Opinion
TOWERS OF HOPE
Editors, Vineyard Gazette:
It is time for us all to embrace wind power. What a joy it is to see these beacons of hope sprouting up here in New England. How can anyone who uses electricity not think the same? Isn’t it great driving from Woods Hole to Falmouth? To see the white blades soaring into the sky saying, “We are on the grounds of an institution of higher learning — we are here to promote the greater good for all!”
D eliberately or circumstantially, we are somewhat locked away, and an Island winter is a great equalizer, so one’s nature determines how it plays out. For those who relish inspiration from society and prefer external direction provided by entertainments and infusions of energy, the Island in winter is somewhat a bore, or worse . . . an easy path to the land of poor choices.
But for others, self-starters with hearty spirits, winter is a sensual treasure. We have the time to enjoy neighborly visits, social gatherings, and learning opportunities and projects.
Every profession seems to produce a savant who can write about it with a sensibility that few equate with workers in that field. For chefs that writer is Anthony Bourdain, and in the same field, going farther back was George Orwell as a hapless busboy in Down and Out in Paris and London, letting us in on the full horror below-stairs at swank European hotels.
I drove into Owen Park and parked on the hill to hunt for my gloves. Driving while feeling under car seats is not good. I could have left them in a couple of places, or they might be in one of the pockets of the four layers I had on. Actually I hadn’t seen them since yesterday. So they may have been blown into some corner of the market parking lot last night.
Silent Stigma
We do not talk much about mental illness. Considering how widespread such disorders are — whether depression or dementia, bipolar or anxiety disorders, schizophrenia or some of the two hundred other possible diagnoses assigned to tens of millions of Americans each year — it is remarkable how singularly ill-prepared we are to cope with finding out someone we love is suffering from a mental illness. Family, where we take everything to heart, becomes a place of seemingly inexpressible heartbreak.
Past Loves
From Gazette editions of February, 1936: