If Alan Dershowitz, the self-appointed avatar of the new political correctness in America, could have brought himself to attend a meeting at which he was not a featured speaker, he would have heard Angela Davis and Gina Dent give a moving presentation on the apartheid-like conditions under which 2.3 million Palestinians in the West Bank have lived for the past 45 years.

With no car lanes, no stop signs and no one directing traffic on the water, safety among boaters is critically important. And most boat operators are polite. A customary wave is exchanged between two helmsmen when they are in a constricted area.

But in recent years and especially this summer, there appears to be a change in this custom. Some helmsmen are driving their boats unsafely, their heads pointed straight ahead, ignoring others around them.

The weather seems to know. Now is the time to rain. Now is the time to mark the passage of one season to the next. Seasons on Chappy follow less the Roman calendar than they do the school schedule. I was young once (though from my picture in last Friday’s Gazette one might not believe it. My personal take on it is that I look as though I was rudely transported from the cozy confines of my coffin in Romania to the Big Camp kitchen. If you look closely, you will see bats behind me). Back then, school started well into the first week of September.

Chilmark is strangely quiet as I write early this week. It has been a long gray day with rain threatening but not falling yet. The traffic pattern is very different than that of August. However, it is just temporary. Our harbor master tells me that the Point Independence Yacht Club is headed here for their annual end of summer cruise and he expects about 14 boats to come to Menemsha.

Migration produces new arrivals weekly. Warblers are the star attractions this week. Who knows what next week will bring? We can hope for western rarities such as Western kingbird or even better a Western tanager, although we would be happy with the arrival of a selection of our winter ducks or various hawks as they make their way south.
Most birders learn to identify warblers in the spring time when the birds sport their fancy plumages to help attract a mate.

The Martha’s Vineyard Art Association and Old Sculpin Gallery are holding a new show featuring the underwater photography of Benjamin McCormick. There will be a reception on Sunday, Sept. 9, from 5 to 7 p.m.

The Vineyard Haven Library is stepping into the great fall void with a full list of programs.

On Tuesday, Sept. 11 at 7 p.m. James Sullivan, author of Island Cup: Two Teams, Twelve Miles of Ocean, and Fifty Years of Football, will be at the library to discuss his book and give the inside scoop behind the story.

Seastreak is offering $40 roundtrip fare for Vineyard residents to the Working Waterfront Festival taking place in New Bedford on Sept. 29 and 30. This free festival is a celebration of commercial fishing culture and will feature an appearance by the singer/songwriter Gordon Bok. Additional performers include the Johnson Girls, Mary Garvey, Sharks Come Cruisin’, Jon Campbell, Ana Vinagre, Bob Quinn and more.
In addition to singing there will be demonstrations of all things seaworthy, from net mending and scallop shucking to fish filleting.

Judit Totpal and Max Sherman of West Tisbury announce the birth of a son, Xavier Cole Sherman, born on August 30 at the Martha’s Vineyard Hospital. Xavier weighed 7 pounds, 10 ounces at birth.

It was the summer of 1962 and young David Crohan had just graduated from high school. His aunt and uncle owned a house in the Camp Ground and David had come to visit. They went out to dinner at Munroe’s Restaurant on Circuit avenue (today the site of Seasons). There was a piano bar but no pianist. David sat down to play. The restaurant owner wanted to hire him on the spot, but his mother wouldn’t allow it.

Two years later David began playing professionally on Circuit avenue — and the rest is by now well-known history.