October’s seasonal weather has been spring cool, summer hot and for a couple of evenings almost fireside winter cold. The colors have come out, making a trip down east unnecessary. The skinny squirrels suggest a mild winter, defying the Farmer’s Almanac’s dire predictions. Let’s hope the squirrels are correct. I’m pretty sure I’ve had my last outside shower until next spring, though.

Writing about the history of Oak Bluffs often brings pangs of nostalgia, and every once in a while I ease that by grazing through Harlem Renaissance author Dorothy West’s original writing. On Friday, Oct. 13, 1978 she wrote about Brush Pond’s Cecile Helmsley Gordon, a longtime homeowner on County Road, a visitor for much of her life and a year-round resident from 2005 until she died last Oct. 27.

In our small town we should brook no surprise that once upon a time Oak Bluffs hosted the almost insultingly incongruent New York Yacht Club. The club was built on the corner of Seaview and Ocean Park by the Barnes family who lived there until 1886 when it was remodeled and established as the Oak Bluffs Club. Dancing and music, food and drinks were served at the place that Commodore Vanderbilt, John Jay Astor and Jay Gould were said to have used to entertain.

Last week’s jubilant concert and parade by the Extraordinary Rendition Band certainly reinforced Best Fest’s title as, well, the Best Fest. Some, seeing the joyfully unrestrained band in action for the first time, were delighted to see Oak Bluffs’ downtown area so alive so soon after the season’s traditional Labor Day ending. The finale at the Strand was every bit as magical, harkening back to postcards of old, when marching bands were depicted on Oak Bluffs avenue near the Dreamland Casino and the Flying Horses at the center of town at Farland Square.