Dylan Thomas
The birds of the winged trees flying my name Above the farms and the white horses I rose in rainy autumn And walked abroad in a shower of all my days. – Dylan Thomas
March 5, 2010
ACE Spring Session Begins With Women’s Day Event
The spring session of the ACE MV adult education program begins Monday, March 8, International Women’s Day, with a free seminar, Women and the African Diaspora, commemorating black history and women’s history months.
North Neck Hike
North Neck Hike
Camp Days Extended
Camp Days Extended
Felix Neck Wildlife Sanctuary is extending their summer camp day to accommodate the needs of working parents. The Fern and Feather Day Camp is now offering extended daily programming for the summer 2010 session until 5 p.m. each day. The cost for the extended day option is $25 per day…
Looking for Happiness? Tune in Tuesday for Tips
Bonnie Marcus, cofounder and former president of the Martha’s Vineyard Women’s Network, currently serving on the board of Women Empowered, will interview best-selling nonfiction writer Marci Shimoff on the Women Mean Business radio show this Tuesday, March 9 at 2 p.m. on the VoiceAmerica Business internet radio channel.
Each week, Women Mean Business…
Jump Rope for Hope
Jump Rope for Hope
Students at the Tisbury School recently raised $4,147 to support the Red Cross Haiti relief efforts through a jump rope event, held for all grades.
Just after the earthquake hit Jan. 12, two fourth grade teachers, Pamela Herman and Veronika VanDe Geer, and their students saw the…
History Listens
History Listens
A workshop in collecting oral histories will be held tomorrow, Saturday, March 6, from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. at the Martha’s Vineyard Museum, 59 School street in Edgartown, with a follow-up meeting on Saturday, March 20, from 10 a.m. to noon.
It’s a Cooking Class, Daal
It’s a Cooking Class, Daal
The Datta family has been teaching and preparing food for patrons at the Vineyard Haven library for many years. On Tuesday, March 9, at 7 p.m., Uma Datta will offer an Indian cooking class and demonstration, providing instruction on how to cook using Indian spices and recipes. Class…
Band to Sizzle Tonight
Band to Sizzle Tonight
Tonight, Friday, March 5, Papa Tuck will cook steak sandwiches alongside The Tripping Lily Band, from 6 p.m. at the Portuguese American Club on Vineyard avenue in Oak Bluffs. Music begins at 7 p.m. All proceeds benefit Island charities. Tickets are $20, available in advance at the P.A. Club,…
Poets, Please
Poets, Please
The Island Voices Poetry in Performance series moves to Pathways at the Chilmark Tavern on Wednesday, March 10, at 7 p.m. All Island poets are invited. Linda Black and Michael West will perform their work, with an open reading to follow. Island Voices continues on one Wednesday night monthly through the…
Vineyard Boys’ Basketball Team Finishes Season in Second Round of Tournament
Ending a dream season, the Martha’s Vineyard Regional High School boys’ basketball team on Saturday lost 92-75 to Wareham in the second round of the Massachusetts Interscholastic Athletic Association tournament. With the loss the Vineyarders finish the season at 16-4, one of their best records in recent memory.
The Vineyard Gardener
By LYNNE IRONS
It’s happened again. I squandered many perfectly decent days this winter and never cut back some of the perennial beds. Now, snowdops and crocuses are pushing up through the debris. I am in the proverbial dilemma. Do I rake now and risk damaging the bulbs, or throw some mulch on…
Trying to Catch the Wind
The eye of the beholder, that’s where they say the beauty lies. Maybe this is why the conundrum of wind energy being wrangled within our Island newspapers and e-mail threads has no apparent clear answer.
In Cold Bud
This bud’s for you.
While it is arguably always happy hour somewhere, these buds won’t quench your thirst, bring forth the Clydesdales, or provoke the “taste great, less filling” argument.
On Deck View of the 33rd America’s Cup
The America’s Cup is named after the schooner America, the first winner of the sailing regatta match around the Isle of Wight in England in 1851. The cup is the oldest active trophy in international sport, 45 years older than the modern Olympics. Both contests took place last month, and while many flocked to Vancouver…
Gazette Chronicle: Fire ’pon Edgartown
From Gazette editions of March, 1935:
While telephone wires were busy with inquiries as to whether all or only part of Edgartown was being consumed, many town residents watched the spectacle — a thin line of firefighters combatting a blaze which swept across the Great Plain between Edgartown Great Pond and Katama Bay,…
In a Garden in Israel, Island Pride Blooms
It’s funny the memories we keep.
There are the expected ones: a first kiss, college graduation, family holiday celebrations. And the not so expected: a sunrise beach walk alone on Christmas morning, the feel of the stiff Florida grass on bare feet used to the Vineyard’s downy lawns.
