Under threatening skies and a stiff, southerly wind, over 100 hardy souls convened at Menemsha Beach to celebrate the life of Dan Aronie, who died early this year at the age of 38 after a lifelong struggle with diabetes and multiple sclerosis. The gathering included a formal Jewish eulogy followed by short speeches filled with anecdotes about Dan’s life, some joyful, others tearful. Dan’s parents, Joel and Nancy, and his brother Josh were present, along with many of Dan’s caregivers and members of the Aronie extended family of friends.

Lloyd Raleigh is bent double , trying to negotiate his way through a dense thicket of catbriar in the moist wetands of Brookside Farm. As thorns entangle his jacket, a soup of leaf mold and sphagnum moss sucks his boots deeper into the mud.

“I kind of like this spot,” he says. “It tells us a lot about the land.”

Not Quite a Riot

From Gazette editions of May, 1960:

PANTRY WRAP

Editors, Vineyard Gazette:

The Island Food Pantry has had anther record year, including a record 174 visits in one week in March, a record income of $81,235 and a record $70,096 in food expenditures.

When my aunt approached a toll booth, handed the toll-taker a fresh Kleenex and blew her nose in a five dollar bill, we knew she was a bit distracted. She often used the wrong word to describe something, and once, in a conversation about china at a dinner party, proved her point by flipping over a full plate, scattering potatoes, beans and lamb, as well as her tablemate.

Pay the Price

This week, as estimates of the cost of cleaning up the massive oil slick off the Gulf Coast stretched above ten billion dollars, with no clear way to stanch the pollution now visible from space, irreparably harming marine life and devastating the regional economy there, Cape Wind announced a deal to sell half the power generated from its planned turbines in Nantucket Sound to the energy delivery company National Grid. The cost of our monthly electricity bills would increase by less than two dollars.

Public Health: Conversation and Opportunity

The Martha’s Vineyard Hospital’s new building project has seen four years of publicity, from a high-profile capital campaign to government approvals to actual construction to a gala opening last month.

West Tisbury author John Hough has received the the W.Y. Boyd Literary Award for Excellence in Military Fiction for his Civil War novel Seen the Glory, published last year by Simon & Schuster. The award honors the best fiction set in a period when the United States was at war. It recognizes the service of American veterans and military personnel and encourages the writing and publishing of outstanding war-related fiction.

Raymond Skladzien was an active member of the Federated Church, as well as the Freemasons, the Rotary Club, and many other community services. To honor his memory, the Federated Church will be dedicating an outdoor sign, provided by generous donations from members of the congregation and the Island community.

The event will be held on Sunday, May 23, at 11:30 a.m., following the 10:30 worship service, at the site of the sign in the church yard, 45 South Summer street in Edgartown.

Hola, Charter School

Students at the Martha’s Vineyard Public Charter School performed an afternoon of plays completely in Spanish last Thursday, under the tutelage of Elizabeth Stratton. Costumes, scenery and music all had a Spanish flair, and observers reported the young voices spoke their long dialogues with excellent articulation of accents.