JOHN S. ALLEY
508-693-2950
The weekend weather, which was unseasonably mild, allowed for plenty of outdoor work to get done. Traffic was at a near standstill on Saturday and Sunday evenings as nearly all of the television sets in town were tuned into the Red Sox-Indians baseball games. All of Red Sox Nation is buzzing as we are now in the World Series.
On Wednesday night, we celebrate Halloween. Its origin dates back at least 2,000 years to an ancient Celtic festival. The American tradition of trick or treat dates back to the early All Souls Day parades in England. Poor people would beg for food and were given pastries called soul cakes. By the 1920s, Halloween had become a community holiday with parades and town-wide parties. Today we spend an estimated $6.9 billion on the holiday annually making it the countries second largest commercial holiday.
Sandra Polleys, who had been in town for several months working on a health care study program, moved down to Vineyard Haven in June. While on the Island, she has attended numerous meetings and studied the lifestyle of Vineyard residents, took scores of photographs and conducted over 250 interviews. She is a doctoral candidate in cultural anthropology at the University of Binghamton. She departed yesterday for her home in Hemlock Farms, Pa., yesterday.
Will Monast of Waldron’s Bottom Road is working on the Last Resort on Music street. The kitchen is being completely renovated and other household improvements are under way.
The selectmen plan to schedule a special town meeting for Tuesday, Nov. 27 in the school gym. Should a meeting be held on that date, town clerk Prudy Whiting wants to remind potential new voters that the last day to register to be able to vote that evening would be Monday, Nov. 19.
Bruce Keep of Southvine reports that the annual Halloween Party sponsored by West Tisbury park and recreation committee will be held Wednesday night from six till eight at the agricultural hall. There will be lots of refreshments, pizza, games, a costume parade and spooky hayrides will be available. For further information, please call 508-696-0147.
George and Mary Lu Hough of Indian Hill celebrated their 64th wedding anniversary last Saturday. John and Sallie Vergeront of Milwaukee, Wisc., came to visit earlier last week and reminisce: they were married on the same day in the same church. The year was 1943 and both men had just received their commissions in the U.S. Navy and were shipped overseas 11 days later. Our congratulations to George and Mary Lu, a swell couple.
Stop over at Vineyard Gardens for their annual harvest festival from noon to 3 p.m. tomorrow. The nursery is on State Road in North Tisbury across the street from the post office. Join them at the festival for fun, games and free refreshments for the whole family including hot chili, corn bread, caramel apples, gourd and bulb planting activities a raffle, nursery tours and a plant identifying contest. For more information, give them a call at 508-693-8511.
On Oct. 27, 1947 the Grange sponsored a very successful costume party for 35 children and a large number of adults in the agricultural hall. The party opened with all the children in costume marching around the room to be judged. First prize for the most attractive was won by 3-year-old Karen Barker dressed as Little Red Riding Hood, second to Carol Spencer dressed as Cinderella and third to Margaret Duquette dressed as a little old-fashioned lady. First prize for the most horrible costume was awarded to yours truly, second to George Churchill and third to Judith Cronig.
The hall was attractively decorated with festoons of crepe paper decorations and the windows latticed with orange and black paper, lanterns and pumpkins were hung including a witch peeping out from the parted curtain on the stage. All of this work was done by young ladies of the Grange: Marjorie Manter, Alice Magnuson, Virginia Rabello and Elizabeth King. Games were played and the refreshment table fascinated the children with its decorations of doughnut men with candy faces made by Lillian Magnuson. She also served cider, Halloween lollipops and other treats.
As Halloween is nearly upon us, let me remind you what was the biggest Halloween spoof accidentally played on the public. It was the broadcast on Oct. 30, 1938 of Orson Welles’s dramatization of the H.G. Wells novel, War of the Worlds, on Mercury Theatre of the Air, aired nationally on the CBS radio network.
Happy birthday to Sid Counsell, Sarah Bergeron, Glenn Hearn and Maureen Fisher today; Barbara Child and Crystal Parrot tomorrow; Brian Alwardt on Sunday; Fran Finnegan, Oceana Rames and Joe Capobianco on Monday; John Bugbee and Lisa Epstein on Tuesday; Adam Church and Laura Entner on Wednesday; and George French, Hermine Hull, Coco Brown and Laurie Larson on Thursday.
Well, that is all of the social news for this week’s column. If you have any news, please call or e-mail me. Happy Halloween, everyone.
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