This year marks the tenth anniversary of Della Hardman Day, and perhaps the true testament to its namesake is that the weekend has become both a celebration of Della and has transcended her.

It’s hard to imagine what justification the town of Tisbury might claim for withholding minutes of selectmen’s meetings from the public. Yet more than a hundred days after the Gazette formally requested copies of minutes that mention Stop & Shop between the dates of January 1, 2014 and April 1, 2014, we have received neither the documents nor an explanation why they have not been released.

It may well be a quirk of the two Islands that the people who live there care so passionately about the names of their ferries. But they do, and following a vote by Steamship Authority governors on the Vineyard this week, the new freight ferry, which is yet to be built, will have a quarterboard made with the name Woods Hole. It marks the first time that a ferry will be named for a mainland place, and it’s a fine choice.

Flip through the events calendar. Throw a dart at any day, Wednesday, perhaps.

In the morning at the Yard in Chilmark, Jason Samuels Smith, perhaps the best tap dancer in the world right now, was giving an instruction in his art form. Later that night he performed with the Owen (Fiidla) Brown Quartet. Via his feet and the quartet’s music, the group took the audience to Africa, the horrors of the Middle Passage and the arrival as slaves in America.

Early summer arrived like a small lurch on the Vineyard this year, as if someone had hit the gas pedal a little too hard. Clear June days with warm sunshine and cool evenings beneath star-splashed inky skies are in the rearview mirror now, replaced by the heat and humidity that portend the long, lazy beach days of July. The landscape is dry and muted with fewer wildflowers than usual due to lack of rain. And everywhere you look, the pace of life has changed.

There is a sign on a lawn in Vineyard Haven that reads, Drive Like Your Children Live Here. A good idea, but perhaps too narrow a sentiment, implying that there is a divide behind the wheel between how Islanders and summer visitors navigate the roads.