Chilmark lies nestled under a warm blanket of fog this morning as I write mid-week. Much more like a June morning than actually a March morning. Many of our spring flowers are in bloom or almost so in sunny areas of our yards.

The early blooms bring us to the Martha’s Vineyard Cancer Support Group’s annual daffodil sale coming on March 17. The group sells daffodils at $10 a bunch at the following grocery stores: Edgartown Stop & Shop, Reliable Market and Cronig’s in Vineyard Haven. They will be on sale from 9 a.m. until sold out. The blooms can also be purchased at the Martha’s Vineyard Hospital beginning at 11 a.m. Money collected from these annual sales is used to help Vineyard families and patients with medical expenses and the cost of transportation when treatment is required off-Island.

Susan Stevens, principal of the Chilmark School, invites us all to an all-Island event on March 15 at the Chilmark School. They will introduce us to STEAM, a series of activities that help to better understand all the skills that are built when the curriculum incorporates science, technology, engineering, art and math. The evening program is scheduled from 6 to 7:30 p.m. at the Chilmark School. All interested adults Island-wide are welcome to attend.

We send happy birthday wishes to Herschel West, retired Menemsha swordfish fisherman, on the occasion of his 93rd birthday. Cheers from us all!

The Yard has announced its summer program for 2017. Their season will be from June 6 to Sept. 8. Please visit their website, dancetheyard.org, for more details.

The Scottish Society Songsters invite us all to the Edgartown library on March 11 at 3 p.m. to hear songs by Robert Burns and a new song by Steve Ewing and Dorian Lopes. The program is called My Heart’s in the Highlands and is open to all.

By the time you read this the annual school February vacation will be almost over and the activity levels around the Island will have resumed. This week is traditionally very quiet as many of us head off for some mainland time. I fear skiing might not have been the best choice this year.

The American Civil Liberties Union has been much in the news lately and I thought I would remind you of the Chilmark connection to that group. Roger Nash Baldwin, with Crystal Eastman, began the organization in 1917. Roger was a seasonal resident of Chilmark from that time through the late 1950s. He lived at Windy Gates on the south side of town. He was the executive director of the ACLU from its inception to 1950. Crystal was the sister of Max Eastman, a seasonal resident of Gay Head/Aquinnah for many years.

Many liberal thinkers of the era were seasonal residents at Barn House on South Road, neighbors and friends of Roger. The group served as what we would call today a think tank for what the ACLU eventually became, an organization dedicated to defending those without voice and in searching out the truth. It appears Chilmark provided the freedom to express and discuss many modern ideas of the times without much concern of the residents of town. It seems there was more interest in their swimming habits than in their, at the time, radical ideas. Needless to say, I found most of this on Wikipedia. If you have a Roger Baldwin Chilmark story I would love to share it.

Also, please share your vacation experiences with us all. I know of one Chilmarker who traveled to Antarctica...please share! Did you see the crack in the ice?

Send Chilmark news to slaterjn@comcast.net.