Mary Oliver
The wind wags its many tails. And in the evening the piled firewood shifts a little, longing to be on its way. —Mary Oliver
October 1, 2010
Vineyard Haven Yacht Club Crew Captures National Championship
The Mallory Trophy was originally offered to Lord Horatio Nelson by the Sultan of the Ottoman Empire after the admiral’s victory over Napoleon on the Nile. Now it belongs to two Vineyard sailors after their victory over the field in the U.S. Men’s Sailing National Championship.
After a windy weekend in Sheboygan, Mich.,…
Smile
Smile
Turn that frown upside down, world smile day is today. The idea is to pass the plate of happiness by helping someone else smile too.
At Featherstone in Oak Bluffs on Saturday, Oct. 2, a big group smile kicks of Miss Lani’s Saturday arts adventures for kids. There will be…
Water Runs Clean Again, Bacterial Contamination
Bacterial water contamination that affected the West Tisbury town hall, Grange Hall and the former town library on Music street has ended after the board of health chlorinated and flushed the well late last week. Samples taken from the well over the weekend tested negative for total coliform and e-coli bacteria and a boil-water notice…
Military Care Packages
Military Care Packages
Donations are being collected to support care packages containing foodstuffs and personal items to be sent to Islanders serving in the military in Iraq, Afghanistan and elsewhere over the holidays. Organizers are also asking for mail addresses of friends or family members serving in the military.
The care…
Architect Weighs In
Architect Weighs In
On Monday morning, the Edgartown Library building committee’s weekly public meeting will include a presentation by architect Celia Imrey with sketches and plans for possible site design for a new library. Designs for the Carnegie Building, Warren House and old Edgartown School will be shown downstairs in the library on…
Corrections
Corrections
A story in the Sept. 24 Gazette about the Edgartown Library building project incorrectly named the chairman of the Edgartown Library Foundation; it is Gwyneth (Baba) Smith. Also, due to incorrect information provided by the foundation, the story inaccurately reported the amount of cash raised by the foundation to date. The correct…
Plan Would Refit Edgartown Noise Rules
A public hearing on revisions to a bylaw in Edgartown that regulates hours for construction and landscaping crews drew lively and varied comments during the regular selectmen’s meeting on Monday afternoon.
Proposed by the selectmen, the bylaw changes are expected to come before voters at the annual town meeting in April. The revised…
Superior Court to Hear Rape, Gas Spill Cases
The fall sitting of Dukes County Superior Court opens Monday in the Edgartown courthouse; the Hon. Cornelius Moriarty 3rd will preside over the monthlong session which will hear a mix of civil and criminal cases.
The Dukes County Grand jury convenes Monday to consider any new criminal indictments.
Oak Bluffs Budget Deficit Looms Large, Parking Meters Proposed
As budget planning begins for the coming fiscal year, Oak Bluffs is projecting a budget shortfall, the chairman of the finance committee told town selectmen on Tuesday.
Ocean Club Expansion Plan Points to Town, Region Tension
A decision by the Martha’s Vineyard Commission decision to review the expansion of an Oak Bluffs restaurant last week spilled into heated words at the Oak Bluffs selectmen’s meeting this week, where board members questioned the commission’s role in determining town matters.
Mr. Nelson’s Science Flair Takes Top Marks
On Tuesday morning West Tisbury School science teacher Karl Nelson told his eighth grade class the outcome of the lab experiment they were about to begin related directly to their everyday lives, something they couldn’t survive without.
Puzzled looks crossed with curiosity around the room.
