The freshman history classes recently traveled the Island’s African American Heritage Trail from Chappaquiddick to Aquinnah as part of their study of the history of Martha’s Vineyard. They visited the home of the Island’s only whaling captain, walked to his grave, paid their respects at the site dedicated to the life of Rebecca, the Woman from Africa and stood at West Basin visualizing the escape of Randall Burton, the man who had decided he would rather die than return to enslavement.

It was a dark but not stormy night. Just a merry crispness in the air. It was Saturday, two days after Thanksgiving, around the dinner hour. We were all snug in our post-tryptophan haze in Vineyard Haven when suddenly all hell broke loose outside. Here’s the play-by-play.

I say this almost every day — today was one of the strangest days of my life. I began saying this phrase, genuinely, four years ago on the first day of my freshman year at Wesleyan University when the routine of my previous 18 years was first upturned. I didn’t realize that I was overusing the phrase, even though every night at dinner in Usdan, Wesleyan’s cafeteria, as I reflected on my day, my conclusion was always that it had indeed been the strangest day. After a few months of this, my new friends called me on it. Surely, every day could not be the strangest of your life, they said.

From the Vineyard Gazette edition of Dec. 17, 1948: A matter of a few hours may well alter the overall picture of the Island Christmas, but as this article is written the temperature is in the fifties, the sky is clear and blue, the sun shines brightly, the grass is still green, and flowers are still blooming in many, many gardens. Nature has not done its part yet in awakening the traditional Christmas spirit, which traditionally requires a biting atmosphere and a powdering of snow.