Wednesday, Sept. 3: Freshman Orientation Day at Martha's Vineyard Regional High School. It is gray and oppressive outside, the dark sky a harbinger of later months, when yellow buses will gather the Island's teenagers from street corners and the ends of dirt roads before sun-up.
Last week, weather like this would have been a tragedy. But this morning, it's a comfort to the ninth graders: whatever their fate within these walls, no one is missing a beach day.
They stepped outside the classroom walls. They coached youth basketball and soccer teams.
Teenagers who found themselves in trouble and needing a free ride home this year telephoned the SafeRides hotline at nearly twice the rate they did
It would be the ideal night to kick off another season of SafeRides, but the student-run service that gives kids in trouble a free ride home won't be up and running this New Year's Eve. The service officially starts up Jan. 10.
The Vineyard's winning season ended on Saturday afternoon with a narrow 25-20 loss to Nantucket.
The record shows that in 1953, an informal team of Vineyarders played football against Nantucket High School, losing 33-20.