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Columnists

Waiting For Spring

Martha Ball

Fri, Apr 13

Category:

Island Notes

The geese are moving from noisy flight to noisy landing to noisy swimming. They are the big Canadas, singularly beautiful when they were few, with their softly brown bodies and black velvet necks and spots of perfect white. That was a long, long time ago, before their numbers grew exponentially and...
The stages of Geezer-hood

J.V. Houlihan, Jr.

Fri, Apr 6

Category:

The Ferry Dock Scribbler

I just finished my 68th trip around the sun, and I’m barreling on the quick step toward the next one. There is no denying that life goes by very fast as we get on in years—it’s non-negotiable. Moreover, we pay more attention as to how we want to spend our time — we can’t flinch — so we need to go...
Crack of Dawn

Martha Ball

Fri, Apr 6

Category:

Island Notes

It is one of those damp, dreary days that has no beginning and no end, it merely rises like a long ocean swell between the darks troughs of morning and night. Only Wednesday it is and it feels we've been through whole seasons since last week. The forecast for Easter Sunday held little promise but I...
At April’s Doorstep

Martha Ball

Fri, Mar 30

Category:

Island Notes

It does not matter the temperature or the wind direction, the sun continues its annual march from one side of the horizon to the other, along the even seam of the sea and sky to the east or the jagged tree line to the west. Turning onto Mansion Road from my house, heading west, just before seven...
Remembering a mentor and friend

J.V. Houlihan, Jr.

Fri, Mar 23

Category:

The Ferry Dock Scribbler

“Get on that house, Houlihan, you missed a spot under the gutter.” “That grass isn’t raked enough. Keep at it.” “Tune your guitar, that E string is flat.” “Did you do your geometry? Did you study your French verbs?” The above and many more assertive suggestions were said to me by my childhood next-...
Site of the Old Mill

Martha Ball

Fri, Mar 23

Category:

Columnists, Island Notes

We are having yet another lousy Wednesday/Dump Day. My plans to discard a container of papers tossed aside in a scratching-the-surface bit of cleaning have been thwarted. However, in the course of sorting, I found a copy of a 1948 document in which the Historical Society monument on the east side...
Winter

J.V. Houlihan, Jr.

Fri, Mar 16

Category:

The Ferry Dock Scribbler

We’ve had some cold and inclement — ice, snow, wind, slush — weather this winter. However, other than the “Bomb Cyclone,” it’s been an uneventful season. On the day I write this, it’s a balmy 48 degrees aboard my sailboat in Newport Harbor. There is no snow to be seen of any consequence, and the...
Odd Storm

Martha Ball

Fri, Mar 16

Category:

Columnists, Island Notes

Autumn fussed and fussed until I let her out into the snowy Tuesday afternoon. She took a few steps into the windy damp then seemed to hesitate. Having no desire to stand in the doorway, waiting, I asked, “Do you want to come back in?” In reply, she turned from me and dove, nose first, into the...
Ocean Views: A picture is worth a thousand words

Kim Gaffett

Sat, Mar 10

Category:

Ocean Views

The recent storm had a fierce erosive effect on the island’s outer shorelines. The same storm surges, coupled with full moon high tides, produced unusually high water in the largely protected Great Salt Pond, and associated inner harbors. The level of water that we witnessed on March 3 is...
Sometimes, life is a beach

J.V. Houlihan, Jr.

Fri, Mar 9

Category:

The Ferry Dock Scribbler

I first heard of Jimmy Buffett in the winter of 1975 while living on Daytona Beach, Florida, in my shanty Irish camper, and raising standard issue hell on said beach and in the local saloons. Buffett’s name would pop up with some of the — ahem, characters — I played my guitar with at...
Faux Lamb

Martha Ball

Fri, Mar 9

Category:

Island Notes

Mar ch came in gently, only to shed its soft lamb's wool coat and reveal itself to be a mangy, angry lion. There are very few days I do not leave my house at all; last Friday was one of those rarities. I, literally, did not step outside, remaining in the doorway, blessedly on the west and lee side...
A new Rockwell classic

J.V. Houlihan Jr.

