Spring Slips In

The English poet Samuel Taylor Coleridge wrote about “spring coming slowly up this way,” and his words hold clear meaning on the Vineyard in early April. Raw winds cut across the faces of passengers disembarking from Steamship Authority ferries in Vineyard Haven; horses seek shelter in pastures in Chilmark and West Tisbury; Main street in Edgartown, splashed with late-afternoon sunshine, can be filled with eerie silence.

Mill Pond

Spring didn’t fool around on Tuesday, April Fool’s Day. Instead, quite properly, the month of golden daffodils and forsythia and of plump, furry pussy willows arrived with a warm rain. The month’s arrival could have been heralded by sun, but that has come since — to show off the greenery and the buds and the first flowers that the rain has nurtured.

Super Tuesday

More than once it has been called the purest form of democracy. And while some may quibble with the adjective, there is no doubt that annual town meetings — in all their messy, colorful, argumentative and sometimes droning-on-at-length glory — remain at heart one of the finest examples of democracy at work.

Tuesday marks the launch of the full political season on the Vineyard with three annual town meetings set to take place on the same night in Edgartown, West Tisbury and Oak Bluffs.

Finding Common Ground

Dr. Martin Luther King said it forty-five years ago: “At eleven o’clock on Sunday morning when we stand and sing and Christ has no east or west, we stand at the most segregated hour in this nation. This is tragic. Nobody of honesty can overlook this.”

Farming the Land

The agricultural renaissance on the Vineyard has shown the Island not only is a fertile place to raise crops and livestock, but also a place where a thriving informal network of woman farmers has grown.

The resurgence, in fact, taps some very old roots. When Vineyard men went to sea in past centuries, Vineyard women ran the farms.

Town Meeting Time

Next Tuesday evening, Tisbury residents will gather in the gymnasium of the Tisbury School for an activity that goes back to the days of British colonial rule and yet remains as fresh as the latest Island controversies, whether large or small.

Should enough citizens turn out, town moderator Deborah Medders will declare that a quorum is present, and the voters of Tisbury will again begin the annual practice of coming together to govern their town.