JANE N. SLATER

508-645-3378

(slaterjn@comcast.net)

Welcome to August. Summer is moving on . . . are you keeping up? Farewell to our July visitors. We hope you all took home happy memories and will be back next year.

Please make note of next Thursday’s program at the Chilmark Library. The Chilmark Historical Commission and the Friends of the Chilmark Library will jointly sponsor a talk by Dr. William Kelso who will speak from 5 to 6 p.m. on August 7. He is the archeologist who has recently found and excavated some of the original settlement at Jamestown, Va., that was thought to be permanently lost. He also excavated a grave at that location which is believed to be that of the explorer Bartholomew Gosnold. His talk will tell us about that and more. The program is entitled Jamestown and Capt. Bartholomew Gosnold, The Buried Truth.

The Chilmark volunteer firemen will host their annual Backyard Bash on Wednesday, August 6 at the community center. The firemen will cook hot dogs and hamburgers, corn and more. There will be music by many groups, including Johnny Hoy and the Bluefish, Ballyhoo, Zeeman Experience and Mike Benjamin’s Band. There will be raffles, entertainment for children and T-shirts for sale. Please bring a chair or blanket for sitting and come out and enjoy an evening of fun with your neighbors. The firemen sponsor children’s parties at Halloween and Christmas among other activities, all funded by donations.

There has been some visitor activity in our waters this week. Caleb Slater experienced a surprise close encounter with a large turtle while lobstering on the north shore. A razor-backed turtle approximately 6 feet long and 3 feet across surfaced and noisily breathed right next to his boat. Later in the week, some fishermen reported sighting many large turtles on the surface in the area of Lucas Shoals. There was also a report of a large mola mola or sunfish at Dogfish Bar. We enjoy being reminded that we are not alone!

Conrad Neumann caught a bonito on July 20, the first one reported in Menemsha.

Catha Day-Carlson of New York city is at the family’s Peaked Hill home with her children, Jessica, Luke and Scott. Husband Dave will join the family soon.

Best wishes to Jim Kinsella who, as news editor for this paper, has kept this column readable. Cheers to him as he moves on to new challenges and congratulations to Lauren Martin as she becomes managing editor.

The town affairs council’s annual meeting with the selectmen went well with approximately 50 people present and asking many questions of the selectmen.

The Yard is having a busy season with family-friendly Saturday afternoon matinees for the whole family. Please call the Yard at 508-645-9662 for more details.

It is time for the annual Brickner Poetry Contest open to junior and high school students. Please check with Kristin at the library for details, 508-645-3360.

Vicki Divoll will be the speaker at the library’s Wednesday program beginning at 5:30 p.m. on August 6. She is a former Central Intelligence Agency lawyer and will present A Memo to Our New President: How to Fix Eight Years of Damage of U.S. Intelligence. She is a popular speaker so it is a good idea to be early.

The library continues to offer stories and songs for all ages of children on Tuesdays and Saturdays from 10:30 to 11:15 a.m. at the library. Lillian Kellman tells stories for children older than five on Mondays from 10:30 to 11:15 a.m. at the library.

Jane Piore Gilman, daughter of the late Nora and Mannie Piore, and her husband Robert Gilman will be on the Island shortly waiting to get into their new house on Crowberry Lane off North Road behind the former Piore homestead. They will be joined by their daughter Sarah Gilman and her husand Christopher Westgate and their son Timothy Gilman and his wife Sudwiti Chanda. The Gilmans are mourning the recent loss of Jane’s aunt and Nora’s sister, Jeanne Barnett, a longtime Vineyard summer resident. Jeanne’s daughters, daughter-in-law and three grandaughters will be on the Island later in August.

I have to tell you that in Tuesday’s issue of this paper there was a picture by Peter Simon of children playing on a rock at the Lucy Vincent Beach and those children were Luke Sausville, son of Jennifer Poole Sausville and husband Dave, and Celia Slater (my granddaughter.)

I hope you read the Farm and Field column in that same issue as it had some interesting news about Chilmark farmers and what they are producing at this time of year. I will share more next week. We can buy a lot of food ready to cook right here in town . . . both meat and vegetables. It is worth the effort of searching out the local stands. Call me if you want me to list your stand in this column.