HOLLY NADLER
508-274-9239
This is very happy news, if you can use the expression “news” to describe a report issued back in 1855: The Massachusetts Commission on Lunacy noted that there were only 19 Vineyarders who were mentally ill. The Island population at the time was 4,798, so this established a prevalence rate for lunatics of 0.4 per cent. Nowadays we know the statistic is higher, much higher, and the diagnosis is far easier: All we have to do is turn our heads to the right to check out friends and neighbors, then turn our heads to the left to check out more friends and neighbors, then pause to recall certain acts, words and follies of our own in recent memory to reach the conclusion that we’re all lunatics — but what a lovely asylum we get to live in!
Of applicable interest to our own fair town, back in the 1970s when West Tisbury’s Dr. Milton Mazer published his book, People and Predicaments, he wrote, “It was noted early in the experience of the Mental Health Center that the town of Oak Bluffs had a rate of treated psychiatric disorder only one-third that of Edgartown, Vineyard Haven or Up Island.” Let us assume, just because it’s agreeable to do so, that this state of affairs still holds: We in Oak Bluffs are the sanest bunch on the whole darn Island! Even with our history of honky-tonk saloons with ladies upstairs in low-cut gowns, leaning out of windows of gas-lamp-lit rooms to croon, “Got half a dollar, sailor? Come on up!”, even today with the crazy-making roar of Jet-Skis, and with more bars, candy stores, ice cream parlors, and T-shirt outlets than is salubrious for anyone seeking peace and enlightenment through simple living, we in O.B. are apparently paragons of mental health. We’ll need to remember this as we stroll the avenue during all the coming weeks through Labor Day.
This just in from the Oak Bluffs School: This Friday, June 5, the Strings Concert will take place from 5 to 7 p.m. under the tutelage of Nancy Jephcote and Chelsea Pennebaker, wherein students will get a chance to display talents developed over the past year.
Tuesday, June 9, at the school will bring the Fine Arts Night from 6 to 7:30 p.m. According to the Carousel newsletter, “This is an outstanding evening in which to browse through the many arts and crafts reflecting the hard work our art students have been doing through the year.” The final half hour of the exhibition will be celebrated with a concert from fourth and fifth graders.
Anyone interested in junior high school cheerleading for September 2009 should contact Sue Costello at 508-627-3316, extension 206.
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, eighth grade graduation will take place on June 17, 5:30 p.m. at the Tabernacle, and the last day of school (ah, isn’t that still a blessed event, even experienced vicariously?) is June 26. And it’s a half day! I’m telling you, it doesn’t get any better than that!
On the Oak Bluffs library front, there will be a Crossword and Sudoku Challenge in the meeting room on Saturday, June 20, from 2 to 4:30 p.m. Furthermore, the library is hosting a series of book discussions this summer based on popular works of travel, geography and history. The first is scheduled for Wednesday, June 24, in the conference room from 10:30 to 11:30 a.m., featuring The Man Who Loved China: The Fantastic Story of the Eccentric Scientist Who Unlocked the Mysteries of the Middle Kingdom, by Simon Winchester. Copies of the book will be available at the library.
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