Lights Out Martha’s Vineyard? “I saw something on TV about it,” drawled the NStar service representative. When he learned it was scheduled for 8:30 p.m., he scoffed, “You can’t do it on Saturday night. Everyone’s home watching TV.”

That’s the point.

While his youthful memories consist of August summers spent sailing the Vineyard Haven harbor, 27-year-old Lieutenant Mason W. Berry collected a different memory late one afternoon last August.

He was flying from Kuwait to Iraq in a sandstorm. The storm winds were clocking over 60 miles per hour. He was piloting a Navy MH-60 Sierra helicopter, and the intent of his mission was to pick up an injured soldier at a base in Iraq and get him to Kuwait and on to a German hospital for much needed care as soon as possible.

Four couples will compete Monday for the chance to buy a three-bedroom affordable housing property in Edgartown.

The house, which is located on a 2,100 square foot lot on 22nd street and will be on sale for $262,000, was bought back by the town after the previous owner died before a ten-year restriction on ownership in his deed was up. Each couple works in Edgartown. One couple, who both live and work in Edgartown, will get two lottery tickets.

The lottery will be held at 5 p.m. in the selectmen’s meeting room at the Edgartown town hall.

It’s a pretty safe bet that among the small group of people who walked a couple of miles through the Sheriff’s Meadow Middle Road sanctuary last Saturday, none was happier to be there than Adam Moore.

Not just because of the beautiful surroundings, with those views across Chilmark Pond to the Atlantic. Nor even because Mr. Moore, as executive director of the Sheriff’s Meadow Foundation for the past 10 months, is ultimately responsible for the stewardship of this and many other beautiful places on Martha’s Vineyard.

When Elio Silva quietly opened his State Road store the Tisbury Farm Market last fall with a limited stock of coffee, yucca and a few more low-cost products, he began expanding immediately — responding to customer requests to include gourmet and organic produce and substantially undercutting Island competitors in the process.

Meanwhile, down the road in a red barn currently housing a signless, nameless Brazilian store, he has added a large basement kitchen, hired several chefs and is buying in product for a new gourmet grocery and health food store.

As a team of surveyors prepares to prep the Vineyard for the 2010 U.S. census, the dismal economy is adding bite to questions about accurately counting the transient Island population — since census numbers translate into government spending numbers.

The census provides a population snapshot of one day in April. It’s also a federal spending tool which the census bureau says accounts for some $300 billion in federal spending. Using census numbers, the government allocates spending for schools, roads, bridges, hospitals and other essential services.

Everyone knows Martha’s Vineyard is a very windy place, right? The “Saudi Arabia of wind,” to use the vogue cliche among the boosters of wind energy.

Wrong. And, thinks Tyler Studds, who is something of an expert on wind generation, that’s a most regrettable perception.

Moving quickly to fill the potential void created by the loss of the Island’s only animal shelter, the Dukes County Commission voted without dissent on Wednesday to take over the Katharine M. Foote memorial shelter in Edgartown after the Massachusetts Society for the Prevention of Animals pulls up stakes and leaves the Island May 1.

Gas

Prices for regular unleaded gas as of Mar. 25:

Edgartown

Airport Mobil $2.699 Depot Corner $2.599

Edgartown Mobil $2.659

Oak Bluffs

deBettencourt’s $2.699

Jim’s $2.729

Vineyard Haven

Citgo $2.629

Tisbury Shell $2.659

West Tisbury

Up-Island Automotive $2.539

10 per cent discount on Sundays

Menemsha

A trio of enterprising young men appeared before Oak Bluffs selectmen Tuesday with a proposal to reduce summer traffic, raise money for charity and help the environment: bicycle rickshaws to transport people up and down Circuit avenue and other parts of town.

The three men are from Newburyport Pedicab — John Pasquina, 26, Blake Harris, 19, and William Pasquina, 29. Their pedicabs are basically bikes that haul a small sitting area behind them.