When I first showed up to the Vineyard in 1988 as a candidate for state representative in the newly created Barnstable, Dukes and Nantucket District, I knew maybe six people on the Island and Bob Morgan wasn’t one of them.

Fortunately for me, Bob decided I was his candidate, and he took me around to the VFW, the scallop shucking hall, the senior centers, the coffee shops and other places where Islanders could be found in the off-season.

Good morning! The Gazette office will be closed on Monday in observance of the Martin Luther King Jr. national holiday. And Tom Hodgson of West Tisbury called the Gazette this week to report snowdrops blooming in his yard off Music street in West Tisbury.

Eli Arrives

Emma Kiley and Justin Bryant of West Tisbury announce the birth of a son, Eli Copper Bryant, born on Dec. 22 at the Martha’s Vineyard Community Hospital. Eli weighed 8 pounds, 7 ounces at birth.

In a clear sign of a cooling real estate market here, revenues at the Martha’s Vineyard Land Bank fell in 2007 for the second straight calendar year. The total number of real estate transactions also was down last year, for the third year in a row.

The land bank collected $10.9 million in revenues in 2007, compared with $11.6 million in 2006, a drop of seven per cent.

And the land bank recorded 1,403 real estate transactions in 2007, a drop of five per cent from the previous year, when 1,474 transactions were recorded.

About 130 acres of land on the Vineyard was permanently protected from development under new conservation restrictions in 2007, according to state government figures.

The relatively disappointing result was in spite of generous tax incentives — which expired at year’s end — and in sharp contrast to figures for the state as a whole.

Statewide, 266 new conservation restrictions, covering a total area of 11,200 acres were signed off by the secretary of the Executive Office of Energy and Environmental Affairs, Ian Bowles.

New home construction costs on the Island could increase more than 10 per cent as a result of new state building codes requiring one and two-story buildings to withstand winds of 110 miles per hour beginning Jan. 1.

For some prospective home owners and builders, the changes have already blown away their plans.

Tisbury building inspector Kenneth Barwick said he already has heard from home builders on a budget.

Health insurance administrators report fielding a rush of Island residents before a Jan. 1 state deadline that requires all commonwealth residents to have coverage.

Under the health reform law, signed by former Gov. Mitt Romney in April 2006, people without health coverage in 2007 will lose their individual personal income tax exemption, which amounts to a penalty of $219. State residents will not face the penalties until 2008 when they file their tax returns for the current calendar year.

Barack Obama and John McCain were the official winners of a scientifically bereft poll conducted Wednesday and Thursday among voters across the Vineyard. But as Iowa kicked off the 2008 primary elections last night, the informal going over of this Island’s body politic found a pulse palpitating in fits and starts.

The Sun Dog clothing store on Main street in Edgartown has a simple door sign: “Open seven days. Year-round.”

But while more Island businesses are choosing to remain open year-round despite the winter’s long chill, it is not always simple.

Their reasons for staying open differ, but all include a degree of community service, the benefits of expanded name recognition and the desire to attract and to keep an experienced and stable workforce that maximizes their summer business.

The war was not yet over, but the Germans were on the retreat and General George Patton’s 94th Infantry Division was marching towards the Rhine River. The changing tides brought hope to America, besieged by years of war and renewed the strength of Allied soldiers ready to return home. But for Edward Cowley Jr. — Eddie Jr. to his parents and little sister back home in Buffalo, N.Y. — the impending victory meant one thing: a clean sheet of paper he could use to write his next letter.