Opinion
Here is a sobering fact: we live on an Island and the sea is rising.
The consensus among coastal scientists is that our children or grandchildren will see a sea level rise of about one metre in this century, an estimate that does not even take into account the rapid rate of melting glaciers. The New York Times reported last week that “the arctic ice cap melted this summer at a shocking pace, disappearing at a far higher rate than predicted even by the most pessimistic experts in global warming.”
Still On Time
The Chappaquiddick Ferry, that tidy, profitable and often forgotten enterprise which plies the tideswept entrance to the Edgartown harbor and is the lifeline for a hundred-odd families who call the outpost of Chappaquiddick home, is due for a change in ownership soon.
Beacons of History
They stand tall and straight on the horizon, an enduring symbol of the Island’s long and rich maritime history. Viewed from a distance, the Edgartown and East Chop lighthouses convey a sense of strength and of purpose.
Until recently, however, closer looks would have inspired less appreciation.
In the nineteen eighties, the Coast Guard stopped funding the maintenance of the lighthouses. Soon time and weather took their toll on the old cast-iron structures.
Vineyard summer, with all its last-minute social scramble, is over, and I’m back in New York. I decide it is finally, finally time, after 25 years, to create a new address book. As a member of the pre-computer generation, I had kept my addresses and phone numbers in a black leather notebook on small sheets of lined paper, and in pencil so that I could make erasures and additions and changes. After all these years it was a mess.
BYWAY JUDGE AND JURY
Editors, Vineyard Gazette:
An Editor’s Musings
From the Vineyard Gazette editions of September, 1982: