T he two brothers are seven years apart. One lives in Boston and one makes his year-round home in Oak Bluffs. They do not take vacations together or talk regularly on the phone. But from Memorial Day to Columbus Day, the Giordano brothers spend their waking hours under the same roof, working the family business established by their grandparents at the foot of Circuit avenue in Oak Bluffs: Giordano’s Restaurant.

Interviews by Julia Rappaport

Wilfred (Buster) Giordano Jr.

After nearly four years of negotiations between attorneys representing the town of Tisbury and Ernest Boch Jr. about the so-called Boch Park, no progress has been made, Tisbury selectman Tristan R. Israel announced last week.

Mr. Israel said at last Tuesday's meeting of the board that the town is closing the door on the saga surrounding the waterfront land and building near the Five Corners intersection that have been vacant for most of the last two decades.

West Tisbury police are investigating a report that a woman hitchhiking on State Road late last month was sexually assaulted after a driver picked her up, drove her to an isolated stretch of dirt road and covered her head with a blanket while flashing a gun.

Passenger Traffic Rises on Steamship Ferries

Passenger and automobile traffic between Woods Hole and the Vineyard on Steamship Authority ferries increased in August, while truck traffic dipped.

The boat line reports that 345,864 passengers traveled on the route this past month, up 4.9 per cent over the same month a year ago. The SSA also transported 50,775 automobiles, up 4.5 per cent over August 2006.

The Falmouth-based Pied Piper is the little ferry that just keeps on going. On a recent Sunday afternoon, a number of the passengers aboard were as familiar with the ritual of boarding the boat as repeat customers are familiar with a commuter bus.

Ed Berger of Wellesley and Chappaquiddick was comfortably seated, his weekend with family over. On this late-afternoon trip he was heading home to get back to work. Seated next to him was his father in law, Sam Fuller of Sherborn.

Mr. Berger identified himself as a weekend commuter.

Two Ponds Share Common Theme

The images linger in the mind long after they first are glimpsed: the tranquil surface of Mill Pond at the entrance of West Tisbury, the dancing waters of Menemsha Pond a short distance away from narrow Menemsha harbor and the open expanse of the Atlantic Ocean.

Derby Days

Here are some things to like about September:

KEY PATH PROTECTION

Editors, Vineyard Gazette:

By Leonard M. Robinson, longtime Tisbury resident and sometime contributor to the Vineyard Gazette. From the Vineyard Gazette editions of May, 1951:

I live on Frog Alley. I often wish that the town had kept the name. It is now known as Owen Little Way, whatever that means, but when I was a boy everybody knew it as Frog Alley, and that had a meaning.

An Oak Bluffs contractor and former town official who assaulted the administrator to the Oak Bluffs conservation commission in March while she was performing a site walk, was placed on probation for three years in Edgartown district court on Friday.