On Martha’s Vineyard we turn to a time in the 1840s, a little over a half century after the signing of the Constitution, in the first years the Vineyard Gazette served the Island as the community of record.

There has been much in the news recently about James Cagney. Like so many children of the fifties and sixties, I grew up closely acquainted with his many movie roles. My favorites were Yankee Doodle Dandy, the film in which Cagney portrayed George M. Cohan, the famous musical composer, playwright, actor, singer and amazing dancer, and The Public Enemy, where Cagney donned the mantle of the tough guy gangster Tom Powers during Prohibition. The first was a touching depiction of a man who was an artist to his core.

CRITICAL NEED

Editors, Vineyard Gazette:

For seven years, Rising Tide Therapeutic Equestrian Center has provided positive educational and therapeutic interactions with horses to members of our community with special needs. What started as a dream for a small group of dedicated volunteers has become a reality for Martha’s Vineyard. Rising Tide is the only therapeutic equestrian center on the Island, offering programs to more than 150 clients throughout the year.

Last week’s Gazette editorial eloquently recognizing the one-sided results of the ballot questions on the roundabout was a welcome coda to this ongoing and vexing issue.

When I arrived on the Vineyard in mid-March, I could still see my breath billowing out in front of me as I ran out along South Road and down Blue Barque Road in Chilmark. I wore a sweatshirt and a wool hat to guard against the cold. I’m not in great shape, so by the time I reached the end of the wooded, residential road, I was wheezing and my white breath poured out of me like smoke. I always collapsed at the same spot; the wooden-gate entrance to Hancock Beach.