Dylan Thomas
The birds of the winged trees flying my name Above the farms and the white horses I rose in rainy autumn And walked abroad in a shower of all my days. – Dylan Thomas
February 6, 2009
Commercial Fishermen Seek to Organize
A small but spirited group of fishermen met this week to discuss forming an advocacy organization.
The meeting was held Wednesday at the county administration building; 16 people attended. The idea of forming a formal fishermen’s association comes at a time when federal regulators are clamping down on fishing permits and a new…
Supper Lecture Series
Supper Lecture Series
Sail Martha’s Vineyard announces the second installment of the 2009 Black Dog Winter Supper Lecture Series on Feb. 11, 6 p.m. at the Black Dog Tavern. Dr. Kara Lavender Law, member of the Oceanography faculty and Chief Scientist at the Sea Education Association will make a presentation on the Effect…
Dean’s List
Dean’s List
Ryann Emin of Chilmark was named to the dean’s list for the fall 2008 semester at Bridgewater State College.
From Salzburg to Super Bowl: Comedy and Tragedy in HD
Vicious art as a warm-up for brutal sport? Super Sunday on the Vineyard offered exactly that.
John Holladay Retrospective Opens at Featherstone Sunday
John Holladay offers a wealth of art for the connoisseur. His Web site (Johnholladayart.com) brims with vivid watercolors, iconic posters, inviting paintings, stately lighthouses, as well as comfortable scenes like the Flying Horses, Alley’s store and the Camp Ground. His acrylics are bright and vivid. Way Too Much Stuff explores a Menemsha fishing scene, overburdened…
Cat in the Hat Is Back
Cat in the Hat Is Back
Snoopy and Friends
Snoopy and Friends
The Martha’s Vineyard Regional High School theatre arts students will perform the fabulously funny You’re A Good Man Charlie Brown in their winter musical which opens next week at the Performing Arts Center. The show opens Thursday, Feb. 12 and runs through Saturday, Feb. 14. Curtain times are 7 p.m.…
Local Filmakers Premiere at Capawock
Galen Films will present the Vineyard premiere of their new film Rescuing Emmanuel on Monday and Tuesday, Feb. 9 and 10 at the Capawock Theatre on Main street, Vineyard Haven. The event will benefit Media Voices for Children, a nonprofit web-based news agency and media resource library for children’s rights.
Dusty Pas’cal, Troubadour, Finds His Way Back to the Vineyard
As old as the Odyssey, the story of a man trying to fight his way back home is at the core of Dusty Pas’cal’s body of songs.
The 32-year-old singer songwriter from upstate New York released his second album, More, this past February, and performs tonight at the Katharine Cornell Theatre.
Splashdown in the Hudson: All a Matter of Choice
A plane landed in New York city today. The pilot chose the Hudson River as his landing strip. He believes that birds flew into his engines, thus disabling his aircraft. There were 155 people on board this plane, including the crew.
As I write this piece at 9:49 p.m., the day of the…
Quansoo Forest
Quansoo Forest
Spiraled, twisted, screwed and swirled,
Knobbed and gnarled, hunched and burled,
Oaken shapes grotesquely curled,
Ever-howling wind has whirled.
From the stump and toward the sky,
Aged sprouts for sunlight vie,
Grapplings limbs are arching high,
Arms…
Vineyard Bookshelf
COURAGE: A Novel of the Sea. By Alan Littell, Illustrated. St. Martin’s Press. 148 pages. $16.95.
It surely was not Vineyard Haven harbor waters lapping the beach near the Mary Guerin Inn in Eastville that inspiredthis thrilling sea tale. But its author, Alan Littell, spent childhood summers there. More likely, his later years as a…
Saving Stripers Will Require Tighter Net of Regulations
Twenty-five years ago, the striped bass were on the verge of disappearing altogether from our waters. Federal scientists trying to pinpoint a cause listed pollution in the Chesapeake Bay spawning grounds as one probable reason — from residues of the banned pesticide DDT to the new phenomenon of acid rain. The other factor was clearly…
In My Father’s Mind Are Many Rooms
I felt a little left out when I saw the pictures in the Gazette a couple of weeks ago of Vineyarders together watching the Presidential inauguration. A world away in Westchester, N.Y., I had spent that morning moving my father into an Alzheimer’s lock-down unit, euphemistically known as an “assisted-living residence for the memory impaired.”
