Commentary
It’s Saturday night in West Tisbury and the Agricultural Hall is throbbing with good music, food and conversation. It’s one of those Island style potluck bashes concocted from the fact that Todd Follansbee is passing into his sixth decade. So he and Deborah Mayhew decided to celebrate with others turning 60 this year; and then — what the hell — with everyone. And most of us showed up.
UNVARNISHED TRUTH
Editors, Vineyard Gazette:
Stark and troubling as it was to read, Liz Durkee’s “What Climate Change Means to You” on the Gazette Commentary Page last Friday was a breath of fresh air. It is the unvarnished truth, a description of what is happening right now — today — and what will intensify in the years to come.
Elevated Views
From Earlier Gazette Editions:
Martha’s Vineyard has two sorts of hills, those that are real hills with impressive height, and those that merely happen to be somewhat elevated above the general locale. As to height, Peaked Hill with its 311 feet tops all others and Prospect Hill with its 302 feet has the loftiest appearance because of its location close to Vineyard Sound.
Jane’s Beautiful Soul
to experience the Vineyard’s magical majesty
to see the idiosyncracies of each backyard tree
to look at our Island’s night sky as always new
to talk to her dog, Mac, as though to me and you
in one of Jane’s poems entitled My Trees
she hears “screeching sound of saws on trees”
so roads can be made and houses built
in forest where she and a boy once walked
In the early 1990s Jane Brown was living in Virginia surrounded by family and a large community of friends. She moved to Virginia in the 1950s because her first husband was employed there. So, for 40 years Jane raised her three sons and taught grade school English in Virginia — until one day . . .
As expressed by her son, Chris, “One day Mom announced she was moving full-time to Martha’s Vineyard. She said she felt the Island was calling her home. So she consciously moved to the Island to live out her remaining years.”
That well-worn phrase — climate change. We know it’s out there, hovering over our lives like a heavy cloud. But what does it mean exactly — to you and the Island of Martha’s Vineyard?
It means striking changes in the three most critical components of Island life:
• The natural environment — the air, land and water;
• Our physical well being — our human health;
• The local economy.