In the recess of summer, when the streets throb and the harbors fill and the Vineyard feels like the center of the universe, it’s possible to forget you are adrift on an island seven miles out to sea. In the winter, not so much. 

That was certainly the case in February of 1977, when the All-Island Selectmen’s Association voted to secede from the Commonwealth of Massachusetts and form the nation’s fifty-first state. In an act of generosity yet to be repeated or repaid, they also voted to allow Nantucket to join. 

The selectmen were responding to a redistricting bill that would cull the state House of Representatives from 240 to 160 members. Dukes and Nantucket Counties, which had historically enjoyed their own representatives, would henceforth share one delegate with parts of Cape Cod. “If we don’t get our own representation, we should secede,” Everett Poole, one of the architects of the plan, recalled saying. And so the movement was born. 

Over the next few months, it unfolded with revolutionary fervor and glee. Barbara St. Pierre Hotchkiss penned an anthem. Fran Forman designed a flag. Marches on Boston were arranged, invitations from other states entertained. And at town meetings all across the Island, citizens overwhelmingly voiced their support while offering their best imitations of the Founding Fathers. (“Say it so loud it peels the gilt right off the State House dome!” thundered Poole at the Chilmark meeting. “Massachusetts, though they urge us to secede, I will remain true to you, Home of the Cod,” retorted another.)

Soon after, state-building fervor began to fizzle. Summer was coming, schedules were filling up, and despite all their lobbying, Islanders knew their efforts were unlikely to succeed. In May, the redistricting bill was passed by the legislature. 

Decades on, selectman John Alley, one of the movement’s leaders, joked that the ordeal had been little more than a way to get through a long and especially brutal winter. “We rode the crest of the news story until darned near summer!” he said. But underpinning the winter shenanigans had been serious concerns. 

The redistricting bill would be “in the clearest and simplest terms a denial of the basic principles of democracy….To amalgamate [the Islands] with Cape Cod would be to hand them over to exploitation by antagonistic and predatory forces,” wrote the Vineyard Gazette. Chilmark selectman Lewis G. King pleaded further. He urged the redistricting committee to look on this not just as an act of disenfranchisement but a dilution of identity and Island concerns. “Our problem is our loneliness,” he said. “We are given short shrift almost all the time. No matter how hard you try to understand, no matter how compassionate you are, you cannot understand how lonely we are.”

He, Poole, Alley, and so many others were not just passing time. They were reminding us, using the biggest bullhorn they could wield, that we cling to a remote spit of land whose edges are eroding and therefore need to be monitored and protected.

Still, it’s no coincidence their entreaties occurred in the quietest of months. These days, that’s still when most of the important, sometimes lonely work of shepherding the Island is accomplished. When the breakneck pace of summer yields and the center of the universe recedes from our doorstep, the Vineyard grows small, its citizens draw close, and its woes and worries and simple joys grow loud. We huddle around old tables in older buildings to debate zoning bylaws and craft master plans. We join committees and boards. We curse the Steamship Authority and the traffic and vow to do something about it. And we raise our mittened fists and all manner of hell in school gymnasiums and churches – at least until summer returns. 

This article appears in Winter-Spring 2023-2024.

Shortly after my father in law, Dan Sharkovitz, was diagnosed with cancer, he started writing a book. Many people faced with similar circumstances have this inclination, but Dan was prepared: he was an avid reader, a clear and lyrical writer, and had taught English at the regional high school for thirty-eight years.

Dan finished the collection of short stories, A World of Good, a few months before he died. He gave a well attended reading at the West Tisbury Library and had individual stories published in literary journals. He sold the book at Island stores and was ecstatic to learn the first batch had sold out.

He talked of writing another volume – of poems, maybe, or essays, or a play. He didn’t talk about his worsening prognosis, maintaining hope until the last moment that he would be granted a reprieve. But in speaking about his work, as he often did, it was clear he hoped to write his legacy.

I cherish the volume of stories Dan left us; it is a cerebral, artfully composed glimpse into the mind of a man determined not to surrender, determined to make sense of the world. But despite his best efforts, I don’t believe his legacy is contained in its pages. That – at least the public part of it, the part that exists outside of his four children who bear his mannerisms and features and carry his loss in their bones – is written on page 47 of this magazine.

“So many people in your life can tell you you’re not good at something and one person can tell you that you are good at it and it changes your trajectory,” Emma Lovewell, a Peloton instructor who grew up on the Vineyard and is profiled in this issue, said of her former teacher, the man affectionately known to his students as “Shark.” He had a unique teaching style, a willingness to let students rewrite their papers until they got it right, she said. “He made such a big impact on my life.”

I don’t know Emma personally, and I didn’t know of her connection to my father in law until the first draft of the article landed in my inbox. Her words – not to mention the collision of my personal and professional lives – caught me by surprise, but not for the first time since Dan’s death.

Dan had a contagious enthusiasm for teaching and proselytized for his profession. He cared deeply for his students – he rooted for them, wrote countless recommendations, and stayed in touch with some of them long after they graduated.

I knew he was generally well liked and respected. Many times I had been by his side when a student approached him in the grocery store to tell him he was their favorite teacher, or had done them a particular favor that made a difference. But I didn’t realize how deeply woven into the fabric of this community he was until, much to my surprise, his obituary was printed on the front page of the Martha’s Vineyard Times. That same week, Bill Eville wrote a stirring tribute in the Vineyard Gazette.

Students flooded the comment sections, sent notes and emails to his family, and stopped them in the store to share stories and anecdotes, just as they had done with Dan. They told of the ways he had stepped up to coach the baseball and chess teams, instilled in them a love of teaching, and helped them get into college.

Nearly three years have since passed. The condolences arrive less frequently these days; the sound of Dan’s voice becomes harder to recall. But every once in a while someone shares a new story, a new note of thanks, a new anecdote in a magazine, and I am grateful. It is a reminder that Dan’s legacy is still being written by his students.