In Step With a Touch of Country Wisdom

So it is April at last. The daffodils are up, but not all in bloom yet.

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Dear Dad, Happy Retirement!

Our dad Richard Leonard was promoted to president and CEO of the Martha’s Vineyard Cooperative Bank in 1989 — a big job for an Island boy freshly graduated from University of Massachusetts.

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A Vineyard Perspective

“The Ukraine crisis is something we don’t want to see.”

—Xi Jinping

A slant of light on a winter afternoon
Illumines a two-foot pine sapling
I forgot I planted at the lawn’s edge.
In my mind’s eye: I accept from
Someone’s hands the tiny tree,
Roots swaddled in a plastic bag.
I transport it from somewhere
And plant it at home on the Vineyard,
Heaping soil around the base, then
Forgetting about it until a ray of light
Points to a tree tall enough for me to see
From the windows of my study.

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Vineyard Bookshelf: Confessions of an Immigrant Boy Pittsburgh 1920

Blood Pudding by Ivan Cox is framed as a long-lost memoir of its narrator, Tadeusz Malinowski.

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Music, Journalism and a Friendship for Life

Jim Kinsella should be remembered.

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The War

Up the coast to another territory. Hollywood war music on the radio.

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Memories of War, and a Prayer for Ukraine

Yes, I am the 10-year-old Ukrainian kid whose parents are trying to shelter from Russian bombs — in my case they were German bombs.

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At Poole’s Fish Market, a Summer Job Offered a Lifetime of Learning

In the early 1970s, I spent summers working at Poole’s Fish Market in Menemsha.

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Parity and Disparity on Display

Memories are sparked in many ways, connecting life and lives in circles at times concentric but not always touching.

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Celebrating a Chronicler of Black History

Robert (Bob) Carter Hayden Jr. died Jan. 23. His serendipitously popular saying, “know your history” dovetails nicely with this Black History Month.

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