Alexander Trowbridge

Not Your Grandmother’s Summer Holiday

Alexander Trowbridge |

I don’t think the statute of limitations for many of my adventures this summer has quite yet passed. Thus an autobiographical essay published in a community I’ve come to know over the last three months and to which I plan to one day return naturally has to be somewhat censored. As I write this, I debate the prudence of publishing the story of my arrest after celebrating its removal from my record. I was arrested for trespassing, swimming in a pool after hours.

 

 

 

WIMP Revival: Improv Theatre Sees Some Home Improvements

Alexander Trowbridge

On a Wednesday evening in July, members of Island groups the IMPers and the newly re-formed WIMPs walk through Grange Hall in West Tisbury seeking that proof of spontaneity which is customary to any improv show: suggestions from the audience.

“We need a playwright,” they say.

Confident he has the perfect answer, a little blond-haired boy shoots up his hand and yells, “Harry Potter!”

The performers accept Tennessee Williams, but the kid fights on.

“A musical?” Harry Potter.

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All Island Art Show Turns 50, Opening Monday at Tabernacle

Alexander Trowbridge

On a sunny August morning in 1990, a retired lawyer living on the Vineyard was setting up his presentation for that year’s All Island Art Show at the Tabernacle in Oak Bluffs.

“I’m getting back into the spirit of Martha’s Vineyard,” he told a Gazette reporter at the time. It was a comment the reporter said reflected the atmosphere of the day. And it’s a sentiment, according to Gazette records, that has marked the last half-century for the All Island Art Show, which opens for its 50th year Monday at the Tabernacle.

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Zita

Black-Owned Businesses Dwindle on Island

Alexander Trowbridge

Black-owned businesses on Martha’s Vineyard span its economic and cultural niches while catering to a general audience. They are inns, art galleries, boutiques and restaurants as well as service providers from real estate to holistic weight loss. But many African American business owners, year-rounders, vacationers and community leaders agree that, given the Island’s history and large African American summer population, there are not nearly enough black-owned businesses based here.

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Skip Petersen

Crowd Embraces Second Hand Store’s Former Managers at Party

Alexander Trowbridge

Skip Petersen sat on the porch of the Midnight Mermaid Tuesday evening with a journal open in her lap. Apparently oblivious to the throng of people in thrift shop attire that surrounded her, she scrawled in the journal her thoughts and blessings to Darlene Kelly and Penny Townes, who were fired from their posts at the Edgartown Second Hand Store in mid July.

“It wasn’t just a store, it was a great pow-pow place,” Ms. Petersen wrote and later showed the reporter. “It will never be the same.”

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Have a Question in Oak Bluffs? Ask Cee-Jay Jones

Alexander Trowbridge

The little information booth sits in downtown Oak Bluffs, an ornate yellow and red axis around which the machinery of summer seems to rotate. At 9 a.m. on a July Saturday morning, the breeze moves through the booth window and out the open door. Laced with buttered popcorn and the whine of passing mopeds, it carries the smells and sounds of a resort town at the height of the season.

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Trustees’ Lease of Norton Point Generates Revenue for County

Alexander Trowbridge

In its management of Norton Point Beach, which is owned by Dukes County, the Trustees of Reservations produced a net surplus of $16,785 in the last fiscal year.

The county will receive more than $3,000 of that money through an agreement with the conservation group. Two years ago, the county enlisted the help of the Trustees to manage Norton Point beach with an agreement that the county would receive 20 per cent of what the group earned at the public beach.

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