This is the unusual story of the unlikely relationship between two families.

Before the equatorial sun reaches the point in the morning sky where the heat builds and hits you like a forge, I cycle up into the pastured hills to check on my new garden.

The Pulitzer Prize-winning columnist for the New York Times died this week at age 93. A longtime Nantucket summer resident, he occasionally had a few words to say about the Vineyard.

A Parellel Universe.

On the Same Page, the delightful new book by novelist and Vineyard resident N. D. Galland, centers around an unlikely Capulet-Montague rivalry: two Martha’s Vineyard newspapers.

Thirty four years ago, MVRHS principal Gregory Scotten addressed my incoming freshman class. During the convocation he cited the Shaker hymn Simple Gifts and its familiar lyric: “It’s a gift to be simple, It’s a gift to be free.”