Opinion
Fordie would have grinned and shaken his head over the derby fish flap.
You were wandering around looking lost and lonely. When we looked at each other, I immediately could see you wanted me to help rescue you. Your eyes said: “Please take me home with you — I promise to be good.”
For the next five years we were best friends.
On Sept. 11 I lost Happy to a series of illnesses.
Chain Saws and Shattered Faith
Fit to Fight Fires
Age, conditioning and skill do not necessarily run in tandem. In that light, the Tisbury selectmen should reconsider their decision to enforce a mandatory retirement age of sixty five for members of the town’s volunteer fire department.
State law mandates that uniformed members of paid fire departments retire in the month that they turn sixty five. But many men and women of that age are still in peak health; some may even be healthier than they were at a younger age.
Double Dip
The ice cream cone is soon to become an endangered species on the Vineyard after a long, hot, delicious summer.
From Columbus Day to May, ice cream cones are simply not to be found up-Island or down. Occasionally, one surfaces in a convenience store ice cream freezer, but those are hardly the same. Popsicles, fudgicles, chocolate-covered ice cream bars are quite acceptable from a grocery freezer, but never an ice cream cone. An ice cream cone must be freshly scooped.
Troubling Youth Statistics
The percentage leaps off the page. According to a Youth Risk Behavior Survey conducted this past February among Island students from seventh through twelfth grades, twelve per cent of the high school students said they had attempted suicide in the previous twelve months.
That’s a startling number in itself. It looms even larger when compared to the response to the same question in three similar Vineyard surveys between two thousand and two thousand five: five per cent.