Theo Epstein is a walking American dream. Growing up nearly within earshot of Fenway Park, he played, studied and dreamed baseball before the Boston Red Sox hired him as their general manager in 2002. At 28, he was the youngest general manager in the history of Major League Baseball and the envy of little boys — and grown men — nationwide. Baseball may be the American tradition and Mr. Epstein’s job an American dream, but neither the tradition nor the dream would quite say America without an ice cold beer.

THE DAY THE EARTH CAVED IN: An American Mining Tragedy. By Joan Quigley. Random House. 2007. Hardcover. 223 pages.

Before he began sinking into the ground, 12-year-old Todd Domboski noticed a wisp of smoke floating from the ground “like a smoldering match buried under damp leaves.”

In Centralia, Pennsylvania, where an abandoned coal mine had been burning beneath the town for 19 years, the book explains, tiny fissures often punched through the topsoil, trailing bands of sulfurous steam.

Environmental medicine specialist Dr. Lisa Nagy will discuss the causes, symptoms, complications and treatments for chemical sensitivity at the Chilmark Public Library on Wednesday, Oct. 24 at 5:30 p.m. Her talk, Environmental Health: The Controversial Connection between Chronic Lyme, Depresssion, and Alcoholism and living in a moldy home, is free, open to all and sponsored by the Friends of the Chilmark Public Library.

Learn more about your family, your community and the Island around us: explore methods of conducting oral history interviews in a workshop at the Martha’s Vineyard Museum, 59 School street in Edgartown.

The first meeting will be on Saturday, Nov. 3, from 1 to 4 p.m., with a follow-up meeting at a time to be determined by participants.

It was past Columbus Day, yet the sidewalks of Edgartown were bustling, the restaurants packed, the weekend offering cheese seminars, cocktail hour and dinner parties. It was the first annual Martha’s Vineyard Harvest Festival, organized by the Edgartown Board of Trade to celebrate food and wine, and to bolster this end of the shoulder season.

By MARK ALAN LOVEWELL

THE MOST IMPORTANT FISH IN THE SEA, by H. Bruce Franklin. Island Press / Shearwater Books, Washington, 2007, 266 pages.

Eleven years ago, a group of Island fishermen went to Sandwich to attend a public hearing on the management of striped bass. We all sat in an overcrowded auditorium and listened. One commercial lobsterman stood before the regulators and complained too many striped bass were eating his lobsters and ruining his fishery.

There are some things that I would expect a youngster to bring home from preschool. Among these would be drawings to hang up on the fridge, simple arts and crafts projects, and even perhaps a cold caught from another child.

What I wouldn’t expect is what Hunter Meader brought home to his family — a colorful, voluptuous spider. Hunter did not find the spider himself; but since no one in his class could identify this arachnid, this budding naturalist took on the identification task himself.

Gay Head or Aquinnah has the Vineyard birders enraptured watching the movement of large numbers of raptors in the last two weeks. To steal the words of Pete Dunne, David Sibley and Clay Sutton from their book Hawks in Flight, bird watchers in Gay Head observed a collection of wind masters (buteos), artful dodgers (accipters), fish hawks (osprey), great foolers (northern harriers), falcons, and big black birds (eagles and vultures) passing over the Vineyard on their way to points south.

Fifty-two walkers completed the Island’s eighth annual, four-mile Miles of Memories Alzheimer’s Walk on Sunday, Oct. 14. The fastest participants were Lara Uva and Donna Leon, who completed the walk in just over an hour. Willy Binks ran the race and came in first.

The slowest walker actually rolled across the finish line: Florence Bruder was in a wheelchair, pushed by her daughter, M.J. Bruder Munafo, and playwright Maureen Hourihan. The eldest walker, Josephine Spahr, age 100, also cruised along in a wheelchair, pushed by the Rev. Arlene Bodge.

Barbara Prada, the Edgartown animal control officer, has been fielding some strange calls this summer. So when she submitted her quarterly report to the Edgartown selectmen on Monday, the board had a few questions ready.

Selectmen: “Are you trying to kid us here?”

Ms. Prada: “No, someone actually called.”

Selectmen: “Was it a mountain lion?”

Ms. Prada: “No, she called back a few hours later to say. ‘I saw it again and it’s actually not a mountain lion’.”