Fri, Mar 2

Category:

Columnists, The Ferry Dock Scribbler

“There are three rules for writing a novel. Unfortunately, no one knows what they are.” — W. Somerset Maugham The above quote could also pertain to writing a screenplay. Irish/British writer Martin McDonagh penned a script that became the movie, “Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri...
The End of February

Martha Ball

Fri, Mar 2

Category:

Island Notes

“W in ter won’t come until the ponds are full” the old-timers always said, an adage haunting me through the ceaseless rains of February. “But we had winter!” was my silent protest every wet, gray, day, citing the already long-ago deep cold of January. “Real but short” I would concede, hoping to...
SNOWstorm

Kim Gaffett

Fri, Feb 23

Category:

Ocean Views

From Elizabeth Dickens’ 1926 bird journal: “In Nov. and Dec. the greatest flight of Snow Owls ever recorded.” That entry goes on to identify sightings of 23 individual snowy owls on Block Island that winter. Since 1926 there have been several irruptions of snowy owls into our region, and well...
Gray and White and Foggy

Martha Ball

Fri, Feb 23

Category:

Island Notes

Clouds of white roll across the field beyond the kitchen windows, the dog comes back in from her morning jaunt around the yard not quite wet but damp all over. I cannot see from the yard but I know there is a tree out in the field, newly solitary, cleared of the brush and vines in which it was...
Walking on Sunshine

Martha Ball

Fri, Feb 16

Category:

Island Notes

There is sometimes a disconnect between the way I remember months and the way they are, in reality. February is cold, the month the snows we hoped we had evaded arrive, last year cloaking the vines climbing up the old shed, creating a scene momentarily magical. A photo of it brings to mind one of...
Great Backyard Bird Count, Block Island-style

Kim Gaffett

Thu, Feb 15

Category:

Ocean Views

The Great Backyard Bird Count (GBBC) is this weekend: Feb. 16 – 19. This is a global effort to observe and report which bird species are where during the winter — between migration times. "The 2018 GBBC again promises to provide an important snapshot of bird occurrence in February," says the...
Waiting for the Wind

Martha Ball

Fri, Feb 9

Category:

Island Notes

In the late 1970s, we were often surrounded by blizzard conditions. Forty-one years ago yesterday my mother wrote: “Heavy snow. Drifts. John (Littlefield, Sr,) plowed the gate 3 times. Huge drift in barnyard.” Forty years ago yesterday her neat hand recorded: “Everyone at the store at 10 a.m. Power...
Charting your own course

J.V. Houlihan, Jr.

Fri, Feb 2

Category:

Columnists, The Ferry Dock Scribbler

“I frisked him; he’s clean,” says a guy eating a plate of food with authority and certainty. “I’ve frisked a thousand young punks.” A guy gets up from the table where there are three men sitting, and heads to the men’s room. The camera tracks back — twice — to the guy who frisked him. The guy keeps...
Going to the Registry

Martha Ball

Fri, Feb 2

Category:

Island Notes

Rhode Islanders think they are unique in their nightmare tales of Going to the Registry — after ascertaining the hours which mainland office is open. We are not. Neither does one have to travel to the other side of the water and enter a building to have a Registry Encounter. This year, when I...
Rivers in the Roads

Martha Ball

Fri, Jan 26

Category:

Columnists, Island Notes

Old maps of Block Island, drawn with great precision in the latter part of the nineteenth century, show single, unsteady lines interconnecting many of the ponds. Some are visible, dark streaks, on aerial photographs taken in the early 1950s, before the land surrendered to overgrowth. Collectively,...
Don’t lie to me, ma’am

Martha Ball

Fri, Jan 19

Category:

Columnists, Island Notes

We all get them, those annoying calls, be they robo or live, from bogus or legitimate companies, all ready to solve problems we do not have and/or to take our money. They come more on my landline, which I maintain for internet connection — and because it has the same number that was assigned this...
Bomb cyclone — help!

J.V. Houlihan, Jr.

Fri, Jan 12

Category:

Columnists, The Ferry Dock Scribbler

Any young dogs want to shovel old man Houlihan’s cars out and make some scoots? A blown shoulder just shut me down, and Cindy’s bull goring injury has slowed her down a little. Otherwise, we’d be on this… If interested, PM me, stat! I posted this note on Facebook on Jan. 3 and got a few...
Road to Eldorado

Martha Ball

Fri, Jan 12

Category:

Columnists, Island Notes

We are riding the roller coaster that is January, moving from deep, deep cold to seemingly mild upper twenties to ground-thawing, muck-threatening days of sunny, above freezing, temperatures. It is a time of staying oil deliveries, trying to dance around that seasonal trifecta of drifted snow, its...
2017 bird census

Sat, Jan 6

Category:

Ocean Views

Q. What do Ross’s goose, Virginia rail, Common raven, Ruby-crowned kinglet, Palm warbler, Field sparrow, and Fox sparrow have in common? A. They were all seen on Block Island, on Dec. 26, 2017, for the first time during the 17th annual Community Bird Census. Not since the first two years have we...
Spinning stories of winter

