Susanna J. Sturgis
I’m more than half Southern, but I grew up in Massachusetts. Until recently I thought of Confederate statues as a matter of heritage and history.
This is the season for gathering with family and friends, exchanging gifts, attending concerts and worship services and sitting down together for a big holiday meal. But as you pack the car to go off-Island or prepare your home to receive extended family, your anticipation is mixed with apprehension.
Back in the middle of the last decade, a round about was proposed for the Island’s key blinker intersection, where Barnes Road crosses the Edgartown–Vineyard Haven Road. The discussion faded away. I thought the proposal had done likewise.
This past April the roundabout came roaring out of hibernation when the state Department of Transportation (MassDOT) held what is called a 25 per cent design public hearing. While hibernating, the roundabout proposal had magically transformed itself into a done deal. I was shocked.
My cherry tomatoes have worked a miracle: they’ve made me regret the passing of summer. I don’t like summer. Almost every year it settles in like an occupying army and I just have to put up with it until it goes away. I love fall. Fall slips in, darts away, plays catch-me-if-you-can. Night closes in slowly from both ends of the day, polishing the remaining daylight hours till they sparkle, and the leaves rarely stop rustling. Summer’s torpor gives way to vigorous activity. I love the warm feel of flannel.
Hurricane Earl has come and gone, leaving little trace of its passing besides drawers full of candles and batteries that will take months to use up. For this I am grateful. Before memories fade, however, let’s spend a moment considering the emergency preparations that preceded the storm. You’d think certain Martha’s Vineyard officials had never battened down for severe weather before. Before there was reason to believe that power or traffic would be seriously disrupted, they told businesses to close at 2 p.m. Friday and stay closed for 24 hours.
In the mid-1980s, after EduComp moved into its big brick building at the head of Main street, Vineyard Haven, I was a frequent visitor, either renting time on the store’s laser printers or buying office supplies. One big bonus, especially in summer, was the off-street parking in the sloping dirt lot behind the building. The tricky part was — and still is — the getting in and especially the getting out. You leave the parking lot, pass alongside the building, and then start creeping across the sidewalk toward the road.