Appreciation: No Man Is an Updike
A s the bills of mortality overtake American writers of my generation, it is of John Updike I speak. In my retrospective mind’s-eye, I see him using a glacial boulder at Squibby as a backrest, concentrating over a manuscript. The time, the early 1970s. I see him and his Mary on the tennis courts of…
Letters to the Editor
ROYALTY RESOLUTION
Editors; Vineyard Gazette:
The following letter was sent to Sen. Robert O’Leary and Rep. Tim Madden from Martha’s Vineyard Commission executive director Mark London:
At the meeting of the Martha’s Vineyard Commission held on Thursday, Jan. 22, the commission passed the following motion.
Hold the Colas
Hold the Colas
The Martha’s Vineyard Commission’s budget has been thrust under the spotlight, like all government budgets as town and county leaders strive to develop responsible spending plans for the coming fiscal year without drastically cutting services, as a national recession worsens and state aid is slashed by millions of dollars. The…
February Medicinal
February Medicinal
Harnessing Cape Wind’s Royalty Payments
Harnessing Cape Wind’s Royalty Payments
From Behind Bars to the Cow Barn
Behind the white clapboard house in prime Edgartown real estate, around the back fence — high steel fencing, covered in turf and topped with razor wire — a patch of grass has been turned over to a garden. Like other gardens in the neighborhood it is dormant and frozen over now, but soon it will…
Mansion House Helps Fill Island Lifeguard Needs
Martha’s Vineyard will have 16 additional certified American Red Cross lifeguards this season, if all 16 students pass the course offered by Jennifer Fragosa, aquatics director at the Mansion House pool.
High School Students Are Key Winners in Globe Art Contest
Martha’s Vineyard Regional High School sophomore Tova Katzman of Vineyard Haven was nominated this week by the Boston Globe for the prestigious American Visions art award for her black-and-white digital photograph, With the Sheep, which was designated best of show by the judges. She is the first Island student artist ever to be nominated for…
Learn a New Language
Learn a New Language
The Oak Bluffs Public Library is now carrying online language learning software by Mango Languages. Free of charge to library patrons, Mango Languages is a welcome addition to the library for those wanting to study a foreign language easily and at their own pace.
Applicants Sought For Commission on Women
The Massachusetts Commission on the Status of Women reports that an act establishing the Cape Cod and Islands Commission on the Status of Women was signed by Governor Patrick on Jan. 10. The legislation was sponsored by Senator O’Leary of the Cape and Islands district and supported by Representative Peake of the Fourth Barnstable district.…
Consumer Price Watch
Consumer Price Watch
By SUSAN CATLING
Gas
Prices for regular unleaded gas as of Feb. 4:
Edgartown
Airport Mobil 2.599
Depot Corner 2.599
Edgartown Mobil 2.659
Oak Bluffs
deBettencourt’s 2.579
Jim’s 2.759
Vineyard…
High School Einsteins
High School Einsteins
The Martha’s Vineyard Regional High School science fair will be held on Saturday, Feb. 7 at the high school cafeteria. Organized by science teacher Natalie Munn, over 100 students will be presenting projects. Judging takes place from 9 to 11 a.m. The fair opens to the public at 11 a.m.…
Art Classes on Vacation
Art Classes on Vacation
Lani Carney will take a short break from her classes at Featherstone beginning Feb. 7, after Hoola Coola Day at the arts center. She will return on March 2 for her usual Saturday Arts Adventure.
Grant Writing 101
Grant Writing 101
Whaling Church Service
Christ United, Edgartown United and Trinity United Methodist Churches will join together for Sunday morning worship at the Whaling Church on Main street in Edgartown) at 10 a.m. for the month of February. Worship will be followed by coffee hour and adult bible study. If you would like more information, please call 508-693-4424.
