As far as the rest of the world is concerned, I live in a town with two names. That is, the town has two names, not me. Don’t you think sometimes our language can be deceiving? I mean, if boned chicken is chicken without the bones, then why isn’t canned tuna, tuna without the can? But I digress.

There has been much in the news recently about James Cagney. Like so many children of the fifties and sixties, I grew up closely acquainted with his many movie roles. My favorites were Yankee Doodle Dandy, the film in which Cagney portrayed George M. Cohan, the famous musical composer, playwright, actor, singer and amazing dancer, and The Public Enemy, where Cagney donned the mantle of the tough guy gangster Tom Powers during Prohibition. The first was a touching depiction of a man who was an artist to his core.

Last week’s Gazette editorial eloquently recognizing the one-sided results of the ballot questions on the roundabout was a welcome coda to this ongoing and vexing issue.

When I arrived on the Vineyard in mid-March, I could still see my breath billowing out in front of me as I ran out along South Road and down Blue Barque Road in Chilmark. I wore a sweatshirt and a wool hat to guard against the cold. I’m not in great shape, so by the time I reached the end of the wooded, residential road, I was wheezing and my white breath poured out of me like smoke. I always collapsed at the same spot; the wooden-gate entrance to Hancock Beach.

It was a curious year at the Island Food Pantry. One day we had 12 visits; another day we had 89 visits. We had eight per cent fewer families, yet with 2,740 visits for the year — the same number of visits as last year. The pantry posted a record income of $98, 075 and record expenditures of $95,345.