By LYNNE IRONS

I am a slave to tradition. For starters, I hate to shop so when I find an article of clothing that I like, I buy four or five so I do not have to buy it again for years. I am a uniform dresser (as was Albert Einstein.) I eat the same foods . . . eggs for breakfast, supper leftovers for lunch, and a chicken or pork roast for supper that lasts the week ending with some sort of soup or gruel. I have a rotary phone, hang my laundry outside, and like only the old hymns at church. I plant seeds from the same place every year.

The Vineyard bird hot line received a fascinating report from Edo Potter, out on Chappy, who noticed a rowdy mob of crows outside her house around dawn last Friday.

The crows were ganging up on something they had pinned to the ground — just what wasn’t clear, but it was large and, when Edo’s husband Bob flushed the crows, it flew off to some nearby bushes.

The apple was wrongly accused.

It might just have been an innocent victim of an ancient slander. Many scholars believe that it was actually a pomegranate and not an apple that tempted Eve and led to her banishment from Eden. The mistake may be understandable, as pomegranate translates roughly as “apple with grain-like seeds.” Eve was not able to resist.

Island Group Sponsors

Poultry Raising Workshops

The Island Grown Initiative will sponsor poultry workshops on Saturday, Feb. 16 from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. in the agricultural hall in West Tisbury.

Workshops will be held all day about raising egg layers, housing, processing and marketing. They are open to all levels of interest and experience.

T he jeep’s headlights illuminate the rut ted road. The moon does the rest, bathing the dunes all around in a soft glow that gives the place a nostalgic feel. Time seems to move forward and backward in the headlights’ loom. This is part of the romance of moonlight, I think. Is this here and now or perhaps there and then?

Controversy, primarily around land use and land development issues, has been a defining trait of the Vineyard community in recent years. So it is remarkable and gratifying to see signs that the Vineyard is uniting around the common goal of conserving energy, improving efficiency and thinking about the future.

What follows is a collection of reader feedbacks from the Gazette Web site.

Traffic Mishap Kills Vineyard Haven Woman, published Feb. 1:

This is so sad. I hope that the illegal alien who was driving the van will be prosecuted and then deported back to Brazil. He was cited three times for unlicensed driving, so he does not deserve to live on the Island. He is getting the best of care at Brigham and Women’s Hospital, at the expense of us taxpayers. Where is the justice in this?

Christine Powers

Waltham

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SEAT BELTS SAVE LIVES

Editors, Vineyard Gazette:

We were deeply saddened to hear about the death of Brandy Marie Gibson in an automobile accident. We did not know her but understand she was a beautiful young woman. Our hearts go out to her family and friends.

According to the police, Brandy and the two other people severely injured in the accident were not wearing seat belts.

Lagoon Bridge, 1872

From the Vineyard Gazette editions of May, 1969:

I threw in the towel on Martha’s Vineyard winters 10 years ago and never looked back. I traded in the gray Januaries, the icy roads of February and the interminable crawl through March first for the white winters of Concord and later for the damp, slushy ones of Providence, R.I.