Announcing William

Tara and Jeffrey Simmons of Vineyard Haven announce the birth of a son, William Topley Simmons, born on March 24 at the Martha’s Vineyard Community Hospital. Will is welcomed by brother Hudson and sister Amelia. He weighed 6 pounds, 15 ounces at birth.

It seemed like a harmless sort: a symbol of purity and hope, a cancer crusader and fundraiser, and beautiful harbinger of spring; but, if the truth be told, the daffodil has a dark and sinister side.

Many herbalists of yore thought the world of the daffodil, which is in the plant genus Narcissus and is known to some by that name. The daffodil’s healing powers were widely admired and recommended. One of this flower’s proponents, a healer named Culpepper, gave his opinion:

By LYNNE IRONS

Nothing can revive a guy

Quite like a piece of rhubarb pie

Serve it up

Nice and hot

maybe things

aren’t as bad as you thought

— Garrison Keiler

Those in the know hear this little song every week on the Prairie Home Companion (Saturday at 6 p.m. or Sunday at 1 p.m.) on National Public Radio.

Mid-April this year looks even less like spring than it usually does on the Vineyard. Although conditions were looking up a bit during the middle of this week, the last few weeks have averaged cloudy and cool. Accordingly, there appears to have been little activity among Island birders, and the migration appears to be running slightly behind schedule. But all this is poised to change.

It took three tries, but at their annual town meeting this week West Tisbury voters finally found a plan they could agree on to renovate their old town hall. On Tuesday night voters said yes to spending $5.2 million to restore the building.

A corresponding ballot question to exempt $4.8 million in bond debt from the provisions of Proposition 2 1/2 was approved at the annual town election yesterday.

The remainder of the funding will come from free cash and town Community Preservation Act funds, which will contribute $500,000 over five years.

The annual town meeting in Oak Bluffs this week was at times testy and decidedly prolonged — so much so that two nights and seven hours of spirited debate were not nearly enough, forcing the meeting to spill into next week.

After a grueling second night that focused almost entirely on the town budget and finances, voters agreed to adjourn until Monday at 7 p.m. at the Oak Bluffs School.

There was a palpable pre-meeting giddiness to Edgartown voters as they filed into the Old Whaling Church to pass a $25 million budget in under three hours Tuesday evening. In this town’s recent past, the thrill of participating in the democratic process at annual town meetings has not been marred by drawn-out floor debates or consecutive nights of warrant reading.

Stories abound as to how the Island of Martha’s Vineyard got its name.

But there are no volumes which tell the tale of how it got its apostrophe.

Or that said apostrophe is protected by federal decree.

If Tisbury restaurants had begun laying down wines when the question of alcohol sales in the town first came up, they would have a nicely aged cellar by now.

It was September 2005 when the Tisbury Business Association first brought the idea of allowing restaurant sales of beer and wine before town selectmen. Now, close to three years later, after an exhaustive round of meetings, hearings and business and taxpayer surveys, it will finally be voted on this Tuesday.

Two incumbent Oak Bluffs selectmen — Duncan Ross and Ron DiOrio — held off a strong showing by challenger Hans von Steiger yesterday in the annual town elections, as each won a second term on the five-member board.

All three candidate campaigned on a platform of fiscal reform and economic development, a theme which dominated both the special and annual meetings held earlier this week and to be continued in a third night meeting set for Monday at the Oak Bluffs school.