BETTYE FOSTER BAKER
508-696-9983
When I contemplate the visit of our nation’s First Family this week, I am reminded of Amy Lowry Poole’s children’s book, The Ant and the Grasshopper, based on one of Aesop’s fables. If you have not read it, perhaps it will be instructive in appreciating our hard-working President who will soon come to our special Island for a well deserved rest, one we will allow him to get here. After all, we are accustomed to high-powered people who have no need for disguise because they can be relatively assured of their privacy. But let’s talk about this grasshopper and those ants.
The story tells of a carefree grasshopper which lives close by the Emperor’s summer home along with a hardworking family of ants. While the ants work daily rebuilding their ant hill and foraging for food in preparation for winter, the grasshopper dances and sings in the royal courtyard entertaining the royal family. The ants warn the grasshopper that winter is coming and he should dance less and work more to be ready for the cold. As you might imagine, the grasshopper does not take heed and is unaware that the royal family will leave their summer place and go back to the Forbidden City. When winter comes, the ants are safe and warm, but the grasshopper shivers at the doors of the empty courtyard.
And so it is with our President. There is no one who works harder or who is more focused on our nation’s future than President Barack Obama and First Lady, Michelle Obama. There are many who dance around the “courtyard,” who see no need to prepare for winter, only to sing and dance in their fancy that everything will be okay: So many lessons from Aesop, so few days to prepare, so close we flirt with winter’s frigid message.
Our President can find no better place on the planet to rest, recharge, and reflect; and though we know like the ants he will continue to work on our behalf, we want him to find comfort here, at this place we call home and hope he will make it his.
While the First Family is here, there is much to learn about historic Oak Bluffs that may escape notice. Porches define our community. Carpenter Gothic and high Victorian cottages all have porches that attract people and coax them into getting to know each other and those who pass by. People need people. It is here where the American tradition of gathering in one spot in conversation is as American as baseball, apple pie and sweet potato pie and this understanding of human nature did not escape landscape architect Robert Morris Copeland of Boston who designed our town. When he laid out plans for this ocean front resort in October 1866, he considered parks adjacent to the newly built cottages paramount for each section of the town to enhance the quality of life. Ocean Park, Hartford Park and Waban Park are prime examples. The town, Cottage City at the time, became the secular alternative to the religious Methodist Camp Ground and became known as the Great American Watering Hole, which attracted vacationers from all over the country. Today, the historic section of Oak Bluffs known as the Copeland District has its own preservation group, the Cottage City Historical District, which works to maintain the town’s original character. It was the concept of porch that Copeland imported into his Victorian cottage designs that makes Oak Bluffs so unique and so welcoming.
It was on such a porch that the oldest African American women’s organization on the Island was founded, the Cottagers, Incorporated, located at 57 Pequot avenue. The group celebrated their 50th Anniversary in 2007. According to Dorothy West, renowned Harlem Renaissance writer and an early member, the organization began when the founder, Thelma Garland Smith, overheard a white woman commenting on the lack of African American involvement in community affairs. As summer residents who were also friends gathered on their porches conversations turned more and more to how the black community could contribute to Island needs. The seed and inspiration for the organization was planted in the mid-1950s and the membership was set at one hundred. The Cottagers purchased the historic old town hall in 1968, and became incorporated in 1969. Initial monies raised were donated to Martha’s Vineyard Hospital, Oak Bluffs Police and Oak Bluffs fire departments. Today, the organization hosts some major fundraisers — the historic house tour, fashion show luncheon, trivia and treasure market, lobster clambake, and an African American cultural festival created to educate the community on the culture and achievements of the larger African American community. All proceeds go to Island charities and for academic scholarships to graduating high school students. Children’s arts and crafts classes are provided in the clubhouse in summer.
The Martha’s Vineyard Camp Meeting Association has deep historical roots in town and hold on to their traditions. The Tabernacle, the center of religious life in the Camp Ground, was built in 1879 by John W. Hoyt of Springfield, replacing a tent which served as the central site for religious services. The wrought iron arches and supports with surrounding stained glass windows characterize this unique structure unlike any in the country. Today, this fairy tale village of tiny gingerbread carpenter gothic cottages reminiscent of children’s fairy tale books is without debate the most magical place in town particularly on Illumination Night which signals the end of summer.
Union Chapel was built in 1870 as a non-sectarian place for religious worship. Architecturally, its elegant simplicity and lofty octagonal ceiling is in itself inspiring and serves the religious needs of the summer population. Services are held each Sunday morning at 10 a.m. and it serves as a venue for meetings, concerts and speakers.
