This letter is in response to an article published in last Friday’s Vineyard Gazette (June 22) regarding the superior court decision that upheld the Tisbury conservation commission’s denial of my application for a pier in Lagoon Pond. I would have preferred to have contributed my comments in the article, but since there was no attempt to get in touch with me until noon on Thursday June 21, to which I called back around 8 p.m., I apparently missed the print deadline. The decision for this case was May 30, so I openly wonder why I was given such little notice to comment.

For Richard E. Lee

Editors, Vineyard Gazette:

Richard Lee was a star, he sparkled, he winked at you through his paintings and made us laugh; all the while he was watching us and laughing. He had an aura of sparklers surrounding him, a bit of Puck’s spirit lived within.

Richard, you have brought us joy in this lifetime, thank you and please, keep twinkling and rearranging the starry-starry sky in your vision.

Wendy Arnell Brophy

Vineyard Haven

• Stylistic Mishmash

Editors, Vineyard Gazette:

Congratulations to Island Grown Initiative, its donors and to Martha’s Vineyard on IGI’s recent acquisition of Thimble Farm. The need to preserve farmland and promote sustainable small-scale farming enterprises is critical, not just here but across the country.

The following letter was sent to the Edgartown conservation commission, other town boards and the board for the Farm Institute and the Katama Association. I have been a resident of Edgartown for 28 years and live adjacent to the Katama Farm. I am writing you on an important issue concerning the proposed installation of a telecommunication cell tower to be placed in the silo at the Katama Farm. I am not opposed to the technology, but I am concerned about the site that has been chosen. There are many documented studies done on the proximity of cell towers and the ill effects they have on humans and animals.

Hello, softball fans! Do you realize this is probably the 75th season of our Sunday softball games in Chilmark? What started in the back lot off the Menemsha Inn Road, and then found a home for awhile at Toomey’s, is now played at Flanders Fields off Tabor House Road. You can go there any Sunday during the summer at 8:30 a.m. and watch or play several pickup games. Young and old, women and men and even some dogs will dazzle you with their talents. I was invited to play by David Flanders — the best ballplayer to swing the bat in Chilmark. I can still hear him with his high-pitched voice heckling me from the outfield.

I was pleased to learn on Tuesday morning that the former Thimble Farm, the land that the CSA and others have been working for eight years to protect as an Island resource, has finally made it into the hands of an Island nonprofit. Island Grown Initiative (IGI) will be the new owners, thanks to Eric Grubman, who purchased the farm in 2007, and a very generous family from Chilmark.