Temperature: Precip.

Day Max. Min. Inches.

Fº Fº

Nov. 16 65 39 .75

Nov. 17 50 33 .00

Nov. 18 46 36 .00

Nov. 19 47 39 .00

Nov. 20 46 29 .00

Nov. 21 48 34 .14

Water temperature in Edgartown harbor: 50º F.

Azor Arrives

Jessica and Russell Hartenstine of West Tisbury announce the birth of a son, Azor Forrest Hartenstine, on Nov. 15 at Martha’s Vineyard Community Hospital. Azor weighed 8 pounds, 8 ounces. Big sister Sarah Ruth welcomes her new baby brother.

Club Hosts Shoot

The Martha’s Vineyard Rod & Gun Club will hold its annual fall shotgun shoot from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Sunday, Nov. 25 at the club, which is off Third street in Edgartown.

Open to members and the public, everyone is eligible for prizes. This annual shotgun marksmanship competition takes place the day before the shotgun deer season opens.

Oak Bluffs voters next month will decide whether the town should fund an engineering survey of the town beach, expand the membership of its personnel board and start work to improve the road layout, sidewalks and railings along Seaview avenue.

Selectmen on Tuesday approved 17 articles for a Dec. 11 special town meeting. Selectmen approved all the articles unanimously and with little discussion, including a request for $65,000 for an engineering study of the beach, bank and seawall from the North Bluff to Farm Pond.

In their ongoing search to fill the county manager seat, vacant since August, county commissioners are doing their homework.

The sole item on the agenda at the county commission meeting Tuesday night was discussion about references and background checks on the three finalists for the position. The finalists are Thomas Bernardo of Chatham, Troy Clarkson of Falmouth and Russell Smith of Aquinnah.

It is impossible to determine the total deer population on the Island, although most hunters readily agree to two things: the deer are out there, they are just harder to reach.

With the Island deer shotgun season scheduled to start Monday and run through Dec. 8, there are reasons to expect a healthy if not record-setting number of deer to be taken. For starters, the state Division of Fisheries and Wildlife last year agreed to expand the season from six to 12 days to help reduce the number of deer ticks, the primary transmitter of Lyme disease.

Dean’s List

Scott Yapp, son of Robert and Debra Yapp of West Tisbury, was named to the dean’s list at Syracuse University for the spring 2007 semester. Mr. Yapp is majoring in computer art and minoring in entrepreneurship and emerging enterprises.

If the Edgartown Great Pond is to be restored to environmental health, town authorities must find a way to cut nitrogen pollution coming from household septic systems by at least 30 per cent, according to a comprehensive scientific study of the pond’s water quality.

Ah, Black Friday.

The busiest retail day in America, a paean to consumerism with images of the Capital One Huns and Visigoths gathering in predawn siege before retail palaces promising super sales and blowout bonanzas.

On the Vineyard? Not so much.

The day after Thanksgiving does officially kick off holiday shopping here as everywhere, but in a context of artfully designed community celebrations that don’t shout Everything Must Go!

Here it’s more like Everyone Must Come.

Seventy years ago Addie Crist and Irene Flanders sat together to sew six red cloth stockings.

They filled them mostly with necessaries but also with a ray of Christmas delight for six needy Island kids.

They didn’t call it the Red Stocking Fund and could not have known their simple act of kindness would become an extraordinary source of hope and joy for several thousand Island children and their families.