Commentary
This past week in West Tisbury has been marked with much sadness — with events that have marred town tranquility. But spring has arrived, of course, and, brought its beauty and solace with it.
If one sits on the Allen M. Look memorial bench by the Mill Pond, the mallards will quack and the male swan spread his wings and show off elegantly. On weekends and after school, young trout fishermen are out casting their rods into this West Tisbury centerpiece. But even more tranquility is to be found on Tisbury Great Pond.
Despite its reputation as a playground of the rich and famous, Martha’s Vineyard has a year-round population that is one of the poorest in the Commonwealth. With its seasonal economy and high cost of living, the Island can be a difficult place to live. Fortunately, there are people, and organizations, that have been helping Islanders get by for many years.
To her best friends, she is affectionately known as the “Daffodil Lady.”
Dorothy Bangs, 87, of Vineyard Haven is one of the Island’s most celebrated volunteers, and she was out working hard this week on behalf of the American Cancer Society. Mrs. Bangs—a cancer survivor herself—along with friends and followers, distributed close to 11,000 daffodils, each costing $1. Hopefully, when all the money is collected, it amounts to just what they sought—$11,000.
A friend told me the other day that she had just enjoyed a sauna in a local health club.
Nowadays, of course, Finnish-style saunas are commonplace in health clubs and spas all over the world, but there are many other national baths that are not. One of those is a hammam, the Moroccan equivalent of a Finnish sauna. Recently, I spent an evening in a hammam in Marrakesh. It turned out to be an experience I won’t soon forget.
It all seemed like a game to me — the telephone with oversized buttons, the notebooks adorned inside with multicolored dividers and bright cut-out floral images, the cassette recorder and accompanying pile of tapes whose covers illustrated the story, the round reading light with a wide magnified lens, the handheld TV remote with major on/off tabs indicated in real red or green, the super-sized TV screen. I’d never seen such an eye catching array of entertaining devices as those my mother, at age 80 or so, had at her fingertips.
From time to time, whenever inspiration aligns with respiration, I will be contributing a column to this paper. It will cover some aspect of moving to and living on this Island, trekking toward retirement while reducing stress and making mole hills out of former mountains. Welcome to the Washashore Chronicles.