Summer White House 2011

Marine One touched down at the Martha’s Vineyard Airport yesterday afternoon just before six o’clock as the sun began to sink on a blue-sky August day, delivering President Obama for his third consecutive summer vacation.

The scene was a nearly complete reprisal of last year: Air Force One flew into Cape Cod Otis Air Force Base in Bourne where Mr. Obama and his traveling companions John Brenan, Josh Earnest, Marvin Nicholson, Pete Souza, and dog Bo disembarked and climbed onto the waiting chopper which whisked them over to the Vineyard. As they did last year, First Lady Michelle Obama and their two daughters landed earlier in the afternoon before the president and were already in residence at Blue Heron Farm in Chilmark when he arrived.

Mr. Obama comes to the Vineyard for his annual rest this year amid bruising political attacks from all sides, uncertainty over his leadership and deepening divisions over the reeling national economy. It is a disquieting, troubling time, including on the Island at the height of its festive and hectic summer resort season, where most year-round residents are working long hours, often at more than one job and still struggling mightily to make ends meet, if they are lucky enough to be working at all. For these people who are the backbone of the Vineyard economy and the weft of its social fabric, the long, lean months still lie ahead. The bowstrings that bind working Islanders and the seasonal residents who pay the lion’s share of the ample tax base here are taut with tension.

Against this backdrop, the Gazette this year invited the varied members of the Island community to write letters to President Obama on the occasion of his visit to the Vineyard. The letters appear as a special feature this week on the Commentary Page in today’s edition.

And now we invite our readers to take a few minutes, perhaps over a cup of coffee today or tomorrow, to read them. They offer a small window into the thinking of ordinary people during this time of unrest and uncertainty about the future in the country. The letter writers register deep concern about all the central issues of the day: the economy, the wealth gap, the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and the welfare of American troops there. Alternative energy’s Wild West and the controversial plan to build large wind farms in federal waters off the Vineyard are topics for discussion. An eight-year-old letter writer offers a few suggestions to the president for things to do on the Vineyard on his vacation, including this: Remember to read a book! A letter writer of many more advanced decades invites the president to put his troubles behind him and come to the Sunday softball games in Chilmark. A disilllusioned voter suggests that Mr. Obama try Nantucket next summer.

The letters are filled with free expressions of opinions, some long, some short, all thoughtful, and the Gazette thanks these readers for taking the time to write.

And as geese begin to take their noisy flight over the saltwater ponds and another summer slips slowly away, these letters, taken together, capture a wistfulness that would be well for our President to heed.