By the time the new permanent Lagoon Pond drawbridge is finished in Vineyard Haven sometime in the next decade, it will be one of the most expensive projects in Vineyard history with a total price tag well north of $30 million. It will also likely go down as the longest gestating project in Island history; the drawbridge plan has been stuck on open for nearly 20 years now.

For 364 days of the year, the Vineyard and Nantucket sit on their respective perches in the ocean and gaze at each other with casual disregard.

The two Islands may share ocean currents, topography and even a boat line, but beyond that they have little to do with each other.

But for one glorious day of the year, these two estranged siblings shake off their shared disdain and come together for a sporting contest that is part family reunion and part grudge match.

It’s been a season of peaks and valleys for the Vineyard football team.

They shot out to a 5-0 record to start the season and earned a top rank in their division by the Boston Globe. And as if that weren’t enough, a news crew from NBC taped two 30-minute segments that will air later this year during a halftime of the network’s NFL Sunday Night Football program. Meanwhile, Sports Illustrated published a story showcasing the Vineyarders.

Not so long ago, it was commonplace for Vineyard towns to have multiple blacksmith shops: thriving places of commerce that sold items such as bolts, hinges, horseshoes, cooking utensils and iron gates.

But as the all-consuming age of the machine took hold, the old village smithy went the way of the horse and buggy. The last blacksmith on the Island was Orin Norton, who operated a shop in Edgartown for sixty years until his death in 1961.

Since its creation over 30 years ago, the Martha’s Vineyard Commission has served as one the most unusual political bodies in the nation — a regional planning agency vested with exceptional powers and charged with protecting the Island’s unique environment and character.