Edgartown Rising
On the morning of Wednesday, July 1, 1891 a large flag with a white background, blue border, and the words “Harbor View” in crimson letters was run up the flagpole of a new enterprise at the very edge of Edgartown.
Best of the Vineyard 2014
Food and Drink Best Coffee: Mocha Mott’s 10 Circuit Avenue, Oak Bluffs, 508-696-1922 15 Main Street, Vineyard Haven, 508-693-3155, mochamotts.com Runner-up: Espresso Love 17 Church Street, Edgartown, 508-627-9211, espressolove.com Iced coffee? Check. A toasted bagel or breakfast sandwich? Check. A dog treat, a copy of the paper, a friendly barista? Check, check, check. Mocha Mott’s…
A River Runs Through It
Prudy Burt swung her Toyota Tacoma off of North Road and onto the shoulder. She traipsed confidently through the brush, pushing branches out of her way as she headed for Mill Brook. A Burt-led tour of the brook is both history lesson and gossip column, environmental report and storytelling session. She names each pond and…
Art is a Thing With Feathers
The magical realism of Cindy Kane.
Seasick? Me? I Mean, What the Fluke!
One night last fall during weigh-in for the striped bass and bluefish derby, I ran into Captain Kurt Freund from Fishsticks Charters. “Ivy, good to see you,” he said. I returned the greeting and I laughed. “I’m looking a little less green nowadays,” I said, and we laughed together this time – ha ha ha!…
What’s Red and White and Falling Over?
With the Gay Head Light at the edge of the cliff, Vineyarders are celebrating, and angling to save, the beloved red-and-white-flashing beacon at the Island’s western tip.
Reading
Little Bighorn: A Novel; The Storied Life of A.J. Fikry.
How It Works: Opening a Great Pond
Three or four times a year, an excavator crawls out to the barrier beaches between some of our great ponds and the open ocean and makes incisions in the sand that open up floodgates. This is a diesel-powered version of a ritual that goes back to ancient times. “We learned to breach ponds from the…
DAW: Swimsuit Revenge
The waistband on these swimming trunksHas suffered one too many dunksAnd now, by way of striking back,It gives its owner too much slack.
Notes from the Tackle Room: The Ted Williams Spinning Reel
Ted Williams, “the greatest hitter who ever lived,” was also a star in the sport fishing world and a member of the International Game Fish Association Hall of Fame. Although he never fished on the Island, members of the derby committee and the Chamber of Commerce traveled to Fenway Park and presented him with a…
From the Editor
I sat recently at my best of all possible desks, in my best of all possible jobs, as editor of the best of all possible magazines, devoted to the best of all possible islands, surrounded by the best of all possible oceans, contemplating the lobster roll. Not just any lobster roll, of course, but, that’s…
Wes Craven’s The Birds: Part 3
Ahh, those summer gull friends.
Island Classic: There Once Were Some Pants From Nantucket…
As much a harbinger of warm weather as cheery daffodils or traffic at the triangle, a certain colorful breed of men’s trousers pops up on the streets of Edgartown around Memorial Day weekend each year.
Oceanography
Oceanography: Those Old Vineyard Blue Bloods
In the summer, volunteers on the Vineyard visit beaches under the light of the moon to count horseshoe crabs as they come ashore to spawn.
The Look
The Look, 1922
Phillip R. Allston, of Boston and Martha’s Vineyard, snapped this picture of his friends at Inkwell Beach in Oak Bluffs.
One Last Thing
And the 2014 Best of the Vineyard Lifetime Achievement Award Goes To…Circuit Avenue
These days, I can fully establish my Oak Bluffs credibility with the younger set simply by sitting back and reminiscing about Circuit Avenue…
That's My Boat
That’s My Boat: Wayne Iacono
Captain: Wayne Iacono Home Port: Menemsha Name: Freedom The Boat: Thirty-five-foot Bruno & Stillman fiberglass lobster boat. Built 1980 in Newington, New Hampshire. The Other Boat: Warrior, a twenty-foot fiberglass scallop skiff, makers unknown. Lobster Season: “Most everybody’s getting started [in early spring]. I go through the winter; I fish year-round. It takes quite a…
