Robert E. Kinnecom quit drinking 50 years ago. Today, the 81-year-old Oak Bluffs resident is absolutely certain he is alive today because of it and the unlikely help of a few fairly famous Vineyarders.

“My grandfather was a drunk. He was a barber and lost everything he had,” Mr. Kinnecom said.

After reading a recent Gazette about Vineyard House recently, Mr. Kinnecom decided to speak publicly about his personal journey to sobriety.

The Holmes Hole Sailing Association continued its Thursday evening series of handicap sailboat racing from Vineyard Haven harbor with a 6 p.m. race on July 26. It was a warm summer evening with a north wind. Eleven boats posted for the start at red nun 6 outside of the Vineyard Haven breakwater for the triangular course

The American eel is in trouble. So says James Prosek, author of a widely- respected book on eels. Last week Mr. Prosek told the Vineyard Gazette that he thinks, “absolutely,” that the American eel should be listed as endangered.

Excerpted from Bountiful: A History of the Martha’s Vineyard Agricultural Society and the Livestock Show and Fair, by Susan Klein, with photographs by Alan Brigish (Martha’s Vineyard Agricultural Society, 2012).

This excerpt is taken from chapter 9 which tells the story of the midway and how it came to play an integral part of the annual Island tradition.

“My favorite was the Scrambler! It was really fun!”

— Dylan Biggs, 7 years of age

Lynx Returns

The privateer Lynx, a 122-foot Baltimore clipper square topsail schooner, will be visiting the Vineyard next weekend. She arrives at Tisbury Wharf at noon on Friday, August 24 and will stay the weekend. This is a return visit. The ship was here last spring.

Lynx was built in 2001 in Rockport, Me. Her port of registry is New Hampshire; the foundation that runs her is based in Newport Beach, Calif. Jeff Wood, executive director of the Lynx Educational Foundation, said this trip is to commemorate the remembrance of the War of 1812.

Cape Wind, the controversial 130-turbine project slated for construction on Horseshoe Shoal, cleared its final regulatory hurdle this week when the Federal Aviation Administration determined that the project would not pose a hazard to aviation.

On the drawing board for 10 years, Cape Wind is planned to be the country’s largest offshore wind farm, covering 50 square miles in Nantucket Sound.

It’s safe to go back in the water again. That was the word on Seth’s Pond from the West Tisbury health agent John Powers Thursday afternoon, one day after the freshwater pond was closed for swimming.

Grand Illumination Night, scheduled for Wednesday evening, has been postponed due to the threat of thunderstorms, the Martha’s Vineyard Camp Meeting Association board of directors has announced. The annual lighting of the lanterns at the Campground will instead take place Thursday evening.

The event will follow the same format, beginning with a performance by the Vineyard Haven Band at 7:30 p.m., a Community Sing at 8 p.m., and the lighting of the lanterns at 9 p.m.

Following a call by Massachusetts legislators to formally declare the New England fishery a disaster, Gov. Deval Patrick this week urged the federal government to take quick action to provide direct economic relief to Massachusetts commercial fishermen.

“The need for a disaster declaration is more critical than ever,” Governor Patrick wrote in a letter Monday to U.S. Department of Commerce Secretary Rebecca Blank.

Closed again. That was the word on Seth’s Pond from the West Tisbury health agent Wednesday morning, one day after the freshwater pond had been reopened for swimming.

Town health agent John Powers said in an e-mail Wednesday that the pond was closed again due to water test results from Monday.

The popular swimming pond off Lambert’s Cove Road has been closed for most of the summer due to high levels of enterococcus bacteria.