I have never been to a star-spangled Hollywood film premiere. But 50 years ago, I did go on Day 3 or maybe it was Day 4 of the extended premiere to see Jaws. The brand new, as yet unheralded, movie was showing at the now-dark Island Theater in Oak Bluffs.

The entertainment that day came from a room packed with young Islanders bellowing and hollering at every change of scenery. The movie was about us. Us! I suspect that some in the audience were classmates of the boys on the big screen splashing each other in the shallow water. I also suspect that some in the audience had already seen the movie more than once. It was June, a long time ago, not yet a big part of the summer tourism season. And the excited audience knew just about all the secondary players and extras up there on the screen.

Some, I expect, had collected autographs from the Searle brothers, Jonathan and Steven. And from the Mello boys, Chris and Jay. And of course school friends of Jeff Voorhees shuddered and had nightmares for the rest of the summer after their friend was swallowed up by a monster shark.

The Vineyard was a much smaller place then — we all knew each other, it seemed. Among the familiar grown-ups on the screen, there was our neighbor John Alley heading toward the pier with a fishing rod in his hand. Hoot! Hoot! There was Lee Fierro, a local actor and teacher familiar to Island theater-goers, with an important emotional role in the movie. And there was Peggy Scott, the white-haired woman who lived down the street from us, playing the role of secretary to the police chief.

Whenever a grown-up extra appeared — a local carpenter who could easily pass as a fisherman or a bank teller who dressed like a police officer on the screen — the theatre exploded with joyous roars of recognition. It was catching.

Back in real time, we were having lunch at Farm Neck when we ran into Cynthia Riggs, sitting with Lynn Christoffer and Cynthia’s daughter Ann, who is visiting from California. Cynthia was celebrating her 94th birthday and reports that she is still writing.

Bernadette Craughwell and her cousin Mary Torney came from Ireland to see Bernadette’s grandson, Christopher Smith, graduate from the 8th grade at the West Tisbury School. Christopher’s father Mike Craughwell, now living in Bloomington, Ill., also came for the occasion.

A memorial service will be held Tuesday, June 24, at 4 p.m. at the Agricultural Hall for Karen Magid, who died a few months ago. Karen was well-known among the Island’s horse community.

Karen’s brother is Paul Magid, whose book, Pursuing the Leviathan, was due to be delivered from the publisher this past week. Paul is not the only one eagerly looking forward to seeing the book, the first published history of the Vineyard whaling captain Benjamin Clough (rhymes with now).

Paul tracked down out-of-state descendants of the heroic captain and was granted ships’ whaling logs, journals, family documents and illustrations to further tell the tale of a true champion. The Vineyard-based whaler spent 30 years at sea, living a gritty and dangerous life under brutal conditions aboard ship. Paul will discuss how he discovered and told the story at the Martha’s Vineyard Museum on July 8.

Happy Birthday Saturday, June 21, to Edie Yoder, to Kayla Mastromonaco on Wednesday, June 24 and to Whitney Lasker on Thursday, June 25.