Open Door Policy

Last month the Wampanoag Tribe of Gay Head (Aquinnah) chose Cheryl Andrews-Maltais to lead its sovereign nation.

In her campaign, Ms. Andrews-Maltais stressed openness, an approach that comes at a good time for the tribe and the Vineyard community beyond.

Fall’s Last Call

The final days of autumn bring a hard clarity to the Vineyard. Most of the leaves have fallen from the trees, whose branches trace black lace against the sky. When the sun shines cold and bright and the wind blows hard out of the northwest the water between the chops turns a deep green jade, topped by foaming whitecaps. Intrepid sea ducks surf the waves like so many boys of summer. Above the soft brown of the Island shoreline, a light blue sky rests like a theatrical backdrop.

HOME INSURANCE MESS

Editors, Vineyard Gazette:

One of Six

From the Vineyard Gazette editions of December, 1982:

I was pleased to read your editorial Shifting Sands in the Nov. 16 issue of the Gazette. Sediment management is a critical issue facing most of the world’s coastal communities. In a 1988 report to the Martha’s Vineyard Commission I wrote: “The Martha’s Vineyard shoreline is undergoing a process of coastal evolution caused primarily by rising sea level. The dominant theme is shoreline retreat due to submergence and wave erosion of the shore land.

Attorneys for the Oak Bluffs resident who illegally built a three-story garage along the North Bluff three years ago have sued the Martha’s Vineyard Commission.

Attorneys for Joseph G. Moujabber filed a complaint in Dukes County Superior Court on Nov. 16 challenging the commission’s unanimous decision last month to review the controversial garage project — dubbed Garage Mahal by some critics — as a development of regional impact (DRI).

Hello, Soleil

Pamela S. Harris Daugherty and Lenston H. Daugherty 3rd of Oak Bluffs announce the birth of a daughter, Soleil Zenobia Sayeeda Daugherty, on Dec. 4 at the Martha’s Vineyard Community Hospital. Soleil weighed 4 pounds, 8 ounces at birth.

Years ago, Daniel Cuff was cast in the role of a tree in his sixth grade play. Now Mr. Cuff, as a high school junior, has blossomed with an accomplished performance as Clay-Boy Spencer, a role which bonds the vast cast of characters together in The Homecoming, in production at the Vineyard Playhouse through Dec. 22.

Mr. Cuff plays the dual role of narrator and eldest child of the family. Clay-Boy wistfully recalls that poignant, long ago Christmas Eve when he, yet a child, struggled to know and be known by his father.

Storyteller par excellence Susan Klein captured the imagination of more than 40 people Saturday night at the Unitarian-Universalist Society of Martha’s Vineyard on Main street in Vineyard Haven, with her program entitled Silent Night, An Evening of Christmas Stories.

The raconteuse from Oak Bluffs opened with a sound check: “We’re recording all live performances from here on — just because.” Because, Ms. Klein explained, when she was old and gray she wanted to sit back and listen to us laugh again.

Again and again, it seems, Christmas brings us face to face with the same old question. Where does a rabidly materialistic society like our own get off celebrating the man who taught poverty by reveling in a superfluity of consumer goods? Perhaps they didn’t juggle exactly the same paradox, but the monks of 12th century England labored over the same vexing question of how best to reconcile Christian piety with the pull of earthly delights.