and ever higher,

into the sky.

It is hard to leave our school garden,

Where, as a child, we were planted.

— Lila Jasny