A constant on Oak Bluffs’ now prized Circuit avenue is the arcade; the first commercial building completed by the Oak Bluffs Land and Wharf Company. Designed by Samuel Pratt, the unique structure today houses the popular eatery Sharky’s Cantina.

Recently, the arcade name leapt from the headline of an old New Bedford newspaper I happened to be perusing — in a story quoted from the Vineyard Gazette about another popular Oak Bluffs character, Blind Nathan. Nathan Athearn was a lay preacher of the Baptist church. He was blind from birth and early on made a living making brooms. Later in life he became famous as the Uncle Nathan who sold popcorn, candy and sweets from his “green market basket” on the ball courts, beaches and streets of Oak Bluffs. Unable to traverse the town easily in his later years, Blind Nathan was most often ensconced at the arcade, where he sold his wares from a small stool in front of Perry’s cigar store (no doubt today’s Locker Room). He had a plaintive cry — “popcorn, sweet chocolate, chewing gum” — that endeared him to all as he became a “much-loved, picturesque figure.”

Blind Nathan wrote a poem entitled Uncle Nathan To His Friends, which began: Hold your dimes, for I am coming./Coming slow but sure:/With my chocolate and corn-bars,/Fresh and crisp and pure.” The poem ended “I am blind but am no beggar:/Doing what I can;/Help me, ye who love the master,/Help me be a man.” Uncle Nathan, memorialized on an Oak Bluffs post card, died at the age of 90 in 1913.

Coleen Morris says there will be a gathering of friends at Windermere on Thursday at 3:30 p.m. to remember Irene Gaines, a loving aunt of the tribe in Oak Bluffs who died Thursday, May 16. She will be missed by many of us who knew her most of our lives.

I was delighted to speak with former U.S. senator Edward W. Brooke who misses the Vineyard. He and his wife Anne are living in Coral Gables enjoying sunny Florida and certainly not missing what he noted was a long and cold winter for us here. Due to a couple of falls, he is confined to a wheelchair and looking forward to physical therapy. I, of course, took that opportunity to see if he wanted to play a game of tennis. He laughed, saying God had let him play for the first 80 years and he didn’t miss it quite as much. I’m pretty sure that at age 80, he still would have won. The senator, who turned 94 last October, wishes everyone well and says hello from he and Anne.

In March 2013 the board of selectmen proffered a proposed bylaw that would remedy our deteriorating former movie theaters. In America where certain freedoms are guaranteed, it is of course a difficult prospect to determine the course of private property. Beauty being in the eye of the beholder, I cannot recall anyone applying that particular appellation to the theatres. A close look at the declining annual value of those properties, reducing the amount of tax the town takes in, might redefine the nature of “private” property.

The new Beetlebung coffee and cocktail shop opens tomorrow. This year, Martha’s Vineyard Magazine’s Best of the Vineyard celebration is in Oak Bluffs at Dreamland on June 16. Party on!

Keep your foot on a rock.