My early childhood was spent in a beautiful four-story New York city brownstone that my great-grandparents owned. The floors were wood and always polished; each floor had its own kitchen, bathrooms with large giant claw-foot tubs, and a unique style that reflected its occupants. My parents, siblings and I lived on the upper floor, my great-grandparents lived on the floor directly beneath us, and my grandparents beneath them. But despite the brownstone’s blueprint that gave us the chance to live apart, we never did.

Special Delivery

As off-Island subscribers to this newspaper know only too well, the U.S. Postal Service has been in decline for many years. With subscribers in 47 states and several foreign countries, we often hear horror stories of papers not arriving for days or weeks after they are mailed.

Big Houses, Small Island

They are the guzzlers of the built environment, and like sport utility vehicles, McMansions have become an object of derision in many circles in an age of heightened consciousness about wasteful consumption of finite resources. Much as big cars guzzle gas, oversized houses gulp electricity from an overloaded grid, block scenic vistas and occupy valuable coastal wetlands, sometimes to ruinous effect.

From Gazette editions of December 1986:

The Vineyard may only wonder — perhaps despair is a better word — at the insanity of yet another collision over the future of Georges Bank.

Late Summer Luncheon

Editor’s Note: Last fall Marlee Fox, a senior in high school, was mulling over her creative writing assignment. It was a cold, blustery day in Annapolis, Md. where she lives and her thoughts turned to Martha’s Vineyard. For several years now her family has been visiting the Island for two weeks each summer.

She wanted to capture, “that feeling you get in your stomach when it’s summer for the first time,” she said.

From Gazette editions of December 1936:

Winter came to the Vineyard in earnest form early this week, and the youth of the Island enjoyed the earliest skating in many years.