CONSERVE TOWN BYWAYS

Editors, Vineyard Gazette:

On Thursday, March 6, at 7 p.m. at the Old Whaling Church, Edgartown will hold a special town meeting to add five ancient paths to the protective status of special ways.

The town byways committee and the planning board have been working to protect these ways for nearly 20 years and now hope to add the five ancient ways: Ben Toms, Middle Line, Pennywise Path, Tar Kiln and Watcha Path to one already protected by a DCPC, the Dr. Fisher Road.

I’m going to miss my Vineyard Gazette.

We’ve been together a long time. I care about it. I need it.

Whether sitting on the porch in Menemsha reading the Gazette or home in the city reading The New York Times, I’m one of the people the godfather of medium and message Marshall McLuhan was talking about when he said, “People don’t read newspapers, they slip into them like a warm bath.”

50 Years Ago

From the Vineyard Gazette editions of February, 1958:

This is an open letter principally to my fellow members on the Dukes County charter study commission, but also to the selectmen of the towns within Dukes County, the newspapers, and anyone else seeking better local government. These are frank observations which may be difficult to swallow and somewhat indigestible.