Mark Alan Lovewell
Polly Brown of Tisbury, a founder of the Spirit of the Vineyard Award, was herself honored with that award Saturday morning by her colleagues at Hospice of Martha’s Vineyard.
Hospice established the award a decade ago to honor volunteers who have given their time, talent and energy to a wide range of Vineyard charities over a long period of time.
More than 40 of her friends, including her brother, Daniel Putnam Brown Jr., gathered for a morning social and speeches at the Howes House in West Tisbury. The gathering was festive and the praise high.
By MARK ALAN LOVEWELL
THE MOST IMPORTANT FISH IN THE SEA, by H. Bruce Franklin. Island Press / Shearwater Books, Washington, 2007, 266 pages.
Eleven years ago, a group of Island fishermen went to Sandwich to attend a public hearing on the management of striped bass. We all sat in an overcrowded auditorium and listened. One commercial lobsterman stood before the regulators and complained too many striped bass were eating his lobsters and ruining his fishery.
In one fast-moving day, the Smith house on the corner of South Summer and High streets in Edgartown was torn down and trucked away. A new house will take its place.
The tired old house was built after the Civil War around 1870, give or take a year.
In the days before the demolition, paint peeled inside and outside the house. Window panes over a hundred years old were wavy. Wallpaper almost as old draped off the walls.
New music is coming out of the woods tonight. Students of the Contemporary Music Center, a college-level music industry program that thrives in West Tisbury under the radar of most Islanders, are ready to rock the Friday night house at Outerland.
By MARK ALAN LOVEWELL
Rick Karney, director of the Martha’s Vineyard Shellfish Group, returned last week from an international conference on invasive sea squirts, where he and one of his staff were both speakers and participants.
There has been plenty of discussion on the Vineyard about invasive foreign plants in the Island landscape; offshore, the ocean bottom and the water column are also in a state of change. New plants and animals are taking up residence in coastal waters that may have a long-term impact.
Two of the Island’s century-old lighthouses are undergoing significant restoration.
The East Chop Lighthouse in Oak Bluffs now shines with a fresh coat of white paint after having been refurbished inside and out at a cost of $140,000. The Edgartown Light is only weeks away from being completed at a cost of $250,000.
The restoration is a milestone and benefit for both Island towns, according to Matthew Stackpole, executive director of Martha’s Vineyard Museum.