| At
Large Business Briefs Cartoons District Court Report Editorial Gone Fishin' Letters to the Editor Real Estate Transactions Sports Sports Highlights |
| Art Bestsellers Dance Edibles Film In Print Music Theater |
| Achievements Astrology Birds Births Community Shorts Dean's List Engagements Garden Notes Honor Roll Obituaries Off North Road Short Subjects Town Meetings Visiting Vet Weddings |
| Aquinnah Chilmark Edgartown Oak Bluffs Tisbury West Tisbury |
The
Martha's Vineyard Times is a weekly publication.
July 7 - July 14, 2005 Edition
Web
Comments
- Email Submissions
Some answers July 7, 2005 By Doug Cabral Every town has problems. Every neighborhood does. This Island, with six towns and dozens of neighborhoods, thinks carefully and debates strenuously how to solve each and every issue, and nevertheless, we often choose unwisely. The Vineyard anthem might be, We’re never doubtful, though often wrong. I’ve been doing some research to see how towns elsewhere handle these things, and I came across a book full of examples we might try. The book is “Our Smallest Towns: Big Falls, Blue Eye, Bonanza, and Beyond,” by Dennis Kitchen, with an introduction by Garrison Keillor (Chronicle Books, San Francisco 1995). Mr. Keillor lives in New York, but he is everyone’s favorite authority on small towns and their problems. Here’s an example of a problem we all struggle with: the cost of education. We know it’s related to the number of kids in school, but we can’t put our finger on just what that relationship is, or how to improve our chances of coming out on the winning end of the deal. The people of Victory, Vt., pop. 28, address the cost of education this way. “The Old School house here is only used once a year for our town meeting. We’ve got two school-aged kids here in town, but they go to school up in St. Johnsbury. We have a school budget, but it’s limited. In fact, it’s so tight that if a young family moved into town with kids who needed schooling, we’d have to raise everybody’s taxes. That’s why we try to discourage anyone from moving here. We don’t discriminate, but we do try to keep it down to a minimum.” That was Walter Mitchell, the selectman, explaining how they do it. How about animals? My pets are always getting in someone else’s hair and vice versa. What do they do about a problem like that in, say, Delphos, Iowa, pop. 18? “No crime here,” reports Mayor Ralph Bramme. “Just dog killing. People bring dogs out here to the country and dump them. This ain’t no dumping ground. It’s our town, and it happens a lot more than it should. Last night I seen a pack of dogs running around out back of here. I’ve killed several. I’ll admit to that. I’m a farmer. I’ve got sheep and cattle around here, and I won’t put up with it. The sheriff said just catch ’em and have them put to sleep. And I said a four-ten will put ’em to sleep a lot easier. It costs six or eight dollars apiece to put them to sleep. I figure I save the county money by doing it myself.” Then there’s the classic problem of not having enough spitting room. In Lost Springs, Wyo., pop. 3, Bob Stringham, the postmaster, explains, “… The town’s name comes from the natural spring waters up here that disappear in the summers and return in the spring and late fall. Near as I’ve heard, in the spring of 1860, a wagon master by the name of Howard spotted our springs as he passed through here on his way out west. When he came back through here in the early fall, the springs were gone. In its place he drove a stake in the ground and hung a small, handwritten sign from it. The sign read Lost springs, and that’s how we got our name. We first came out here to look at the place in 1969. The wife said it best back then, when she said she always wanted to get up some place where she could spit without spitting on her neighbor.” The high cost of housing — actually the high cost of everything — is a problem for everyone, no matter what Vineyard town you live in. The solution that might work comes from Gosnold, pop. 42 (400 summers), which comprises the Elizabeth Islands and which is really a Dukes County town just like the six on the Vineyard. Charles Tilton, a selectman, says, “It takes a real individualist to live here all year-round. You can’t go to the store, can’t buy liquor, can’t go to the movies, can’t even get your hair cut – without taking a boat.” I’m skeptical of this one. Despite the savings, don’t you think it makes them grouchy? In this little New England community my family and I have been visiting in recently, the big problem is ticks, and the next biggest is trespassing. Ticks are everywhere, and trespassers are almost everywhere. The other day someone wearing a floppy straw hat came walking up the beach, and one of the resident sunbathers asked, Where are you from? Over there, the newcomer replied, pointing vaguely to another jurisdiction altogether. Well, this is private property, the sunbather said. I didn’t know if I was trespassing or you were, the straw hat replied. You are, the sunbather said, and added, The ticks can kill you. The sunbather directed the unwanted visitor to a sign which said as much, along with a warning about the threat from unexploded munitions. Worked like a charm. |
|||
| Send this page to a friend: | |||
|
©The
Martha's Vineyard Times 2005 - www.mvtimes.com
|
|||
The
MV Times Webcam
Click
here for a view of the Vineyard Haven Harbor
