A publication titled This Week in Oak Bluffs for the week of August 10, 1930 was not too different with our times today. In a story of his childhood summer, Edward J. Teran included the line “The moon was playing hide and seek with a fleet of silvery clouds.” Another article heralded the commemoration of the Veterans’ Monument at Ocean Park and the baseball games at Petaluma Park, where a Little League field is today. Baseball was popular then, just like Niantic Park’s Pickle Ball is today, according to finance and advisory committee chair Steve Auerbach.

The Tivoli featured Gala Midnight Frolics from 12:15 to 3 a.m., This Thing Called Love was at the Rice Playhouse, and the Island and Strand theatres showed seven different movies from Monday to Saturday including Lady of Scandal, Shooting Straight, Love Among the Millionaires, and others. It’s nice to have a movie theatre again. Sunday church services in Oak Bluffs were held at eight different churches, the Baptist Temple, the Tabernacle and Union Chapel each featuring guest reverends. August 1930 was almost as busy at this August.

The popular Reverend Otis Moss 3rd returns to Union Chapel on Sunday August 7. On Sunday at 7:30 p.m. at the Chilmark Community Center, East Chop’s Dawn Davis interviews author Margo Jefferson on her book Negroland, a memoir about a rarefied upbringing among the black elite in Chicago.

The Martha’s Vineyard Camp Meeting Association’s gingerbread cottage tour is Wednesday, August 10 from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. The $30 fee is for the Tabernacle Restoration Fund. The tour features six Trinity Park cottages in the Camp Grounds, plus admission to the Cottage Museum and refreshments. For more information call 734-904-4680 or visit mvcma.org. No guaranteed sightings of Hansel and Gretel but this is OB so one never knows...

An open house at the Marine Hospital, the future home of the Martha’s Vineyard Museum, on Wednesday from 5 to 7 p.m. features an exhibit entitled Lois Mailou Jones: Selected Works. Refreshments are included at the free public event. Meet the museum’s new executive director Phil Wallis.  

Nevette Previd’s Farm.Field.Sea program adopted the theme Gather. The pop-up education series of events hosts conversations with people who’re changing thinking about food, paired with dinners composed of Island food. August 10 from 5:30 to 9 p.m. the event is at Featherstone featuring food and art with artist Jennifer Rubell. Tickets from $75 to $275 are available at farmfieldsea.com.

The Vineyard Gazette’s Historic Movies debuts on Wednesday at 6 p.m. at the Strand, the largest and oldest theatre where the films have been shown. Tickets are $12 for members of the Martha’s Vineyard Film Society and $15 for non-members.

On August 11 the racial justice organization The Advancement Project is at Lola’s at 4 p.m., hosting From the Block to the Ballot, a dialogue on grassroots movements and their political impact that includes national radio host Joe Madison and activists DeAngelo Bester from Chicago and Kayla Reed from St. Louis. For information on the free event, contact Jeralyn Cave at 202-728-9557 or jcave@advancementproject.org.

The Cottagers, Inc. host AARP chief executive officer Jo Ann Jenkins at the Tabernacle free at 5 p.m. on August 11 as part of their 60th anniversary. Ms. Jenkins is expected to speak about her book, Disrupt Aging. Vivian Male returns for her fifth annual concert at the Old Whaling Church on Thursday at 7 p.m. Tickets are $45 at the door or $35 in advance at eventbrite.com.

At its 41st annual dinner in May the Alumni Association of the City College of New York inducted Oak Bluffs’ Dolores Allen Littles into its communications Hall of Fame. A 1959 graduate, Mrs. Littles was acknowledged for her work as the photo editor at Life Magazine and Time-Life Books and as a pioneer of African American Journalism. Congratulations on those achievements.

The National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences announced that the 2016 News and Documentary Emmy Award for Lifetime Achievement goes to Oak Bluffs’ Stanley Nelson. The honor is bestowed on a journalist or filmmaker who has made a lasting and distinguished contribution to broadcast journalism or documentary film. Congratulations to Emmy Award winning Stan Nelson, who will receive this newest accolade Sept. 21 at Lincoln Center.

Mopeds. The poor victims, first responders and witnesses to carnage preventable in paradise. Surely regulation can be enacted to triple the rental price and discourage such perfidy.

Since they do not advertise, note that the Oak Bluffs board of selectmen hosts its annual taxpayers meeting at the library at 5 p.m. this Tuesday, August 9. The meeting is for home-owning taxpayers who are here seasonally and cannot vote to make their opinions known and ask questions of town officials. Ask about mopeds.

Keep your foot on a rock.

Send Oak Bluffs news to sfinley@mvgazette.com.