Opinion
From the Feb. 1989 Just a Thought column by Arthur Railton: Let’s give a cheer for the winter people — that’s us, the folks who rattle around this place when off-Islanders ask: “What on earth do you do out there all winter?”
We’re here when the days are short, when the wind is out of the north and the cork is out of the bottle. And the ferries are few. When the Island is truly an island. And we love it because it is.
The freight situation on the island got completely out of hand for a time awhile ago, but fortunately fate stepped in and prevented a possible lynching. Bung Ward has run the freight business for a long time, probably forever. The business consists of him meeting the mail boat with his 1968 Chevy pickup which got here on a barge in 1976 because it couldn’t pass inspection on the mainland, a condition which seems to be fairly chronic around here making for some pretty inexpensive vehicles.
E. Gale Huntington was a writer, folksinger and teacher who spent plenty of time on the waterfront. He was also the founding editor of the Martha’s Vineyard Museum’s publication the Intelligencer. In February of 1971, he published in it an article he had written in 1934 when he was in his early 30s about fishing in the waters of the Vineyard with members of the Tilton family. Mr. Huntington died at the age of 91 in December of 1993.
The winter 2012 issue of the Intelligencer is a retrospective and reprints Mr.
Few people will remember his plucky, colorful and completely hopeless campaigns for state senator and sheriff. The first one was in 1978. He designed great T-shirts for the campaign with a hand-silk-screened map of the Cape and Islands. We all wore them; we were youthful then and had a sense of fun and we knew John Miles McSweeney had little chance of being elected. But it didn’t matter. We loved John for his spirit and we were friends. And friends stuck together when we were all coming of age on the Vineyard some thirty-five years ago.
Pick us, pick us Mr. Reality TV producer. We can be happy, sad, single or very open (if you get the drift). Straight, gay, angry and poor, angry and rich, happy and rich, happy and poor (well, that would be a stretch and would cost extra).
How about the hermit crab who comes out of his shell this summer or the girl who trades in her bikini and beach volleyball for muck boots and milking cows? It’s up to you.
I thank the town of West Tisbury for the opportunity to hear about the different options related to the future of the Mill Pond. I was troubled by the insistence of the Mill Pond committee on dredging the pond, in particular the implication that natural sediments (referred to as black gold) be positioned as a commodity.