Commentary
CLOSE CALL
Editors, Vineyard Gazette:
I’m sitting in my room on this Friday night relaxing, listening to the rain outside. Next thing I know, I hear a sound of a loud revving engine right next to my house, possibly over it. Following the revving sound was a huge bang. I knew for sure that something had just crashed.
My roommate came running out of her room to tell me that a plane had just missed our house!
The Great White Way, on Oak Bluffs avenue between Sea View and Lake avenues, was the heart of the summer resort’s entertainment area. Its evolution can be traced in a group of postcards from the first quarter of the 20th century.
In his first State of the Union speech, Abra ham Lincoln declared that “the Union must be preserved.” One hundred and forty-seven years later, I ask, “Must it really?”
As a fairly progressive Democrat, I’ve made a point in the last year to listen to as much Rush Limbaugh as Air America, to watch as much Fox News as MSNBC. I wanted to find out how divided we are politically, economically and sociologically.
My conclusion: horribly, profoundly and irretrievably.
Something to Celebrate
As well-resourced men and women from Washington and Wall Street jockeyed this week for a multi-billion-dollar bailout, a band of earthy Vineyarders was busy preparing a festival about living local. This ironic juxtoposition is an accident of timing, of course; still, the broader economic crisis does concentrate the mind on those aspects of living that Islanders can and should control.
As a man who is so bad at games of chance that I was once beaten in blackjack by my dog, I never thought I would be a high roller at a casino. That is why I had never been to a casino until I recently visited Mohegan Sun in Uncasville, Conn., where I defied the odds, despite being a bit odd myself, by hitting the jackpot on a slot machine and pocketing a grand total of $11.50.
Tending Their Flocks
From earlier Gazette editions:
It is recorded that when Major General Sir Charles Grey made his raid upon the Vineyard during the Revolution he requisitioned 10,000 sheep and 300 oxen, together with hay for them. Apparently 10,574 sheep were actually supplied, under duress, to the British, the quotas of the different towns being as follows: Chilmark, 3,903; Edgartown, 3,919; Tisbury, 2,752.