Town Column : West Tisbury
By Hermine Hull
Published: June 23, 2011
The winds roared through West Tisbury last weekend. Most of us lost our power for several hours Saturday night after a tree limb fell at Brandy Brow.
I confess to enjoying the quiet of a power outage. No television, no phone. We have our woodstove for heat, so it was quite cozy for Mike and me to read our books by candlelight, the dogs at our feet. It was a perfect Saturday night date.
Of course, I forgot totally about changing the clocks before we went to bed.
Paul Karasik was at the library last week, showing off a copy of "American Comics," in which he was interviewed. Paul has written a book about comic artist Fletcher Hanks.
If you are in Boston this month, walk into the Copley Society on Newbury Street, up the stairs, and look to the left. The first painting you will see is a large oil landscape of Chappaquiddick, "Better to Stay Here," by Leslie Baker, part of the Patron's Choice Invitational Show. Leslie went up to Boston for the opening Thursday night. She said the crowd was like a summer opening on the Vineyard, full of energy and enthusiasm for looking at and buying art. "It was very exciting." And she was glad she went.
Robyn (Maciel) Bollin will be celebrating her birthday on March 16. She was in Waterboro, Maine, for a weekend visit with her parents, Bob and Polly, and an opportunity to shop for baby clothes with her mom. Robyn and Simon's baby is due in May.
Hallie Mentzel enjoyed a visit with her daughter, Andrea, and Carlos Uribe, here from New York City. The weather was perfect for beach walks at Makoniky, dinner out, and lots of time together.
Hallie and I have been watching the snowdrops coming up through the myrtle in her front yard. She has a special ceramic bowl that she brings out every year about this time. A clump of snowdrops will be dug up and set into the bowl to make a pretty table centerpiece for a while, then the snowdrops will be replanted into the ground. What a lovely idea.
I was thrilled to see the display of snowdrops and crocuses in front of Henry and Louise Bessire's house looking as I always expect it to. Last fall, when White-Lynch began digging out the path in front of Bessire's, I went up to try to rescue any bulbs I could find and replant them. There didn't seem to be many, so I assumed that most of them must have been farther back beneath the hedge. Happily, that seems to have been the case. Yesterday the mid-afternoon sun illuminated a great swath of lavender, coloring up about 20 feet along the roadside.
Congratulations to Scarlet and Rex Jarrell, new parents of a daughter, Gwendolyn Love Jarrell. Welcome to the world, Gwendolyn.
Congratulations and best wishes to newlyweds Amy Ryan and David Savage. I had stopped by the Vineyard Haven library last week to welcome Amy to the Island and her new job as library director. She told me that she had a week off between leaving her previous job at The New York Times and starting in Vineyard Haven, so they decided to get married. I am delighted for them both and wish them a happy lifetime together.
I was so sad when I heard that Ginny Poole died last Wednesday night. Ginny was a wonderful writer and a knowledgeable source on so many subjects. I always enjoyed our conversations and her points of view. My sympathy goes to Everett and their family and their many friends.
There was quite a crowd for the first of the Wednesday afternoon Winter Reading Series at the library. This week's program, March 19, beginning at 5:30 pm, will feature FAWC Fiction Fellow Michael Hinken and FAWC Poetry Fellow Pilar Gomez-Ibanez.
The lower level of the library will be closed for approximately the next two weeks while we disassemble shelving, assemble new shelving, and completely rearrange the space. We took advantage of free shelving being given to us by the newly remodeled Falmouth library. My husband volunteered to take his big truck over for a day, which he spent taking shelves apart and packing them into the Dodge, just barely making the 6:15 boat home. They are currently being stored at the Old Courthouse Road station ("thanks" to Jesse Oliver, who helped Mike unpack Tuesday morning.) By the end of the project, there will be a new desk for a staff member to work in that room and better arrangement and accessibility to the materials for patrons. Although patrons won't be able to browse downstairs while this project is underway, they may request materials to be retrieved by a staff member. The children's room will remain open on both levels.
Peggy Stone emailed to announce the Park and Rec's series of spring yoga classes will begin on Tuesday, March 18, at 5:30 pm. Classes are held at the West Tisbury Church. Please call Peggy at 508-696-0147 to register.
There will be a Health Fair at the Hospital this Saturday, March 15, from 9 am to 12:15 pm. Sponsored by the Visiting Nurse Service of Martha's Vineyard Community Services and the Boards of Health in Chilmark, Edgartown, Oak Bluffs, Tisbury, and West Tisbury, the event will focus on the following topics: "Health Maintenance and Healing Through Nutrition," "The Power of Exercise to Fit any Age," "Stress Awareness and Management," "Memory, Mood, and Mold," and "Taking Charge of Your Health." For more information, please contact Carla Hoyt at 508-693-7900, ext. 275, or by email: carlahoyt@comcast.net.
Don't forget the Palm Sunday Open House Tour this Sunday, March 16. Heather Gardens will be open from 9 am to 3 pm. and Vineyard Gardens from 11 to 3. Even though it's so early this year, both will have greenhouses filled with temptation, bags of compost to start things off, a free plant for every customer, refreshments, and the smell of warm earth and color, color, color. I can't wait.
