When the clock on the Old Whaling Church strikes 5 p.m. on the Fourth of July, you can bet the annual Edgartown Fourth of July parade will be underway.

No matter that longtime grand marshal Fred B. Morgan Jr., a stickler for punctuality, has passed the torch to Joseph E. Sollitto Jr. Not much will change, least of all the prompt start.

Martha’s Vineyard residents are here for the outdoor lifestyle, rural character, beaches and coastline, and they stay for the sense of community on the Island. They are happy with their volunteer fire departments, their emergency services, their hospital and their police squads.

Butter stained tables line the dock of Menemsha harbor where on summer evenings fresh lobsters are eaten off paper plates as the sun sets on another Vineyard day. Finger licking is required, bibs are optional.
Lobsters are a celebration says Larsen’s Fish Market owner Betsy Larsen.

The Oak Bluffs water district continued to apply a low dose of chlorine to the Farm Neck well Thursday morning, after a 48-hour boil water order from the state Department of Environmental Protection had been lifted.

Several samples of town water were found to be contaminated by a total coliform fecal indicator Monday morning.

Ray (Scott) Santinello was five years old when he got his first haircut. It took place on the third floor of his family’s home in Springfield, and the barber was a young friend of the family. It was the 1950s and the barber, Benito Mancinone, had recently immigrated to the city from Molise, a small town located on a mountain in Italy.
Mr. Santinello is 61 now and Benny the Barber, long a mainstay of Circuit avenue in Oak Bluffs, is still cutting his hair.
“He’s my barber. I just don’t change,” Mr. Santinello said on a recent Tuesday morning.

Amid growing negative public sentiment over a telephone pole replacement project on the Edgartown-Vineyard Haven Road, the Tisbury selectmen have referred the project to the Martha’s Vineyard Commission for possible review.
Meeting in emergency session last Friday, the selectmen voted to refer the NStar project to the MVC as a development of regional impact (DRI). The height and size of the poles is at issue.
The move to refer the matter to the commission was recommended by town administrator John (Jay) Grande after consulting with town clerk Marion Mudge.

Except for the baroque chirping from the rafters, the Tabernacle is empty and quiet enough to make one want to whisper. It is 40 minutes before the Island Community Chorus begins to rehearse for its July 6 summer concert. Music director Peter Boak arrives carrying a collapsible stepstool and music stand. He climbs to the stage to arrange and consider.

It’s been 180 years since the Vineyard Playhouse building was first built on Church street in Tisbury. For the past three years, the playhouse staff and board of directors have been hard at work ensuring that it stands another two centuries. Construction is scheduled to wrap this week on the downstairs portion of the two-story building, allowing the playhouse to invite people in for the first time since 2011.

The Martha’s Vineyard Commission has an important role to play when it comes to planning and protection of the Vineyard environment, a majority of people polled by the Vineyard Gazette Harris Interactive survey said.

The commission was singled out for special questioning in the survey which polled more than 500 seasonal and permanent residents on issues ranging from quality of life to cell phone service.

The Vineyard was a different place 25 years ago.
The Martha’s Vineyard Land Bank was barely two years old. The Martha’s Vineyard Commission, a unique regional planning agency founded by an act of the Massachusetts legislature with special powers to plan and regulate development, was a little more than a decade old. These were the late Reagan years and the national economy was booming, as the U.S. had entered one of the longest periods of sustained economic growth since World War II.