More than a year ago when the Gazette asked me to write a column, I jumped at the opportunity. After all, this is a writer’s paper and I am what’s known as an ink-stained wretch. Back in the day, I worked for another paper that promoted and showcased good writing. It was the Boston Phoenix, which ceased publication on March 15 after 47 years of operation.

I began my high school teaching career in 1992 following a stint in the Oak Bluffs School and an alternative school so I guess this year I come of age. I have 21 years of growing, struggling always to do better, of working and living with this community. It is time to reflect. There is so much to be thankful for in this richly diverse culture where I have found support from so many whose love for our children is indeed boundless.

In 2013 can any community on earth surrounded by the ocean remain passive in the face of unmistakable climate change? If you don’t trust your own memory and sense of the weather to tell you something’s changed, there’s more than enough accurate, trustworthy analysis and predictions out there. But there’s no substitute for direct experience like ours of the last two years. This has been not slow and steady change that we can adapt to smoothly but more like sudden chaos.

On March 28 in Gloucester, a fisheries hearing will take place regarding perhaps the most iconic and traditional of all Vineyard fish: the magnificent Broadbill Swordfish. The federal government has recently proposed a new open-access permit that would allow small-boat fishermen to retain and sell swordfish caught by rod and reel or harpoon. By strictly regulating large, industrial-scale vessels, U.S. swordfish have recently become a shining example of responsible and successful management, with all current science pointing to fully-rebuilt stocks.

I read with more than a passing interest the article, “Looming Federal Cuts May Impact Already-Strained Elder, Education Services” in the March 1 issue of the Vineyard Gazette. The Vineyard Nursing Association (VNA) is a critical health care provider for elders on Martha’s Vineyard and should be added to the list of providers impacted by the sequestration. In fact, the VNA faces larger and more immediate cuts than were discussed in the article.

Have you noticed that the League of Women Voters Candidates’ Forums had to be canceled in Edgartown, Oak Bluffs and West Tisbury due to lack of contested elections? We have just learned that there are no contests in Tisbury and Chilmark, either, so those forums have now been canceled. The filing deadline for Aquinnah has not yet been reached.

We are holding a benefit chicken dinner for Liam McCarthy on March 23, 2013 at the P.A Club located off Vineyard avenue in Oak Bluffs. Liam is in desperate need of a walk aide device that his insurance will not cover and it is very expensive. Liam and his four brothers and sisters are all students in the Martha’s Vineyard School System and they live with their mother Kelly McGuiggin.

As Chappaquiddick residents we have recently been sent a five page document entitled “Appeal to the Chappy Community” which asks that we support Comcast’s build-out of infrastructure for Chappaquiddick’s proposed high speed internet service. We are being asked to endorse the expenditure personally and through our taxes to subsidize Comcast’s costs for equipment that they will own when completed.

My family and I are following the high drama of the encroaching and angry Atlantic as it closes in on the Wasque property of the Schifters. As with so many other problems the world has experienced over the recent past, much could have been done to mitigate or eliminate the disaster if a more prudent decision in the public good was made just a few short years ago.

For the past 10 years art teacher Janice Frame has met with students after school on Tuesday afternoon in the school library. She and the students meet to review poems, short stories and artwork for the Martha’s Vineyard high school student literary magazine Seabreezes. Ms. Frame, along with English teacher Bill McCarthy, acts as an advisor for the magazine.