It all seemed like a game to me — the telephone with oversized buttons, the notebooks adorned inside with multicolored dividers and bright cut-out floral images, the cassette recorder and accompanying pile of tapes whose covers illustrated the story, the round reading light with a wide magnified lens, the handheld TV remote with major on/off tabs indicated in real red or green, the super-sized TV screen. I’d never seen such an eye catching array of entertaining devices as those my mother, at age 80 or so, had at her fingertips.

The weakened economy has caused plenty of hardship on the Island, but we’re occasionally reminded that even in healthy periods years ago, the good times weren’t always so good.

According to the calendar, spring officially began on Tuesday. According to reality, it began on Dec. 22, ordinarily the first day of winter, when spring decided to do away with winter this year. A slight snowfall was a freak occurrence and temperatures below freezing as rare as a visit from the propane man.

Comcast comments

Editors, Vineyard Gazette:

This paper has actively covered the cable license renewal negotiations between Comcast and the towns on Martha’s Vineyard since those discussions started in early 2011, including the request of a small number of citizens to bring Comcast services to the island of Chappaquiddick as a condition of a new agreement.

From Gazette editions of March, 1962:

Chilmark voters disposed of their annual warrant, voting on twenty-one articles. Sixty voters attended, and might well go on record as being one of the most harmonious town meetings ever held in the ancient manor. The meeting opened with a silent tribute to the late D. Herbert Flanders, veteran office-holder, although only 60 when he died.

In the movie Swimming with Sharks, a beleaguered young film executive played by Frank Whaley is asked why he entered the movie business. His answer; because of memories. Not those of the movies themselves, but the actual experience of watching them. He charted the course of his development as a person through this simultaneously very public and very private activity; where he was, at what stage of his life, and with whom he watched each film.