Martha Ball

Fri, Jan 5

Category:

Island Notes

Jan. 1, 1976 my mother wrote in her little diary “sunny above freezing,” which would have been an item of note only if the days preceding had been below 32. She was a teacher and five days into the new year vacation ended — or not — as her inscription reads “1st day of school. No oil, no heat,...
A glimpse of Island birdlife

Kim Gaffett

Sat, Dec 30

Category:

Ocean Views

Starting in January 2009, the Crazy-as-a-Coot bird walkers (co-led by Maggie Komosinski) meet twice a month (October through June) to survey bird presence and activity, and to take pleasure in our surroundings. We meet at different locations around the Island, depending on weather, mostly wind...
Keep it fit... One day at a time works for food, too

Eileen Birk

Fri, Dec 29

Category:

Columnists

Ah, it’s the new year... As the craziness of the holiday season winds down and the year comes to an end, I find myself reflecting back on the last twelve months — what was good about 2017, what challenged me, what would I do differently, and what would I love to do again? The often-heard “what are...
Words

J.V. Houlihan Jr.

Fri, Dec 29

Category:

Columnists, The Ferry Dock Scribbler

I got wind of a blow. While writing some fiction one day the aforementioned pun came out of my head, through my fingers, and onto the page. The context was just two guys discussing a nasty weather system coming up the East Coast. These six words flew out of my head and blew me...
Another year

Martha Ball

Fri, Dec 29

Category:

Columnists, Island Notes

Twenty-four and sunny” is the status of the moment. The “feels like” is considerably lower, but I do not believe that number; I have been outside and the sun is shining and the wind is light for late December. And, I remind myself, the onset of the cold is the price we are expected to pay for the...
Dove and Disttaff

Michael Schroeder

Thu, Dec 28

Category:

Trips Abroad

Alpaca—stylish, soft and warm—has a home in Wakefield at Dove and Distaff, Visitors can conveniently see and feel quality yarns, fibers and goods right here—all of the alpaca products come off their own farm in Matunuck. It’s one of seven showrooms within Dove and Distaff, which was born of an...
On the corner of...

Martha Ball and Mary Anderson

Sat, Dec 23

Category:

Columnists

Ed. note: The Block Island Historical Society was founded in 1942. To help celebrate its 75th year, the Society’s Diamond Anniversary, The Block Island Times has been publishing sketches and photographs of items in its collection throughout the year. This is the final column in the...
The gifting season

J.V. Houlihan Jr.

Fri, Dec 22

Category:

Columnists, The Ferry Dock Scribbler

Here we are again at that most wonderful time of the year — Christmas! Yup, everyone is gearing up to go out and buy gifts for kids, wives, husbands, grandkids, friends, boyfriends, and girlfriends. It’s a time when UPS and FedEx packages come flying off trucks in prodigious numbers at the...
After the Snow

Martha Ball

Fri, Dec 22

Category:

Island Notes

Tomorrow brings the Solstice, the turn into the cold and the light. It falls on the 21st this year, the sort of generic default date assigned to the change of the seasons, that does not always hold true. “Watch the way of the wind when the sun crosses the line,” a statement by an old-timer down the...
Kindness shown to injured owl

Thu, Dec 21

Category:

Ocean Views

The following report came in from Kim Gaffett: Kate Sprague Campanale and Heather Dippolito discovered an injured owl on Corn Neck Road early on Monday, Dec. 18. They called the Police Department dispatch, which called me. Kate and Heather protected the downed owl until I got there. It...
On the corner of... the old Adrian Hotel

Martha Ball and Mary Anderson

Sat, Dec 9

Category:

Columnists

Ed. note: The Block Island Historical Society was founded in 1942. To help celebrate its 75th year, the Society’s Diamond Anniversary, The Block Island Times will be publishing sketches and photographs of items in its collection. For those interested in joining or donating to The...
All for the life of the rolling sea

J.V. Houlihan Jr.

