Martha's Vineyard Alexander Trowbridge

Not Your Grandmother’s Summer Holiday

Alexander Trowbridge | Thursday, September 11 2008 - 8:00pm

I don’t think the statute of limitations for many of my adventures this summer has quite yet passed. Thus an autobiographical essay published in a community I’ve come to know over the last three months and to which I plan to one day return naturally has to be somewhat censored. As I write this, I debate the prudence of publishing the story of my arrest after celebrating its removal from my record. I was arrested for trespassing, swimming in a pool after hours.

Thousands Run for the Lobster

Alexander Trowbridge

With the sounding of the horn, some 1,600 runners in the 31st Chilmark Road Race took off. The herd shot toward the press truck like raptors in a Steven Spielberg film and the red pickup sped up to avoid being overtaken. John Ciccarelli was at the front, his face just feet from the photographers’ lenses. Behind him two boys in pink shirts attempted a 100-meter dash in the beginning of the 3.1-mile race and soon dropped off to the side.

Runners Race the Town Red for 9/11 Hero

Alexander Trowbridge

It appears the Chilmark Road Race will continue as usual Saturday. No big changes. “Hopefully it’s going to be exactly like it’s been the last 31 years,” said James Goodenough Heuser, the director of the Chilmark Community Center.

As usual, registration for the event filled up quickly; the 1,500-person limit has been reached. “People come up every moment trying to get in,” Mr. Heuser said Thursday. “We’re already turning people away.”

Marty Nadler to Talk Turkeys in Show

Alexander Trowbridge

It was early morning at Edgartown’s Espresso Love last month and some regulars sat joking about the turkey and piping plover stories that had just unfolded in the Island papers.

Chilmark police shot a wild turkey six times only to be assaulted by a man claiming to be its owner. On the other side of the Island, authorities had been called in to investigate the death of an endangered piping plover. Both were font-page stories,

Wind in His Sails, Robert Swan Champions a Greener World

Alexander Trowbridge

Jacques Cousteau’s advice to his protégé Robert Swan was simple: If you’re going to inspire people to change their ways, you’re going to need a story.

And though it didn’t prove easy for the British polar explorer and motivational speaker, Mr. Swan took the words to heart, making his life the anecdote in an argument for renewable energy.

All Island Art Show Turns 50, Opening Monday at Tabernacle

Alexander Trowbridge

On a sunny August morning in 1990, a retired lawyer living on the Vineyard was setting up his presentation for that year’s All Island Art Show at the Tabernacle in Oak Bluffs.

“I’m getting back into the spirit of Martha’s Vineyard,” he told a Gazette reporter at the time. It was a comment the reporter said reflected the atmosphere of the day. And it’s a sentiment, according to Gazette records, that has marked the last half-century for the All Island Art Show, which opens for its 50th year Monday at the Tabernacle.

On the Waterfront Writer Is Still a Contender at Stage Premiere

Alexander Trowbridge

In 1954, Budd Schulberg wrote his Academy Award-winning screenplay for On the Waterfront. Now 94, the writer and playwright traveled from Menemsha to Scotland this week to see a new stage version of the classic film performed at the Edinburgh International Festival.

“I’m really looking forward to this,” Mr. Schulberg said over the phone before taking off for the week-long trip. In the background his wife, Betsy worried aloud about getting his heart medication on the trans-Atlantic flight.