Lola’s Restaurant Closing Its Doors After 15 Seasons
Kathy and Paul Domitrovich, the owners of Lola’s Southern Seafood restaurant and nightclub in Oak Bluffs, will close their doors after 15 seasons of doing business on the Vineyard.
In a statement released Monday, the owners announced that they will sell the restaurant to Doug and Leslie Hewson, owners of the Mediterranean in…
Chilmark Selectmen Critical of Commission’s Budget Process
Chilmark selectmen J.B. Riggs Parker and Frank Fenner had some choice words for the Martha’s Vineyard Commission and their budget process at a meeting Tuesday.
Indictments Handed Down In Tisbury Heroin Case
Four suspects arrested in November in one of the largest heroin drug busts in Island history were indicted last week by a Dukes County grand jury on multiple counts, including trafficking heroin and dealing drugs near a school.
Indicted were Kaleb C. Garde, 26, of Vineyard Haven; Roseline J. Gaspar, 24, of Vineyard…
Young Scientists Make a Splash With Independent Research
In November they played leading roles in the regional high school drama The Miracle Worker.
Since then Katharine Clarke and fellow high school student Daniel Cuff have been working miracles of their own in the waters of Sengekontacket Pond.
The two seniors have been immersed in a marine biology water sampling…
Failboat: Islander Is No Longer Seaworthy, Course Set for eBay
Less than two years after her final Vineyard voyage, the once-beloved ferry Islander is floating unwanted off Governors Island, N.Y. waiting to be auctioned off on eBay like so much attic junk.
She is scheduled to appear on the shopping and auction Web site on the morning before Valentine’s Day. There is no…
New Marijuana Law Is Cause For Confusion Among Police
Less than a month after a new state law went into effect decriminalizing the possession of small amounts of marijuana, law enforcement leaders, both on Vineyard and around the commonwealth, are crying foul.
And already legislation has been proposed to toughen the statute.
When Times Are Tough, The Cobbler Grows Busy
It strikes fear into the hearts of most business owners, but the recession does not scare Nancy MacMullen, the Island cobbler.
A look around her Oak Bluffs workshop will tell you why: always cluttered, it is overrun these days with queued shoes.
Ms. MacMullen, 56, is operating a two-week waiting list…
Community Services Sees Skyrocketing Demand; Many People Are in Need
Demand for services is now at an all-time high at Martha’s Vineyard Community Services, the Vineyard’s sole umbrella social services agency, and precisely at a time when funding has grown scarce amid a deepening economic recession.
“Things are busier than ever,” said Community Services director Julia Burgess in an interview with the Gazette…
MSPCA Head Announces Plan to Close Shelter Here
The Katharine M. Foote memorial animal shelter in Edgartown, which is owned by the Massachusetts Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals will be closed, the Gazette learned late yesterday. Saying that the organization’s finances had taken a hard hit from the recession and the falling stock market, MSPCA president Carter Luke announced that…
Striped Bass Bill Divides Fishermen
A renewed effort to restrict striped bass to game fish status in Massachusetts is dividing recreational and commercial fishermen.
Legislation was filed on Beacon Hill last month that would ban the commercial sale of wild striped bass in the commonwealth and also place stricter limits on the recreational fishery.
Welcome Mateus
Welcome Mateus
Claudianne Reis and Anderson Perini announce the birth of a son, Mateus Reis B. Perini, at the Martha’s Vineyard Hospital on Jan. 29. Mateus weighed seven pounds 10 ounces at birth.
Temperatures
Temperature: Precip.
Day Max. Min. Inches.
Fº Fº
Jan. 30 36 17 .00
Jan. 31 38 22 .01*
Feb. 1 44 19 .00
Feb. 2 48 33 .00
Feb. 3 51 32 .32*
Feb. 4 38 22 .22*
Feb. 5 30 11 .00
…
Edgartown
KATHIE CASE
508-627-5349
(kathleencase@comcast.net)
I cannot believe how cold it is outside right now, and they are talking about 50-degree weather this weekend. Down south, word has it that it has been down in the 40-degree range.
