From a Feb. 25, 1972 column by Joseph Chase Allen: Town meeting season is at hand and it is a good time to recollect that the annual town meeting is an institution that has been in operation for 303 years, according to available records.

This is the time when voters in Island towns gather to direct their community’s public activity for the year. Hundreds of thousands of dollars will be approved for new fire trucks, historic building renovations, wastewater upgrades, road and sidewalk repairs, police cruisers, public park projects and affordable housing initiatives. Millions more will be pegged to annual town operating budgets.

I am a captain of a boat that participates in the shark tournament. We have been fishing this tournament for a long time. I first will say I really do enjoy the town of Oak Bluffs and usually things seemed to go off without a hitch. I frequent the town as well with my family and friends for dinner and drinks and shopping multiple times during the summer season.

I had to write and let you know what getting older must feel like. I’m standing at my kitchen sink, looking out the window on Manchester avenue, when the Oak Bluffs sweeper machine was going by. The birds were chirping at their bird feeders and the little blue flowers were all coming up blooming and then came our Oak Bluffs cleaner-uppers, which put the light on everything.

The new Martha’s Vineyard Toastmasters Club appreciates the community response to our kickoff meeting at the Vineyard Haven American Legion on March 27. Twenty-one members of the Island community attended a sample Toastmasters meeting presented by Gov. Stefano McGhee and Lieut. Govs. Doug Sheadel and YS Kim of District 31 Toastmasters

The Chilmark planning board proposes 3,500 square feet as a reasonable house size maximum since it is 60 per cent higher than the Chilmark average of 2,200 square feet. This might make sense if the 2,200 square foot average is reasonable. But it is not reasonable because 2,200 presumably includes all kinds of homes, home sizes and home uses built over many decades which may not be relevant now.