Mirroring debates around the country about the health of school lunches and the constraints of shrinking budgets, a Tuesday hearing about the Up-Island Regional School District’s 2013 operating budget centered around whether and how the schools could fit a healthier but more expensive food program into their budget. The well-attended hearing included a vocal group of parents and teachers advocating for the schools to take over the school lunch program.

As a wave, or tsunami rather, of baby boomers is expected to populate the Vineyard in the coming years, the Island faces a number of challenges delivering health care to its seniors. Six rural health scholars from the University of Massachusetts Medical School recently documented those challenges in a report on the current mental health needs of the Island’s elderly population. Transportation, isolation and access to mental health services emerged as major areas needing improvement.

At the young age of eight, Matthew had grown accustomed to being let down. Trust was an issue, so when Steve Sjogren came into his life, they began slowly, by going down to the beach and throwing rocks into the water.

KEEP PANTRY FULL

Editors, Vineyard Gazette:

I work at the food pantry as a volunteer. I now get it about the hardship on Island that justifies support for the food pantry. It’s real to me, now I see that it’s more that just putting some groceries in the purple boxes in the supermarket. The need is real. I see the elderly, infirm, single mothers, mentally incapacitated, unemployed people come in, and they all need to eat.

Juniper

juniperus communis

called jenever by the Dutch

green and young, female seed cone

a fleshy berry used in gin

another life when you mature

piney and resinous

your berries beautiful blue

for seasoning, aromatherapy, medicine

native tribes chewed you to ward off hunger

your seeds become beads

Navajo necklaces for protection

I cut boughs from your strong trunk

like the ancients I bring you inside

The first itinerant preacher to travel as far as Chilmark was the Rev. Joshua Hall, in 1797. A small Methodist “class” was formed and continued to meet in the home of Capt. Francis Tilton, until 1827 when the old Methodist meetinghouse in Edgartown was purchased and subsequently moved piece by piece to the intersection of Middle Road and Meetinghouse Road, which was then the center of town. Sometime in 1843 the sanctuary was replaced and the church moved across the road.

On Saturday night, Nina Violet celebrated the release of her new CD, We’ll Be Alright, at the Pit Stop on Duke’s County avenue in Oak Bluffs. Catty-corner to Tony’s, in the town’s Arts District, the place has been a garage, a jazz joint, a consignment shop for art, a recording studio and more, so it has a homey industrial feel to it — a spot for getting all kinds of creative things done. It’s owned by Nina’s father, Don Muckerheide, who hosted the celebration.

From Gazette editions of December 1961:

Mrs. Mary Guerin, proprietor of the Mary Guerin Inn on the Beach Road at Eastville, has sold the inn property to Henry Cronig of Vineyard Haven

Since I am in the holiday spirit (and, having just consumed a mug of hot toddy, a glass of eggnog and a nip of cheer, the holiday spirits are in me), I have once again decided to follow in that great tradition of boring everyone silly by writing a Christmas letter.

That is why I am pleased as punch (which I also drank) to present the following chronicle of the Zezima family, which includes Jerry, the patriarch; Sue, the matriarch; Katie and Lauren, the childriarchs; and Dave and Guillaume, the sons-in-lawiarch. Happy reading!

Dear Friend(s):

House Rules

No one gets it right all the time, including this newspaper. We heard from several readers who thought the Gazette editorial last week unfairly suggested that our towns already have sufficient tools to regulate so-called megamansions and simply have not been tough enough. Not so, they said.