Island's Own Albert Clements Captures Victory at Speedway

By MAX HART

You have to look hard to catch the blur of white and black zooming around the oval-shaped, quarter-mile stretch of asphalt at close to 90 miles per hour.

After three public hearings, four design plans and five months of intense debate, Chilmark voters next week will have their say in deciding the future of the Middle Line Road project.

Capawock Theatre Stays Closed; Owners Say Renovation Stalled

By MAX HART

There is bad news for Islanders and visitors hoping to catch the latest blockbuster at the Capawock Theatre in Vineyard Haven this summer. Owners of the landmark Main street movie house said this week that the Capawock will remain closed at least until August.

As the small island of Amity - er, Martha's Vineyard - found out this weekend, when it comes to the movie Jaws, there are fanatics, and then there are fin-atics.

"There is no other movie I would fly hundreds of miles to go celebrate," a giddy Yvette Pryor of Augusta, Ga., said on Sunday. "It's the ultimate movie."

When Paul Garcia looks back at that hectic summer 31 years ago, he mostly remembers a lot of standing around, talking baseball with the lead actor and waiting to be called to the set. For Lynn Murphy, that summer meant time in the Valerie N. towing boats, barges and shark cages across Island waters. And for Hershel West it was the summer his dog Chipper won him a speaking role in one of the biggest films of all time.

Memorial Day Weekend Marks Traditional Start for the Summer Season

By MAX HART

The handwritten sign taped to the window of the Martha's Vineyard Gourmet Cafe and Bakery in Oak Bluffs says it all: "Rain, rain, go away! Come back in October. We beg you!"

That about sums up this week on the Vineyard, but Island residents fear not: Memorial Day weekend is upon us. The start to summer 2005 is here.