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.

West Tisbury selectmen voted Wednesday to pass regulations for the sale of beer and wine, the final step in turning the historically dry town wet.

The move comes less than one week after voters at the town election overwhelmingly approved permitting the sale of beer and wine at restaurants with more than 50 seats and issuing one-day beer and wine licenses for special events.

Martha’s Vineyard Museum and Featherstone Center for the Arts need your help to determine the People’s Choice winner of the Island Faces Portrait Competition. The artist whose portrait of an Island character best captures the voters’ attention will have his or her work displayed at Featherstone in fall 2012. To see the submissions and cast your ballot go to http://ifcontest.wordpress.com/.

Chilmark selectmen will ask the U.S. Coast Guard to reconsider its denial of town insurance claims from the Menemsha boathouse fire. On advice of their town counsel, the selectmen decided not to pursue an appeal through the U.S. District Court, at least for now.

New Bedford civic leaders this week doubled down on their push to have the Steamship Authority begin summer freight service between their city and the Vineyard, despite a detailed analysis from SSA senior managers that shows the service would be both impractical and prohibitively expensive.

At the monthly boat line meeting held in New Bedford Tuesday, SSA governor and board chairman John Tierney led the charge for freight service between the Whaling City and the Island.

Congratulations go out to seven hardy Vineyarders, who ran — and completed! — the Boston Marathon in near-record breaking heat on Monday.

James Lanctot, 46, of Oak Bluffs, led the pack of Islanders, finishing with a strong 3:47:41. Marylee Schroeder, 47, of West Tisbury and Hilda Lewis, 30, of Vineyard Haven, followed closely behind with 3:48:32 and 3:51:26 finishes.

Kim O’Callaghan, 47, of Vineyard Haven ended with a strong 4:51:40 run.

The Wampanoag Tribe of Gay Head (Aquinnah) has announced that the tribe is considering bringing gaming to the Island, according to a new Web site published by the tribe’s gaming corporation this week.

“The tribe currently holds land in trust on Martha’s Vineyard for economic development and we would consider that option,” the Web site states. “There is no legal impediment for us to open a casino on our trust land. Martha’s Vineyard is a very popular tourist destination that could certainly support a smaller-scale casino.”

Home

So heist the sails

And cast her off

We’re free

As we can be

Leave the mainland

Far behind

And head her

Out to sea

Forget the stragglers

Let ’em stay

Set the course

In stone

Do not waver

Do not stray

Steer her straight

For home

— Steve Ewing, Edgartown Poet Laureate

Editor’s Note: Mike Wallace wrote the following piece for Peter Simon’s book On the Vineyard II, published in 1990. It appears here with permission. Mr. Wallace died on April 7 at the age of 93.

Something extraordinary happens each time I leave my “real” life in New York city and arrive at home in Vineyard Haven. All the magic of my schoolboy excursions to the Vineyard comes flooding back, all the early memories.

The little village of Lahardan in the parish of Addergoole, built on the banks of Lough Conn and nestled at the foot of Mount Nephin in County Mayo, Ireland, seems an unlikely place to be chosen as Ireland’s Titanic Village. But 100 years ago 14 young men and women left the village to travel to America together to seek their fortune.They traveled by horse and cart and then took several trains across Ireland to reach what was then known as Queenstown in County Cork and boarded the world’s most famous ship, the Titanic.