Category Archives: writing
N is for Newspapers #AtoZChallenge
I started reading a daily newspaper — the news section, not just the funnies — relatively early in life, when I was around 10. As a preteen and then teenage Arabist I clipped stories about the Middle East, taped or … Continue reading
M is for Mud #AtoZChallenge
Mud season generally comes round in early spring, when thawing earth and April showers turn fields, dirt roads, and back yards into quagmires. (Hmm. Maybe Q is for Quagmire? I won’t know till I get there.) Except this year, when … Continue reading
L is for Lesbian #AtoZChallenge
WARNING: The first several paragraphs of this post rely heavily on “Gay on MV,” a personal history that I posted here in June 2015. This post, in keeping with my theme for the A to Z Challenge, focuses more on … Continue reading
K is for Keys #AtoZChallenge
When I moved here in 1985, maybe the most startling difference between Martha’s Vineyard and the city I’d just left was that on the Vineyard hardly anybody locked anything. If you peered into the cars parked on Main Street or … Continue reading
J is for Junk Food #AtoZChallenge
My recollection is that in my D.C. days I lived pretty much on Roy Rogers fried chicken and fries, varying it with the occasional burger. This recollection is certainly erroneous. I was baking bread regularly, so I must have made … Continue reading
I is for Islander #AtoZChallenge
Sounds pretty simple, doesn’t it? An islander is someone who lives on an island. Both the Vineyard Gazette and the Martha’s Vineyard Times initial-cap “Island” and “Islander” when Martha’s Vineyard is referred to, and so do many people who live here. … Continue reading
H is for Housing #AtoZChallenge
Around 1983, when I was still living in D.C., I read a story in (IIRC) the Washington Post‘s Sunday magazine about the housing situation on Cape Cod. Landlords wanted to get top dollar during “the season” (usually June through September), so … Continue reading
G is for Grapevine #AtoZChallenge
The Grapevine was the name of a Vineyard weekly that preceded the 1984 birth of the Martha’s Vineyard Times. There was no official connection between the two, but into the 1990s people sometimes referred to the Times as the Grapevine. The connection was … Continue reading
F is for Family #AtoZChallenge
In my D.C. days, most of us came from somewhere else. Many of us had left — maybe “fled” would be a better word — small cities, smaller towns, and rural areas that were incongenial at best to lesbians, feminists, … Continue reading
D is for Dogs #AtoZChallenge
I grew up with dogs (and cats, and a couple of horses), but as a grownup I never had one of my own, mainly because I was afraid I didn’t know enough to take care of one. I had the … Continue reading
From the Seasonally Occupied Territories . . . 