JANE N. SLATER

508-645-3378

slaterjn@comcast.net

Chilmark is wet! A heavy rain started early Wednesday morning and continued until afternoon. Not your friendly April showers, but hard rain and lots of it. Roads were conduits of fast-moving water with sand and whatever else came floating down driveways and off side roads. Driving was an adventure for several hours. Happily, we don’t have to shovel it. I even received a notice on my iPad of a flood warning for Chilmark. I knew that thing was good for something! However, the hills of Chilmark had no trouble accommodating the water.

Patriots Day is coming up, with the excitement of the annual Boston Marathon. This year Chilmarkers can follow the efforts of Kara Walsh, who will be running her first marathon and will be running as a member of the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute team. They are running to raise funds for the work of the institute and to honor the memory of many loved ones. Kara is a social worker at the Children’s Hospital Rainbow Program in Boston. She is a lifelong Chilmark seasonal resident and known to many from her years with the Chilmark Community Center. She was the first female announcer of the Chilmark Road Race a few years ago. Thanks to her mom, Barbara, for the news, and lots of luck to Kara from her Chilmark friends!

Congratulations to Bill Gamson on receiving the Lifetime Achievement Award in the Scholarship of Social Movements and Collective Behavior from Notre Dame University. Many old friends, colleagues and family will travel to South Bend to be there for the awards presentation. His daughter, Jenny, and her daughter, Maya, will join their son, Josh, and his daughters, Reba and Maddy, will join Bill and his wife, Zee. Bill and Zee will visit old friends, Michael and Judy Spock, in Chicago on the trip back to Chilmark. Congratulations from us all!

The Martha’s Vineyard Garden Club will meet on April 19 at 1 p.m. at the Wakeman Center in Vineyard Haven. This month’s speaker will be C. L. Fornari, who will speak on Myths, Lies and All the Latest Dirt. Light refreshments will be offered after the program. All who are interested in gardening, flower arranging, horticulture and the environment are welcome to join the club. Admission to the monthly programs costs $5 for nonmembers and no charge for members.

The Chilmark Democrats are sponsoring a program on Tuesday, April 26 at the Chilmark library at 7 p.m. They are asking citizens to speak up about the future of the Up-Island School District. The presenters include Perry Ambulos, Chilmark’s representative to the Up-Island School District; Susan Stevens, principal of the Chilmark School; Susan Parker, former representative to the district and current member; schoolteachers and local leaders. Zee Gamson and Perry Ambulos are the cochairs of the Chilmark Democrats.

Eleanor Groel was the guest of honor at a birthday party at her Abel’s Hill home on April 7 to celebrate her 90th birthday! Her son, Don Reese, and daughter, Sally Anderson, both Island residents, hosted the party for family, some who came from off-Island for the festivities. Eleanor has been a seasonal resident for more than 50 years and is now in residence for the coming season. We all send her birthday cheers!

It’s time for One Book, One Island, which will feature five programs at Island libraries from April 27 through May 19. The first meeting will be at the Oak Bluffs library on Wednesday, April 27 at 11 a.m. The book selection for this year is Barbara Kingsolver’s Animal, Vegetable, Miracle. The May 5 meeting will be at 5 p.m. at the Chilmark library. More information is available at your Island library.

Welcome home to Scott McDowell. He is back at work at his Copperworks studio and shop on Basin Road after a winter break in Hawaii visiting his family. It will soon be time to return to his charter fishing business. Hope he had a good rest!

Steve Judge and Jim Skelton of Boston and Chilmark are in town this week to open their Middle Road home for the season. They have recently returned from a visit to France where, they report, spring was well underway. They are looking forward to enjoying a long Chilmark summer.

Steve and Susan McGhee are back at their Menemsha home after a busy weekend in New York city.

Bob and Wendy Cavanaugh have come from Glastonbury, Conn., to open their North Road home for the coming season. They are looking forward to visits from family throughout the summer.

One more reminder: Town meeting is Monday, April 25, at 7:30 p.m. at the community center. Our able moderator, Everett Poole, will move us through the warrant with dispatch. Be sure you are part of the action and let your vote be counted. Ballot voting will take place on Wednesday, also at the community center.