Signs Matter
Signs Matter
Character is in all the little features, those details that form the individual nature of a place. On the Vineyard, it’s in the split rail fences, shingles, dirt roads and old, working barns. And good for Edgartown for saying that it’s in signposts, too.
Chappaquiddick’s Long and Winding Road
Chappaquiddick’s Long and Winding Road
Is a bike path really needed on Chappy, the last rural outpost on the Vineyard? It’s hard to say and there are two distinct points of view on the subject, but this much can be said: the current debate raging over the issue has grown needlessly vituperative. People…
Efforts to Help Haiti
Efforts to Help Haiti
Volunteers of the Martha’s Vineyard Fish Farm for Haiti Project are hosting a potluck supper, Saturday, March 6, at the common house of Cohousing in West Tisbury, to brainstorm and make plans for this summer’s fund raising events.
Past events have included three concerts at the Tabernacle,…
Celebrate Cub Scouts
Celebrate Cub Scouts
Vineyard Cub Scouts will celebrate scouting anniversary week with a celebration called the blue and gold banquet. The celebration potluck will be held on Thursday, March 11 at 5:30 p.m. at the Chilmark Community Center. The annual blue and gold banquet is the highlight of the scouting year. It will…
Cell Phone Plan May Excise West Tisbury
The plan to build a distributed antennae system (DAS) to boost cell phone coverage in the three up-Island towns appears to be moving ahead without West Tisbury, after the town zoning board ruled that the American Tower Company must apply for 23 individual permits to use utility poles around town.
Selectmen in Chilmark…
After Tour Comforting Families of the Fallen, Reservist Returns
The police officers’ prayer Chaplain David Berube offers his colleagues at the Oak Bluffs police department begins with the words: “Lord, I ask for courage . . . courage to take me where others will not go.”
United Way Grant Goes to Help Island Red Cross
The United Way has given a $4,000 challenge grant to support the Red Cross Martha’s Vineyard Preparedness Initiative.
Greg Orcutt of Vineyard Haven, a Cape and Islands United Way board member, says: “We . . . ask Martha’s Vineyard to join us in supporting this Preparedness Initiative so that our Island residents can…
Cum Laude
Cum Laude
Hannah M. McGlynn, of Edgartown, was graduated, cum laude, from Boston University in January. She was awarded a bachelor of science degree in speech, language and hearing science.
Dean’s List
Dean’s List
Zachary Waller, a sophomore in the college of arts and science at Cornell University in Ithaca, N.Y., was named to the dean’s list for the fall 2009 semester. He is the son Steven and Patricia Waller of Edgartown.
Bike Path Study Project Runs Into Deep Divisions on Chappy
To build or not to build?
Lawmakers Say Coffers Are Empty
It was the first day of March on the Vineyard; snowflakes cut through the air and the busier days of the summer seemed an eternity away. Main street Vineyard Haven was a ghost town, as a handful of shoppers shuffled in and out of stores.
But tucked inside the Katharine Cornell Theatre on…
Striped Bass Bill Dead in the Water
A state legislator’s effort to make striped bass a recreational fish only is dead for now. The state’s Committee on Environment, Natural Resources and Agriculture has sent the proposal back for further study.
House Bill 796, filed by Falmouth representative Matthew C. Patrick, would have closed striped bass fishing to all but recreational…
Man Held on Kidnapping, Attempted Murder Charges
Oak Bluffs police arrested an Island man on Wednesday assault and kidnapping charges after he reportedly held his girlfriend against her will and strangled her until she lost consciousness. James W. Campbell, 36, was charged with assault and battery, kidnapping, larceny and attempted murder.
High School Heads’ Up: Student Skiers Must Wear Helmets Whatever the Cost
Agreeing that it’s not worth the risk to send snow club students on their annual ski trip without some added protection against injury, the Martha’s Vineyard Regional High School district committee voted this week to require all students to wear a helmet when they hit the slopes.
Seniel Seward to Wed
Seniel Seward to Wed
David and Jenny Seward of Vineyard Haven are proud to announce the engagement of their daughter, Seniel Victoria Seward, to Andrew Joseph Hannagan, son of Candy and Chandler Lincoln of Edgartown.
Please Adopt Us
Please Adopt Us
The cast of characters at the Animal Shelter of Martha’s Vineyard remains pretty much the same as last week; if you are thinking about adopting a cat or one of our two dogs, please stop by the shelter and give our cats a hug and the dogs a pat — they…
Prophet of Doom Finds Joy as Film Stirs Efforts to Survive Oil Crisis
Think of humanity as a herd of caribou living on an arctic island with no predators and abundant sustenance. We reproduce wildly until inevitably the sustenance, the energy source, is overtaxed and collapses.
Then we begin to die. In the case of humanity, billions of us.
