Ray (Scott) Santinello was five years old when he got his first haircut. It took place on the third floor of his family’s home in Springfield, and the barber was a young friend of the family. It was the 1950s and the barber, Benito Mancinone, had recently immigrated to the city from Molise, a small town located on a mountain in Italy. Mr. Santinello is 61 now and Benny the Barber, long a mainstay of Circuit avenue in Oak Bluffs, is still cutting his hair. “He’s my barber. I just don’t change,” Mr. Santinello said on a recent Tuesday morning.

In the late 1980s, with real estate prices on the rise and new building starts at an all-time high on Martha’s Vineyard, the Gazette commissioned a poll of seasonal and permanent residents to gauge public sentiment around development. The results revealed a deep and widely-held concern about the fast pace of growth and its implications for the Island environment and quality of life, a concern that cut across every demographic category, part-time and full-time residents alike.

Except for the baroque chirping from the rafters, the Tabernacle is empty and quiet enough to make one want to whisper. It is 40 minutes before the Island Community Chorus begins to rehearse for its July 6 summer concert. Music director Peter Boak arrives carrying a collapsible stepstool and music stand. He climbs to the stage to arrange and consider.

Every morning Rosileia Mandelli wakes up to bird song. Actually, bird symphony might be a better description for the trilling and twittering that emanates from her kitchen in the early hours of the day.

Alongside family portraits and vacation photos, six bird cages hang on the kitchen and living room walls of her Oak Bluffs home. Adriano, her husband of 13 years, has raised and bred canaries since he was a boy growing up in Foz do Iguaçu, Brazil, the westernmost city in the state of Paraná.

Our Island Club, a consumer savings program that raises money for local organizations, contributed more than $50,000 to Island charities last year.

Union Chapel in Oak Bluffs begins its 2013 season on Sunday, June 30, with a slate of visiting preachers, some returning for their second or third visit and others preaching here for their first time.