BRAZILIAN DAY

Editors, Vineyard Gazette:

On Friday, May 21, we organized the first Brazilian awareness day at the regional high school. We had a wonderful day and involved most of the school in activities such as Jiu Jitsu, Capoeira, Brazilian dancing and even fusion dancing with the Irish history class and traditional Brazilian food.

We would like to thank Elio Silva, Elias dos Reis, Steve Bernier, and Merrily and Frank Fenner for their generous donations.

From Gazette editions of June, 1935:

I had known Stan Hart’s father before I knew him. His father had bought from real estate baron Mary Guerin in 1936 what my father had not bought from her in 1931, from the Middle Road to the sea, in Chilmark. Also Mary had sold the back of our property twice, to Stan’s father as well. This accounts for the many stone or concrete boundary markers there. Stan’s father’s final house on Abel’s Hill was our closest neighbor to the south.

Singing in the Morning

Since 1965, Stan Hart and I have been neighbors on Abel’s Hill, coming together for countless hours of socializing, beach time, conversation — and especially tennis. We played as partners and opponents, mostly doubles but we would play singles if we couldn’t get four for doubles.

Stan’s tennis was as close as anything to being a metaphor for his life. If his tennis was good, and he was on a winning streak — life was good. And the opposite was also true.

Memorial Day 2010

Seen by the side of the road in North Tisbury this week: a photographer in jeans and a T-shirt training his long lens deep into a meadow of white daisies and bluebonnets. Stippled with late afternoon light, the exquisite flowering spring meadow spills out through a line of roadside split rails as if to say, don’t fence me in!