JANE N. SLATER

508-645-3378

(slaterjn@comcast.net)

Chilmark will mark the last day of February with a flea market at the community center on Saturday. All are invited, there is no charge and there will be food available for purchase as well as many crafts, antiques, jewelry and Ethel Sherman’s favorite jams. A great opportunity to welcome spring and visit old friends!

We all send best wishes to Greg Mayhew as he mends from an injury incurred while chaperoning a school class that was off skiing. We hope to see him up and out soon.

Here is a reminder to all who are running for re-election at the April town meeting and election — your papers should be signed and back in town hall by March 11.

Sue Craver is back in her Chilmark home after two weeks in Aspen, Colo., where she went to visit her new granddaughter, Colette Grace Dampier. Colette was born on Jan. 20 and weighed 8 pounds 4 ounces. Her parents are Susan and LaRoy Dampier. This is Sue’s first grandchild and she is looking forward to the family’s Island visit in March. Cheers from us all!

The Chilmark Community Church’s Tuesday night supper was a pancake supper in honor of Shrove Tuesday and Ash Wednesday that mark the beginning of the season of Lent. The Rev. Woody Bowman of West Tisbury will be guest preacher at the church service on March 6 at 9 a.m. He is the director of FOCUS on the Vineyard.

Arnie Reisman, who is a Menemsha seasonal resident and a film producer and director, tells us that his recent film, The Powder and the Glory, will be shown at the Martha’s Vineyard Museum in Edgartown on March 7 at 7 p.m. There will be a director and gallery reception at 6 p.m. Reservations are suggested by calling 508-627-4441. The Powder and the Glory is about the lives and businesses of Elizabeth Arden and Helena Rubinstein, founders of what is today a booming international health and beauty industry.

The film is being shown in honor of Women’s History Month.

Author Barbara Bick will discuss her book Walking The Precipice: Witness to the Rise of the Taliban in Afghanistan at the Chilmark library on Wednesday, March 4 at 5:30 p.m. Barbara is a year-round resident of the Vineyard and an active worker for peace and human rights. She has traveled to Afghanistan a number of times working for women’s rights.

If you are reading this before 7 p.m. you still have time to see the final film of the winter series at the library sponsored by the Martha’s Vineyard Film Festival. The movie tonight is The Sea Inside.

The town is strangely quiet this week as most children and their parents are off-Island enjoying winter sports, shopping and vacationing. School resumes on Monday.

The Vineyard Gazette of March 1, 1963, carried the following report from the Menemsha School. Lots of children brought their sleds and went sliding down the small hill at school. Some of the children made slopes that iced over and went down them on boots. We had lots of fun. The reporter for that week was student Clarissa Allen. March hasn’t changed much in 45 years!