One evening when author Paul Greenberg was 10 years old his father dropped him off at Menemsha. That night he would pull six glistening iridescent squeteague from the waters around the jetty.

“I thought I was going to be rich beyond my wildest dreams,” Mr. Greenberg said in an interview at the same spot on Wednesday.

Everett Poole of Poole’s Fish Market sat Mr. Greenberg down and told him he would take the fish off his hands for 65 cents a pound. It was the first fish he ever sold.

The Vineyard’s first offshore farm-raised blue mussels will be distributed among Island fish markets and a few restaurants this weekend. The shellfish are being grown as part of a federally and locally-funded offshore aquaculture experiment to bring farm-raised blue mussels to market on the Island.

In early August I accepted a freelance proofreading job at a rate that could generously be called less than desirable. The job comes with flexible hours, and I am expected to put in 35 to 40 of them in a given week. If you have never worked as a proofreader, this amounts to 35 to 40 hours a week of mind-numbing (though not mindless), slow-moving, eye-blurring work. Best-case-scenario? Hardly. But I finished graduate school in May, and have now spent three months among the ranks of those looking for full-time employment.

For the past week, President Obama has been my neighbor on Martha’s Vineyard. He’s not what you call a cheek-by-jowl neighbor. Although we are both living in the same area of the Vineyard — Chilmark — we are separated by the Atlantic Ocean, Chilmark Pond, Tisbury Great Pont, South Road and legions of Secret Service.

I can’t wait for Edgartown Hardware to move out of downtown. For three generations my family and I have shopped there. You can’t beat the service and friendly attitude. But in the last 10 years or so we’ve taken our business elsewhere. The traffic. All those people from away shopping for T-shirts and baubles. Who can find a parking place?

Late Summer Days

The northeaster that blew through the Island this week was right on schedule in this summer of early things: early spring, early dog days of heat and humidity and now an early storm more characteristic of September than August. Slickers and rain boots were pulled out of hiding in coat closets and donned for sloshing through wind-driven rain that fell from the sky in great sheets. It felt good, actually, to wash away the summer dust and spiderwebs that have woven themselves artfully around downspouts and on screened porches.

As Islanders get accustomed to the newly-built, state-of-the art YMCA in their midst, they are simultaneously getting acquainted with Julian Villegas, the senior program director there. The soft-spoken Columbian native is quickly making himself known as a warm and welcoming ambassador for the YMCA’s mission of bringing families and communities together.

Garden Club Elections

Discussion continued on Tuesday in front of the Oak Bluffs selectmen about the proposed 317-foot fishing pier off the North Bluff. The project is strongly backed by recreational fishermen and opposed by neighborhood residents worried about increased traffic and noise in the area.

Under review by the Martha’s Vineyard Commission as a development of regional impact (DRI), the project will have a public hearing in early October. At their meeting Tuesday night selectmen heard public comment at the request of abutter Belleruth Naparstek.

Three sets of keys, one driver’s license, two credit cards and two wallets — one with over $500 in cash.