Glenn M. Zafonte of West Orange, N.J., writes angrily of a frustratingly inconvenient experience he had recently in getting ferry space leaving the Vineyard (Vacation Ruined, Sept. 7). His anger is directed at the SSA, which he believes, “does not seem to care . . . has no heart . . . [and] makes little effort to be friendly or cordial.” I could not disagree more strongly, and our experience with the SSA could not be more different than what Mr. Zafonte describes.

The Republican nominee for POTUS, Mr. Romney, has been introducing himself to voters by his middle name, but will that be the name on his line in the ballot next November? Not if he has to fill out a printed three-by-five card like those we use for everything else, with space for a first name in full and a box for a middle initial. No matter what family and friends may call us, in any officially printed context, the three-by-five formula prevails.

The low-key green and white signposts that mark properties owned by the Martha’s Vineyard Land Bank so often belie the grandeur of what lies at the end of a short trail. Think Aquinnah Headlands, Poucha Pond, Waskosim’s Rock, to name just a few.

So the property purchase announced by the land bank last week sounded, well, underwhelming: just under twelve acres of nondescript wooded land off the Edgartown-West Tisbury Road.

This is a week to remember. On Tuesday a subdued ceremony was held in Lower Manhattan and around the country to remember the terrorist attacks at the World Trade Center on another sunny September morning eleven years ago that left such deep scars on the American psyche.

And the cry rings out, “A.P. did it!” I think he’d be tickled. It’s an honor bestowed on each and every one of us on our way down to the cemetery. A.P. built most of the houses on the island. For 40 years he was the town builder, mason, plumber, architect, electrician and building inspector. Since his death he has become solely responsible for every single piece of bad building ever perpetrated on this rock. He has singlehandedly absolved every one of us of our sins. He is a saint, the patron saint of scapegoats.

As if on cue for the sixty-seventh Martha’s Vineyard Striped Bass and Bluefish Derby, the fish are running again.

There was a bluefish feeding frenzy at the Cape Pogue gut late one afternoon last week, one of those churning blitzes where you could throw out an old shoe and catch a fish. And out on Nantucket Sound, boats have been lined up like summer traffic at Five Corners as fishermen chase the silvery schools of bonito now flashing through the cooling saltwater. There are reports of stripers being caught on the north shore.