Opinion
READING MY FATHER : A Memoir. By Alexandra Styron. Scribner, New York, N.Y. April 2011. 285 pages, photographs. $25 hardcover.
Could Tolstoy have been wrong? Not about all unhappy families being unhappy in different ways — we’re basically in agreement about that — but where are the happy families to which he alluded? Did he know any? Do we? Families without financial woes? No hurt feelings, no sensitivities clashing with another’s neuroses, no addictions, no dysfunctions of any kind?
CAPT. JOE CRESSY
Editors, Vineyard Gazette:
Chappy and Martha’s Vineyard have lost one of their most extraordinary citizens. Joe Cressy’s intellect, integrity, kindness and zest for life were matched by few. One of Joe’s great loves and pleasure came from being on the Edgartown fire department. And so my dear friend, rest assured I shall be on this year’s Fourth of July’s parade route and will wave to your truck and the legend that once rode her.
Love you, Joe.
Gus Ben David
Word Play
Fis-SIP-par-ous — adj. Tending to break up into parts, divisive.
It’s often depressing to read about the world outside our own lovely Island, but we do it anyway and occasionally we learn a new word or gain a new insight about some aspect of our own situation. Venerable foreign correspondent John F. Burns of The New York Times was our source for both last Sunday in an essay on the elusive trail of Osama bin Laden.
A Night to Remember
Coming Back
From Gazette editions of May, 1986:
Town Meeting Report Card
Vigorous selectmen’s races in three towns. Feisty debates on issues small and large, from streetlights at Katama to beer and wine provisions in West Tisbury to new rules for swimming pools in Chilmark. A financial squeeze caused by shrinking revenues in a stubborn economic recession that keeps hanging around like a bad cold. These were the hallmarks of the annual town meeting season on the Vineyard this year, which draws to a close next week with the town meeting and election in Aquinnah.