This week’s photo challenge is ‘scale’. I took this photo one foggy morning on Martha’s Vineyard while waiting in line to board the ferry. The little rowboat in the harbor seems even smaller next to the bigger boat.
https://dailypost.wordpress.com/dp_photo_challenge/scale/
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Tagged boats, children, Martha's Vineyard, postaweek/postaday, seating, weekly prompt
February 1989 was the first time back to the Vineyard in winter since I was a child. Following are excerpts from my travel log about that trip and also pictures taken with a non-digital camera… which does have relevance in this post. So come join me in a trip down a cold, snowy very wintery memory lane.
Picture of the Islander in dry dock from aboard the ferry, Eagle.
One of my favorite places is the Campground in Oak Bluffs. I love the gingerbread cottages but most of all I really really love the Tabernacle… every time I’m on the Vineyard I take a few moments…or hour… and sit quietly there and enjoy just being. Winter was no exception, cold as it was it was warm in my heart.
Let’s wander through Oak Bluffs a little … notice Christmas tree is still in the Bandstand …
went out to South Beach where there were lots of Christmas trees people had brought after the holidays… also drove out to Menemsha just to take a look around…
and then to Gay Head …
excerpt from travel journal : ‘it was cold on the cliffs. 26 degrees maybe…but off I went to see them anyway. Down the road I traipsed over the dunes and onto the beach… what a sight. Thousands of rocks all shapes and sizes, and there in the distance… the cliffs… I was very excited. Took some shots and scurried back to the warm car. Noticed camera had opened a bit, closed it and didn’t think much about it. After lunch in Edgartown I rode out the ‘bend in the road beach’ to take some pictures and noticed that the picture counter on the camera said #1 !!!! When I had gotten in the car in the morning it had said #16 !!! Something was wrong. I turned around and headed for the camera shop. Everything seems to be okay with the camera but maybe it got too cold and lost its memory and reverted to #1… or perhaps when the camera opened just that little bit it caused it to revert !! At any rate I’m having what was in the camera developed.’
The following day I picked up my photos and not only were they all fine, there was this one…. actually, these two…
shot of the cliffs taken before camera opened …
shot after I closed the camera … I’ve always kind of liked it… can’t do this with a digital camera …
After a long first day headed back to Edgartown for the night but not before stopping at Sengekontacket Pond for the sunset…
around and about Edgartown …
There was eating and relaxing but I also had a shopping mission ! My daughter Patty and her husband Mike were expecting their first baby and I, as soon to be grammy was determined to find an MV shirt for baby. I had already promised myself, and future grandchild that I would keep her/him in Vineyard t-shirts forever :) (They found out the following month that the baby was a little girl).
Not too many shops open that carried baby things… not too many souvenir shirts available either. Here it was only 3 months before baby would arrive and this was my only chance to bring back a shirt from the Vineyard. On an off chance I walked into a store in Edgartown, I don’t even remember what they sold but tucked way off in a corner were… little people t-shirts. I wondered just how little those sizes would be.
I hit pay dirt… there was one baby t-shirt and I grabbed it. Ah, success and also the start of a still ongoing tradition.
Granddaughter Tiffany was the first to wear the shirt.. after her came grandson Tyler… when he outgrew it my daughter asked what she should do with it and I said I’d take it. Here it is today being modeled by my doll Molly.
There certainly wasn’t as much snow that February as the Vineyard has gotten this year but I got to enjoy a powdery dusting of it.
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Tagged architecture, beach, Flying Horses, Gay Head cliffs, Lighthouses, Martha's Vineyard, Memories, Photographs, Tabernacle, winter
The eastern half of Martha’s Vineyard is called Down-Island and the western half is called Up-Island. Why you ask? To confuse you, that’s why. Not really, at least not on purpose. There is a very logical reason and here it is according to the MV website.
” Up-Island is the western area, which comprises the three rural towns of Aquinnah, Chilmark and West Tisbury. Down-Island is the eastern portion, home to the larger historic villages of Edgartown, Oak Bluffs and Vineyard Haven (also known as Tisbury). The two terms come from the rich seagoing tradition of Martha’s Vineyard, which once sent its whaling ships circuling the globe heading “up” in nautical terms takes you “west” because it’s further from zero degrees of longitude in Greenwich, England, home of the Prime Meridian.”
Got all that ! Me neither.
Well then, according to the Guide to Martha’s Vineyard we have this explanation. “When a ship sails in an easterly direction, it is decreasing or running “down” the degrees of longitude toward zero at Greenwich, England. A westbound vessel, on the other hand, is running “up” its longitude. Thus the Down-Island town are those on the eastern and northeastern end of the Island. The Up-Island communities are at the western end. A ship moving through Vineyard Sound sails “up” to New York and “down” east to Maine.” Ah ha.
OK, I’m still confused but I do know how to get from Down-Island to Up-Island and not get lost… it’s an Island, how lost could one get anyway.
But that’s not the only confusion about the Vineyard … she had an identity crisis at one time involving Massachusetts and New York.
Martha! Martin! New York! Massachusetts! How many aliases and states have claimed this 100 sq mile island? The Wampanoags named it Noepe and that stuck until Bartholomew Gosnold came along in 1602.
No one seems to know who the Martin was whose name was once attached to the Vineyard… so let’s move ahead to Martha whose identity is still shrouded in myth. Was she one of Gosnold’s daughters, or his mother, or the name of an English royal. Whoever she was her name stuck and in my opinion has a nicer ring to it then Martin’s Vineyard.