Happy birthday to all who celebrated recently. Big balloons went…
Chappy
MARGARET KNIGHT
508 627-8894
(margaret02539@yahoo.com)
The one-year anniversary of the sale of the Chappaquiddick ferry to Peter Wells was on Jan. 30. Captain Bob organized a celebration in the ferry house and brought a sheet cake with icing words commemorating the first year, and blue wavy icing around the…
Chilmark
JANE N. SLATER
508-645-3378
(slaterjn@comcast.net)
Chilmark welcomes February with more of the same wintry weather it endured throughout January. More snow and ice blew in with no good news from the groundhog. Oh, well, six more weeks will lead us to some relief. Many Chilmarkers have already made their…
Chapter 38: Enter Rachel the Gardener
In this year-long serialized novel set on the Vineyard in real time, a native Islander (“Call me Becca”) returns home after two decades to help her eccentric Uncle Abe keep his landscaping business, Pequot, afloat. Abe has a paranoid hatred of Richard Moby, the CEO of an off-Island wholesale nursery, Broadway. Convinced that Moby wants…
Snow Moon and Spring
Next Monday night’s Snow Moon, a full moon, appears in the zodiacal constellation Cancer, a constellation we associate with spring. Though snow was in the air this week, spring isn’t that far away. More stars of spring start showing up late in the evening, after 11 p.m.
Walk in the Woods
Walk in the Woods
The Vineyard Conservation Society’s winter walks program will continue this Sunday, Feb. 8, starting at 1 p.m. at the Frances Newhall Woods Preserve. Guided walks on this private property have been held annually since 1991 when it was permanently protected through a gift of a conservation restriction to The…
Boys’ Hockey Advances to Tournament
The Martha’s Vineyard Regional High School boys’ hockey team bounced back from a rough mid-season stretch to win big against Cambridge Rindge and Latin at home on Saturday, scoring five goals in the second period en route to an easy 8-0 win.
With the win the Vineyarders’ record stands at 8-3-2 on the…
Bank Donations
Bank Donations
Leads Sorority
Leads Sorority
Megan Honey has been elected president of Alpha Xi Delta Sorority at the University of New Hampshire in Durham, where she is currently a business marketing major. Megan is the daughter of Laura Honey and the late David Honey of Oak Bluffs.
The Vineyard Gardener
By LYNNE IRONS
Inaugural Flower
This year, this distinguished first will not go to Tom Hodgson of West Tisbury.
Even though Tom has been patiently waiting, he will be out of town when the big event happens. He says it should be soon, as he has been tracking the progress of what I consider the little flower that…
How’s Your News
How’s Your News
How’s Your News, a television show starring former campers from Vineyard Haven’s Camp Jabberwocky, premieres Sunday, Feb. 8 at 10:30 p.m. on the cable network MTV. The show features the talents of Bobby Bird, Larry Perry, Jeremy Vest and Sean Costello, all of who are long-time summer residents by way…
A Dull February
It’s a good thing February is a short month, because it’s easily the dullest one in the birding year. With the great ponds mostly or entirely frozen, many of our ducks have had to press farther south. Meanwhile, snow storms and cold snaps have pruned the numbers of songbirds, either through mortality or by pushing…
Pruning Blueberries
Pruning Blueberries
The Polly Hill Arboretum and Susan Murphy, proprietor of Murphy Blueberry Farm in Chilmark, will host a hands-on workshop in the technique of pruning blueberries on Saturday, Jan. 31, from 10 a.m. to noon.
Learn how proper pruning can stimulate growth to insure a bumper crop of berries on…
Fund Established to Help Coddings Following Fire
Friends and supporters of Patty and Lewis Codding of Vineyard Haven who lost their home to fire last week, have established an account at the Martha’s Vineyard Savings bank for anyone who wants to offer donations.
The Codding home was completely destroyed by a fast moving fire last Tuesday. The cause of the…
Edgartown Library Offers Valentine’s Basket Chances
Edgartown Library is raffling off a basket of Valentine treats on Friday, Feb. 13 at 4 p.m. Tickets are $3 each, two tickets for $5, or ten tickets for $20. The tickets make nice Valentine’s Day gifts themselves, and sales will support the library expansion program.
