What follows is a collection of reader feedbacks from the Gazette Web site.

Traffic Mishap Kills Vineyard Haven Woman, published Feb. 1:

This is so sad. I hope that the illegal alien who was driving the van will be prosecuted and then deported back to Brazil. He was cited three times for unlicensed driving, so he does not deserve to live on the Island. He is getting the best of care at Brigham and Women’s Hospital, at the expense of us taxpayers. Where is the justice in this?

Christine Powers

Waltham

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T he jeep’s headlights illuminate the rut ted road. The moon does the rest, bathing the dunes all around in a soft glow that gives the place a nostalgic feel. Time seems to move forward and backward in the headlights’ loom. This is part of the romance of moonlight, I think. Is this here and now or perhaps there and then?

FOR THE CHIEF

Editors, Vineyard Gazette:

I write to thank the residents of the Vineyard for the kindness extended toward the Williamson family suffering the loss of Peter Williamson, known on the Vineyard as The Chief.

I drove down from Boston on Jan. 27, the most wretched snowy day of winter with winds blustering around 50 miles per hour, with my sister, her daughter, and my cousin to attend the wake and funeral for Peter Williamson, our cousin.

First Snowfall

It was and it wasn’t. The first snow, that is.

There was some in December, of course, and a little more in January. But it came in dustings and icy, crusty, sleety blasts.

On Sunday the Island had its first real snowfall of the winter. The day dawned slate gray, as if nature had drained all color from the landscape. The air was still and flat.

In late morning a few tiny flakes began to fall.

An open letter to Sens. John Kerry and Edward M. Kennedy:

As a journalist, voter, part-time Vineyarder and full-time Democrat, I’m writing to urge you to produce the removed 120 pages of The Barrett Report before they foment a ruinous political scandal.