On Stage

Cue the lights, please. In rooms small and large, some even sporting curtains, children are filling stages all over the Vineyard these days. Many debuted not long ago at the Vineyard Playhouse through its wonderful fourth grade theatre project. Others are finding their spotlight in spring productions staged in school gyms or cafeterias.

Some of their lines will be delivered with punch, some mumbled, some forgotten entirely until whispered from the wings. But listen carefully and what you really hear is the flint of imagination.

Town Meeting Time

Next Tuesday evening, Tisbury residents will gather in the gymnasium of the Tisbury School for an activity that goes back to the days of British colonial rule and yet remains as fresh as the latest Island controversies, whether large or small.

Should enough citizens turn out, town moderator Deborah Medders will declare that a quorum is present, and the voters of Tisbury will again begin the annual practice of coming together to govern their town.

Lobsters and Ewes

From the Vineyard Gazette editions of March, 1983:

SUPPORTING DIVERSITY

Editors, Vineyard Gazette:

The Island community recently suffered a tragic loss with the death of a young woman. No one denies this. But in the aftermath of the accident, some members of our community began to talk in disparaging and mean-spirited terms about other members of our community.

As most on the Vineyard now have learned, this past Sunday we lost a prominent member of our community, Herb Putnam. I write today to share with the readers of this paper a brief note about my twenty-year friendship with Herb. I am certain that Vineyarders all over have many great stories to share about Herb and, as difficult it is to write at this time, I am truly happy to share the following. Candidly, it also is a means to express my grief for this terrible loss.

The heartburn in West Tisbury over the tri ennial real estate revaluation, which hit riparian owners on the north and south shore with increased assessments of two, three, and four times their previous values, is not likely to quiet down any time soon.

Our three elected assessors, who bear the major responsibility for this gut-wrenching mess, don’t seem to understand that 107 applications for abatements in one year signals a level of discontent and political turmoil they must confront in ways beyond the abatement process itself.