Julia Rappaport
It was Langston Hughes who asked, what happens to a dream deferred?
At age 10, Patricia Carlet first picked up a paint brush and began to dream of becoming an artist. She took private art classes and studied art in college. But soon, the real world — and all of its bills — caught up with her and that dream was put on hold.
Dukes County government will receive only minor polishing and not a complete overhaul, if voters heed the recommendations of the county charter study commission.
With less than three weeks left before they make their final recommendations public, the study group voted unanimously last Thursday to keep much of county government just as it is.
It is a summertime tradition, a shopping destination known for its rare antiques and its bizarre gems — a prosthetic leg, a mounted deer head, a talking bathroom scale. It is the flea market and, after 40 years as a Chilmark institution, it is moving to West Tisbury.
The move, to the grounds of the West Tisbury School on Old County Road, will reduce the scope of the flea, but will allow congregates of the Chilmark Community Church to continue to host the twice-a-week market.
At the center of Circuit avenue in Oak Bluffs is a square with ample room to sit this time of year.
The weather is not quite warm enough for ice cream, and the benches that face the main drag are empty. The summer tourists have yet to arrive, so no weary bottoms rest on the edges of the raised flower beds. Front stoops of storefronts are clear.
Despite the empty benches, a recent sunny afternoon found one elderly lady sitting in her own bright pink lawn chair, watching the world go by.
Two years ago, documentary filmmakers Len and Georgia Morris arrived in Kenya, Africa, with a schedule, a cameraman and a translator. There to finish shooting an exposé on street children, they flew home to Martha’s Vineyard six weeks later with 600 hours of footage and a project thrown off the tracks by a conniving and obnoxious, but brilliant, street boy named Emmanuel.
County government is here to stay.
This is the recommendation the Dukes County charter study commission will make to Vineyard voters when the commission issues its final recommendation on county government by the end of the month.
At their regularly scheduled meeting last Thursday, the commission took a nearly unanimous vote in favor of continuing the regional form of government which includes the Vineyard and Gosnold.