The Cost of Eating

In most places, a walk down a supermarket aisle does not lend itself to experiences of awe and incredulity. But Martha’s Vineyard isn’t like most places.

Consider Sunset heirloom tomatoes, which have been selling at Cronig’s Market for seven dollars and ninety-nine cents. The price of one large Sunset tomato is roughly equivalent to the cost of a passenger trip between the Island and Woods Hole, or to one hour of work at the Massachusetts minimum wage.

Berrying Time

From the Vineyard Gazette editions of 1934:

The Seaman’s Bethel, located on the waterfront at Vineyard Haven, is one of those institutions peculiar to the coast and to comparatively few towns and cities. Established and maintained by the Boston Seaman’s Friend Society, the Seaman’s Bethel is managed by Chaplain Austin Tower, who at once constitutes a clergyman, sea-going ambulance driver, harbor master, life guard and general friend in need to all who venture upon the water.

Lyn Hinds of Crafts Field Way in Edgartown emerged from her outdoor shower one recent afternoon to find herself face to face with a young skunk. Each frightened the other and each fled without incident. But Mrs. Hinds had a long enough glimpse of the skunk to see that its nose was encased in a jelly jar.

BUY LOCAL

Editors, Vineyard Gazette:

I thank you for printing the interview with Cronig’s owner Steve Bernier. He, like Paul Revere, is sounding an important wakeup call.

One solution to the food problem, similar to that which we’re trying to apply to the energy problem, is to localize production.

Truth comes from the mouths of babes — or rather kids, or young adults, or the future of humanity. Whatever you label them, these pint-sized pulse-takers of youth culture are back this summer with their own reviews of movies for young viewers screening every Wednesday at the Chilmark Community Center.

The organizers of the Summer Film Series at the Martha’s Vineyard Film Festival teamed up with the Gazette to bring you reviews by Island kids, here for the summer or year-round, each Tuesday, before each Wednesday film presentation.

On Tuesday, July 29, at 5 p.m. Prof. Renée Bergland as its next speaker in the Martha’s Vineyard Museum’s summer lecture series.

Dr. Bergland will speak on her book, Maria Mitchell and the Sexing of Science, a cultural biography of the 19th-century Nantucket astronomer. Maria Mitchell, a Nantucket native, apprenticed with her father, an amateur astronomer. For years she swept the Nantucket night with the telescope in her rooftop observatory. In 1847, Mitchell discovered a comet and was catapulted to international fame.

The laugh is still that down low rumble of thunder and a box car about to go out of service, and blues-folk legend Taj Mahal laughs a lot. It’s not just a survival strategy for the guitarist who burst into public consciousness in the sixties, but more the reflection of a love affair with life that has informed the roots icon’s journey through the shifting tides of American music over the last four decades.

Suffrage Speech

Geraldine Brooks, Carol Gilligan, Marcia Randol and Rose Styron on Thursday will read passages from Elizabeth Cady Stanton’s Solitude of Self, followed by a discussion of the speech and its author’s contributions to American democracy.

The free event is billed as A Celebration of Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Solitude of Self. It takes place on July 31, from 5 to 6 p.m. at the Chilmark Public Library.

Yes We Have No Bananas, at 697 State Road, will host a jewelry trunk show opening reception on Thursday, July 31, from 4 to 7 p.m. Partial proceeds from the show will help to raise money and awareness for the American Red Cross.