Heard on Main Street: Everyone seems normal until you get to know them.
Last February, Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II became the first British monarch to celebrate a Platinum Jubilee, marking 70 years of service to the people of the U.K., the Realms, and the Commonwealth. The Queen’s Jubilee begins today, and runs through Sunday, a four-day national holiday, with local celebrations and parades, and a huge parade in London.
The Queen’s Birthday Parade starts today, Thursday, June 2, at 11 am. Trooping of the Colors will include the 1st Battalion, Irish Guards, and more than 1,200 officers and soldiers from the Household Division will put on a display of military pageantry, together with hundreds of Army musicians and around 240 horses. This annual event has now marked the official birthday of the British sovereign for more than 260 years.
On Sunday, over 600 international Jubilee Lunches are planned from Canada to Brazil, New Zealand to Japan, and South Africa to Switzerland. Also on Sunday, the Jubilee Pageant features the Gold State Carriage, led by the Sovereign’s Escort, including the latest in digital technology of her journey to be crowned 70 years ago.
We have new changes all over our town. Mad Martha’s ice cream store has moved to Union Street. Their former spot on Main Street now hosts S&S Kitchenette with Chef Spring Sheldon. She will be offering meals to go and meal kits to make dinner at home, and will be open every day except Sunday from 10 am to 6 pm. She also has plans for cooking classes.
Happy 40th birthday to the Martha’s Vineyard Playhouse. You are invited to the party next Wednesday, from 4 to 6 pm.
If you have a current address for Mary Gillette, could you let me know? I’d like to get in touch with her.
The Neighborhood Convention will meet at the West Tisbury Congregational Church on Tuesday, June 7, at 11 am. The topic is the Island Food Pantry, with Sharon Brown and also Merrick Carreiro from Island Grown Initiative. Masks are recommended. Bring a bag lunch.
The SSA ferry problems have come at a terrible time. Some years ago someone suggested the waters between us and America could be called the Cape Cod Triangle, saying, “The waters be cursed.” Lately there is cause to wonder.
Another school shooting has caused a lot of comment. But the most frightening to me is that the police finally changed their story. Police didn’t even enter the school until waiting outside over an hour, when the shooter was killed by a team led by an elite U.S. Border Patrol tactical unit.
Somehow it just seems wrong to me that members of a school committee can commit our tax dollars to sue the Oak Bluffs planning board over an issue about expensive plastic turf that has proven to be harmful to the kids playing on it, and could possibly damage the Island’s only source of drinking water. I applaud Amy Houghton, who has given many years as a volunteer to committees of the Tisbury School as well as to the M.V. Regional High School. She had the courage to vote against the suit, and in favor of the grass field.
The Vineyard Haven Band will be playing in Oak Bluffs on the third and fourth Sundays in June, but not here until July.
Big bunches of birthday and get-well wishes go out to Myra Stark on Friday. Birthday greetings also go to Fred LaPiana. Happy birthday to my lovely daughter-in-law Laura Mayhew and to Josh Koshin on Saturday.
Heard on Main Street: Why do you press harder on a remote control when you know the battery is dead?
