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Columnists
On the corner of... A 19th century policeman’s badge
Mary Anderson and Martha Ball
Sun, Mar 5
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...
On Big Dog Paws
Martha Ball
Fri, Mar 3
Category:
Island Notes
The first day of March comes in like a lamb, the morning filled with birdsong and fog. I look out to the south, to my measure of visibility, and see, as I can in all but the heaviest snows and thickest mist, the shape of the farm buildings on the far side of the one-time pasture. They stand, from...
Where the wild things are: Galilee
J.V. Houlihan, Jr.
Fri, Feb 24
Category:
The Ferry Dock Scribbler
I saw her as I stood by the port loading door — while working aboard the
M/V Quonset
— and scanned the rock jetty. There in the hot and blinding July sun was the blonde woman in the skimpy two-piece bathing suit slathering sun tan oil on her lithe and toned body — her hair was perfect. She...
Washington's Birthday
Martha Ball
Fri, Feb 24
Category:
Island Notes
Snow chased my dreams. It is rare I remember these stories my mind tells while I sleep, rarer, still, that they are more than scraps, jumbled snapshots, overlapping, utterly confusing seasons and places and decades. This one, or a segment thereof, fell into current time and place, a snow come...
Join ‘Expedition Block Island’
Kim Gaffett
Fri, Feb 24
Category:
Ocean Views
Have you ever wondered what was in that cove, around that point, or over that dune? After the Groundhog Day count, many islanders go in search of mountain slopes, coral reefs, hunting lodges, colossal amusement rides, grandma’s attic, or any oasis for introspection — in general, we head to parts...
Spot of Hope
Martha Ball
Fri, Feb 17
Category:
Island Notes
The sun is moving out of its winter home in the south. First light falls differently in different seasons and now it comes through the more southern of the east windows in the ell of my house, in the room where I sleep. It rises, visibly, from the ocean, at the edge of one of the places where the...
Happiness
J.V. Houlihan, Jr.
Sun, Feb 12
Category:
Island Notes
,
The Ferry Dock Scribbler
An old Chinese proverb:
If you want happiness for an hour, take a nap. If you want happiness for a day, go fishing. If you want happiness for a month, get married. If you want happiness for a year, inherit a fortune. If you want happiness for a lifetime, help somebody else.
Yeah, I know,...
Before the storm
Martha Ball
Fri, Feb 10
Category:
Island Notes
I t is unseasonably warm, 50 degrees and sunny, a day I have twice caught myself leaving my coat on the car seat as I walk away wearing a sweater that is more a weight for spring and fall than winter. The ground is slightly soft from yesterday's rain but there has been no deep frost and no mud...
On the corner... of the past and present
Mary Anderson and Martha Ball
Sat, Feb 4
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 some items it has in its collection throughout 2017.
Among the founders of...
In the Hallway: School on the Block
Jake Douglas
Sat, Feb 4
Category:
Columnists
Almost everyone I talk with in the summer asks me about how school is on the island. I reply: “it’s a decent school.” I don’t have the experience of attending an off-island high school but, from what some of my friends have told me it is very different from the island. At first I was not sure how...
The bright jacket
J.V. Houlihan, Jr.
Fri, Feb 3
Category:
The Ferry Dock Scribbler
A month ago I was strolling around a West Marine
store looking at stuff for our sailboat. There was nothing the boat needed, yet — she’s tied to her winter dock in Newport; however, burning up the clock while looking at boat stuff is more fun than looking at stuff at a place like the...
Reaching for the sun
Martha Ball
Fri, Feb 3
Category:
Island Notes
It is the last day of January and it is snowing softly in mid-afternoon, wreaking far more havoc on the mainland — where multiple crashes are being reported on the highway — than on Block Island — where the distant horizon moves between sharp and fuzzy and back again. It does not promise to be much...
Charts to steer by
J. V. Houlihan, Jr.
Fri, Jan 27
Category:
The Ferry Dock Scribbler
When Samuel Langhorne Clemens, a.k.a. Mark Twain, was young he aspired to work on a Mississippi River steamboat. Clemens, like many of his pals, wanted to be a steamboat pilot. As it turned out he got his wish, and a steamboat pilot named Horace E. Bixby trained the young Clemens as a “cub,” and...
Inflexible spirit
Martha Ball
Fri, Jan 27
Category:
Island Notes
The week began with rain shifting from drizzle to downpour and back but with a hard, steady, wind, the blast of winter that roils the sea and keeps the boat in port for two days in a row and even kept the planes on the ground for a part of the time. The wind slammed in from the east and northeast,...
