To the Editor:
Two of the qualities of life in our community in Vineyard Haven will be affirmed by voting no on Article 1, to limit the sale of alcohol in the town of Tisbury, on April 27 – our grandchildren and “getting away from it all.”
Children and grandchildren bring out the importance of family in our experience of Vineyard life together, as at the Memorial Day picnic and the Tisbury School family picnic, and as portrayed in Tori Campbell’s film, “House of Bones.” And they also identify our hopes for the future. Neither family nor our hopes for our children are enhanced by a dependence on the sale of alcohol in our town. Henry Beetle Hough, on the opening page of his novel “The Port,” identifies thoughtful visitors to the Vineyard as talking about “the great outdoors, the beauties of nature, and ‘getting away from it all,’ that tired catchall of a phrase, ” beyond which “is the recognition that they have arrived home,” comfortably on the foreshore of the earth.
The restorative power of our sea breezes and the fragile, primeval beauty of our shores encourage us to affirm within ourselves the simplicity and awe of our being. Why would we seek to introduce anything that brings the distraction and lack of authenticity that we live here to get away from?
Thinking about and rejoicing in our children and grandchildren and the natural beauty of our shared life on the Vineyard, we encourage Tisbury voters to vote no on Article 1, on April 27.
Jim Norton
Vineyard Haven
