My affair with Katama began about 30 years ago. I was sitting in the office of my state-certified, water-testing laboratory when the phone rang. A voice with a familiar tone asked, “May I speak with the owner.”

“Yes, you are speaking with the owner, this is William. With whom am I speaking?”

There’s nothing worse than getting sick in the summer, and no group knows that better than the Island seal population which hopes to shake off a mysterious illness that has brought several weary seals ashore to die over the past couple months.

For more than a decade, it conveyed a cryptic message to all who passed on State Road in Vineyard Haven. But now the rough plywood “Hoo Rah for Bill” sign, which declared the late Craig Kingsbury’s support for President Clinton, is trash.

It was pulled down on the orders of the town’s building and zoning inspector, Kenneth Barwick,

From a June, 1948 Gazette:

HELPING LISA BEN DAVID Scannell

Editors, Vineyard Gazette:

Few in the audience were unmoved at the end of Assertions, a song, dance and theatre performance about bullying.

The Thursday night performance took place at the Performing Arts Center at the Martha’s Vineyard Regional High School, and was a collaborative effort among Island schools — both the regional high school and the charter school — IMP Improv for kids, YMCA dancers, Joanne Cassidy and other musical guests.

The West Tisbury selectmen have formed a task force to broadly evaluate the Up-Island Regional School District, but district committee members say they will not participate.

“What you’re doing with this task force is the process the school committee goes through, which says to me you don’t trust us,” said committee chairman Dan Cabot at a meeting of the committee Thursday night that was attended by the West Tisbury selectmen.

The Devil’s Light,> Richard North Patterson, Scribner, a division of Simon & Schuster, Inc., N.Y. 2011, 337 pages, hardcover, $26.

It could happen. It is not un thinkable. The detonation of a nuclear bomb on a major city by al Qaeda 10 years to the day after the Sept. 11, 2001 attack.

In the pros, it’s not often that the team with the best regular-season record goes on to win it all. But at Veira Park on Saturday, that’s exactly what played out during the Little League Championship games. The league-leading Twins won the minor league trophy, defeating the Marlins 8-1, while the Cubs took a 2-1 victory over the Athletics.

Key leadership changes at the Oak Bluffs and Tisbury schools were announced by Vineyard schools superintendent Dr. James H. Weiss yesterday.

Beginning August 1, Tisbury School principal Richard Smith will take the helm as principal at the Oak Bluffs School. And John Custer, assistant principal in Tisbury, will move up to become principal at that school.

Current Oak Bluffs principal Carlin Hart, who has been on the job for a year, will return to his former position as assistant principal in Oak Bluffs.