News
The massive security effort required to accommodate a Vineyard vacation for President Obama and the First Family next month is now under way, as recession-stricken Island businesspeople fix their sights, with broadening smiles, on August.
Local and state officials relevant to security and law enforcement on land, sea and air have been contacted by the U.S. Secret Service and told to direct all media queries to its Boston headquarters.
The spokesman there did not return calls yesterday and Wednesday.
From little things, big things grow.
A little over 50 years ago, Henry Beetle Hough became concerned that a little parcel of land in Edgartown, where he and his wife Elizabeth liked to walk, might fall prey to land developers.
Mr. Hough, then owner and editor of this paper and an author, used the money earned from sales of one of his books, Once More the Thunderer, to buy the 10 acres which had been known for at least the previous century as Sheriff’s Meadow.
Continued erosion around the Island — a phenomenon perhaps exacerbated by global warming and a rise in sea levels — has created a booming new industry on the Vineyard, as towns and private groups compete for the suddenly hot commodity of sand to use as ammunition in their battle against the sea.
After a sluggish off-season tied to the sustained national recession and an abysmal June blamed on terrible weather, several real estate professionals this week reported a dramatic spike in weekly rentals just as the weather improved and reports of an August visit from President Obama were revealed.
David Stanwood, piano player, piano lover, technician and innovator, recalls being “spoiled” at an early age, by an accidental encounter with a single instrument.
It was a seven-foot Bösendorfer, in a show room, and when he played it, he said: “I felt as if I’d put on magic gloves.”
It wasn’t just the tone; it was the touch.
The Norton Point Beach opening has created river-like currents in Edgartown harbor, and with the 86th annual Edgartown Yacht Club regatta on this weekend, there will be plenty of sailors trying to negotiate the narrow opening between the Chappaquiddick ferry dock and Memorial Wharf which can challenge even the most experienced of sailors.
Trying to get in and out of the harbor is trickier since the breach in April 2007; it can be a spectator sport watching the smallest of sailboats get in trouble as they try to negotiate the opposing current.