Visiting the Emerald Isle
Sun, Jan 22
Category:
Columnists
The following were written by Block Island School students and submitted to
The Block Island Times: “One of the most beautiful places.” Recently, I went on an extraordinary trip to Ireland with my family and three friends. My father grew up in London, but his family is originally from...
Facts, opinions
J.V. Houlihan, Jr.
Fri, Jan 20
Category:
The Ferry Dock Scribbler
While watching Saturday Night Live many years ago — in the infancy of the show — I saw a skit with Chevy Chase and Jane Curtin. It was a parody of a life insurance commercial. As I watched the skit, it looked like a real advertisement. The narrator of the piece spoke in a smooth reassuring voice...
January Road
Martha Ball
Fri, Jan 20
Category:
Island Notes
There was an after the storm lull this morning, a moment of near calm, in which the sound of the ocean, a muted surf, rolled up from the beach. When I opened the west-facing front door to let Autumn out I was met with the distant beep-beep of a truck backing up, an early visitor to the dump/...
Without the Sound
Martha Ball
Fri, Jan 6
Category:
Island Notes
The rain has abated at last, the drizzle that began yesterday as we approached the big church on Chapel Street to attend a funeral dreaded for the fact of it marking the end of a life cut too short. It proved to be quite beautiful in its celebration, filled with both ritual and simplicity, with the...
Alabaster swans and charcoal coots
Kim Gaffett
Sun, Jan 1
Category:
Ocean Views
On Dec. 26, 2016, the Ocean View Foundation organized its 16th annual Community Bird Census (CBC) in the tradition of Elizabeth Dickens, who for nearly 50 years orchestrated the National Audubon Society’s Christmas Bird Count on Block Island. Each of those years she would rally the island’s...
Reflections on the morning of Dec. 25, 2016
Gloria S. Redlich
Sun, Jan 1
Category:
Inactive Columns
Waking this morning to Christmas and the first day of Chanukah 2016, there is sunlight streaming through all the windows of our home in a cozy neighborhood on this tiny island off the coast of Rhode Island. Sunlight falls onto the struggling plants in my southeasterly bay window. It also falls...
Better luck next year
Renée Meyer
Sat, Dec 31
Category:
Gardening Report
It’s been awhile since there’s been a Garden Report. It was a year of drought and being busy with other things, it was a good excuse to drop out, however temporarily, of the 2016 gardening season. With the water being diverted almost exclusively to the vegetable garden, even the weeds in the flower...
Bed and Bistro in Narragansett
Fraser Lang
Sat, Dec 31
Category:
Trips Abroad
If you find yourself off-island on a weekday and need a place to stay, you should head straight to The Bed and Bistro in Narragansett. The nightly rate for islanders is only $75 during the off season
and
during the week. In fact, at any time of the year, Block Islanders get a $25 discount...
The tractor, 25 years later
Martha Ball
Fri, Dec 30
Category:
Island Notes
Twenty-five years ago I submitted a handful of short pieces of writing to Peter Wood, then Editor/Publisher of
The Block Island Times
. The first he used was my recollection of sitting, with my niece from Grosse Pointe, Michigan, on the old cistern cover in the back yard. The neighbor was...
Whistling Swans on Sachem Pond
Kim Gaffett
Fri, Dec 23
Category:
Ocean Views
On a chilly, Dec. 7 morning, Maggie Komosinski and I waited for the rain to stop and give way to a leaden sky of clouds before heading out in search of an odd-looking goose that we had seen – but not identified – the day before. We traipsed through field and dune and pond edge. We wended through...
‘Tis the season to clarify values
J.V. Houlihan Jr.
Fri, Dec 23
Category:
The Ferry Dock Scribbler
One morning several years ago, I got to talking with a guy in a coffee shop over in Newport. He was a regular, and sat in the same seat every day. Daily, some folks would stop and chat him up on their way in and out of the shop. The place was very busy one day and the seat next to him was empty so...
Winter Sun
Martha Ball
Fri, Dec 23
Category:
Island Notes
It is, technically, the last day of fall, sunnier and calmer than forecast. On the other side of the year we have an abundance, nay, an embarrassment, of light, come so early and staying so late I wonder how anyone can function more to the north than we. Now, the length of day in Anchorage is three...
From the Lighthouse
Martha Ball
Fri, Dec 16
Category:
Columnists
,
Island Notes
It has been too long since I have been to the lighthouse, the grand gothic structure sitting on the bluff high above the ocean. It is never far removed from my life; it is visible from my house, a silhouette on the crest of the land in day, a faint green blink at night. The structure, all two...
The Third Place
J.V. Houlihan, Jr.
