After the Storm, Sledding Is Fine Sport from Farm Neck Fairways to Tashmoo

By MAX HART

The snowdrifts near the tee box on the third hole at Farm Neck Golf Club in Oak Bluffs are deep, very deep.

So deep, in fact, that they rise up past the waist of an average-sized adult, a good three to four feet of snow. Trying to wade through them is an exercise in absurdity; it's nearly impossible to navigate without falling on your face.

Against a backdrop of escalating property values and the high cost of construction, housing starts on the Vineyard fell in 2004 for the second straight year.

A total of 1,210 building permits from the Island's six towns were issued in 2004, down seven per cent from the 2003 total of 1,300 and eight per cent from the 1,311 permits granted in 2002. Four of the Vineyard's six towns saw drops in the number of total building permits issued; only Aquinnah and West Tisbury saw increases.

Silver Screen: Theatres Seeing a Mere Trickle of Moviegoers

By MAX HART

At the Edgartown Cinemas on a recent evening, the most popular movie in America plays to an almost empty theatre. About a dozen patrons enjoy a laugh as Ben Stiller and Robert DeNiro engage in madcap hijinx in Meet the Fockers.

Over at the Island Theatre on Circuit avenue in Oak Bluffs, Brad Pitt and George Clooney are scheming their way to riches in Ocean's Twelve, the fifth highest earner at the box office. But they, too, look down from the screen to a mostly empty room.

An unusual plan by a private landowner to build and pay for a 619-foot wooden walkway across property owned by the Martha's Vineyard Land Bank will go before the Chilmark conservation commission on Wednesday.

New York city may have Times Square and the ball drop, but Islanders looking to ring in the new year need look no further than Vineyard Haven to find their New Year's Eve fix.

The annual Last Night First Day celebration, sponsored by the Tisbury Ambulance Association, begins today, and with warmer weather forecast and new activities planned organizers are predicting this year's event will be one of the most successful.

When Todd and Kara Alexander left for a month-long vacation to Sri Lanka a week before Christmas, the Oak Bluffs couple was looking forward to relaxing in the warm sun and white sand beaches of Arugam Bay.

Mrs. Alexander is in the early stages of pregnancy, and the thought of a beach resort they had read about in the travel guide sounded like an ideal tonic.