Peter Benchley, Author of Jaws, was in town this week. He came not to oversee the movie production of his book but to play a minor role in it. Richard D. Zantuck, one of the producers, called the tall, handsome former newscaster last Monday and asked him if he would like to make his debut as the newscaster on the beach in amity. Mr. Benchley — who fancies himself more like Hooper, the shark expert — was on the set two days later, collecting wages.
Samuel Cronig, best known as Sam, a grocer of Vineyard Haven, bought a box of “gold-coin” chocolates this week, chocolates which are so moulded and wrapped as to resemble twenty-dollar gold pieces. “I’ve got an anniversary coming up, or rather it has passed but the observance is due, and I want to give these away to commemorate the event,” he explained. “It’s a fifty-year anniversary, you see.”
But it wasn’t a wedding anniversary. Rather it is the anniversary of Sam’s arrival in America, fifty years ago, shortly before Halloween, a day which he will never forget.