When people ask Arnold Carr why he chose to become an underwater explorer/marine biologist instead of taking over his family’s iconic store, Darlings, on Circuit avenue he says, “Because I grew up on Martha’s Vineyard. I was surrounded by water.”

Save the date, next Saturday, April 28 beginning at 10:30 a.m. the 2012 Little League baseball season officially opens with a parade down Circuit avenue in Oak Bluffs.

Bring some apple pie, mamas and papas. This is small town living at its best.

Teams gather at 9:30 a.m. at the Oak Bluffs police station. The parade route rolls up Circuit Ave to Veira Park, where an opening day ceremony awaits.

Batter Up!

On Sunday, April 22, Featherstone Center for the Arts is holding a reception for its newest exhibit: The Art of Vineyard Architecture — Celebrating Vineyard Architecture.

The exhibit features local noted architects including, Patrick Ahearn, Stephen Pogue, Architecture Indigo, LLC, Hutker Architects, MacNelly Cohen Architects, Mashek MacLean Architects, South Mountain Company, Sullivan O’Connor Architects, Judge Skelton Smith Architects, and Terrain Architects.

It’s a busy week at the Pathways gathering space at the Chilmark Tavern, located at Beetlebung corner. All performances take place from 6:30 to 8:30 p.m., so plan your week’s dinner possibilities around that time.

First up on Saturday, April 21, is a John Cage centennial concert tribute with a presentation of Innovations for the piano by David Stanwood. The performance will also feature Delores Stevens on prepared grand piano and toy piano.

No contest, Iago, the evil genius of William Shakespeare’s Othello, is the most brutal villain in any of the bard’s productions. The play was first presented in 1604 during what literary historians have deemed Shakespeare’s period of despair, when the struggle for good and evil in the human soul preoccupied him.

But what made Iago so ruthless yet so ostensibly above-reproach that he could win a loving and well-bred wife like Emilia and the trust and promotion of a great general such as Othello?

Earth Day Beach Cleanup

Mother Earth needs you, all over the world, but here on the Vineyard, it’s her beachy bits that need the most care. That’s why on Earth Day, Saturday, April 21, the Vineyard Conservation Society is hosting its 20th annual beach cleanup day.

Mass Audubon’s volunteer day is next Saturday, April 28 from 9 a.m. to noon.

To help out, head over to the Felix Neck Wildlife Sanctuary and after the work enjoy a thank you barbecue lunch.

Projects will span age ranges and abilities and go toward fulfilling any community service projects that need checking off. Help spruce up the butterfly garden, clear paths, rejuvenate soil, build a picnic table, or battle some invasive Bittersweet.

Bring work gloves and whatever tools you think you might need.

Sparky and Rhonda Rucker are coming to the Vineyard Haven Library and they are doing some plain talking about the Civil War. In fact, their presentation is entitled, The Blue and Gray in Black and White.

Actually, they will be doing more than just speaking. They will bring the world of the Civil War to life via stories, personal insights from those who participated in the war, and songs including slave songs, Underground Railroad songs, finger-picking and bottleneck blues guitar, harmonica, old-time banjo, slide guitar, piano, spoons and bones.

“April is the cruellest month, breeding lilacs out of the dead land, mixing memory and desire, stirring dull roots with spring rain.”

So said T.S. Elliot at the beginning of his epic poem The Waste Land.

Here on the Vineyard, though, April is poetry month, nothing cruel about that, and to celebrate, the West Tisbury Library’s is holding its annual community poetry night on Sunday, April 22 from 3:30 to 4:30 p.m.

Physically speaking, John Hough Jr. lives in a book-filled home in modern-day West Tisbury. But for the last few years, he’s ventured far from Vineyard shores, and back in time: to Civil War-era Martha’s Vineyard, to the battlefield at Gettysburg, to the vast plains of Montana in 1876.