Fri, Dec 16
Category:
Columnists
,
The Ferry Dock Scribbler
Over in Newport one night I was sitting in a comfy chair in Starbucks, reading and sipping, ahem, a libation. It was a standard issue large black coffee, just like the gods made it—why trifle with success. Several years ago, this was a nightly drill when I stayed on my sailboat while working for...
Processing and preparing squid
Capt. Hank Hewitt
Fri, Dec 9
Category:
Fishing Report
In last week’s article, I wrote a primer on squid fishing. This week we look at processing it, and a fun recipe to prepare. First and foremost, if you have never worked with fresh squid, they have the potential to make a mess if their ink sack is disturbed or ruptured, which is almost unavoidable...
Captain of her own ship
J.V. Houlihan Jr.
Fri, Dec 9
Category:
The Ferry Dock Scribbler
Chevron’s first woman captain hails from Narragansett
“I’m hoping to get to our mooring in El Segundo, California by Tuesday. I’ll call Monday if the weather lays down,” said Capt. Lisa Chaplin-Dixon. “The cell phone service isn’t good at that anchorage, I’ll let you know when we get...
On a distant hill
Martha Ball
Fri, Dec 9
Category:
Island Notes
It rained through the night, battering the east windows, and the wind howled its winter banshee wail. It sounded cold so it felt cold, but did not make me think beyond reaching in the dark for the comforter that has been waiting, patiently, at the foot of my bed. There was an odd noise, continuing...
The Johnny Appleseed of sailing
J.V. Houlihan Jr.
Fri, Dec 2
Category:
The Ferry Dock Scribbler
“Some people try to give me money, but I won’t take it,” says Bill Dunleavy, “my advertising leaflet says 'free' sailing lessons, so it’s free.” This quote from Dunleavey says much about the man. First of all, it’s crystal clear that he is generous. Secondly, he obviously has a passion for sailing...
Displaced Autumn
Martha Ball
Fri, Dec 2
Category:
Island Notes
In the damp, sun-deprived days of late fall and early winter — and in winter's cold — I sometimes walk into my kitchen solely to feel the sun pouring through the south facing windows. Of late, at a certain time of day, that short trip involves stepping over a big golden dog who lies in the pool of...
Postcards from the edge
Martha Ball
Wed, Nov 23
Category:
Island Notes
For the holidays, postcard images from half a century ago, showing Block Island, still the sleepy little town time almost forgot, when a few cars constituted a busy summer day and views were wide and open. The same things were advertised as are today, “...
Thankful to be hopeful
J.V. Houlihan Jr.
Wed, Nov 23
Category:
The Ferry Dock Scribbler
"But as a people we probably harbor seeds of goodness that have lain for a long time waiting to sprout when the conditions are right. Man’s curiosity, his relentlessness, his inventiveness, his ingenuity have led him into great trouble. We can only hope that these same traits will enable him to...
Notes on sailing, redux
J.V. Houlihan Jr.
Fri, Nov 18
Category:
The Ferry Dock Scribbler
There’s a saying that goes, “when two boats are moving in the same direction, they’re racing.” There is some truth to this, which probably has its roots based on man’s desire to be number one, to be the winner, and get all the swag: dinners, trophies, and sponsors — people like to be near power. We...
Surrounded by the Sea
Martha Ball
Fri, Nov 18
Category:
Island Notes
We live surrounded by the sea, we hear the sound of it in the dark and feel its dampness on the raw east wind. We smell it when it is filled with sea weed and roiled by a storm passing off to the east, we taste it on our skin when we walk too close to its salty mist. We see more or less of it...
Schoolies
Sol Schwartz
Sat, Nov 12
Category:
Fishing Report
There are a lot of bass out there, folks. The gradual drop in water temperatures has slowed the anticipated arrival of big fish, but there are a
lot
of schoolies all around the island right now. You should definitely get out there and catch some. Squid fishing has been unbelievable lately...
Bruuuuuuce!
J.V. Houlihan Jr.
Fri, Nov 11
Category:
The Ferry Dock Scribbler
“I saw this guy last night at the
Bottom Line
in New York City, and he was
powerful
; never saw anything like him.” These words were spoken by a drummer I once met at Crescent Beach. It was August in ’75. I had a few hours of slack time while working on the
Quonset,
so...
Such great hope
Martha Ball
Fri, Nov 11
Category:
Island Notes
The morning dawned bright after a long dark night, the sky and sea spread with the same rose gold, a vibrant and hopeful color reflected in the flat calm surface of the big pond behind my house, emerged in early November from its cover of summer greenery. I wondered at it for a bit, even thought of...
