In the nearly 10 years that one Island war memorial has been mothballed in the artist’s backyard, tens of thousands of American soldiers have been killed or wounded in controversial wars being fought far away. Veterans hospitals have been overrun, new names have been given to the traumas of those returning from foreign fronts, protest groups have formed, a President was elected promising to bring troops home, promising hope and healing. And still the memorial has stayed away from the Vineyard public.

The recreational season is off and running and no one can appreciate it better now than Capt. Scott McDowell of Chilmark. His boat is in the water working perfectly after a mishap earlier this year.

The steamer Nobska is long gone, but now she has been preserved as a sculpture, at once beautiful and functional, to help ferry captains know which way the wind is blowing.

A copper weather vane made in the image of the Nobska sits high atop the new Oak Bluffs Steamship Authority terminal, which had its grand opening this week.

The Nobska ran from 1925 until 1973.

The family of Martha’s Vineyard Community Services, made up of staff and volunteers, took a moment out of a busy spring to honor some of their own. At the Mediterranean restaurant in Oak Bluffs on Monday afternoon, more than 130 gathered to share in fellowship, to honor those whose hard work has helped the organization through almost 50 years of community work.

A family painting of a long-gone square-rigger that has hung in the parlor of an old West Tisbury house for as long as anyone can remember, took a trip this week to San Francisco, to a new permanent home. The painting of the ship Niantic will now reside in the city where the actual ship has rested, most of it burned and buried, for 159 years. The painting will soon be on permanent display in the San Francisco Maritime Museum, which houses a collection of artifacts from the lost ship.