Town Column : West Tisbury
By Hermine Hull
Published: February 26, 2009
The wind has been roaring outside our windows, making it particularly frightening Friday night when a report of a brush fire in Aquinnah came over the scanner. West Tisbury and Chilmark responded with brush trucks, tankers, ambulances, and crews. The fire, in a thin band along Moshup Trail, was knocked down before damaging nearby homes. One fireman suffered a heart attack. The Island-wide mutual aid system worked well, as equipment and crews from Edgartown and Tisbury arrived to cover the up-Island stations. Thanks to you all and our prayers for the recovering fireman.
Saturday afternoon was the day chosen for Blue's Cruise, our annual celebration of Blue Cullen's birthday. We met in Vineyard Haven at Lowly Garcia's house to organize teams and pick up the clues written by Jim Norton for a scavenger hunt based on Island history. Easy questions were the 1892 town marker and Red Cat Cafe, both in West Tisbury. More obscure were the site of the Beach Grove Mineral Springs Company (head of the Lagoon, Oak Bluffs) Ichabod Norton's gravestone (Edgartown), with an interesting story and inscription: "Here lies old Twelve-and-a-half Per Cent, The more he had the less he spent; The less he spent the more he craved. Oh, Lord, can Ichabod be saved?" Allegedly, he loaned his money to his heirs at 12.5 percent interest, earning back his estate again before he died, and the Shearer Cottage in Oak Bluffs. It was great fun and educational. Dinner was, as all potlucks are, fabulous and varied, ending with Candy DaRosa's eclairs made from Candy and Blue's mother, Ella Cullen's, recipe. A postscript from Lowly: she has a man's black fleece vest and a woman's blackout velvet scarf left behind at the party.
Young Teagan Myers has just returned from a vacation with his parents, Lindsay Famariss and Clark Myers, to Mt. Cranmore, N.H. Clark and Teagan enjoyed tubing, as he is still too little to ski. It won't be long before he is able to join his parents on the slopes.
A group of devotees attended the Regional Bridge Tournament in Cromwell, Conn., the weekend of February 13-16. David Donald and Barbara Besse won the Vineyard Trophy with 11.05 Master Points. Other Vineyarders attending were Dan and Nancy Cabot, Bill Blakesley, Hugh Knipmeyer, Gail Farrish, Dotti Arnold, Claus Buchthal, Sue and Dale Collison.
Sarah Mayhew is in California, where she lived for many years, for a vacation and visits with friends and her two nieces. Arriving in Los Angeles, she joined Caroline Mayhew for a trip to Death Valley. She went on to San Diego to visit friends, then to San Francisco where Lucy is studying. She will spend time in Davis before heading home to West Tisbury mid-March.
Friday, Feb. 27, 4 pm, the J.C. Jazz Trio will be performing their riffs and flourishes, interpretations of music from The American Songbook at the West Tisbury Library. Take a respite from your chores to enjoy some good music.
Also at the library, fellows from Provincetown's Fine Arts Workshop will be reading their poetry and prose Wednesday afternoons at 5:30 pm throughout the month of March. Jennifer Tseng, a former fellow herself, began this program last winter and Colleen Morris continues it. We thank the Martha's Vineyard Cultural Council for providing funding for these young writers to come here.
When Leslie Baker scheduled artists for exhibits on the library's art wall, she planned something especially to bring an anticipation of summer sunshine for the month of March. Linda Hearn, trustee, gardener, and photographer, has a fascination with sunflowers. She grows the hugest ones in her garden to sell in bouquets at the Farmers' Market. She takes artful color photographs and collects paintings by other artists of sunflowers in all their glory. Come see them and brighten your day.
Earlier in the week, Sarah Wasserman told me that she and her husband, Brian Bassett, and their boys would be coming from Boston to spend the weekend with her parents, Susan and Bob Wasserman. I always look forward to their visits, especially since it means I get to spend a little time with their son, Henry, one of my favorite people. Henry recently turned eight, becoming eligible for his own library card, the first item on his to-do list. Second was checking out a big stack of books, all of which he had read by the time I saw him Sunday morning. He and his grandfather took me on a special tour of the airport. We were able to look up weather and flight conditions at airports all over the country. Then we went to a very nice playground I never knew existed, off the far side of the terminal.
Enjoy the sunshine.
