Sail MV Dinner

It’s that time of year. The American Cancer Society campaign to raise funds through the sale of daffodils is up and running. Dorothy Bangs and her volunteers will be around soon to take orders from many Island businesses and schools.

If you are a business we’ve missed over the years, please help us out and call Debbie Magnuson at 508-693-0081, or Susie Wallo at 508-776-6050.

Affordable Homes Will

Be Sold Through Lottery

Nine two and three-bedroom affordable single-family houses, now under construction on the newly named Jenney Lane between Curtis and Pine streets in Edgartown, will be sold in May.

The houses will be sold to households earning no greater than 80, 100, 120, and 140 per cent of the family median income for Dukes County. Houses will range in price from $160,000 to $330,000.

I learned a hard lesson last Sunday.

It was about two hours into my research and half an hour into the writing of this week’s column when I came across a disturbing fact.

Hail occurs in the spring and summer.

Normally this fact would not perturb me, but thinking I was nearing the end of my writing (and thus the beginning of my dinner), I was a bit put off by the news. The reason for my dismay was that I had to start all over.

Which is it, a short nasal cah-ah or a full-voiced caaw? That is the question that will help distinguish between the unusual fish crow and the ubiquitous American crow.

By LYNNE IRONS

I have had five memorable dogs. Each has lived over a decade and a half. My all-time favorite was Emma Jones, the beagle of my childhood. After college and moving to the Vineyard, I found Emily, who was also a white beagle mutt. She helped me raise my little children. Larry, a blue-tick hound, was always in need of a diet. He was fond of lying on the side of the road, much to the consternation of passersby. He had a habit of going up to the old Woodland where he begged donuts successfully.

A 10-year-old Vineyard project to raise money for disadvantaged in Haiti reached a milestone this year. The locally funded Haiti Fish Farm Project has raised more than $100,000.

Haiti is the poorest country in this hemisphere. Margaret Penicaud of Vineyard Haven and her close friend Jeanne Staples of Edgartown have been working closely with others to bring changes to the lives of some residents of that distant Caribbean country.

A new report prepared for the Martha’s Vineyard Refuse Disposal and Resource Recovery District recommends that Tisbury and Oak Bluffs rejoin the district after a 15-year absence and suggests that the Island consider a larger, more efficient regional transfer station and overhaul its recycling programs.

The town of Tisbury collected $240,000 from the 50-cent levy paid by most passengers on ferry tickets last year and an embarkation fee committee, formed this year in response to controversy over past spending ideas, is in the process of developing final recommendations for where the money should go.

The committee will take its decisions back to the selectmen who will have final sign-off ahead of the annual town meeting in April.

It was a time when the boats were full, business was bustling and the Island seemed like the center of the universe — at least for a few weeks each summer.

The span between 1993 to 2000 was when former President Bill Clinton made the Island the site of the summer White House. In local circles this period is known simply as the Clinton years, an era when the Vineyard hit its pinnacle of popularity and celebrity status.