Commentary
With Memorial Day ap proaching, I am recalling a visit to Viet Nam last fall on which two U.S. Navy veterans of the war in Viet Nam were among my companions. As we visited city and countryside, we met Vietnamese veterans on street corners and in rice fields. Amazingly, bygones seemed to be bygones among veterans on both sides. Though the war is keenly remembered — particularly by those who have been affected by the Agent Orange that we dropped in the war — stoic acceptance appeared to be the norm.
Editor’s Note: Some stories just have to be written down. Such is the case with Edo Potter’s story of life at Pimpneymouse Farm on Chappaquiddick that began for her nearly 80 years ago at the age of four, and continues today. The Last Farm on Chappaquiddick is at once a memoir, history book and chronicle of a changing island. Written by Mrs. Potter and published by Vineyard Stories, the book will be on sale at Edgartown Books, Bunch of Grapes, in Island stores and through the Vineyard Stories Web site (vineyardstories.com).
An Island to Call Home
From a 1985 Gazette article by Janet Bosworth:
One stormy night in May 1888, the schooner Onrust in ballast, bound from Fall River for Calais, brought up hard and fast on Schooner Reef, on the shore of Cuttyhunk. All aboard were rescued by the Cuttyhunk members of the Massachusetts Humane Society. The next day, the second mate, Tom Jones, looked around at the island, liked what he saw and decided to remain.
BAIT AND SWITCH
Editors, Vineyard Gazette:
On May 10, 2010, National Grid filed its request with the Massachusetts Department of Public Utilities for approval of two agreements with Cape Wind. The per kilowatt hour cost proposed by National Grid is 20.7 cents escalating at 3.5 per cent for 15 years, when it will be 33.5 cents per kilowatt hour (kwh).
Editor’s Note: Allan Manings, an Emmy-winning television writer who was a summer resident of Edgartown, died May 12 in Los Angeles at the age of 86. The creator of the hit sitcom One Day At A Time, Mr. Manings also wrote scripts for shows such as Leave It to Beaver and Laugh In. Perhaps less well known was the fact that he also wrote regular humor pieces for the Vineyard Gazette, finding plenty of material in all the hot issues of the day.
Memorial Day 2010
Seen by the side of the road in North Tisbury this week: a photographer in jeans and a T-shirt training his long lens deep into a meadow of white daisies and bluebonnets. Stippled with late afternoon light, the exquisite flowering spring meadow spills out through a line of roadside split rails as if to say, don’t fence me in!