Cuttyhunk island, lying seven miles off the coast of Martha’s Vineyard and 14 off New Bedford, is connected to the coast by one ferry line and the services of charter fisherman. Since the 19th century, well after its initial discovery by Bartholomew Gosnold in the 1600s, the island has been a bastion of traditional Yankee fishing history and old-world character. This quaint fishing island was once referred to as New England’s own treasure island by a New England textile tycoon whose imprint remains indelibly stamped in the island landscape.

Ries Vanderpol was 17 when the Nazis invaded the Netherlands, his home country, in 1940. Before the invasion, he had seen Jewish students who arrived in his school fleeing from Nazi Germany, but had avoided contact with them regarding their troubles as somehow contagious. At 17, he had not spent much time pondering Nazi Germany and its policies of racial hatred.

SIDE EFFECTS: A Prosecutor, a Whistleblower, and a Bestselling Antidepressant on Trial. By Alison Bass. Algonquin Books of Chapel Hill. 260 pages. $24.95.

Prozac, Zoloft, Paxil — all antidepressants frequently prescribed for adolescents — have their downsides as well as their upsides. In this book, Alison Bass, formerly the Boston Globe’s mental health reporter and a longtime seasonal resident of Edgartown, tells stories of how their downsides have frequently been kept from those to whom the antidepressants are being given.

SAVING THE STRIPERS

Editors, Vineyard Gazette:

Rainy Days, and Busy

Mid-September is when Islanders heave a collective sigh of relief. We hear it in the reclaiming of beaches closed to the public all summer long, in the restaking of favorite restaurants and in the discovery of not just one, but many open parking spots just where we need them. Yet in Vineyard Haven Sunday afternoon, not a single space was empty from the top of Main street to the end. Side streets too were full — even the secret spot behind the Church street tennis courts.

Drilling Offshore, That Old Song Again

Richard Nixon seems an unlikely hero of conservationists, but he was the President who signed into law what Georgetown law professor Richard J. Lazarus calls the Magna Carta of environmental law, the National Environmental Policy Act. It was critical bipartisan action to regulate the impact of human activity on the environment; we soon had the Environmental Protection Agency, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and the Clean Air Act.

Harvard law professor Charles J. Ogletree is a celebrated black writer, teacher and speaker and director of the Charles Hamilton Houston Institute for Race and Justice. But on Sunday, he accomplished something truly special: he was in the leader’s spot in the Martha’s Vineyard Striped Bass and Bluefish Derby on Sunday, weighing in a 26.68-pound striped bass he had caught earlier in the day, fishing with Buddy Vanderhoop and a couple of friends.

Melissa Freitag, candidate for state representative, will meet with Vineyard residents from 3:30 to 5:30 p.m. on Saturday, Sept. 20, at the Waterside Market on Main street in Vineyard Haven.

Ms. Freitag, who is on the government and history faculty at Cape Cod Community College and active town government volunteer, is arranging public sessions at various points across the district. She said in a statement that she hopes residents whom she has not yet been able to meet will come by to speak with her about their concerns on state and local issues.

From Pegasus and unicorns to Mr. Ed and My Little Pony, magical, communicative horses abound in our mythologies. Tapping into this latent suspicion that our maned mounts are more than mere beasts of burden is Gary Douglas, a new age educator who calls himself the Horse Medium.

The Martha’s Vineyard Regional High School football team got off to a solid start of the season Friday with a convincing, no-nonsense 14-0 win over familiar rival Old Rochester on a rainy night in Mattapoisett.

The Vineyarders ran the option play to perfection all night, and senior Mike McCarthy scored both touchdowns on short runs in the first half to put the game away. A steady rain fell throughout the game making for soggy field conditions, but the Vineyarders’ defense was still able to clamp down and shut down the Bulldogs’ attack.