From the Jan. 4, 1957 edition of the Vineyard Gazette:
How does it feel, this New Year? Do we enter it with refreshment, as coming from an invigorating plunge in the ocean or a stimulating shower? Do we look upon it sharply with a trace of cynicism, or unsuspectingly with hope and a lack of foreboding, or with a bored acceptance of the inevitable? Have we met it as climbers ascending a slope — a steep slope, perhaps, or on an even track along the crest of time, or going downhill into the haze or the sunset?
Whose New Year is it anyway? Well, we are entirely sure that it belongs, or will belong, mostly to the young, and we take this occasion to wish them the joy of possession. They, at least, are marching up hill with their eyes open, and the light of 1957 coming from over yonder in the bright galaxy of the future will not blind them.
As for those not so young, they seem to quicken their step a little at the beginning, but one can doubt not that they will soon be plodding as they were a little while ago. Plodding is the natural pace of man in middle years, even if different words are sometimes found for it. After all, plodding is a pretty fair gait.
In the large, no matter what may be said, the New Year will mean most to those who are ready for it within as well as without, regardless of the pace at which they move. Like all the other years, 1957 is two entirely different things and probably more; we know at least that it is a state of mind, and a convenient record of chronology. It is events overtaking us, and we overtaking events, all in mixed proportion.
We can do little about the chronology part, but the state of mind is for us to possess — may it last, for all our friends and readers, much, much longer that the middle of the first month.
To all the other harassing and controversial questions there was added over the holiday weekend the recurring one of snow. Stated briefly, the question is whether we like snow, and whether it is healthful, and whether the mere falling of snow to a depth of more than two inches will automatically convert the Island into a winter resort and ourselves into the very semblance of youth. There seems to be sharp division of opinion on the subject, and one judges the only real answer is a tentative one, perhaps in the words, “As you think, so you are.”
It appears, however, that many people who responded to snow with delight do not care for ice, especially the packed, slick snow-ice of sidewalks and roads. Others who are fond of snow the first two days after it falls do not like it on the third day or thereafter. Nothing less than a fresh blizzard will return them to rhapsodies.
As for the revival of sleighing and ice boating, the idea is tempting but it tends to run to mere conversation, for there are no longer many convenient sleighs stored away, or even many of the old-time sheds or barns in which they could be stored from year to year. Iceboats are as scarce, and by the time a new one is built, a thaw is more than likely to have occurred.
There used to be the fast, delicately-built sleighs that were favored by doctors and those who liked plenty of spirit (not spirits) on the road. Incidentally, it is not only they that are gone but also the lap robes that went with them; you couldn’t drive a sleigh without a lap robe. And there used to be the sleighs with long, iron-shod wooden runners, often homemade, that were used for the delivery of groceries and such. They made good speed too.
But even if we had the sleighs, we don’t have the horses any more, or the drivers. Not only the internal combustion engine and milder winters but evolution as well has removed the human race from the sleigh. We do still have snow, but it is all for scenery or for argument, not for use, not even for the snow ice cream our unhygienic ancestors used to enjoy.
Perhaps because he has been driving the mail for many years, Luther M. Sibley of Edgartown observes the old saw beginning “neither snow nor hail nor...”
So Monday morning Mr. Sibley rose at his usual time, fitted out his bus for the adverse conditions prevailing and took off through the snow to pick up the town children and deliver them to the schoolhouse.
Which was all very fine except that there was no school on Monday.
The story of Mr. Sibley’s misadventure immediately became the most popular one on the hot stove circuit that morning. Confronted with it outside the post office that afternoon, Mr. Sibley said that when he made his first stop, he blew his horn once or twice and nobody came out. This was not unusual, he said, because the children there normally didn’t get up in time for the bus.
At the second stop, however, the students never miss and when they too were delinquent Mr. Sibley said, “I discovered my mistake in my mind.”
Mr. Sibley’s son Neil had come along in the meantime and kibitzed. “I don’t know why you put that in the paper. It happens three or four times a year.”
Compiled by Hilary Wallcox
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