Remy Tumin
The waves were screaming one fall morning south of the Vineyard when Capt. Jennifer Clarke landed a big one. Alone on her Boston Whaler, the 40-pounder had broken her rod.
Laughter hung in the air over Sunday lunch at Debbie Lesser’s Chilmark home as a group of women traded stories about their children. It had been more than 30 years since the group had met weekly as young mothers.
With colic, breastfeeding and all the other things associated with new motherhood well in their past (though some are now experiencing these things as grandmothers), the women came together 33 years after their first meeting on the Island. They all had their children in 1980, and met weekly to vent, cry, share stories and support each other.
Patients with cancer, diabetes, heart disease, hypertension and renal dialysis all fall under Cheryl Kram’s purview. She’s not their doctor — and she reminds them that she is not their mother — but Ms. Kram is certainly their advocate.
Ms. Kram is the high-risk care manager for Martha’s Vineyard Hospital’s new integrated care management program. The world of medically complex ailments can be overwhelming and foreign, Ms. Kram said in an interview this week, but knowledge is power.
Chilmark will contract with the local energy cooperative Vineyard Power to build the town’s first solar array.
Pending final approval from town counsel, the Chilmark selectmen Tuesday voted to approve a contract for about 530 solar panels at the town landfill off Tabor House Road. The 173-kilowatt system is planned to produce up to 215,000 kilowatt hours a year, enough energy to power the town buildings.
The project will cost $1.25 million to build and is being financed by an unnamed Chilmark resident.
The summer crowds and seasonal yachts have left Menemsha and were replaced this week by a 55-by-185-foot barge and crane for construction of the new U.S. Coast Guard boathouse.
The large barge arrived Tuesday night in Menemsha harbor, tugged in by the Jaguar of New Bedford and the Patrick J. Hunt of Narragansett, R.I.
“It’s finally here, which is a great thing,” said Lou Vinciguerra, project manager for the Coast Guard boathouse.
They fell asleep to a sunset on the beach, drank coffee at Mocha Mott’s and had drinks at the Chowder Company. And on Tuesday night, they sealed the summer with a kiss atop the Gay Head Light.
The Vineyard, the ABC Family reality show filmed on the Island over the spring, concluded its first season on Tuesday night. The docu-drama followed a group of 20-somethings as they transitioned from adolescence to the so-called real world over the course of a Vineyard summer.