Opinion
Wasque is gone.
A great human conceit is to measure time in lifetimes. Regardless of what has existed long before us, and what will exist long after — our time is our time. So Wasque, as we know her, is gone. She may come back, may reform or even expand, but not in our lifetime. So we mourn her passing from our lives.
On Memorial Day Islanders of all ages came together at the Oak Grove Cemetery in Vineyard Haven to honor and pay tribute to U.S. servicemen and servicewomen who have died at war. The day began with a parade that started at the American Legion Hall. Led by a color guard made up of members of the U.S. Coast Guard stationed at Menemsha, the parade marched along Pine Tree Road around to State Road and finally to the entrance to the cemetery. The Tisbury fire department ladder truck held a flag high above the heads of the parade marchers as they entered the cemetery.
This is a significant year for me. It marks my 75th summer of coming to the Vineyard. When my widowed mother and my stepfather got married, I came to his Vineyard Haven summer home as a very young teenager in 1937. Having lucked into a good thing, I kept coming back. I did miss a few early summers. In 1940 and 1941, we lived on government service in the Philippines, too far away to get back to the Vineyard. And in the World War years of 1943-1945 I was in the Army, living on the less hospitable islands of New Guinea and New Britain.
The 1976 book To the Harbor Light by longtime Gazette editor Henry Beetle Hough drew its title from his daily early morning walks to the Edgartown Lighthouse with his collie Graham. It was a place Mr. Hough knew well, and in fact had campaigned more than once to save for public walking and enjoyment of the stunning views across the outer Edgartown harbor to Cape Pogue. Mr. Hough wrote that the lighthouse was “the kind of solitary outpost where the greatest product, peace of mind, is free to all.”
No more teachers, no more books. It’s the anthem of June for elementary and high school students who are counting the days until school lets out for the summer.
Then there are the rest of us who, free of the shackles of mandatory education, now look forward to the high season for the many opportunities it offers to keep on learning.
From past editions of the Vineyard Gazette:
Interest in the newly-formed dairymen’s association of the Island continues to increase, as was evidenced by the large gathering which attended the meeting at Association Hall, Vineyard Haven, last weekend.