Each summer, for over 54 years, the Vineyard community has made it possible for the Friends of the West Tisbury Library to raise money in support of our library. This August, we sold $21,000 worth of books.

My wife and I read the Gazette quite thoroughly when it arrives each week at our home in Boston, but neither one of us can recall any news stories concerning the declared bankruptcy of Edgartown and Oak Bluffs.

In our Chilmark yard the trees reach higher and higher to the sky. The old timers in the town told us that many years ago our land was a pasture for grazing cattle owned by local farmers.

The reference point of viewing development from Google Earth is both relevant and irrelevant, relevant in that the Island only has a limited amount of resources, but irrelevant in that people view the Island from street level.

I saw a Monarch butterfly
Just now inside the park
And thought of the unlikelihood of Mexico
Where his breed is bound to go.
Best to giddyap, I said, the days
Are getting dark and cold.
You’ve got some tracks to make.
And then I did a double-take —
My God, how just like me, to throw
My guardedness on one who has
No use for such a thing,
Whose very wings could not be guessed
When he was born, a transformation
Out of probability. Self, I said,
In a world where caterpillars fly

On behalf of the Animal Shelter of Martha’s Vineyard I wish to publicly thank some very amazing young people who are summer visitors to the Vineyard.

What a wonderful well-organized event at the annual wind festival! Thank you for supporting good old-fashioned fun with this kite-flying extravaganza.

The Friends of the Edgartown Library would like to thank all those who helped to make the Pennywise Path 5K Run/Walk possible.

An estimated 200 people stood squinting in the brilliant, hot sun Sunday afternoon, and watched Gordon Kelvin White and Robert Eldridge White Jr. raise the United States flag slowly to the top of a tall aluminum flagpole set in front of the new Martha’s Vineyard Regional High School.

This is not going to come as a shock to anyone — well, to anyone who has left the Vineyard at least once in his or her life — but there is an assortment of quirks associated with life here.