Today the students would learn how…
Tomato Parting is Such Sweet Sorrow
My cherry tomatoes have worked a miracle: they’ve made me regret the passing of summer. I don’t like summer. Almost every year it settles in like an occupying army and I just have to put up with it until it goes away. I love fall. Fall slips in, darts away, plays catch-me-if-you-can. Night closes in…
Hurricane Forecast
Hurricane Forecast
We felt the wonder
of the moment. . .
standing silent, awaiting
the outcome of an event unfolding
untouched by human hands. . .
wind and sea spoke with voices far away
but touching us nonetheless.
fear…
Letters to the Editor
QUICK RESPONSE
Editors, Vineyard Gazette:
My family and I would like to thank the Edgartown police department and the Edgartown fire department wholeheartedly for their timely and effective response to the fire at our house early Monday morning caused by an act of arson. We would particularly like to offer our…
Little Doe’s Big Mac
Little Doe’s Big Mac
It began with a dream while Jessie Little Doe Baird slept, in which people spoke to her in a tongue she could not understand. The last person to sound those words had breathed his last some hundred and seventy years earlier. But it became Mrs. Baird’s own dream to…
October’s Fine Wares
October’s Fine Wares
The harvest is payday. All the planting, tending and careful work turns time for picking, gleaning and eating. This is true on agricultural fields everywhere.
Firefighter Grants
Firefighter Grants
The Department of Conservation and Recreation awarded funding for wildfire-related projects to the towns of Chilmark and Edgartown.
The grants of up to $2,000 are matched two-to-one by each community.
The goal is to increase their fire readiness and protection of both their firefighters and residents, according…
Wind Makes it Tough to Catch a Winner
With two weeks left in the 65th annual Martha’s Vineyard Striped Bass and Bluefish Derby, fishermen are fretting about the weather, which has been unkind to anglers. Wind — lots of it and from every direction — has been the story of September.
There are 2,400 fishermen registered in the derby. Ask any…
Chocoholic’s Delight
Chocoholic’s Delight
Whether money can buy you love is still up for debate in some circles. But chocolate, that’s a no-brainer. Chocolate can open every heart.
On Friday, Oct. 8 from 7 to 9 p.m. you get to taste the love at Featherstone’s Art of Chocolate festival. This is the seventh…
Fall Vineyard Sports
Martha’s Vineyard Regional High School football plays its first home game of the season tonight at 6:30 p.m., taking on 0-3 South Shore Vocational Tech. The Vineyarders are fresh off a 41-32 win against league opponent Coyle Cassidy — putting head coach Don Herman just two wins away from 200 career victories — and are…
Creative Living Award Is Announced
Ross Gannon and Nat Benjamin will receive the 2010 Creative Living Award, the Permanent Endowment for Martha’s Vineyard announced yesterday. The award will be presented on Thursday, Oct. 14 at the Grange Hall in West Tisbury beginning at 5:30 p.m. All are cordially invited to attend.
Stuart Bangs Is Graduate Of Coast Guard Training
Coast Guard Seaman Stuart D. Bangs, son of Margaret R. St. Denis of Edgartown, and Paul S. Bangs of Edgartown, recently graduated from the U.S. Coast Guard Recruit Training Center in Cape May, N.J.
During the eight-week training program, Mr. Bangs completed a vigorous training curriculum consisting of academics and practical instruction on…
Where the Wild Things Are in the Soup
On your mark, get set, hunt and gather. That’s right: Foraging is king at the Wild Food Challenge taking place at Détente Restaurant this Monday, Oct. 4.
All those prepackaged, easy to bake, box-of-ingredients dishes are getting kicked to the curb.
Sport Casting
Sport Casting
The Martha’s Vineyard Surfcasters
are accepting nominations for their Sportsmanship Award. This annual award honors those who display the true meaning of good sportsmanship during the course of the Martha’s Vineyard Striped Bass and Bluefish Derby.
Calling for Nominations: Spirit of Vineyard Award
Hospice of Martha’s Vineyard is asking for nominations for the Spirit of The Vineyard Award. This award, given annually, honors those who have served for one or more nonprofit organizations on the Island, and whose work has made a difference to individuals and to the community as a whole. The criteria for selection include selflessness,…
Baiting the Hook With Words, Reeling in Full Haul of Stories
Alaska-based fishing captain and poet Dave Densmore has seen it all in more than 50 years as a commercial fisherman, and on Wednesday evening, he shared it all with a standing-room-only audience at the Chilmark Free Public Library.
