By SQUIRE RUSHNELL

My wonderful wife, Louise DuArt, and I live in the Yellow Cottage of Edgartown, built in 1853. We love that our Island’s most prominent artist, Ray Ellis, calls it the “most painted house on the Vineyard.” Is it? I cannot attest. But, were I an artist, I’d have my easel permanently perched on Davis Lane.

We love that the Yellow Cottage makes us feel as if we’re living in a Leave It to Beaver home, complete with a Dutch door, and Louise baking scones in her June Cleaver apron.

With President Obama soon to arrive on the Vineyard, it seems appropriate to look back at an earlier visit. For instance, I was surprised to read and find a Yiddish word linked to our black president. To wit: The Chilmark Tavern’s advertisement in the Vineyard Gazette of August 28, 2009, noted that, “Obama Schlepped Here.” Naturally, because of my interest in Yiddish, I called Judy Russo, the then owner of the Chilmark Tavern, and learned that Obama did not schlep to or eat at the tavern.

MONSTER SPECTACLE

Editors, Vineyard Gazette:

Public spectacles like the annual monster shark tournament have much in common with the gladiator games conducted in the Coliseum during ancient Roman festivals. Large, adoring crowds immersed in a circuslike atmosphere amid unbridled commercial activity, awaiting the extravaganza of torture, execution and the eventual display of victims.

Vinnie sits at the table in the lounge. He wears, as always, a cap. A big pin in his shirt says I’m The Boss. He’s singing Roll Out The Barrel in a thin tenor. He’s also making me keep to the regular four-four time on the piano. Sometimes I miss the right chord but Vinnie sings on. I’m taking lessons from Ed Wise. Ed tells me it’s good for me to play in front of an audience.

Woods Hole, 1910: idling steam trains exhale vapor at regular intervals, buoys clang out in the channel. An 11-year-old boy from Oak Park, Ill., wanders about the dockside. It is the first time he has seen the ocean. A sidewheel steamer is docked perpendicular to the rail terminus — its superstructure casts shadows across the kiosks and cottage industries of the wharf. The New Bedford, Martha’s Vineyard, and Nantucket Steamboat Company, consolidated from several small companies when the railroad arrived in 1873, has an office at the dockside.