If you had been sitting on the beach in Menemsha preparing to watch the sunset this past Saturday you witnessed a rare thing.

At 12:37 a.m. on Wednesday, April 23 of this year, Martha’s Vineyard lost an irreplaceable elder and we gather here today to grieve this loss together.

In 1978, best friends, Ed Coogan and Michael Wild “decided to invent an event and maybe have another drink."

Live theatre is a gamble, but I was ready to take a chance when I purchased tickets to Mrs. Stern Wanders the Prussian State Library at the Martha’s Vineyard Playhouse.

It was a cold Thursday evening in February. The pressroom crew was assembled for the weekly run, to print the Gazette on our 50-year-old Goss Community web press.

My children are the dog-eared pages in the story of my life. Nothing creates my memories with more reverence, joy or generosity than my children.