The analogy and the dark…
Fishermen Persuade Selectmen to Abandon Insurance Decree
Under pressure from a vocal group of fishermen, the Chilmark selectmen this week reversed a recent decision to require Menemsha leaseholders to carry extra liability insurance at their own expense.
A lively crowd filled the town hall meeting room at the selectmen’s meeting Tuesday night to protest the vote that was quickly approved…
Tribe Spurns Offer From Cape Wind To Pay $1 Million
Martha’s Vineyard’s Indian tribe rejected a $1 million inducement to drop its objections to the proposed Cape Wind development in Nantucket Sound, in the interest of preserving a cultural tradition which some tribal members deny even exists.
The offer from Cape Wind was made during a series of meetings convened by U.S. Interior…
Shiver Me Timbers: Old Wreck Exposed
The remnants of a shipwreck turned up on South Beach near Wasque last weekend, following a series of winter storms that have pounded and eaten away the south-facing shoreline of the Vineyard in recent weeks.
The large piece of what appears to be the hull of a ship was spotted about 100 yards…
Festival Finds Itself Sitting Pretty on Chilmark Sofas at Ten Years
It took the Martha’s Vineyard Film Festival about three years to get into the casual character it has enjoyed for the past seven. In the first year, a black and white printout distributed the day before the Grange Hall screenings announced a one-day program consisting of a collection of shorts, a few features and some…
Housing Fund Cutbacks Begin
If you call the office of the Island Affordable Housing Fund these days, you don’t get a secretary answering. You get Ewell Hopkins himself, executive director, chief cook and bottle washer.
“That’s what I am. Absolutely,” said Mr. Hopkins yesterday. “I’ve laid off the entire staff. I am a staff of one.”
Moon
In the week ahead the late night moon moves through the summer constellations. Tonight, the moon is in the zodiacal constellation Libra and rises late in the evening.
Temperatures
Temperature: Precip.
Day Max. Min. Inches.
Fº Fº
Feb. 26 45 32 1.37
Feb. 27 40 33 Trace*
Feb. 28 40 30 .04
March 1 40 32 .41*
March 2 47 34 .00
March 3 46 36 .00
March 4 36 33 .25*
…
Florida Specialties
My parents used to call such visitors “visiting firemen.” The guests could only stay for a day, not an overnight, so you tried to give them the best overview of the Island in a short time. The 50-cent tour as it is called. I find the same is true when I am in Florida. Recently…
Edgartown
Kathie Case
508-627-5349
(kathleencase@comcast.net)
The night is still, the harbor is calm and the snow is falling gently again. So who knows what tomorrow will bring? Some are saying four to eight inches of snow. But I am looking forward to the weekend when it is supposed to be…
Oak Bluffs
TOM DRESSER
508-693-1050
(thomasdresser@gmail.com)
Question of the week: How many people live on the Vineyard? (Answer at end of the column.)
While March rolled in Monday morning with snow, slush and slop, Joyce reported crocuses and daffodil leaves poking through the garden. Plus she heard a chorus…
Chilmark
JANE N. SLATER
508-645-3378
(slaterjn@comcast.net)
Chilmark is enduring one more snow storm; as the wind whips giant snowflakes past my steamed up window I tell myself — and you — that this will be the last snowstorm of the season and my daffodils will be allowed to come up…
West Tisbury
JOHN S. ALLEY
508-693-2950
(alleys@vineyard.net)
Well, the month of March came in like a lion, no doubt about it. On Monday there was about an inch of heavy wet snow in the morning and it was cold and blustery and especially biting if you were just back from a…
Aquinnah
JUNE D. MANNING
508-645-2574
(lthslnks@gis.net)
Mallory Butler recently returned from her frequent flyer trip to Aspen, Colo., to spend time with her granddaughter, Maeve, and parents, Jeffie Butler and Kevin Sheehan. She always has a great time with Maeve regardless of the weather.
Announcing Rocco
Announcing Rocco
Nerissa Giles and Daniel Marshall announce the birth of a son, Rocco David Marshall, born on Feb. 24, 2010, at the Martha’s Vineyard Hospital. Rocco weighed 7 pounds, 14 ounces at birth.
Welcome, Madeline
Welcome, Madeline
Emily Coulter and Benton Coulter of West Tisbury announce the birth of a daughter, Madeline Somerby Coulter, born on Feb. 24, 2010, at the Martha’s Vineyard Hospital. Madeline weighed 7 pounds, 2 ounces at birth.
William Arrives Early
William Arrives Early
Emily and Michael Dwyer of Amesbury are pleased to announce the birth of a baby boy, William Judson Dwyer, on March 1 at Beth Israel Hospital in Boston, two months ahead of schedule. William weighed 3 pounds, 13.4 ounces and was 16 inches long at birth. His paternal grandparents are…
