Opinion
If you know people who bird along the coast, you know they get excited by the potential of tropical storms. Not just for all the usual reasons, but because terrible weather can be terribly good forbirding. Sometimes.
The Great Pond Foundation recently hosted a Get-to-Know Nessie festival on Edgartown Great Pond. Underwritten by an anonymous patron, this event gave donors and neighbors a chance to see firsthand the portable dredge that has been acquired to assist the town of Edgartown with its efforts to preserve Edgartown Great Pond.
Prickly Thistles
From Gazette editions of September, 1985:
The transition into the school season brings a big change into the lives of students across the Island each September, and the youngest sometimes feel this most poignantly. Mary Jacobson, principal of the Chilmark School, had a story to share this week about a first grader.
Little Lev Wlodyka went to the school telephone at 10:15 Monday morning and called home.
Hurricane Earl has come and gone, leaving little trace of its passing besides drawers full of candles and batteries that will take months to use up. For this I am grateful. Before memories fade, however, let’s spend a moment considering the emergency preparations that preceded the storm. You’d think certain Martha’s Vineyard officials had never battened down for severe weather before. Before there was reason to believe that power or traffic would be seriously disrupted, they told businesses to close at 2 p.m. Friday and stay closed for 24 hours.
Farewell Sunday on Martha’s Vineyard
Martha’s Vineyard rested quietly in the golden haze of her warmth,
Her sandy thighs cooling in the wide blue-white wash of the sea.
The passions of the night had wearied her,
But her rest was peaceful and she glowed,
Like burnished gold in the late morning, easy warming,
Sun of this so fine a Sunday.
A grey dorsal cut the crest of a Katama bound roller,
It was paradise. Serene, contem plative, energizing and varied, my regular early morning round-trip walks from South Beach to Chappy traversed the narrow length of Norton Point, swept around Wasque, and lighted on East Beach to face the morning sun at the spot where Cape Pogue Light can just be seen on clear days. Almost eight miles and two hours of unspoiled nature — soft sand, playful surf, warm sun, azure sky, endless sea, lonely dunes and active shore birds — before breakfast was, in short, always the perfect start to a beautiful Vineyard day.