Alaska-based fishing captain and poet Dave Densmore has seen it all in more than 50 years…
Footing the Bill for Cancer At Boston Benefit Race
On Oct. 10, runners Liza Williamson of Oaks Bluffs, Maureen Best of Vineyard Haven and Suzanne Provost Flanders of West Tisbury will be running in the 10th annual B.A.A. Half Marathon presented by Dana-Farber Cancer Institute and the Jimmy Fund, as members of the official Dana-Farber team.
Each team member has committed to…
Cultural Grants
Cultural Grants
Several Island arts groups have been awarded grants by the Massachusetts Cultural Council. Cape and Islands state representative Timothy R. Madden, said that these grants support Martha’s Vineyard Chamber Music Society, the Silver Screen Film Society, the Vineyard Playhouse and the Yard.
Selling Tickets of Intimidation
I learned about buying and selling Woof Tickets while teaching graphic arts in the New York city public schools. In my students’ neighborhood, if you were able to intimidate someone, that person bought your Woof Ticket. To survive in such a neighborhood, a student had to be able to sell but never buy a Woof…
Two Wheels Are Better Than Four on Road to Paradise
We few, we band of brothers and sisters, all six billion of us on planet earth, have identified the problem and we’ve identified the solution. We’re all in agreement about who is what. Even those who are classified as the problem know they’re the problem. And yet they continue to charge around like the bulls…
Interfaith Pledge Honors Religious Freedom, Diversity and Respect
There have been many televised and Internet reports about potential Koran burnings and Muslim worship centers of late. Sadly, most of them have been from a biased viewpoint that does nothing to alleviate concerns, but rather continues to feed irrational fears of the unknown and the “other.” This is nothing new to Martha’s Vineyard as…
Vineyard Fishermen Challenge Absent Herring Rules in Court
Vineyard fishermen have joined a federal lawsuit against the National Marine Fisheries Service and the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission over the lack of management of river herring and shad in federal waters. The lawsuit targets offshore industrial large-scale fishing boats working the Gulf of Maine and waters south of the Vineyard as culprits in…
Hold Your Swords! Indian Cavalry Gallops to Games Via Chappy
In 326 B.C., they thundered across Rajasthan and Punjab in northwest India on their war horses; men in military garb, shouting their battle cries, wielding lances and sabers and bent on conquest.
And 2,300 years later, they came from Rajasthan and Punjab to thunder across the sands of Chappaquiddick on their war horses;…
Wôpanâak Talk Leads Little Doe To Genius Grant
Jessie Little Doe Baird was having a bad week. On Sept. 13 she went to a ceremony to ask for cleansing, to ask for help and to give thanks for the good and the bad in her life.
“We need both of those things, unfortunately. We do,” she said in an interview at…
Voters Readily Agree to Pay Fire Costs
Chilmark voters sped through a series of spending articles for fire repairs in Menemsha at a special town meeting Monday night, but bogged down heavily when a money article to restore the farmhouse at Tea Lane Farm came to the floor.
Experts Affirm Sea Level Rise
Of all the various experts gathered to speak about global warming and sea level rise at last Friday’s Living on the Edge conference on Nantucket, Franklin W. Nutter, president of the Reinsurance Association of America, delivered perhaps the most disturbing message.
His insight was not related to the phenomenon itself so much as…
Arson Leaves Town Uneasy
Police, firefighters and the state fire marshal are investigating a rare arson in the Tower Hill neighborhood of Edgartown, and the owner of the home is offering a $10,000 reward for information that leads to an arrest in the case.
Oak Bluffs
HOLLY NADLER
508-274-2329
(hollynadler@gmail.com)
There’s a peculiar and fascinating method to the way a man and a woman sit down to watch TV together. I’ve only just discovered this, having come late in life to television, and not only television, but the whole shmegegge, including Showtime, HBO, and stations…
Chappy
BRAD WOODGER
508-627-4216
(ibwsgolf@aol.com)
The world keeps turning, with only small breaks to pause to reflect upon the beauty of its Chappy.