According to the book “The History of Martha’s Vineyard” by Arthur R. Railton, in 1664 Charles II gave NY, NJ and the islands to the east to his brother, the Duke of York. In 1670 Thomas Mayhew, Jr and his grandson Matthew of Massachusetts traveled to NY to ask Gov Lovelace which colony his Island was under… New York or Massachusetts. Gov Lovelace made Thomas Mayhew “Governor for Life” of Martha’s Vineyard and gave him the authority to collect rents from all who lived within its bounds. Voila, Martha’s Vineyard Massachusetts. History lesson over. :)
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Tagged history, Information, maps, Martha's Vineyard, Photographs
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Tagged beaches, boats, Martha's Vineyard, photo challenges, post a week, postaday, postaweek, sky, water
*** - The Gazette Parody .. CLICK HERE
*** – Memory Correction CLICK HERE – taking the train from NYC to Woods Hole, MA right to the ferry.
*** – Movie Magic CLICK HERE – movies and popcorn and dancing in the street on MV in the 1950’s
*** – A Shearing CLICK HERE – shearing day on the Vineyard 2008
*** - Saved By The Bell CLICK HERE – summer Bible school at the Tabernacle and the mis-adventures of ringing the bell.
*** – Memories of the Flying Horses CLICK HERE – how I spent my summer evenings as a kid and why I’ll never forget a certain ticket taker.
*** – Barnegat Lighthouse, New Jersey CLICK HERE - 217 steps to the top, or was it !
*** – I Can Bake CLICK HERE – my first venture into baking from scratch
*** – The Vineyard In Stitches CLICK HERE – recreating Martha’s Vineyard one stitch at a time
*** – Thomas Edison Installment #2 CLICK HERE – it took 3 installments to cover my visit to the amazing Edison’s laboratories in West Orange, NJ
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Tagged architecture, baking, Flying Horses, history, inventions, Lighthouses, Martha's Vineyard, New Jersey, New York, Photographs, sheep, Tabernacle, Thomas Edison, Vineyard Gazette, wool/yarn
Ice on dock at East Chop .. Martha’s Vineyard :)
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Tagged beach, ice, Martha's Vineyard, Photographs, water
If you look closely you can see the stars …
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Tagged christmas, decorations, gardens, lights, Martha's Vineyard, Photographs
To my recollection there is only one time in my life that I spent Christmas on the Vineyard. I was probably around 5 or 6 and my mother and I went to MV to be with my godparents.
Edward and Gertrude Norris (Nana and Pop) were my godparents. They lived part of the year in their house in Oak Bluffs which is where I spent my childhood summers. The other part of the year they lived in Newark, NJ downstairs in the same house we lived in. They were the most important people in my life besides my parents. They never had children of their own and they thought of us as their family. I’m not sure of the actual connection to them except that Nana was my grandmother’s best friend when she moved to the Vineyard. When my mother graduated from high school on MV she moved to Newark, NJ to live with them and to find work.
And so one Christmas when Nana and Pop were elderly, having health problems and living year round on the Vineyard and missing us my mother decided she and I should go and spend Christmas with them. I was too young to realize this might be the last Christmas for one or both of them, all I knew was that I was going to wake up Christmas morning ON THE VINEYARD. How great would that be. The only glitch was that my dad couldn’t get off work to come with us but he insisted we go. Talk about being torn.
I seem to remember there was a dusting of snow on Christmas morning… even if there wasn’t, it’s my memory and I can enhance it a tad if need be. There were presents… one in particular I remember because I asked for it every year. A nurses kit. It was a white square box with a red cross on the side. Inside were band-aids, gauze bandages, a wooden thermomenter and a stethescope, a name tag… and the most important article.. a nurses cap. I spent the most of the morning bandaging people up whether they wanted to be or not.
All of a sudden I heard a faint knock on the front door !! I ran to open it and let out a shriek… it was my dad standing there with a big smile and a shirt box. A shirt box !! Yes indeed that’s all he had with him. No suitcase. No duffle bag. Just a shirt box with a couple of clean shirts and other essentials inside it. He liked to travel light.
It turned out to be one of the most wonderful Christmases of my childhood.
A few years ago I found this letter that my Pop had written to me for my 6th birthday. After Nana died he pretty much lived alone except for the two summer months we spent with him. I loved to listen to his stories of working on the steamships in Massachusetts and later being a bank guard in NJ. Pop couldn’t walk without the aid of a cane and even then couldn’t walk far, certainly no further than the front or back yard. Almost everyday we’d have our lunch together under a tree in the backyard and then in the evening we’d listen to the radio together. He liked programs like ‘The Shadow’ which scared the bejeebers out of me and made it hard for me to walk down the dark and seemingly endlessly long hall to my upstairs bedroom. The hardest part of my summers was saying good-bye to him… I wouldn’t cry in front of him but the tears spilled out of my eyes the moment we left the house. I still find it sad and emotional to leave the Vineyard and I’m sure those moments from long ago have a bearing on it.
I am blessed to have the memories of that one Christmas on Martha’s Vineyard and of Nana and Pop, two people who were such an important part of my life.
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Tagged christmas, Family, holidays, Martha's Vineyard, Memories, Photographs
The lights of Gay Head lighthouse
‘one red, three white light our slumber thru the night’ (Kate Taylor)
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Tagged calendar pictures, Lighthouses, Martha's Vineyard, Photographs
I know Thanksgiving weekend isn’t over but I’m starting to feel the magnetic pull of sparkly ornaments and decorations…. I love sparkly.
This is one of my favorite sparkly ornaments…
In fact I’ve used it on my Christmas card this year…
Two cute ways to count down to Christmas…
Lots of hustle and bustle is about to begin, but remember to take time to do some fun things you enjoy…
…like, Christmas in Edgartown on Martha’s Vineyard. I’ve always enjoyed going to it.
Off to find some more sparkly things… stay tuned :)
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Tagged christmas, decor, holidays, Martha's Vineyard, Photographs, seasonal
