Five years after the recession hit the national economy, anecdotal reports from Island businesses say the local economy is slowly creeping back to normal. Businesses are reporting slightly improved summer seasons, with higher traffic to the Island, especially in August.

Island police ended the summer with several drug arrests and investigations, including three men charged with drug trafficking and the discovery of 20 marijuana plants in Aquinnah.

As part of an ongoing prescription drugs investigation, members of the Martha’s Vineyard Task Force Tuesday arrested three men who allegedly came to the Island to sell prescription drugs.

An orchestrated commotion runs the length of Circuit avenue playing the music of summer. Strolling clusters of tourists plan their days as they negotiate the narrow sidewalks, crowd open-air eateries and ice cream shops, hold debates over T-shirts and people-watch from storefront benches. All the while cars crawl up the street stopping and starting.

Tick season reaches its peak in the month of August, and a group of researchers from the University of Massachusetts at Amherst and the Environmental Protection Agency took advantage of the warm weather to work on their latest effort in the quest to understand tick-borne diseases.

Vineyard local restaurants began serving locally harvested blue mussels in July and the prospects for the future look even better. Alec Gale of the Menemsha Fish House said he was pleased with the results. The last of the locally harvested blue mussels were shipped this week but there may be more.

On a dog day this summer, I paid a visit to Oak Bluffs. With midsummer traffic, it’s a bit of a jaunt from West Tisbury where I now live, but Oak Bluffs is on the water and West Tisbury center isn’t, and getting a glimpse of boats and a harbor seemed a cooling and inviting prospect. My Saturday afternoon stroll along the harbor and Circuit avenue brought back many memories.

When I heard the sad news that famed British broadcaster Sir David Frost had died, I went to my bookshelf and pulled down a yellowed $1.45 Vintage paperback, The Immense Journey, by the great American anthropologist and author Dr. Loren Eiseley.

Summer season

Martha’s Vineyard

Riding the ferry in

Perfect sunset

Happy for a new vacation to begin

But I know some things always stay the same

Livingston, Ben and Sally Taylor will all have concerts

Every day

They’ll be coming around again

You pay the grocer

Make mimosas

Go up-Island for the day

You see a poster

On a telephone pole

Ben and Sally Taylor are playing

In Vineyard Haven today

Didn’t they just play there yesterday?

The most productive action we can take re: Syria is to offer our resources for treatment and/or healing of those injured by the gas attacks, including things like hospital ships, transfer to U.S. or allied medical centers, plus the beginnings of a research program on treatment, protection, and prevention of its effects. This can be coupled with the offer/threat to extend this gift to the people of Syria or any future need thereof.

She is a modern-day Aphrodite. Maternity nurse, wife, Chappaquiddicker and open land advocate, Nancy Hugger has designed and lives a life dedicated to fostering nature and beauty.

On most summer days, Nancy begins her mornings in her large Chappaquiddick garden where she grows everything from lettuce and borage to peaches and plums. This particularly hot summer day is no different. She has spent the morning alternating between weeding lettuce beds and tending 120 or so new asparagus plants and cooling off in the heart-shaped pond her husband Skip Bettencourt made for her.