What does a principal do if parents do not come in to meet him and talk to the teachers?
Last year Laury Binney, principal of the Oak Bluffs elementary school, decided to go to the parents. And in his case that meant taking an unpaid sabbatical year and traveling to Brazil, including an extended visit to the two towns where most of the Island Brazilians hail from.
His trip provided a small window into the Brazilian community on the Island, which is well established but little known or understood.
There it was — on a Sunday morning a few weeks ago, the slight tickle at the back of the throat. By noon I was coughing and by the time darkness settled over Cambridge, I was running a fever.
I had the dreaded flu.
On Monday morning I tried going to work but my boss sent me home. The days that followed are a blur. I woke up Friday morning surrounded by piles of cough drop wrappers, empty tea boxes and a vague suspicion that I had watched the entire seasons of Glee, 30 Rock and The Office in a feverish haze.
This week is Bay State Bike Week, according to the press release that landed in my inbox this morning.
Everyone from Boston Mayor Thomas Menino to local commuters should do their part to raise awareness and keep Massachusetts clean, the press release said. I too should take action.
The thing is, I can’t.
I’m a 25-year-old Vineyard girl who cannot ride a bicycle.
I have just returned from a week on Martha’s Vineyard — a glorious week full of morning walks on the beach and films at the film festival and cold beers at the Newes with friends I miss so dearly. And, after my week was up, I drove onto the ferry, reluctantly, but with a stiff upper lip, to return to Boston and work. For the first time ever, I had a front row parking spot on the boat. It was a five o’clock boat and, as I watched the late afternoon sun slip into the harbor, I cried.
The program that connects Island residents with affordable health insurance has been forced to cut its staff and operations, as of the start of this year. Facing a shortfall of $80,000, Vineyard Health Care Access program director Sarah Kuh this week appealed to add an article to all town warrants asking taxpayers to make up for losses from shrinking grants.
“We have lost employees and we’re more restricted in the services we can provide,” Ms. Kuh told a panel of town leaders at a meeting of the All-Island Selectmen Wednesday night.
One summer, I lived in a little house off Vineyard avenue in Oak Bluffs. Away from the sea breezes with no air conditioning in the house, I took up walking each evening after work. I told myself it was to drive less, but really it was out of sheer excitement and curiosity. For an up-Island girl, the downtown novelty of Oak Bluffs never wore off. So I walked down June avenue to the Lagoon. I strolled up School street (which no longer houses a school), to get a new book at the library, or just to see who was out and about.
When Vineyard Gazette editor Julia Wells hired me as a reporter in the fall of 2006, she took a big risk. Then again, at such a little paper, most risks are big.
Growing up on the Vineyard, I long ago came to terms with finding wildlife in my house.
Ticks, spiders, mosquitoes and moths in summer; mice (both in traps and scurrying across dining room floors) in the winter. Once, a pair of baby raccoons camped out in our yard. Had I opened the backdoor, they would have waddled right into our dining room.
But no amount of Island insects, rodents, or bugs could have prepared me for the Cambridge bat.
