There are many wonderful sayings regarding the first blooms of spring.

Editors, Vineyard Gazette:

Another one gone:

Driving down the California coastline on a farewell tour of the state she called home, former CBS news producer Susan Gibbs pulled off the highway. She had quit her job; the contents of her Los Angeles home were packed into boxes. She was about to move across the country to New York city, and Ms. Gibbs wanted to say one last goodbye to the Pacific Ocean.

She wandered along the streets of a small waterfront tourist town and ducked into a bookstore. From the shelves she plucked a book, Barnyard in Your Backyard. In that instant, her life changed.

In Mystery on the Vineyard, author Tom Dresser delves into a grisly unsolved murder. Here is an extract from the new book. It was pre-World War II and a dapper off-Islander arrived, impressing the locals. Drawn to the prettiest girl, he was upset when an elderly woman tried to break up the romance.

This story happened on East Chop in Oak Bluffs nearly 70 years ago. The Red Sox led the American League in early June and John Steinbeck’s Grapes of Wrath had recently been released as a movie, starring Henry Fonda.

The Sweet Life Cafe is collaborating with The Yard to support their artists-in-the-schools program. In the past decade, the program has allowed thousands of Island children to explore dance and music from many cultures with premiere talents in dance education and performance.

On Friday, May 2, Sweet Life owners Pierre and Susan Guerin will host a wine dinner featuring the wines of the acclaimed Mas de Daumas Gassac Vineyard in the Languedoc-Roussillon region of France.

Earth Day Clean Up

Vineyard Conservation Society’s annual Earth Day Beach Clean Up tomorrow, Saturday, April 19, from 10 to noon, so bring your family and friends to your favorite beach.

Volunteers will meet you and show you what to do. Volunteers will receive all the materials needed for the cleanup, plus a conservation society reusable shopping bag made from recycled bottles.

Like it or not, we all are a part of globalization. The source of our consumer products, the workers growing or assembling them, and the means of getting them to us, all affect how we live and work — even here on Martha’s Vineyard.

Globalization: Its Impact on Our Lives is a course to be offered on Island by the Schools of Christian Mission, promising to expand the concept of mission in today’s world.

Representatives for the Vineyard Golf Club appeared before the Martha’s Vineyard Commission last Thursday for a public hearing on their proposal to build nine luxury houses for club members plus a new employee dormitory and bathroom on the course.

The members-only golf club needs permission from the commission, which approved plans for the golf course along the Edgartown-West Tisbury Road in 1999 with a condition that explicitly prohibited member housing. The only housing allowed by the commission was for club employees.

Chris Scott, executive director of the Martha’s Vineyard Preservation Trust, has thought of a new idea for the old elementary school in Edgartown.

Mr. Scott went before selectmen Monday to suggest housing the Martha’s Vineyard Museum in the 19,000 square foot building, next to the Edgartown elementary school, which has been vacant for five years.

The board loved the idea.

A Vineyard Haven man will face trial later this month in Dukes County Superior Court for allegedly raping a woman at knifepoint in West Tisbury two years ago.

The Hon. Mary-Lou Rup, an associate justice of superior court, will preside over that case and a number of other criminal and civil cases during the five-week spring superior court session which opened this week in the Edgartown courthouse.

A Dukes County grand jury convened Monday to consider several criminal indictments and is expected to reconvene later in the session, scheduled to conclude May 2.