“The time has come, the walrus said, to talk of many things,” and the category of items of which will soon be discussed on the floors of Island town meetings is almost as varied.

Remember the pleasures of browsing the shelves at Bickerton and Ripley Books on a late summer day, maybe ducking around the corner afterwards for an ice cream?

Next Tuesday night the Vineyard political season officially opens when annual town meetings get under way in Edgartown, Oak Bluffs and West Tisbury.

As anyone who has lived on Martha’s Vineyard as long as I have knows, the price of food, housing, and just about everything was pretty steady for a few years after World War II.