My son’s birthday lands near Halloween, and when he was eight and nine and probably even ten and eleven, for his party I would line our whole deck with pumpkins.

We all have a pond we favor on Martha’s Vineyard — so many ponds, separated or not from the salty sea water that surrounds this place, seven miles out from the mainland. The map of the Island, displayed on a board outside the Vineyard Haven Steamship Authority building, looks like a moth-eaten triangle whose lacy holes tell the story of many ponds, large and small.

Herbert Slater, who died last week, was one of a dwindling group of men who took part in the now largely forgotten harpoon fishery that made Menemsha a major source of swordfish landings on the East Coast in the fifties, sixties and seventies.

Thanksgiving when I was growing up always meant a different assortment of extended family members congregating at different homes.

Vineyard fishermen no longer pursue cod in these waters. The fishing boats plying these waters left years ago. Cod are gone.

I really think that fall’s colors were more brilliant this year, the reds and yellows much happier against the deep blue skies. Maybe they seemed that way to me.