Bells
Martha Ball
Fri, Nov 4
Category:
Island Notes
W e are in that time in the fall when first morning sun is still too far to the east to spill through the south-facing kitchen windows and provide that flood of sunlight that is the saving grace of those cold winter days when it is warmer when I come downstairs than it is in early November. By noon...
Fall fishing is great!
Sol Schwartz
Fri, Oct 28
Category:
Fishing Report
What a beautiful week for fishing! Perfect fall weather has given anglers plenty of opportunities to go out for the big one. Typically, this is the time of year when we start to see huge numbers of squid showing up in the harbors. There are also large amounts of other bait around the island keeping...
117 and counting
Martha Ball
Fri, Oct 28
Category:
Island Notes
T oday, it is likely more people know — or have some vague familiarity with — the quote “justice rolls down like water and righteousness like a mighty stream” from the extraordinary speech delivered by Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. in Washington DC on a hot summer day more than 50 years ago, than from...
Notes on Sailing
J. V. Houlihan, Jr.
Fri, Oct 21
Category:
Columnists
,
The Ferry Dock Scribbler
When a sailboat is moving through the water with a perfectly balanced helm, and all of the parts of the elements of the boat’s design are doing what they are supposed to be doing there is a feeling of balance — it’s a powerful and visceral thing to experience. Synergy by definition: “Is the...
October's Offering
Martha Ball
Fri, Oct 21
Category:
Columnists
,
Island Notes
It is one of those October days that is the reminder that comes every year and every year comes as a blessing. These are days — I am sure I have written other Octobers — of miracle and wonder. By week's end we will have slipped into the darkening world of sunrises after 7 a.m. and sunsets before 6...
Still Time
Capt. Chris Willi and Capt. Hank Hewitt
Sat, Oct 15
Category:
Fishing Report
The report from the beach is still decent for striped bass, with a good numbers of schoolies all around the island and in the harbors. Most fish have been taken on topwater and with metal-lipped Danny-style plugs. Unfortunately, there are a good number of seals coming in, which doesn’t help fishing...
Diver down
J.V. Houlihan Jr.
Fri, Oct 14
Category:
The Ferry Dock Scribbler
“I had a mask on me when I was three years old,” says Dave Robinson. “I love being under water.” Robinson is a scientist at the University of Rhode Island Graduate School of Oceanography. Many years ago, while a student at Narragansett High School, he and a friend became certified scuba divers and...
Storms of Autumn
Martha Ball
Fri, Oct 14
Category:
Island Notes
Three years ago, Autumn was a fluffy puppy and I was acutely attuned to the weather, or more precisely, to the possibility of rain that had not fallen for nearly a month. It stayed warm and dry, open door weather deep into October, even as the inevitable darkness strengthened and with it that sense...
Fallen Butterfly
Martha Ball
Sun, Oct 9
Category:
Island Notes
F or a moment it seemed as though Autumn, my sweet golden dog, had finally come to the realization that the vacuum cleaner is not a beast with its own mind and energies, one bound and determined to attack her. At some point in her growing and shedding youth, I merely pushed it to the side of the...
Striped bass prizes
Sol Schwartz
Sat, Oct 8
Category:
Fishing Report
Water temperatures around the island are finally starting to drop. After this last week’s northeast blow, along with cooler nights, we are definitely set for fall fishing. I’ve noticed the squid in both harbors are a little bit bigger lately, as well as an increased amount of small baitfish such as...
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Island Buzz
2013 Subaru Outback
Posted By
- Private group -
1/17
Price: $8,495 Exterior: White Year: 2010 Interior: Make:Subaru Trim/Package AWD 2.5i Limited 4dr Wagon Model: Outback...
Still Looking for a Summer Rental?
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Sullivan Sotheby's International Realty
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Sullivan Sotheby’s International Realty has some great options, if your still searching for that perfect Summer Rental. We...
Christmas at Highland Farm
Posted By
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It’s the holiday season and we have everything you need to get into the festive spirit here at Highland Farm. We have live...
Escape to Narragansett!
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The Break: A Narragansett Hotel
1/16
Spa services, heated pool, heated bathroom floors, onsite restaurant, luxurious linens, ocean views. . .all at a great price...
TimberTech by AZEK
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Riverhead Building Supply offers TimberTech by AZEK Building Products. Click here for the latest collections and styles...
BI Resident Rate at The Break Hotel - 10% OFF
Posted By
The Break: A Narragansett Hotel
1/16
Coming to or from the island, staying for pleasure or business, visiting the local lighthouses or learning to surf, you’ll...
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