JANE N. SLATER

508-645-3378

(slaterjn@comcast.net)

Chilmark is settling into some serious summer weather. It has been really steamy a couple of mornings this week with the usual early fog followed by hot sun. It seems as if August has come early! Will we ever be happy with our weather — absolutely! It is the beginning of a typical and most welcome summer.

It is also the season of scares. Every year at this time we agonize over some seemingly vital worries. Oak Bluffs’ water is bad and their roundabout is frustrating to some; Edgartown has the seals and sharks to worry them; up-Island we will listen to Phil Henderson tell us about the rising sea levels around the Island; and Aquinnah is worried about the lighthouse falling off the cliffs. Funny, but come September we stop worrying; it seems to be a seasonal condition.

Last week the Point Independence Yacht Club of Onset spent the weekend in Menemsha. The slips are filling up weekends and the promise of good weather will bring more to experience our new floating docks.

We all send happy birthday wishes to Steve McGhee, who celebrated his 80th birthday on June 19. He celebrated with visits from both his sons and their families. Geoff and Sara and their 4-month-old daughter, Eleanor, came from Palo Alto and Paul and Barbara McGhee came from New York city with 8-year-old Alicia.

We are invited to a celebration of the life of Richard Smith on June 30 at 2 p.m. at his Tea Lane home at 30 Frog Alley. The family invites us to come and share food and stories about Dick, a most popular and respected resident. Many of us will always miss him.

Seth and Joanne Wakeman came from Stonington for a day visit this week. They look forward to a longer visit in the fall.

Jonathon Neumann came from Portland, Ore., for a short visit with his parents, Conrad and Jane Neumann on Larsen Lane. He will be back at the end of July for a longer vacation with his family.

The Best of the Vineyard contest results are in. Chilmark winners this year are The Yard, Chilmark Chocolates, Martha’s Vineyard Savings Bank and Beach Plum Inn. The runner up is Beetlebung Dry Goods. Congratulations to all!

The Chilmark Library’s July 3 program will be a talk by author and Yale professor, Jonathon R. Macey. His new book is The Death of Corporate Reputation: How Integrity has been Destroyed on Wall Street. All are welcome to the 5 p.m. talk free of charge.

The Martha’s Vineyard Library Association is sponsoring a program tomorrow morning at the Vineyard Haven Library for tweens and teens. There will be workshops for ages 8 to 12 and for age 13 and up. Andy and Veronica Fish will lead the workshops in comics at 1 p.m. and a manga workshop for ages 13 and up at 3 p.m.

The Martha’s Vineyard Library Association is also kicking off the annual summer reading program at 11 a.m. on July 6 at the Ag Hall in West Tisbury. Young people can sign up and pick up the reading log and coupons from the supporting businesses. The Chilmark businesses offering coupons are the Menemsha Market, Menemsha Galley, Menemsha Texaco, Chilmark Chocolates, The Bite and the Chilmark Store.

Chilmark glass artist, David B. Geiger, will give an artist talk at the Shaw Cramer Gallery in Vineyard Haven on July 2 at 6 p.m. He will discuss his hand-cast glass techniques for creating sculptures. The gallery is at 56 Main street.

Phil Henderson will speak about the rising sea levels around Martha’s Vineyard at the Chilmark town hall on July 11 at 4:30 p.m. All are welcome to attend.

The booklets are out this week for the Chilmark Community Center with the schedule of events for the months coming up. Registration begins on June 30. If you didn’t get a booklet, they will be available at the center.

The Chilmark Library sends word that the Friends of the Library have purchased a Kindle Fire and an iPad mini so that patrons who don’t own such devices can come in and see how they work and how the library materials can be accessed with these new gadgets. Patrons can check one out for an hour at a time in the library confines and experiment. This is the future — get with it!

If you meet Don Sexton this week, wish him a happy birthday. Don’t tell him I told you, I promised not to.