Chilmark
JANE N. SLATER
508-645-3378
(slaterjn@comcast.net)
Chilmark is still in place in spite of continuing and freshening winds all week. If you came around a corner into the wind you were sure to be dusted off! Anyway, still sunny and warm and lots of fun still to be had. There…
Edgartown
KATHIE CASE
508-627-5349
(kathleencase@comcast.net)
I know where the weather is coming from this week. Our cousins Ralph (Sonny) and Cindy Laurent have just arrived from Plaquemine, Louisiana. They drove the whole way in the rain and with the rain following them. So it is their fault.
Please Adopt Us
Please Adopt Us
Temperatures
Temperature: Precip.
Day Max. Min. Inches.
Fº Fº
Sept. 24 74 57 .00
Sept. 25 75 64 .00
Sept. 26 77 63 .00
Sept. 27 73 61 .05
Sept. 28 73 64 Trace
Sept. 29 77 67 .05
Sept. 30 75 67 .01
…
Announcing Adele
Announcing Adele
Alison and Scott Stearns, of West Tisbury, announce the birth of a daughter, Adele Winslow Stearns, born on Sept. 17, 2010 at Newton- Wellesley Hospital. Adele weighed 7 pounds, 3 ounces at birth. Adele also is welcomed by big sister Freya Stearns.
Welcome Moses
Welcome Moses
Rebekah and Joshua Thomson of Chilmark announce the birth of a son, Moses Yutaka Thomsom, born on Sept. 26 at the Martha’s Vineyard Hospital. Moses weighed 8 pounds, 5 ounces at birth. Moses is also welcomed by big sister Leah Hiroko and proud grandparents Susan and Jeff Parker of Chilmark.
Welcome Andrew
Welcome Andrew
Cleveland and Kevin Miller are delighted to announce the arrival of their second New Year’s baby.
Andrew Judson Miller came into the world at 2:29 a.m., on Sept. 9, 2010, the first day of the Jewish New Year.
He weighed 6 pounds, 2 ounces and measured 20…
Murilo Arrives
Murilo Arrives
Rita and Adevalde Freitas of Edgartown announce the birth of a son, Murilo, born on Sept. 25 at 9:30 p.m. at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston. Murilo weighed 5 pounds, 9 ounces at birth.
Moon and Winter
How far away is winter? If you step outside at midnight, winter already is here. All the constellations of the night at midnight are what we can expect to see in January after the sun has set.
Eat, Learn, Love: Harvest Festival Makes Living Local a Tasty Day Out
The chrysanthemums are out, Morning Glory Farm is a sea of orange with pumpkins on display, and there’s a little extra crunch under your feet as the first fall leaves begin to drift downwards. Juicy apples, hot cider and roasted butternut squash fill Vineyard kitchens, and the students at Island schools are busy harvesting corn…
Songwriters Put Voices to Hit Tunes
The second annual Martha’s Vineyard Songwriters Festival last weekend combined pop and country BMI hit-makers in exclusive live music lineups and intimate settings, adopting the overwhelmingly successful approach of the perennially popular Key West Songwriters Festival. The event is designed to introduce top BMI pop and country songwriters not only to a wider audience, but…
Short Film Festival Strikes Big Chord With Island Movie Lovers
Last Friday and Saturday Vineyarders, along with moviegoers in 200 cities across six continents, participated in the Manhattan Short Film Festival. Local cineastes crowded the Katharine Cornell Theatre in Vineyard Haven for a billing of 10 international short films and voted on their favorites. This week the votes are tallied worldwide and a winner is…
Divergent Gestures in a Palette as Choreographers Play in Yard
There’s a place on the Vineyard where the boundaries are constantly changing and forms of artistic expression take on new meanings and challenges. It’s a bracing environment where the creative process is valued over the end result, where audiences regularly give standing ovations, not because they are easy critics but because they appreciate the hard…
Elderly Housing Artists to Display Work at Art Show
The artists and craftsmen living at Island Elderly Housing, Inc. (IEH) will be holding a show of their work on Oct. 9 from 1 to 3 p.m. This is the third annual show featuring the work of the residents and has become a “must do” event on Columbus Day Weekend.
