Editorials
Workers in downtown Vineyard Haven never needed a watch to know when it was lunchtime. They had their reminder every day when the noon whistle blew from the fire station on Beach street. The sound made dogs howl and, according to an old account from the Gazette, one day a horse died of fright following the whistle blast.
Seen in West Tisbury this week: a steady flow of pickup trucks in and out of the parking lot by Alley’s General Store driven by landscapers, carpenters, plumbers and electricians. Fueled by coffee and breakfast sandwiches, iPhones pressed against their ears, Island tradesmen were on the move. There were windows to hang, screens to repair, painting touchups to do once the May sunshine burned through the fog, seaside gardens waiting for a top coat of compost.
Don’t sit under the apple tree with anyone else but me. The World War Two-era song sung famously by the Andrews Sisters sounds a little dated but the wild apple trees on the Vineyard are right in tune this year, their crooked boughs heavy with pink blossoms everywhere you look.
When a miniature horse was killed by a dog in the rural outskirts of Edgartown last weekend it clearly struck a nerve around the Island and beyond. As the news was reported on the Gazette website, reaction poured in, most of it civil and heartfelt. People winced at the terrible, violent death of a small horse named Magik.
Historians and careful readers of the Vineyard Gazette will recognize this headline for two reasons: it’s the title of a book by the esteemed former Gazette editor Henry Beetle Hough and it’s also the traditional end-of-summer signoff when this newspaper ceases its twice-weekly publishing schedule for another year.
The project to build an eleven-million-dollar new Edgartown Library at the site of the old elementary school is nearly ready to begin. After many years of false starts and struggles to find a clear direction and support from townspeople, the plan finally found solid footing last year with funding from a generous state grant, the firm backing of voters and a suitable location at the former Edgartown School. That a small town could find the collective will and funding for such a project in such an uncertain economy should be cause for pride and celebration.