Sheriff Christopher S. (Huck) Look would have been pleased by the fellowship that arose at Tuesday’s service at the Edgartown Whaling Church. All his grandchildren, his family, many of his friends and a lot of his colleagues in the profession from across the state were there. Police chiefs and officers from every Island town, and many from afar, came to pay tribute.

Beldan Radcliffe alerted the Gazette last Friday that she heard pinkletinks at Pilot Hill Farm on March 10, followed by Karen Huff, who heard peepers, her “favorite sound,” around Farm Pond on March 11. Welcome, harbingers of spring!

To love and be loved is to feel the sun from both sides; Sheriff Christopher Look both absorbed the sun’s warmth and shared it generously. On Feb. 22, in Hollywood, Fla., the sun set for Christopher Stetson Look Jr. when he died peacefully with his beloved wife Marjorie at his side.

S lavery is an ugly part of our past that we would gladly forget. But what if you were to discover that slavery is not a thing of the past? What if you were to discover that slavery exists today in every part of the world, including our own country? I was stunned a few years ago when I began to understand the magnitude of the global human trafficking issue. Experts say that 90 million people are living as slaves somewhere in the world.

NUCLEAR WARNING

Editors, Vineyard Gazette:

Limbo Living

Lent, for those who observe, is traditionally a period of waiting. But one does not need to be a churchgoer to feel a sense of being caught in a holding pattern at this time of year.

Thinking Forward

On Sunday the Vineyard Conservation Society held the last of its winter walk series at Pilot Hill Farm on Lambert’s Cove. The theme of the walks this year was education around the local impacts of global climate change. For the past few months those attending the walks have trod on ground already affected by the changes due to the warming of the planet.

David White, by his own admission, was a terrible dancer. Just as well.

Plans are under way to raise 50,000 juvenile winter flounder in Vineyard waters next year. The work on the two-year $308,000 National Sea Grant project has already begun but the biggest hurdle won’t happen for another year.

The pinkletinks have reported their survival of another winter. The feat’s miraculousness does not wane with repetition, converting, as they must, their blood into antifreeze each winter through ramped-up glucose production, reaching something like a state of suspended animation. With each peep they hear, Islanders are reminded that they too have survived another winter, if only barely, and without the aid of antifreeze blood.