FLOURISHING LIBRARY

Editors, Vineyard Gazette:

It has been reported in your paper that the Aquinnah Public Library has cut hours.

This has not happened, nor has this been planned for the future. Our library hours continue to be Tuesday and Thursday from 2 to 7 p.m. and Saturday from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m.

The Last Heath Hen

From the Vineyard Gazette editions of March, 1933:

Chilmark fifty years ago was a different place. Well, of course it was. There weren’t so many people. There weren’t so many summer people. And there weren’t so many people who lived there year-round. Islanders, we called them.

As our town counsel Ronald H. Rappaport pointed out at a recent Oak Bluffs selectmen’s meeting, access and use of a town park is not a privilege but a citizen’s right. During the late 1800s and early 1900s, town parks were symbolic of a wider commitment to the public good, citizenship and public well-being. Cottage City, which in 1907 became Oak Bluffs, is one of the first planned communities in the United States. The town planners recognized the importance of parks as open spaces for active and passive recreation.

Cinematic Gift

“A good movie can take you out of your dull funk,” film critic Pauline Kael said. “A good movie can make you feel alive again, in contact . . . make you care, make you believe in possibilities again.”

Patrons who venture to the Chilmark Community Center this weekend will be transported from the funk of Island winter, through three days of films carefully chosen by movie lovers who love to be moved.

Welcome Home, Mr. Turkington

He was a quiet politician in a noisy political arena. He was sometimes so quiet he seemed out of place in the fractious clamor of Vineyard politics. His critics wondered in the early years if he was too timid to survive the political wars that roil the everyday life of the Vineyard, Nantucket, Falmouth and Boston. His supporters hoped his quiet reserve would translate to a strong and effective voice for his Cape and Islands district in the state assembly.