Commentary
Thanksgiving gets people thinking about birds. For most folks it’s about eating one, the one upside down on the dining room table, with side dishes of tradition, heritage, community, family, good friends — all cause enough for gathering and celebration. As a former restaurateur living in West Tisbury is fond of saying about the entirety of life itself, “It’s all about the food.”
PROTECTING ANTIQUITY
Editors, Vineyard Gazette:
Dishing Local
From the Gazette Turkey Files:
The turkeys that adorn Thanksgiving tables come mostly from the mainland. But there was once a time in the not-too-distant past when the Island-producd turkey was as much a part of Island gourmet eating as Island-produced seafood.
Roses in November
Autumn on the Vineyard this year has been an up-and-down tale of weather, as if the Island had been gripped by some environmental personality disorder, with cold rain for days at a stretch, then suddenly turning mild and sunny for many more days on end. The first killing frost arrived quite late last month, but we might not have noticed since the wind has been a near-constant companion, rattling the windows and at times the thoughts.
The County Conundrum
Does county government have a useful function anymore? Throughout the commonwealth the county form of government has gradually been phased out, and today only a handful of these white elephant governments remain. Dukes County is one. On the Vineyard county government has undergone evaluation twice in the past twenty years, and both times voters Islandwide agreed that it should continue, that its value as a regional government had the potential to be strengthened and broadened.
W hat should we do about Mill Pond?
The discussion presented last Saturday by Beth Lambert, the river restoration program coordinator for the commonwealth’s Division of Ecological Restoration offered a new perspective and other possibilities for us to consider. I want to thank Prudy Burt and the West Tisbury Library staff for hosting this talk. After listening, there appear to be more options available to the town that are worthy of discussion.