The little red 80-year-old Maxim Oak Bluffs fire-truck shines in its new home, a little fire-station off Wing Road. The newly shingled barn and museum is appropriately placed across from the much larger Nelson W. Amaral Fire Station.

Donations in the amount of $90,000 helped to house the truck, and now after a year of effort and fund-raising, they’ve run out of money.

On a recent weekend we got a chance to sail away for a few days, leave Martha’s Vineyard and its drama (an approaching Presidential visit and the August summer in full swing) behind.

Nantucket Sound is a wonderful place to get away. You’re never away from the sight of land. Sailing across the 650 square mile inland sea is like being in the ocean without the huge rollers that can be experienced only a few miles away.

Local fishermen landed more than 100,000 pounds of fluke this summer at Menemsha. The landings by 10 small draggers and about five handline fishermen represents one-seventh of all the landings made in the state. The state quota for fluke was 702,614 pounds.

The report on local landings came out of a state fisheries public hearing held in Tisbury on Monday afternoon.

There is no shooting hoops in the Oak Bluffs elementary school gymnasium this week. While all the classrooms are dark and quiet at 50 Tradewinds Road, the gymasium is the center of the media world on the Vineyard. “I think we’re going to call this Martha’s File Center,” White House deputy press secretary Bill Burton said yesterday as he opened the first media briefing here. “I like it. A little warm.”

Heavy surf caused by Hurricane Bill brought “closed to swimming” signs to south-facing Island beaches all weekend, sanctions surfers cheerfully ducked. What the storm left was additional erosion, though the bigger loss may be economic, as many visiting boaters took off when they heard the warnings broadcast last week.