Commentary
Consider All Possibilities
By TYLER STUDDS
This week our class learned about World War I. We are starting a project on war and how people have been treated, which then led to a discussion of the Boston Globe article headlined The Untouchable Mean Girls, about a 14-year-old girl who moved from Ireland to Massachusetts with her family this past fall. Phoebe Prince was a nice, beautiful and smart girl who came to America lacking an understanding of our teen culture, and her life ended in despair. Phoebe had no idea what she was walking into.
The eye of the beholder, that’s where they say the beauty lies. Maybe this is why the conundrum of wind energy being wrangled within our Island newspapers and e-mail threads has no apparent clear answer.
Signs Matter
Character is in all the little features, those details that form the individual nature of a place. On the Vineyard, it’s in the split rail fences, shingles, dirt roads and old, working barns. And good for Edgartown for saying that it’s in signposts, too.
Chappaquiddick’s Long and Winding Road
Is a bike path really needed on Chappy, the last rural outpost on the Vineyard? It’s hard to say and there are two distinct points of view on the subject, but this much can be said: the current debate raging over the issue has grown needlessly vituperative. People on both sides of the issue must put down their swords and stop the finger-pointing or risk irreparable harm in their community.
It’s funny the memories we keep.
There are the expected ones: a first kiss, college graduation, family holiday celebrations. And the not so expected: a sunrise beach walk alone on Christmas morning, the feel of the stiff Florida grass on bare feet used to the Vineyard’s downy lawns.