Our library is one of Oak Bluffs crown jewels. Case in point: They have adopted a polar bear! How did they do that? It was the children and teens of Oak Bluffs Public Library who earned more than 800 “polar points” in the Summer Reading Program. One “polar point” is earned for every hour a child reads. As a result, the 2009 charity benefactor, The Black Dog Kids, donated the money to the World Wildlife Fund to adopt a symbolic polar bear through the Adopt a Species Program. Congratulations are in order to each child who participated. The children of this great nation can bring change to our planet and this is a sterling example of environmental stewardship combined with academics.
Kathy Taylor, associate vice president for community development for the educational travel group, A Taste of Road Scholar, hosted two spectacular events this past Tuesday and Wednesday in East Chop. On Tuesday, a reception was held for former United Nations Ambassador Andrew Young, noted civil rights leader, former mayor of Atlanta, and supporter and friend of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. On Wednesday, Ambassador Young was the keynote speaker for the Taste of Road Scholar event at the historical Shearer Cottage. Andrew Young voiced his disdain for laissez-faire economics, the theory that an unregulated free market system would regulate itself, that deregulation was the answer for most economic growth, that there was an invisible hand that would always keep the system in balance. Mr. Young traced America’s current economic disaster and indeed, global economic woes, back to 1971 when the Nixon Administration abandoned the BrettonWoods international monetary system, essentially deregulating it, to the economist Milton Friedman and the Chicago School of Economics, which promoted deregulation as American economic policy. Young argues that President Ronald Reagan was the main promoter embracing deregulation, and to a lesser extent Clinton, and ultimately to George W. Bush when the current economic disaster hit. He coupled the economic problem with a lack of social responsibility and morality. Near the end of the question and answer period, one questioner raised concerns that African Americans may not be benefitting equally from the stimulus money in terms of getting the so-called “shovel ready jobs.” He stated that in his travels he did not see African Americans working on roadside jobs except in the South. He seemed to be asking Ambassador Young to use his prestige and influence to insure that the Obama administration ensures that African Americans get their fair share of stimulus money.
The many activities going on this week include:
Friday, August 21 and August 22, 9 a.m. to 8 p.m. at Union Chapel: The Black Inventors Showcase Exhibit, sponsored by the Martha’s Vineyard Association for the Study of African American Life and History.
Saturday, August 22, 7 to 9 p.m., at Cousen Rose Gallery: Gwen Ifill, award-winning journalist, moderator of PBS’s Washington Week in Review, will sign her new book, The Breakthrough: Politics and Race in the Age of Obama.
Sunday, August 23, 9:30 a.m. at the Tabernacle: Sunday Service, Rev. Dr. Dennis B. Calhoun, United Church of Christ, Marblehead.
Sunday, August 23, at Union Chapel: The Rev. Dr. James Kidd will be the worship leader for Founders Sunday, with Rev. Deborah Finley-Jackson, Kim Patterson, and Charles B. Sanders.
On Sunday, August 23, at Trinity Episcopal Church in Oak Bluffs welcomes the Very Reverend John P. (Jep) Streit for his 18th year serving as celebrant. Services begin at 9 a.m. The church is located on Ocean avenue, across from the Steamship Authority terminal in Oak Bluffs.
Tuesday, August 25 at 3:30 p.m., Oak Bluffs Public Library Meeting Room: The Library Friends of Oak Bluffs will present A Sense of Place and Pride: A Celebration of the African American Community in Oak Bluffs. Speakers will include sociologist and Professor Emerita, Boston University, Dr. Adelaide M. Cromwell, author of African Americans on Martha’s Vineyard, Special Edition of the Dukes County Intelligencer: The History of Oak Bluffs as a Popular Resort for Blacks, October, 1997; Harriet Evans, one of the early members of the Cottagers who possesses a deep knowledge of African Americans on the Island; and Jocelyn C. Walton whose grandparents built a legacy on this Island in the Highlands that stands today. For details, call 508-693-9433 or visit oakbluffslibrary.org.
Friday and Saturday, August 28 and 29 from 4 to 7 p.m. Doug Peckham will open his home and studio for an art show and sale; new work will be featured, along with acrylics, watercolors, pastels, pen and ink, and photographs, some digitally altered. The studio is located at 56 Pennacook avenue, Oak Bluffs, behind the Catholic church.
Comments
Comment policy »