The Oak Bluffs library was unusually active on Saturday with family day full of outside and inside activities for all. Computer games, toss and catch games, puzzles, book readings and refreshments of juice, water, popcorn, trail mix and assorted cookies quenched the appetite for all attending. One Kingsley Nwosu was also busy reading in the library but he was on the Island for a different reason. An undergraduate at Saint Leo College, 35 miles north of Tampa, Fla., he was part of some 30 students doing research at MIT in their summer research program that traveled to Oak Bluffs for the day.

This nine-week program was established in 1986 to attract highly-talented underrepresented and underserved college students to MIT to work with their faculty looking to enter graduate studies in the future. Congrats to Dr. Gloria Anglon and Noelle Wakefield for managing the program and exposing this bright and inquisitive group to the rich experiences and history of Oak Bluffs and the Island.

Cornell professor Dr. Cheryl Finley had a family-and-close-friends book launch at her East Chop cottage last week. Her recently published book, Committed to Memory: The Art of the Slave Ship Icon, published by Princeton Press, was an extension of a paper that she wrote in graduate school in Yale on objects. Her object of preference was the slave ship. Her childhood friend Lauren Pope was among those attending. The scholarship of her book is the revival of this symbolic icon that was first published in 1788 and has grown in its use over the centuries as a symbol of “resistance, identity and remembrance.“ This fascinating book will be discussed broadly over the summer beginning with the author’s appearance on July 27 at 2 p.m. at the Cottagers African-American Cultural Festival.

The cottage on the corner of New York avenue and Downs Way saw people, furniture and repairmen coming and going over the weekend. This confluence of activity typically signals a changing of the guard and so it is. Nate Stevens and Angela Fiorelli, husband and wife, retired to Oak Bluffs many years ago and held court on their porch most afternoons with their dog watching the yard, cold beverages of the adult kind in one hand and gourmet cheese favors in the other hand. Angela was a certified public accountant specializing in estate tax work and she enjoyed an accounting practice serving many large law firms in Boston. Nate was a proud U.S. Marine who sacrificed his own college education so his sister could become a physician.

Nevertheless he was a relentless reader of all book genres, especially history. A columnist, political raconteur and man of many ideas who even hosted fellow Georgian Cong. John L. Lewis before his death several years ago. He will be missed. Nate is buried in the Massachusetts National Cemetery next to Otis Air Force Base in Barnstable County. Angela has retired and recently relocated to be near her sister in Michigan. Porches have memories too.

The face of soccer has changed over the past few weeks from gloom and possibly doom to glory. The world watched with fear and anxiety as the 12 boys on the Wild Boars team hung on in flooded caves in Thailand until they were finally rescued. The Coop de Ville restaurant and bar in the Oak Bluffs harbor had all of the excitement as any of the 12 Russian stadiums hosting the World Cup games. Congrats and thanks to the management and staff of the Coop for their magnanimous hospitality during the games.

Opening their 72nd year, the Polar Bears have begun their daily early swim and exercise activities at the Inkwell Beach. People are still buzzing about their annual concert that was held last Sunday afternoon on Ocean Park featuring Spencer & The Harmony. This is their third year hosting a music concert — praying for more next year.

A number of Oak Bluffs residents crossed the bridge to Vineyard Haven to welcome Gov. Charlie Baker and wife Lauren to the Vineyard this past Saturday.

Paradise on earth is the Vineyard experience. Enjoy it as life is fleeting!

Oak Bluffs news can be sent to rtaylor@mvgazette.com.