Mark Alan Lovewell
As a nurse, Jean Hagerty Francis has accumulated over 40 years of memories associated with the Martha’s Vineyard Hospital. She remembers the early years in the 1960s when the hospital was a small but essential part of the Island community. It was a cottage hospital then and is a much bigger place now, with a new $50 million building under construction.
Mrs. Francis, who retired last month, began working at the hospital in 1964 at the age of 21.
Students at the Tisbury School this week had the opportunity to hear the poetry of a fisherman.
Dave Densmore, of Kodiak, Alas., and Astoria, Ore., was a featured speaker for fifth and sixth graders. He came as a guest in the middle of a whirlwind tour on the East Coast.
On Wednesday evening Mr. Densmore was a featured speaker at a forum on fishing at the Chilmark Public Library.
There are two things fishermen like to complain about: the lack of fish and the weather. There has certainly been plenty of complaining going on inside and outside the derby weigh station at the foot of Main street in Edgartown.
The fish are out there but they are not available to all anglers.
Fishing slowed to a trickle this past weekend for the participants in the 63rd annual Martha’s Vineyard Striped Bass and Bluefish Derby. And the rainy, windy weather didn’t help.
Some of the 2,000 anglers may have been out there, but few came home with dinner. Weighmaster Roy Langley said he weighed in half a dozen fish a day through the weekend. Mr. Langley shares weighmaster duties with Charlie Smith, who works the scales at night.
It was the Vineyard’s wettest weekend with gutters overflowing, but the Martha’s Vineyard Agricultural Hall in West Tisbury was overflowing with people for Saturday’s Living Local Harvest Festival.
The two-day event began on Friday night with a panel discussion at the Chilmark Community Center and continued all day on Saturday with workshops, demonstrations and plenty of home-grown food as well as food for thought.
There was an exhibit on Island wool, bottles of Island-made honey and bags of Island-grown produce.
Eric F. Pachico stepped out of the heavy rain carrying a large striped bass this morning. It was 8:42 a.m., the derby headquarters had been open since 8 a.m., but he was the first angler with a fish.
The heavy rain began this morning at 6 a.m., and in two hours already half an inch had fallen at the National Weather Service cooperative station in Edgartown. And the forecast was for more. While the fish don’t care, anglers lose interest when it rains.