I want to remind you that Orange Peel Bakery holds pizza nights on Thursday evenings from 5 until 8 pm. If you drive by there on any given Thursday evening, you’ll find the road lined with cars and trucks as people come together to eat and visit in community and enjoy Juli’s incredible pizza. If you go, bring toppings and beverages. The cost is $35 per adult and $10 for kids 13 and younger.
If pizza isn’t your thing, then a trip up to the Cliffs might be in order. There you will find great food from Cliffhangers, and on any given Thursday you’re also likely to find music by local musicians, and neighbors and visitors commingling in relaxed communion as they revel in the view.
Sept. 7 is Labor Day. Google on my phone has the audacity to state that its significance has to do with the end of summer and the final three-day weekend before the full autumn school and work season. True as that is, it misses the point. The day is meant as a day to honor those who labor, and the history of worker struggles for decent pay and conditions. As we move into a time with automation and AI, I think it wise to remember the history of when people were demanding the rights for all people to have both “bread and roses,” meaning the right to eat and also to have beauty. We are still trying to find our way, trying to figure out how we will provide the yeast for availability of the bread and the space and skills for growing the roses. Maybe that’s what we should think about as we wait for the burgers to grill this weekend.
Martha’s Vineyard schools begin Sept. 8, with orientations and teacher preparation already taking place. My heart goes to the students and their families who are taking those big beginning steps, whether it is into kindergarten or middle school or high school. I want to give a particular big hug to Charlotte Bologna, a semi-grandchild of mine, whom I have watched grow into such a competent, intelligent, and goodhearted young woman, as she starts high school. May she, and all the others facing new horizons, have a great, full, and productive year ahead.
Birthday greetings this week go to Kuhpay Vanderhoop on Sept. 3, to Noah Kausch and Emerson Mahoney on Sept. 4, and to Cully Vanderhoop on Sept. 9.
