Opinion
Annie and I spent a lot of time at the beach through the years. I stayed at the tide line. She took off for the dune grass looking for small mammals. There were plenty. If she caught a scent of something underground, she would crouch, her big plume of a tail wagging furiously, and leap straight up into the air like an Arctic fox. She was a border collie mix, big at 55 pounds, and the thrill of the chase was what engaged her.
One day at the beach I saw her in the distance trotting toward me and there was something in her mouth.
You used to be my favorite without a wink of doubt. “May, the unsurpassable Vineyard May,” I would effuse to mere mainlanders, “riding ashore on perfect waves, your velvet breezes and widening warmth soaking into our bones, your light awakening across greening pastures, emerging leaves holding the softest hues, the pitch and sway of the land still visible through the trees, each day spectacularly tuned to early birds laying their claims and rebuilding their lives.”
Amazing May, month of easy metaphors, making each of us a poet.
Remembering Jack Howland — his wit, his wisdom, his way with words — his place at the round table at the ArtCliff Diner. The following, titled Snapshots, was written by Jack in November 2010, but he still had a few good miles to go. You are missed by many, Jack.
The other day I was looking at a photo taken from Pam Clark’s old house of Shenandoah, at anchor in back of the Black Dog, and waxing nostalgic. Then today I read about Shenandoah’s namesake, and the original Alabama. I had thought they had been Confederate blockade runners, sort of romantic vessels.
Tea Party member Peter Robb (letter, May 17) complains that “Barack Hussein Obama has done precious little to bring liberals and conservatives together.” Without suggesting any useful measures, Mr. Robb instead goes on to assert that the administration has done a whole list of bad things, and lied about them.
I’m always amused to see how information given to someone working for a newspaper can get turned around, and I normally just enjoy it. But when Skip Finley’s Oak Bluffs piece from the May 17 Gazette was pointed out to me, I knew it was time to correct some misinformation. I think my mother, Elizabeth Hilliard Stacy, would be very surprised to hear that she was the founder of Hilliard’s Kitch-in-vue Candies and that Marguerite Cook was one of her five daughters.