Shifting Sands

Scientific study is yielding valuable insights into coastal erosion. Researchers have discovered that permanent structures built in attempts to contain and control erosion — jetties, groins and seawalls — vary in effect between futility and making things worse.

Government and private individuals build these structures in good faith: sometimes to protect roads and houses, sometimes as a strategy to catch and retain sand drifting in the water down the shoreline.

Teller of Tales

From the Vineyard Gazette editions of April, 1932:

While many of Vineyard Haven lawyer Charles H. Brown’s recollections are of his own town, not all of them are, and not all are tales of his own time.

When I was little I remember being taken by my great-aunt Taddy to a church at the corner of our street to watch a wedding party assemble. Maybe she knew the family, maybe not. But we did it more than once, and if a church was within walking distance of our house, we went. We would watch the folks gather, admire the flurry of the pink and blue-clad bridesmaids, and then the arrival of the bride. The church was surrounded by a green lawn and in the summertime there would be strawberry socials on tables set under the tall trees.

Construction is beginning on the drawbridge at the entrance to Lagoon Pond, straddling the border between Oak Bluffs and Tisbury. I’d like to bring everyone up to date on the status of the overall project and note some of the issues that the Vineyard community will have to deal with in the coming months.

As you probably recall, MassHighway’s approach is to first build a temporary bridge alongside the existing bridge, in order to reroute traffic. Then, a permanent drawbridge will be built in the alignment of the existing bridge.

Author’s Note: This unpublished essay was written in April 2003. Initial and continuing military actions in Iraq, primarily by one aggressor nation, have cast the long shadow of criminal behavior that heretofore has placed civilian and military war-wagers of rogue regimes in the dock, charged and convicted of crimes against humanity.

“War is a dreadful thing, and unjust war is a crime against humanity. But it is such a crime because it is unjust, not because it is war.”

— Theodore Roosevelt,