Island Songlines

Picturesque snow quieted the Island a week ago, a reminder of how long, dark and lonely the wintertime can be here. Some say it’s a reason young people leave the Vineyard.

Then came Saturday with another musical potluck at the Chilmark Community Center. Not for the first time this winter, a few young men with a talent for music organized the night, showing they also have a talent for conjuring community warmth.

CONSERVE TOWN BYWAYS

Editors, Vineyard Gazette:

On Thursday, March 6, at 7 p.m. at the Old Whaling Church, Edgartown will hold a special town meeting to add five ancient paths to the protective status of special ways.

The town byways committee and the planning board have been working to protect these ways for nearly 20 years and now hope to add the five ancient ways: Ben Toms, Middle Line, Pennywise Path, Tar Kiln and Watcha Path to one already protected by a DCPC, the Dr. Fisher Road.

I’m going to miss my Vineyard Gazette.

We’ve been together a long time. I care about it. I need it.

Whether sitting on the porch in Menemsha reading the Gazette or home in the city reading The New York Times, I’m one of the people the godfather of medium and message Marshall McLuhan was talking about when he said, “People don’t read newspapers, they slip into them like a warm bath.”

50 Years Ago

From the Vineyard Gazette editions of February, 1958:

By now most of my friends and neighbors know that I’m on the county charter commission. They frequently ask: “Well, what’s going on?” And I try to explain. Since many of you may be asking the same question, here is one answer. I need to stress that I am speaking for myself and not the full commission, although I am confident that at least some of my views are shared by my colleagues.

The commission came into existence after the November 2006 election. We had three fundamental questions to answer:

Bring Your Own

Editors, Vineyard Gazette:

If you would like a drink with your meal in a Vineyard Haven restaurant, you can do that now.

Why risk the possibility of losing control of the way our quiet, safe town develops by voting to serve beer and wine.

Once Tisbury is not dry, it is not dry forever.

After you vote on April 15 to keep Tisbury dry, you can take your beer or wine with you and go to dinner in many of our local restaurants.

Shirley Kennedy

Vineyard Haven

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Greetings to all of our readers. This week we have a variety of topics. As usual, there are lots of things on our minds. We have decided to show our readers a photograph about our bulletin board: Hope 2008. We made this board to show that we were going to take a stand for fairness. We wrote our own thoughts about making the world a better place and put them on the board and invited anyone else to do the same if they wanted to. Enjoy February vacation; we will too.

Dr. W’s Sophomores

Bulletin Board Of Hope

Hello, Rylie

Rylie Adele Mansfield, the daughter of Katy Mansfield and Rick Mansfield, formerly of Vineyard Haven, was born Dec. 12. She weighed 7 pounds, 9 ounces. Her grandmothers are Eileen Andrews of Vineyard Haven and Gloria Mansfield of St. Michaels, Md. Her late grandfathers are Roger Andrews of Vineyard Haven and Rick Mansfield of Maryland.

Courtesy Edgartown School.

Eighth grader Chris Pitt won the Edgartown School spelling bee on Feb. 20. The runner-up was sixth grader Alice Keenan.

Chris won by spelling the word neutral correctly. This makes Chris a two-time winner — he also took home the top prize two years ago as a sixth grader.

Chilmark’s Martha’s Vineyard Film Festival is seeking couches (no sleepers, please) for its eighth annual weekend movie March 14 to 16. If you have a couch in good condition that you’d let the organizers borrow, they will thank you with three film tickets and a festival gift bag. They will come and pick the couches up on Thursday, March 13, and return them on Monday, March 17. The couches will be covered during the event. Please call Brad Westcott at 508-645-9599, or e-mail him at bwestcott@mviff.org if you can help.