Tonight's the night for the annual Oak Bluffs fireworks show, sponsored by the Oak Bluffs Fireman's Civic Association and, for the first time this year, Black Entertainment Television. Fireworks start at dusk at Ocean Park. Music by the Vineyard Haven Band begins at 8 p.m.

Parking is available at Waban Park. A limited number of handicap parking spaces are available first come, first serve in front of the Civil War monument by the Oak Bluffs police station. No cars will be allowed to park in front of Ocean Park during the fireworks.

Kennith Kirk tugged the hem of his mother’s dress. Over the screams and laughs of his two twin siblings, Maya and Robert, Kennith’s question was barely audible to all but his mother.

“Why are there so many moons?” the three-year-old wanted to know. Maya, seven, whipped her head around and said “They’re lightbulbs!”

In your August 10 issue, you ran a piece by David Handlin (Building a Better Big House Debate), the architect of the 12,000-plus-square-foot construction on Quitsa Pond in Chilmark which has created a storm and led to the formation of a Chilmark town committee to tighten review of big houses. Unfortunately, Mr. Handlin’s piece is a compilation of vapid and pointless clichés and red herrings that adds nothing to the debate and sidetracks the issue.

I will not comment upon architect David Handlin’s patronizing tone and cheap cliches as those have both been eloquently debunked in other letters.

Instead, I simply wish to point out that Mr. Handlin’s direct financial interest in allowing larger, more expensive building renders his ad hominen opinions about the merits of such houses entirely suspect.

I had a good laugh reading David Handlin’s op-ed about his controversial trophy home on Quitsa Pond, my old home.

Evidently we are now to compare those who build trophy homes on the Island to the Pilgrims, to Ben Franklin and George Washington, those who escaped political and religious persecution to found this great country.

David Handlin, have you no shame? How presumptuous, maybe delusional, of you to put yourself in the same shoes as some of the great masters of modern architecture like Eliot Noyes and Edward L. Barnes in order to insinuate that your work embodies a “freedom of architectural expression.”

I found architect David Handlin’s letter published on August 10 in defense of building enormous homes on the Vineyard specious on many fronts. Nowhere does he confront the issues which I have seen raised at town meetings and in letters over the year — consideration of our neighbors, maintaining the aesthetic of a community we love, and supporting a collective need to protect nature.

I’m outraged by David Handlin’s letter which was published in the Gazette on August 10.

Instead of thoughtfully engaging in the actual debate, his letter seems designed to stir the pot. The movement to update the zoning laws is not about style. It’s about size, stewardship and preserving the character of our community.

We are seasonal residents of Aquinnah. Our home sits on a rise overlooking Vineyard Sound and the Elizabeth Islands. We have always been curious about what goes on over there. Thank you for the wonderful piece by Will Monast which so beautifully described a slice of life of our neighbors across the Sound, so near but yet so far.

The weather was perfect, the view was spectacular and the food was amazing as we welcomed a sell-out crowd to our seventh annual Meals in the Meadow last month at the Farm Institute.

I want to thank our incredibly dedicated and talented staff for all of their hard work and a job very well done, our generous board of directors for their leadership, our executive director, Jon Previant, for his ongoing encouragement and Sam Feldman for continuing to believe in our mission and for helping us