COURAGE: A Novel of the Sea. By Alan Littell, Illustrated. St. Martin’s Press. 148 pages. $16.95.

It surely was not Vineyard Haven harbor waters lapping the beach near the Mary Guerin Inn in Eastville that inspiredthis thrilling sea tale. But its author, Alan Littell, spent childhood summers there. More likely, his later years as a merchant mariner provided the background for this story of the dangers of the enthralling sea.

Twenty-five years ago, the striped bass were on the verge of disappearing altogether from our waters. Federal scientists trying to pinpoint a cause listed pollution in the Chesapeake Bay spawning grounds as one probable reason — from residues of the banned pesticide DDT to the new phenomenon of acid rain. The other factor was clearly overfishing, and only this could be addressed immediately.

I felt a little left out when I saw the pictures in the Gazette a couple of weeks ago of Vineyarders together watching the Presidential inauguration. A world away in Westchester, N.Y., I had spent that morning moving my father into an Alzheimer’s lock-down unit, euphemistically known as an “assisted-living residence for the memory impaired.”

Guns and Suffrage

From the Gazette editions of February, 1909:

A s the bills of mortality overtake American writers of my generation, it is of John Updike I speak. In my retrospective mind’s-eye, I see him using a glacial boulder at Squibby as a backrest, concentrating over a manuscript. The time, the early 1970s. I see him and his Mary on the tennis courts of the Chilmark Community Center, their names and reserved time listed on the sign-up pad affixed to the perimeter wire fencing.

ROYALTY RESOLUTION

Editors; Vineyard Gazette:

The following letter was sent to Sen. Robert O’Leary and Rep. Tim Madden from Martha’s Vineyard Commission executive director Mark London:

At the meeting of the Martha’s Vineyard Commission held on Thursday, Jan. 22, the commission passed the following motion.

Hold the Colas

The Martha’s Vineyard Commission’s budget has been thrust under the spotlight, like all government budgets as town and county leaders strive to develop responsible spending plans for the coming fiscal year without drastically cutting services, as a national recession worsens and state aid is slashed by millions of dollars. The regional planning commission’s unusual powers extend to its budget process which is autonomous and not subject to approval by the six towns.

February Medicinal

Harnessing Cape Wind’s Royalty Payments

Behind the white clapboard house in prime Edgartown real estate, around the back fence — high steel fencing, covered in turf and topped with razor wire — a patch of grass has been turned over to a garden. Like other gardens in the neighborhood it is dormant and frozen over now, but soon it will be carefully tended by a crew who will pull its weeds, plant and harvest its vegetables, more than willingly and for no pay. Indeed, each man must earn his time there.