The polished hardwood floors, outdoor showers, stone countertops and crisp white paneled walls would be unrecognizable to Captains Bradley, Luce, Collins, Morse, Osborne, Rowley and Huxford, the whaling captains for whom the cottages at the Harbor View Hotel are named. Nor would the hotel employees who rented rooms in the cottages in the 1960s recognize them now.

The Oak Bluffs selectmen Tuesday sketched a broad set of goals for the coming year ranging from civic pride to better communication between town officials and residents.

I have doubts about my dog’s truthfulness. Or should I say his sincerity? Or maybe both.

Rudy (he’s named after the diminutive, underdog Notre Dame football player) has been partially paralyzed for about a half dozen years.

Or so he claims.

Last month The Moth landed on Martha’s Vineyard offering a night of stories in Union Chapel. And as Sam Low’s letter to the editor and Paul Karasik’s cartoon have shown, if you missed the Island’s own Cynthia Riggs, you missed a story of inspiration and love for any age. I moved to Martha’s Vineyard seven years ago and Cynthia was one of the first people I had a chance to meet.

Every teacher knows the value of summer. It’s a time when children build shelters on the beach, create grandiose castles, sell lemonade and, as they get older, gather golf clubs, sell ice cream, bus tables or direct summer traffic. All those months of sitting at a desk suddenly translate into hands-on activity, putting into practice abstract skills that have been learned. They learn math from checking their pay slips (and mistakes carry a very different penalty — they don’t give detention for work not done in the real world).

The last of the four children have taken their wives, husbands and darling offspring home off-Island until next summer. It took the usual two days to get the house straightened up before any real cleaning could be done. Miraculously it does not look like anyone left something important behind this year that would require a trip to the post office by this tired grandmother of five.

From the Vineyard Gazette editions of August, 1933:

A relic of times when Edgartown was a port under the jurisdiction of the British king came to light last week in the form of an old coin found by an employee of James Lineaweaver, a summer resident of Edgartown. The Lineaweaver summer home at Tower Hill is near the site of the old landing where, doubtless, merchant vessels of two centuries and more ago often discharged and fitted.

At a moment when the gulf separating our two dominant political parties seems never to have been wider, we are particularly saddened by the death of longtime West Tisbury seasonal resident Roger D. Fisher.

Even people who have never heard of the distinguished Harvard Law professor will nonetheless recognize the name of his popular book, Getting to Yes: Negotiating Agreement Without Giving In. The perennial best-seller, co-authored with William Ury in 1981, became the bible of constructive negotiation for a generation.

Who doesn’t love families?

Or Mom or apple pie, for that matter?

Mark your calendars for the eighth annual Aquinnah Pow Wow on Sept. 8 and 9 at Aquinnah Circle. Gates open at 10 a.m. with grand entry at noon. Tickets are available at the gate, $10 for adults and $5 for elders over 65. Tribal members are admitted free with their tribal ID. The pow wow will feature traditional Native American songs and dances, food and art.