Town Column : Oak Bluffs
By Megan Alley
Published: July 3, 2008
Along with the birthdays this month let us not forget July 4. One of the most rewarding and touching scenes you can view on this day is the Avenue of Flags at the Oak Grove Cemetery in Vineyard Haven. Sponsored by the American Legion, volunteers are requested to help erect the over 400 flags at 7 am and then to assist in taking the flags down at 3 pm. Please help if you are able.
Jim McLaurin, a member of the famed Tuskegee Airmen, will be the speaker at the Friday Conversations program on July 11 at the Oak Bluffs Senior Center from 10 to 11:30 am. Jim will also show a DVD video about their service in WWII. There will be no Friday Conversations meeting on July 4.
Susan Convery Foltz, whose watercolors brought to life the story of Laura Jernigan in "Thirty Dirty Sailors and the Little Girl Who Went-a-Whaling," along with the popular folklorist and performer Dillon Bustin, who wrote the music on which the book is based, will host the opening of the MM Stone Gallery in West Tisbury on July 5. The show will run from 5 to 7:30 pm. For more information you may call 508-693-0396.
If you can't get to the Edgartown Fourth of July parade, you can view a small but charming one here in Oak Bluffs on that day. The 11th Annual Children's Fourth of July Parade in the Campgrounds will assemble at 9:30 am at 31-35 West Clinton and then down Clinton and around the Tabernacle. Decorated wagons, dogs, bikes, floats - anything goes. The parade was started 11 years ago by Gretchen Rehak and Pam Rogers. Any children can participate.
We want to say thank you to Irene Tewksbury who's not longer the Children's Librarian. She certainly kept the Island children busy with the many programs she supervised at the library these past few years. Karen Achille has stepped in as Interim Children's Librarian for the summer and Irene is still volunteering at the Summer Reading Program.
The library's summer reading programs for pre-schoolers and children ages 5 to 10 will be based on this year's statewide theme of "Wild Reads at your Library." Pre-schoolers will gather from 10 to 10:45 am and 11:15 am to 12 noon starting on July 9. The 5- to 10-years-olds will come at 10:30 on Friday mornings. All Oak Bluffs children and their parents are invited to the fun-filled Summer Reading Kick-Off event sponsored by the Martha's Vineyard Library Association at the Ag Hall on Saturday, July 5, at 11 am.
The Park Department urges anyone interested in current and initial future plans for the Sea View Beach and the Dennis P. Alley (formally Waban) Park to attend the public hearing on July 7 at 5 pm at the Council on Aging Building at 21 Wamsutta Ave. Come and bring your ideas as you listen to the plans.
Speaking of plans, we seem to enjoy the many events scheduled for this summer, but seldom do we realize all the work and planning that goes towards making them a success. The dedicated volunteers who bring us the wonderful Clambake for the benefit of the VNA are doing it again. The clambake is scheduled to take place at the Field Gallery on Wednesday, July 23, at 6 pm. For more information, call 508-696-0785.
Richard Combra Sr. is still in awe of his accomplishment on Saturday, June 21. While playing golf with his brother Bert Combra and son Richard Combra Jr., he achieved every golfer's dream - a hole in one. So when you see him be sure to ask about this, but I am willing to bet you won't get a chance to ask because he will start telling you about it as soon as you say hello. Can you blame him?
The African Artists' Community Development project will be selling exquisite African crafts from many African countries. The AACDP sells crafts from these artists and sends the profits to a small orphanage in Zambia and also to the Mama Bakhita Center for Disabled Children. The sale will be held on July 8 at the West Tisbury Grange Hall from 5 to 9 pm.
We send birthday smiles to Joe Alosso on July 4, James Cage the next day, Erin Pacheco on July 7, Claire Gibson on July 9, and Hope deBettencourt on July 10.
Enjoy your week and have a safe and wonderful Fourth of July weekend.
Peace.