International Film Series
International Film Series
This week on Tuesday, Oct. 5, at 7 p.m. the Edgartown Library begins an eight-week international film series. All shows will be screened on Tuesday nights. Admission is free and includes dessert.
The first movie will be this past year’s Oscar-winner from Argentina.
For complete details…
Salsa Classes
Salsa Classes
Get in shape while learning to move as if you’ve got undies full of earthworms. Yup, it’s salsa time again on the Vineyard.
The basic beginner course is on Tuesdays at the high school for the month of Oct. from 7 to 8:30 p.m. Learn basic steps and timing…
Storytelling
Storytelling
Storyteller Lillian Kellman will weave her magic with seasonal themes on Saturday, Oct. 9 from 11 a.m. to noon at the Aquinnah Public Library. Ms. Kellman is both a familiar storyteller on the Island and world-renowned.
This event is recommended for children five and older. Children under eight need to…
Earth Education Experience For Kids Begins This Week
Sassafras Earth Education begins its fall programming this month. Outdoor home-schoolers program begins on Oct. 5 and meets every Tuesday from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. This program is for childeren kindergarten age and up. Dress for outdoors and bring a snack, lunch and water bottle.
Girls in the Woods begins on Oct.…
Branding Strategies
Branding Strategies
A panel discussion on succesful branding strategies for companies will be held in the Menemsha Room of the Harbor View Hotel on Tuesday, Oct. 5, from 11:30 a.m. to 1:30 p.m.
The discussion will be led by Carol Kolodny of Kolodny Dorr Media and include Cristin McGuinn, license executive,…
Film: Ondine
Film: Ondine
Tonight, Oct. 1, at 7:30 p.m. the Martha’s Vineyard Film Society is screening Ondine, the story of a simple fisherman named Syracuse, starring the not so simple Colin Farrell, who catches a beautiful and mysterious woman in his trawler’s nets. The woman seems to be dead, but then comes alive before…
Stress Reduction Class
Stress Reduction Class
Grinding teeth. Biting nails. Living a life rife with road rage. It’s stress you say, the price of living in the must do, must have, must see, must be everything moment in our culture. But admit it, the whole race to nowhere has got you feeling down and out.
…
Goal Sharky’s
Goal Sharky’s
Sharky’s Cantina is hosting a fundraiser this Tuesday, Oct. 5, for the Martha’s Vineyard Girls’ soccer booster club. All food sales that evening will benefit the booster club. There will also be a 50/50 raffle. The fundraiser will take place at both the Edgartown and Oak Bluffs Sharky’s.
Eighties Benefit Has Got the Beat
Eighties Benefit Has Got the Beat
Were you that guy or gal Holding Back the Years while hoisting 99 Luftballoons at your White Wedding full of Karma Chameleons? Or maybe, instead, you were the Owner of a Lonely Heart because Sister Christian said Girls Just Want to Have Fun and then she started…
Is That Curry We Smell? Cultural Festival Is Near
Adult and Community Education of MV (ACE MV) will have a benefit celebrating Island diversity and culture and Ethnic Studies Week. The Cultural Festival will take place at the Performing Arts Center at the high school on Oct. 15 from 6 p.m. to 9 p.m.
Modo, Rump and Bobo
Grin, sharpie, modo, rump, red nut, limey and bobo — what kind of gibberish is that? No, it is not baby talk or profanity, but nicknames that bird watchers have for certain species. Grin for the majestic peregrine falcon, sharpie for the sharp-shinned hawk, modo for the mourning dove, rump for the yellow-rumped warbler, red…
The Vineyard Gardener
By LYNNE IRONS
I know what I like. I’m absolute about my dislikes. I grew a number of eggplant and pepper varieties this year and, fortunately, made a map of the garden beds. Perhaps my observations will help you make your own selections for next spring’s ordering. Here are some of my favorites.
Harmless Houseguests
Just when you thought that you were safe from the summer barrage of guests, an uninvited crowd shows up at your house.
They are definitely not the most polite visitors — they weren’t invited and didn’t even knock. Instead, they crawled through the cracks and crevices of your windows and doors, the unscreened attic…
