On cold, clear winter Vineyard days, I have trouble staying indoors. I am always tempted to set off for a walk in the woods or along a beach. The air is fresh, the sky blue. Trees gray as elephants stand out against the blueness of the sky.

And so it was on Monday, Martin Luther King Day. The air was a crisp 20, the sky the blue of medieval religious paintings, and tree limbs were clearly etched against it. Driving on Barnes Road near the Oak Bluffs water works, I stopped for a walk along the Lagoon.

Shrinking Island Schools

Growing communities traditionally have meant growing schools, both for the number of students attending them and the teachers and staff charged with educating them. So it has gone on the Vineyard, where the regional high school has never had to cut staff.

Now a budget squeeze has led administrators to eliminate a half position for the coming school year in the music department, a move that has sparked a grass roots Islandwide effort to raise funds to restore the position.

Restoring Veterans Park

War Veterans Memorial Park was built more than half a century ago by hand by a small group of Vineyard Haven veterans who were members of the George W. Goethals American Legion Post. The men spent their weekends hauling fill and toting rakes and shovels to convert ten acres of swamp in an area known as Cat Hollow to a public park.

Cases in Point

The recent Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court decision in an esoteric Norwell case — a case that relied heavily on an earlier Edgartown ruling — offers a reminder that the Vineyard has generated a good deal of solid case law over the last thirty years, especially in the area of land use.

MORGAN FAMILY THANKS

Editors, Vineyard Gazette:

To our family and friends, we extend our sincere gratitude for all that you have done to see us through our loss. For errands, flowers, cards, phone calls, food, kind words and especially for the hugs — a heartfelt thank you!

Your love and concern for our family has warmed our broken hearts and been a tribute to Bob that will not soon be forgotten.

Thanks for all the ways that you have been present for us.

Allouise Morgan

Edgartown

It has been a long time since I have lived on the Vineyard, so forgive me for asking, but when did the term New Yorker become derogatory? What does it mean to call someone a New Yorker? Because New York is several cities, to say that one person who hails from Park Slope in Brooklyn and another from East 63rd street in Manhattan are equally rude is like comparing persimmons to pineapples.