A row of decorated wreaths rests along the front pew of the West Tisbury Congregational Church. There are wreaths with red bows and holly leaves, pine cones and delicate juniper berries. A few feature small, felt cardinals peeking out from amongst the greens. There is also a homemade boxwood wreath with no trappings other than nature’s varied shadings of light and dark green. It glistens next to a faded blue Pilgrim hymnal. And then there are three wreaths at the end of the pew adorned with orange slices.
In 1985 the rock journalist Stephen Davis wrote a book about Led Zeppelin called Hammer of the Gods. Mr. Davis traveled with the band during their 1975 Physical Graffiti tour and witnessed the band members up close at what many say was the height of their creative powers. The book became a New York Times bestseller. The band hated it.
The other day I brought my son, Hardy, to his last soccer game of the spring season. Hardy is five and half now and the game of soccer still rather new to him. Dribbling the ball, passing and scoring are secondary considerations. Mostly, he likes seeing his friends.
The other day while mowing the lawn I stopped to wipe the sweat from my forehead and assess my progress. I am forever tinkering with my technique; an up and back pattern, a series of ever shrinking squares, or even, on a rare day, just going with the flow. Deep in thought I happened to notice, out of the corner of my eye, my five-year-old son, Hardy, dressed in a flowing green cape, pirate hat, and a pair of flippers. He was lurking near the shed and watching me. I pretended not to notice and restarted the mower.
I was driving along the West Tisbury-Edgartown Road when I noticed a police car parked just below the rise of a hill. It was an obvious speed trap. After I had driven out of sight I reached down to flash my lights at an oncoming driver. This is what I have always done. The unspoken law of us, the drivers, versus them, the police, seems to require it.
The other night a friend from New York city called to see how I was doing. About a year and a half ago, my wife and I and our two small children moved from New York to the Island. It had been a tough transition for me. At a party last winter I spoke to a woman about my difficulties. She nodded gravely, then said almost off-handedly, “I know how you feel. It took me 15 years to settle in.” She walked off to get another drink. I headed to the bathroom and wept.
In the book Lies My Teacher Told Me: Everything Your American History Textbook Got Wrong, college history professor James Loewen tackles the subject of why nearly all high school students find history boring. One of his main conclusions is that textbooks place characters from history into one of two categories: Hero or Villain. There are no gray shadings, no nuance as to how nearly everyone, in both character and action, can be both good and bad, misguided and prophetic.
On Wednesday, August 10, at 5 p.m. there will be a screening of the short film The Barber of Birmingham at the Katharine Cornell Theatre in Vineyard Haven. The film is part of the ninth annual Martha’s Vineyard African-American Film Festival taking place here on the Island, beginning today, August 9, and running through Saturday, August 13.
During the first week of November one of Trip Barnes’s moving trucks pulled up to an empty store on Charles street in the Beacon Hill section of Boston. For years the space had been the home of a quaint children’s clothing store, but that had recently gone out of business. Now, from out of the truck came a flotsam of items, including numerous rusty bikes, old doors and assorted oars.
On Tuesday at a benefit night for Lila Fischer and Hannah Kahl’s coming trip to Africa to work for Earth Birth, Ms. Fischer held up a jar she planned to pass around throughout the evening for contributions. There would be a prize each hour, she said to the packed house at Flatbread/Nectar’s, for the largest contribution.