Fri, Dec 8

Category:

Columnists, The Ferry Dock Scribbler

A sleek and fast looking 70-foot motor yacht backed out of her slip on a sunny Sunday, in Newport Harbor. It was 3 July, 2008. As the sexy and shiny rig was making her way into the busy fairway, a loud, thumping Latin rhythm could be heard — booming. Aboard, there was a bevy of bikini-clad beauties...
To see or not to see... The Punisher

Mark Hunnewell

Sat, Dec 2

Category:

News, Columnists

It is such a lovely time to be into superhero movies, isn’t it? In just one day we have “Justice League” and “The Punisher” on Netflix. Now, I was planning on doing a comparison between the two, but after seeing “Justice” I figured it wouldn’t be exactly fair. And if I did write about “Justice...
Ocean Views: A Resiliency Roundtable

Kim Gaffett

Fri, Dec 1

Category:

Ocean Views

Block Islanders are nothing if not resilient. No harbor to support a fishing industry: design a special work boat – the Block Island double ender. No wood for building and fuel: salvage every stick that comes ashore, from driftwood, to cargo, to ship hulls run aground. Now, the Island –— like the...
Book nods for Christmas

J.V. Houlihan Jr.

Fri, Dec 1

Category:

The Ferry Dock Scribbler

One of life’s simple pleasures is reading The New York Times Book Review. I always feel a little more informed about things after I read a review — even though I may pass on the book — these reviews are thorough and expansive. There are so many good books out there, it’s sometimes hard to...
Maps

Martha Ball

Fri, Dec 1

Category:

Island Notes

There was a rumbling in the morning, the kind that sounds close and I walked across the yard thinking I might see the source of it; tree cutters, perhaps, although I could not remember if I had seen pink ties marking any trees on Mansion Road. It could simply be routine work on the old dirt road,...
Holidays, calories, and walking it off

Eileen Birk

Wed, Nov 22

Category:

Columnists

I’ve put on some weight since last winter... 11 pounds to be exact. Before you roll your eyes, I know I am not overweight, but I am not happy. I notice it when I try to put on some of my clothes that are a bit tighter; I notice my stamina isn’t what it was. As I reflect on the last 10 months, I...
On the corner of... Beginning a new era

Martha Ball and Mary Anderson

Wed, Nov 22

Category:

Columnists

Ed. note: The Block Island Historical Society was founded in 1942. To help celebrate its 75th year, the Society’s Diamond Anniversary, The Block Island Times will be publishing sketches and photographs of items in its collection. For those interested in joining or donating to The...
Block Island Summer

Martha Ball

Wed, Nov 22

Category:

Island Notes

The book “Block Island Summer” was published in 1971. Black and white photographs and eloquent little essays contained within its pages hold the island we think we remember but sometimes doubt truly existed. Yet, here it is, chronicled by Klaus and Elizabeth Gemming, printed and bound, a volume...
Travails in India

J.V. Houlihan, Jr.

Fri, Nov 17

Category:

The Ferry Dock Scribbler

The iPhone went off at midnight, and there was a text. “Cindy had a pretty serious mishap the other day. She got near a bull, and he gored her. She had to go to the hospital. She is OK. No internal injuries, but she has a serious gash across her abdomen.” This note was sent by my wife’s...
Osage

Martha Ball

Fri, Nov 17

Category:

Island Notes

On e week ago, the charger for my computer died. It was not sudden. I first noticed that the cord was starting to fray last summer, but in one of my habits that defies all logic, I did not order a new one as the delivery time seemed too many days away.It was a good three months before the little...
The first subdivision

Martha Ball and Mary Anderson

Sat, Nov 11

Category:

Columnists

Ed. note: The Block Island Historical Society was founded in 1942. To help celebrate its 75th year, the Society’s Diamond Anniversary, The Block Island Times will be publishing sketches and photographs of items in its collection. For those interested in joining or donating to The...
Remembering the songs

Martha Ball

Fri, Nov 10

Category:

Columnists, Island Notes

It was chilly, today. We seemed to have skimmed over crisp fall sunshine, like one of those flattish, roundish rocks my father tried to teach me to toss with a spin so they would skip over the surface of open water until a last, fatal, ker-plunk sent them to darkness below the waves. I am not ready...
Red Sky in Morning

Martha Ball

Fri, Nov 3

Category:

Columnists

Th e sky at sunrise held that warmth of promise, a deep golden rose that truth be told is quite orange but “orange,” the color of school crayons and morning juice, hardly does it justice. In late spring and early summer first light comes slowly, a gradually lifting of night that begins hours before...
On the corner of... 19th Century directions to Block Island

Martha Ball and Mary Anderson

Sat, Oct 28

Category:

Columnists

In the early 19th Century the country was still young. The west was being explored and mapped by Lewis and Clark, from the newly-acquired Territory of Louisiana to the Pacific Northwest. In the east, existing maps and measurements were being codified. Among the hidden treasures on the corner of...

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