They drive the engines, rescue people, put out fires and know CPR. They have to be prepared for anything — a car under water, a person in cardiac arrest, or a family trapped inside a burning building. Or it could be a false alarm. Meet the Island's call firefighters.

People gathered at the Chilmark Community Center Sunday morning to hear from Island agriculture and aquaculture leaders about the challenges and joys of farming. Farming is like life, said Jan Buhrman, vice president of Slow Food Martha’s Vineyard.

It was mid-fall and local musician Adam Lipsky was feeling kind of blue. He looked around the Island and thought the possible venues for playing and listening to music felt static.

Michael G. West wrote a talking blues song and it goes a little something like this. “I was born in 1947 / North of hell and south of heaven / About that time the sun went down / On San Francisco, my hometown . . . .”

"Guess what? Guess what?” Phil McAndrews, owner of Offshore Ale, shouted from the upstairs office. Phil is a tall, wiry man. He power-walked downstairs and marched toward me. “Guess what?” he asked again.

The lobby of Point B Realty doesn’t look like a place of serious business these days. Behind the reception desk sits Edgar, a six-foot-tall teddy bear. On the other side of the lobby, owner and principal broker of the firm, Wendy Harman, fluffs the fur of two-year-old Chappy, a teddy bear named by “fans” last year through Facebook and blog votes and posts.