MARGARET KNIGHT

508-627-8894

(margaret02539@yahoo.com)

The shad bushes started blooming this week, always a sure sign that spring will eventually lead us to summer. They’re the first wild bush or tree to bloom, to be followed by the fragrant honeysuckle, white clouds of the beach plum blossoms, and then the beach roses. Shad are also known as service berry or Juneberry, and make little fireworks of white in the woods, especially along the stretch of the main road between the hill after Litchfield Road and North Neck Road. Meanwhile the forsythia and daffodils have lasted much longer than usual, probably because the weather turned cool again. The sassafras have opened their little fists of green, and some of the first oaks are showing signs of life. The peepers are peeping at night, and even the cooler temperatures don’t seem to stop them now.

Thanks to Karen Gazarian for news about the contest the Martha’s Vineyard Museum is running, in conjunction with Featherstone Center for the Arts, called Island Faces. Each artist submitted an “Island face” in some kind of visual arts medium, along with a statement as to why they selected whom they did, what makes that person an “Island face.” There were 60 entries, including one by Frank, that are being judged by a panel of four. The museum will show the top 12 winners as part of their exhibit, on display from June 15 to Oct. 6. In October the “People’s Choice” exhibit will go up at Featherstone. There is a Web site where you can vote for your favorite: ifcontest.wordpress.com.

On the Web site there are several Chappaquiddick portraits, including a photo of Edo Potter holding the book she wrote about her early years at Pimneymouse Farm, and one titled Anne Buttrick Hoar Floyd Barrett, which includes an abbreviated genealogy tracing Anne back to her ancestor John Pease, who arrived here in 1608. There’s one of Sidney Morris, taken at the FARM Institute with his oxen Zeus and Apollo, whom he is training, slowly but surely. The photographer wrote that his “face suggests a man who had traveled far and wide in his explorations.”

Dorothy Knight reports that Minnie the cat is no longer with us. She had a long life, close to 20 years, many of which were spent on Chappy with Curry and Peggy Jones, who adopted her when their daughter Carol needed to leave the island. Minnie once spent three or four months in quarantine after being bitten by an unknown Island critter, and Peggy always thought that made her a nicer cat, a little more sociable for not having to deal with the other cats who were always mean to her. When Peggy and Curry moved to Concord, N.H., Minnie went to live with Jane and Dick Knight, my parents, in Sterling, Mass. When she first arrived in Sterling, she ran away, but my mother called to her, and because her voice sounded so much like her sister Peggy’s, Minnie agreed to come back. She spent many years warming laps and avoiding the jaws of coyotes. She spent her last year with Dorothy at her new home in Leominster.

Tom Dresser’s newest book, Disaster Off Martha’s Vineyard: The Wreck of the City of Columbus, will be available in mid-May. It’s a well-researched historical analysis of the wreck of the steamship that was en route from Boston to Savannah, Ga. in 1884. The book provides personal accounts of survivors, and vivid details of the rescue efforts, and is supplemented with archival images and photographs, published by the History Press. You can order the book at his Web site:, thomasdresser.com.

The next potluck at the Chappy Community Center will be on Wednesday, May 2 beginning at 6 p.m. and hosted by Fran and Bob Clay. All are welcome.

The Clays are also hosting the next meeting of the CIA transportation committee on Saturday, April 27 at 9 a.m. at their house near the fire station. Everyone is welcome to attend. The committee has been working with the town to get some of the needed work done at the Point. The giant puddle at the start of the ferry line has yet to be resolved, but other small changes and grading make it easier to maneuver in that limited area.

The transportation committee has included the Beach Club, Land Bank, The Trustees of Reservations, Yacht Club, and nearby homeowners in their study of Point congestion and traffic patterns. They hope to put together several possible plans for further changes at the Point, for which they will post and hold meetings for discussion. Fran says their intent is to be extremely transparent in the process and to involve the whole community.

The transportation committee is also working on plans for a meeting to organize a separate ferry advisory committee. They want to set up a meeting, maybe at the end of June, for anyone interested in being on the committee. After hearing more about potential duties of the committee, people would be nominated and then elected, for a total of up to ten members. Plans for this meeting are still in the early stages.

If you’re on the Island, you’ve probably noticed the signs that have sprouted this past week in fields, on the side of the Shenandoah in the Vineyard Haven harbor, and even on a banner across Main street, Edgartown. They’re slogans (or affirmations, depending on your point of view) like, “It is so easy to love you,” “Look how much I adore you” and “There is so much to love about you.” I’ve asked people what they think about the signs, because frankly, they give me the creeps. I feel as if I’m being told how to think, which is just a step away from someone driving around the neighborhood with a loud speaker spewing propaganda about our government. Maybe I’m just cynical; they certainly have provoked a discussion about what’s appropriate for public signs if not about the subject matter of the signs — called “art” in this case because they are the work of a local artist and psychotherapist.

Several Chappaquiddickers thought the banner across Main street (“There is so much to love about you.”) was something to do with the obscure board of trade’s Pink & Green Weekend coming up, or was one person’s declaration of love for someone. Another Chappaquiddicker said the banner made her think about all that isn’t lovable about herself. It made her feel as if you’d be a real loser if you needed a sign (from above) to tell you you’re lovable. Also, because it’s where the town meeting banner usually hangs, it’s as if the selectmen are saying this, which made her glad this wasn’t the only source of assurance that she’s loved. I’m just glad none made their way over to Chappaquiddick — I guess someone knows we’re hopelessly unlovable, or at least unreachable.

Peter Wells will be the guest columnist for the next two weeks.