A recent heavy rainstorm, complete with thunder and lightning, set off an alarm on our property. We needed help to deal with this situation and called the communications center. Within minutes of our call, fire chief Manny Estrella was at our house, and happily all was satisfactorily and speedily resolved.

Ed Gyne in Milwaukee in the 1960s, Charlie Manson’s gang in the 1970s, the Oklahoma City bombing, genocide in Rwanda and 9/11 — it appears the perpetrators relied on knives, fertilizer, machetes, box cutters and airplanes to perpetrate their atrocities. It seems that mass murderers employ many means, so much so that one might easily conclude that guns may not be the weapon of choice to kill lots of people in peacetime. One might even conclude the obsessed and deranged individuals are the proximate cause of these awful deeds! Nevertheless, in the Gazette last week, Mr. Reisman seizes on Aurora to insist that guns are the cause rather than the means of these horrific acts.

Everyone who has Lyme disease or knows someone who does, go to your local library and see if they have two notebooks compiled by Steven Cabana. One is titled Ticks, and the other is Chronic Lyme Disease Recovery Protocols Used by Lyme Literate Practitioners.

Recently I read David Hearn’s letter regarding the denial of his request to install a pier from his property on the Vineyard Haven side of Lagoon Pond. The conservation commission denied his application yet again, based on the town bylaw. Generally, local bylaws are put in place by communities to compliment the Wetlands Protection Act and one of the stated interests in the act is to “protect land containing shellfish,” in this case the shellfish beds in Lagoon Pond.

I have been going up to the Vineyard on a regular basis for the past 22 years, spending several weeks each in the spring, summer and fall. Early fall is my favorite time of year; the water is still warm, a lot of shops are still open and the huge crowds are gone.

What did you think when you heard President Obama say, “If you’ve got a business — you didn’t build that. Somebody else made that happen.” Did this statement make you angry or nod your head? Prof. Elizabeth Warren shares this bitter ideology and has used it against Sen. Scott Brown.