Opinion
Many years ago I had a wonderful job with a budget, but no one, including me, had the first idea what I was supposed to do. I enjoyed the freedom and loved the children.
Martha’s Vineyard is a beautiful Island, a kind of glorious accident of nature. It’s a thriving, vibrant community, a mix of races, classes, and creeds, especially welcoming to presidents. What makes the Vineyard special, what attracts people to it, is that natural beauty and it’s mostly forgotten now how close the Island came to ruin. Forgotten also is the identity of its benefactor: Sen. Edward M. Kennedy.
As all my friends and many Island mechanics know, I find cars a necessary evil. I have never paid more than $3,000 for a car. Why would I, feeling about them as I do? When I was told I was a natural for the Cash for Clunkers program, I explained that it would do me absolutely no good. Even if I had received $4,500 for my 1988 Chevrolet Corsica (my 1991 Toyota Camry probably would not have qualified) — and could have bought one computerized, up-to-date automobile — I would have had no idea how to drive it.
Vacation Interludes
If there is one lesson to be learned from the presence of the Summer White House on the Vineyard, it is this: Never trust press spokesmen who tell reporters not to expect news during a presidential vacation trip. President Obama reinforced the no news forecast with a specific set of intructions conveyed through a deputy press secretary. The relaxed vacation talk was reminiscent of similar White House talk during the 1990s, the Clinton years on the Vineyard.
Edward M. Kennedy: 1932-2009
For four years, in the 1970s, as he sought to preserve the Vineyard from overdevelopment, Sen. Edward M. Kennedy was a frequent — and deeply involved — Island visitor. He would sail into Vineyard Haven harbor from Hyannisport to visit close friends, the late novelist William Styron and his wife, Rose. And there would be talks late into the night about what lay ahead for the Island — then in the throes of being discovered by developers.