Burnt toast.

It was the meal that made Michael Compean’s mother certain her son would someday be a chef. Scrambled eggs and burnt toast.

It was Mother’s Day in 1988. Michael Compean was 10 years old, living in California with his family and, like many children, he made breakfast in bed for his mother.

“That’s when she knew,” he said, “that’s when she knew I was meant to be a chef.”

Four words are carved in a wooden block sign hung above the door frame in Peter Martell’s Oak Bluffs office. Ever Ready. Ever Willing. Mr. Martell is one of the co-owners of the Wesley Hotel, the oldest hotel on Martha’s Vineyard. Along with George Fisher and Richard Kelley, he bought the hotel in 1985 from Paul Chase. The three men renovated it for nine months and reopened for business in the spring of 1986.

Elaine Weintraub says “history” a lot. The word rolls off her tongue briskly in three sharp syllables: hih-store-ee.

“Welcome to the 16th annual tour of the African American Heritage Trail,” she said last Thursday at the start of this year’s sophomore class field trip. “Here’s your chance of learning some real hih-store-ee.”

George Bernard Shaw once said, “You see things, and you say, Why? But I dream things that never were and I say, Why not?” For Kimberly Cartwright, founder and owner of the indoor cycling studio Om of Motion, the quotation carries weight. “Om is my Why not?’” Ms. Cartwright states on her website, omofmotion.com.

The arrival of spring means longer days, budding blooms, birdsong and, unfortunately, the unwelcome arrival of deer in the backyard. Deer dig up gardens, eat tulips, and trample plants. They scrape bark off young trees and decimate backyard greenery, all in their quest to find food. Bambi is a beautiful creature, but he can be very detrimental to a garden.

Like many other parents at the Ceremony of Remembrance on Saturday, Kathy Fortini stood around a stone bearing the name of her own child. She stared out into the ocean and said, “This place is perfect — it’s how he’d be looking out.”

Each stone at the Edgartown Lighthouse Children’s Memorial tells a story of a child’s life cut too short. This eighth annual ceremony honored all of the Vineyard children who have died; some Islanders, some frequent visitors.