Opinion
From a 1952 Gazette edition:
Since Thursday, when the Coast Guard building, three stories high, came towing into Menemsha Creek on a scow after crossing Vineyard Sound from Cuttyhunk . . . people have exclaimed: “How unusual!”
But here on the Vineyard the moving of buildings by water is an old story. Not too many men are now living who have engaged in such undertakings, but there are many familiar with the history of similar movings who can point out houses and other structures that floated alongshore to their present destinations.
It has long been evident that we need a new national anthem. The Star-Spangled Banner is tough to memorize and tougher to sing, and it celebrates a war we didn’t even win!
My candidate for a quintessentially American song, one that acknowledges pain as well as pride in our history, is City of New Orleans. Composed by the late Steve Goodman, who also wrote A Dying Cubs Fan’s Last Request, this bittersweet folk song grew out of a train ride from Chicago to New Orleans that Goodman and his wife took to visit his wife’s family.
Hot Air
From Gazette editions of July, 1936:
The giant dirigible Hindenburg soared over the Vineyard in the early hours of Wednesday morning. It was exactly ten minutes past two when Mr. and Mrs. Johnson Whiting of West Tisbury were aroused from their slumber by the roaring of the great engines. Arising and going outside, they saw the big airship crossing the heavens, its cabins brilliantly lighted and its hull shining above, as it headed easterly across the Island for the Atlantic.
LOCAL HEROES
Editors, Vineyard Gazette:
We the People
Our country celebrates its two hundred and thirty-fifth birthday on Monday and the national holiday will be marked by colorful parades, fireworks displays and picnics from sea to shining sea, including here on the Vineyard where Islanders of every stripe will pause to commemorate the founding of this great nation.
And on the eve of this Independence Day, the endless debate continues among Americans about who we are as a people, what we stand for as a nation and what are the principles and values that guide American society.
Jeanie Mathis has never been to Martha’s Vineyard or any part of the East Coast. She lives in Reevesville, Illinois, population 50. Yet she knows about the Island because she reads every issue of the Gazette . . . twice. “I read it at the shop [a hair salon in her home] and then I reread it at night,” she said.