Tucked into the corner of the Woodland Business Center in Vineyard Haven, between the bakeries and offices in this off-the-beaten-path part of town, is an office door. On a recent Monday, just shy of 9 a.m., workers passed right by it in their beeline pursuit of morning coffee. Not one paused to look in.
Had they done so, an empty hallway is all they would have seen.
The day outside was cold. A real winter northeaster was blowing in and the gray clouds above promised snow. The door to Vera Shorter’s Vineyard Haven home, however, was open.
She had just indulged in what is quite possibly her only vice she said as she spread a stack of ginger snaps on a plate. She braved the cold so her home would not smell like the cigarettes she cannot seem to give up. She would hate for the smoke to offend the guests who stop in from time to time.
She grew up in Chilmark, the twelfth generation of an Island farming family. He was raised in Brooklyn, N.Y., the grandson of Jewish immigrants. He had never farmed and she was all set to move to Boston. But life, horses and a flock of sheep intervened. Thirty-two years later Mitchell Posin and Clarissa Allen talk about their relationship, while inhabitants of the farm chime in with crows and bleats, contributing to the tale.
Interviews by Julia Rappaport
Mitchell
Michael J. Fox, television and movie star, has walked his share of red carpets over the years. These days, though, he walks a more nondescript bit of floor covering: a cheap sisal mat in the garage of his Aquinnah house. Pacing, back and forth, doing laps of the pool table trying to harness the involuntary energy of his illness. Hours upon hours of pacing.
Marie Allen is at home in the comfortable study that she built at her Munroe avenue house in Oak Bluffs: a place to read books and listen to the bl
When taken out of context, listening to Gustavo Simoes talk about football can be quite confusing.
"I played football all the time as a kid in Brazil," the high school senior and Vineyarders center said after practice Monday. "And I had seen football on TV, too, but I never played it until I came here."
Put in context, the confusion is easily sorted out.