Opinion
The development office of Martha’s Vineyard Community Services thanks the Martha’s Vineyard community for disposing of your old, tired and used electronics at our spring electronics disposal day on Saturday, April 6. By 2 p.m. we had filled more than four containers graciously provided by Bruno’s Rolloff, Inc. Thank you to Greg Carroll and his excellent team at Bruno’s who sponsored this event and assisted with all aspects of the day — including the heavy lifting!
I have lived in Chilmark since the early 1970s. I have been a member and chairman of the board of appeals as well as a selectman. In addition I am a licensed contractor and real estate broker. I do not mean to bang my drum but simply to state my long years of involvement with the town of Chilmark.
When courage comes knocking
Open the door
Although your mind screams
how can it be And your heart cries why me?
This morning going through the 20 mile-per-hour zone in front of my town’s grade school I watched the little kids walking along the sidewalk with their enormous backpacks. Little kids, first graders; what on earth is in those bags? And the older kids look like they are setting out on a serious trek, and they are just going to school. Maybe it is full of sports equipment; it can’t all be books. There were a few kids with bikes; besides the packs on their backs there was a bag fixed over their back fender. It looked stuffed too. (It must be sneakers).
Two years ago my wife and I moved from Pensacola, Fla. to Oklahoma avenue in Vineyard Haven. One afternoon as I was riding my bicycle around the state forest, close to the Vineyard Youth Tennis club, I saw a big red rooster standing in the middle of the path. Having grown up in rural South Carolina I notice animals and have been doing animal rescue for years. The rooster was a magnificent sight, standing tall with his chest out. His feathers, full of incredible colors, sparkled in the sunlight.
Every time I went bicycling in that area I saw the rooster.
Vineyard roots run strong and deep and I never have imagined calling anywhere else on earth home. I grew up on the Island, but plenty of people grow up plenty of places. They move, they call other cities, other towns their own. What has always rooted me to Martha’s Vineyard is what roots so many people here — a community with a heart much larger than the Island’s 100 square miles would suggest.