News
After a full month of bad weather, things got even worse yesterday, as a range of fast-moving thunderstorms brought downpours with lightning and in some places hail.
Golf-ball sized hail cracked one car windshield in Vineyard Haven and the Bunch of Grapes bookstore had its Internet service knocked out, possibly by lightning.
A sign posted in the front window of the bookstore said: “Hit by Lightning, Closed for the Day. Reopen tomorrow.”
The Oak Bluffs wastewater commission on Wednesday voted unanimously to repair a failing septic grid buried underneath Ocean Park, partly to satisfy orders from the state Department of Environmental Protection to address problems of treated effluent seeping to the surface.
The board voted to spend up to $400,000 to dig up a portion of the park and replace the grid. The work will start this fall and be completed in time for next summer.
A grant proposal to rejuvenate Island shellfishing was rejected in a nine-figure National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) stimulus program announced this week, and it is fair to say that Warren Doty, the Chilmark selectman who spearheaded the Vineyard bid, is somewhat miffed.
“There are no jobs for the little guys,” he told the Gazette. “Our proposal had $20-an-hour employees and a five per cent overhead. Meanwhile there was $8 million to Maine to build a dam and a big chunk of that goes to the contractor for their profits.”
No doubt about it, David Kinney gets the Vineyard. His book, The Big One, shows that. But he could not live here, he reckons, without succumbing to the obsession which the book chronicles.
Fishing, that is.
As we bumped along a sandy track through Chappaquiddick on Sunday night, he with one hand on the steering wheel, and the other holding the tips of his surf rods to stop them rattling on the windshield, he imagined his life if he lived here all the time.
Please Adopt Us
For those of you looking for kittens the Animal Shelter of Martha’s Vineyard has two seven-week-old part Balinese kittens. Both are females — one black and the other black with white paws — who need socializing. They were very shy when they came to the shelter; they were born in a wood pile but with a lot of TLC they are slowly learning to trust people.
The Tisbury High School class of 1948 held it’s 61st reunion at The Ocean View Restaurant in Oak Bluffs on June 18. Of the original class of 25, seven have passed on, eight were unable to attend due to a variety of reasons and 10 enjoyed the celebration and dinner along with eight spouses and friends.
Those who have deceased are Jennie Andrada, Lester Baptiste, Barbara Cryer Counsell, Ronald DeSorcy, Jean Flanders Hancock, Tony King and Gary Mosher.