Islanders by this time of year have become accustomed to the early-morning sight of yellow buses rolling over Island roads that stop with brightly flashing lights to collect their precious cargo: clusters of children standing at the end of long dirt roads with books, backpacks and iPods, their hair still wet from the shower.

Once the address of choice for whaling captains, North Water street in Edgartown is now home to captains of modern industry, a handsome boulevard of stately white mansions and manicured hedges that runs from Main street past the Edgartown Light.

Handsome, that is, but for Number 62, the so-called Captain Warren House — the now-decrepit building next to the Edgartown Free Public Library — which has become the most public of eyesores as the town of Edgartown continues its search for a buyer who will take it off its hands for a reasonable price.

Tuesday night was the first home baseball game of the season for the Sharks and kids from all the little league teams around the Island were invited to take part in the festivities. Teenagers to tee-ballers as tall as a Shark’s backpocket came dressed in their uniforms with gloves at the ready. The competition on the field was first rate. So, too, were the scrambles for foul ball souvenirs.

There’s nothing easy about running a small business on the Vineyard. With the high season lasting fewer than a hundred days, a late spring or a rainy weekend can easily turn a slim profit to a loss.

When work got under way this winter at the old Oyster Bar building, now owned by the Edgartown National Bank at the upper end of Circuit avenue in Oak Bluffs, small business owners were no doubt excited at the prospect of a fresh façade and respected community bank making its home at the top of the street.

Here are two words that are perfectly innocuous when standing alone, but always seem to raise hackles when put together: affordable and housing.

Nearly twenty years ago a group of parents began formulating a plan to create a new school on Martha’s Vineyard. The idea was to provide another public school option on the Island, one that was still free and taught the same state-mandated framework as other schools, but that was more project-based and gave students the freedom to pursue their own education plan, whether it be mathematics or becoming a better skateboarder.