Free Nelly!

Skunks? Got ’em. Raccoons? Yup. Deer? Duh! Coyotes? Depends on who you ask and when. But giant lizards? For a few hours not long ago it seemed like the Island was heading for a Florida-style weird-pet-gone-wild situation. Nelly, a four-foot black-and-white tegu, was gone, having escaped her outdoor cage by breaking through some heavy, but apparently not heavy enough, chicken wire. Jurassic Vineyard? Not quite. Turns out she just wanted some more quality sunbathing at the other end of the yard. Life, as they say, finds a way.

Extreme Cornhole?

Time was when cornholing was something done only in the privacy of one’s backyard. Not anymore, at least not down-Island. In Edgartown, at last count, there are four public beanbag toss opportunities: in front of Lululemon, Vineyard Vines, Right Fork Diner, and Bad Martha Farmer’s Brewery. In Oak Bluffs, you can play at Vineyard Vines. Not to be outdone, earlier this summer dueling cornholes appeared across the street from one another in Tisbury – one outside the (you guessed it) new Vineyard Vines location, the other at new store TownPool. Word has it bonus points are awarded if you lob a beanbag across the street and land it on the other store’s board. When crossing Main Street now, look left, right, and up.

The Heartbreak of... Fishoriasis?

What do you do after counting all the fish in the sea? It sounds like a joke, right? Except Jesse Ausubel, a scientist from the Rockefeller University in New York and seasonal resident of Oak Bluffs, once did count all the fish in the ocean. So what’s he doing now? Counting fish dandruff. Sort of. He’s looking for scraps of eDNA in Island pond samples, which he hopes will tell him the status of many of the Island’s species. And you thought you had dry skin.

You Go, Girls

Congrats to the high school girls’ tennis team who just won their third straight Division 3 state championship. In three years they have lost just one match, earlier this season to Sharon High School, this year’s Division 1 state champion. Double congrats to first doubles team Lizzie Williamson and Victoria Scott. The duo won their second straight individual state championship, which includes players from all divisions. Scott and Williamson are now 50-0.

Duly Noted: Hospitalgate

“This is the worst of Island politics and this is between the board chairman and  me...apparently I have crossed him, although I have always respected him. I was speechless.”
– Ex-hospital CEO Joe Woodin on his abrupt firing.

Duly Noted: Muralgate

“History is alive, and to engage students in the active process of living, the halls of the school
must be malleable...”
– Teacher Andrew Vandall explaining why he painted over student murals in the hallway outside his classroom.          

Duly Noted: Yellow-Housegate

“We never even had the kindness or courtesy of a phone call to say, ‘We’re taking the property, these are our thoughts and plans, do you have any issues with those.’”
– Benjamin Hall Jr. after Edgartown took the “Yellow House” by eminent domain.