Community
The third annual Aquinnah Youth Powwow on Sunday will have an Ivy League flavor. Not that Polos and Dockers will replace traditional breech clouts and jingle dresses, but this year the event, hosted by the Wampanoag Tribe of Gay Head (Aquinnah), will include 120 graduate students from the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard, courtesy of Tobias Vanderhoop, a prime mover in this event produced by tribal young people.
Tivoli Day Fun Run
Start the Tivoli Day festivities on Sept. 15 with the sixth annual George V. Tankard Memorial Martha’s Vineyard NAACP 5K Road Race and one-mile Fun Run. The fun run begins at 9:30 a.m. from the Wesley Hotel on the Oak Bluffs harbor, and the 5K begins at 10 a.m. from the bus stop at Ocean Park.
Preregistration is from 7 to 9 p.m. on Friday, Sept. 14 at the Wesley Hotel, while race day registration at the same location begins at 7 a.m.
For more information, call Roger Wey at 508-693-7887.
A flinty sun was dropping brilliantly, taking the temperature with it as the countdown to show time began Friday evening in the outdoor horse ring at the agricultural fair ground — but it was the gleaming white Lippizan stallions that shone.
The Chilmark Road Race is a chimerical beast, part family-oriented charity jog, part cutthroat competition. Perhaps the contradictory spirit of the now-legendary institution was best summed up by Willy Anderson, age 10. When asked about his plans for the race, the bespectacled youth declared, "I really want to beat my mom. We'll start out together, but at the end I'll try to beat her."
She grew up in Chilmark, the twelfth generation of an Island farming family. He was raised in Brooklyn, N.Y., the grandson of Jewish immigrants. He had never farmed and she was all set to move to Boston. But life, horses and a flock of sheep intervened. Thirty-two years later Mitchell Posin and Clarissa Allen talk about their relationship, while inhabitants of the farm chime in with crows and bleats, contributing to the tale.
Interviews by Julia Rappaport
Mitchell
Twenty-five years ago, Susan Klein leapt into the void, counting on her muse to catch her. She was 30 years old, born and raised in Oak Bluffs, but she just knew "it was time to go."
"I had just bought the house, the mortgage was due," she recalled. "I'd quit my job, I had no health insurance, no retirement, no savings. I had $300 and I drove away. I had nine days' of work scheduled for the rest of my life."