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Columnists

Solstice

Martha Ball

Fri, Jun 24

Category:

News, Island Notes

Today the summer solstice and the full moon coincide, the headlines declare, an event that has not occurred since 1948. Or 1967. Or 1986. It is one of those black holes of Man v. Nature into which I too easily and too often tumble. It is like the calendar, an attempt by man to define...
A case of gender identity

Zoe Estrin-Grele

Fri, Jun 17

Category:

Loose ends

Transgender. It's like a dirty word to a lot of people these days. With all the hullabaloo in South Carolina about who's allowed in what bathroom, the issue has suddenly jumped to the front of popular consciousness. Unfortunately, it seems that education and understanding about the issue is pretty...
On the good ship Currituck

Martha Ball

Fri, Jun 17

Category:

Island Notes

There is something good about hitting one of those “big” birthdays. When the glimmer of an opportunity to go out on the Currituck , the funky dredge with the familiar profile, that has been clearing our harbor channels for years, hit my peripheral vision, I leapt at it. I was at the dock...
Small bass with every cast

Sol Schwartz

Sat, Jun 11

Category:

Fishing Report

The fish are definitely here. The last two weeks we have seen a huge increase in bait around the island, which in turn has brought in the fish. Squid are in New Harbor, but for the most part they are still fairly small. The warming temperatures are most likely the cause for the recent upswing, and...
Green leaves and wavy glass

Martha Ball

Fri, Jun 10

Category:

Island Notes

The season has peaked. The lilacs have turned brown and sere, their glory gone for another year, and tall grass hiding one side of the ever-narrowing lane behind my house is bending under the weight of seed. It is worse, even, at the gate, the turn off Mansion onto my road, a near tunnel these days...
Sports banquet honors student athletes

Cassius Shuman

Fri, Jun 3

Category:

News, Inactive Columns

Student athletes, coaches, and family members packed into Winfield’s Restaurant on Tuesday night, May 31, for the Block Island School’s Annual Sports Banquet. Athletic Director Rob Closter told the crowd of 50 that coaches provide teachable moments that will be remembered by the student athletes...
Fishing Report

Get your fluke on!

Christopher Willi

Fri, Jun 3

Category:

Fishing Report

This week’s report sees the season heating up from the shore, with schoolies to low end-keeper sized bass making things fun for the surf casters. The west and southwest sides of the island are producing most consistently, both for me personally, and from reports we are receiving from night owl...
Words to Remember

Martha Ball

Fri, Jun 3

Category:

Opinion, Island Notes

It is Memorial Day on Block Island, a gray Monday, rainy then foggy then hopeful and back to some form of dampness in the air. It is only by the surfaces of the puddles that I can be certain if there is real precipitation falling from the sky or only the heavy mist that feels like rain on the skin...
The Garden Report: The value of a rain garden

Renée Meyer

Fri, May 27

Category:

Gardening Report

You may have heard the term, but what exactly is a rain garden? After a presentation by Lorraine Joubert of the University of Rhode Island Cooperative Extension Service on storm water runoff, my takeaway was that it is a glorified name for a ditch. Storm water runoff was the subject of a joint...
Trips Abroad: Lathrop Insurance

Michael Schroeder

Fri, May 27

Category:

Trips Abroad

“We love Block Island.” John Lathrop, the owner of Lathrop Insurance Agency in Westerly, is effusive in his praise after years of dealing with island residents and business owners. It all started back in the early ‘70s, when Adrian “Tiny” Sprague and his wife, Barbara, called John’s father about a...
We are all stakeholders

Martha Ball

Fri, May 27

Category:

Island Notes

This coming Saturday, May 28, the newly refurbished 1876 Captain Noah Dodge House, more commonly known since the 1950s as the Doctor’s House, will be open to the public for two hours, from 2 to 4 p.m. It stands as more than a mere renovation of an historic building. The word “murmuration” seems...
Time to fish!

Sol Schwartz

Fri, May 27

Category:

Fishing Report

Hello everyone! The time of year is upon us when we’ve put away the snow shovels and bring out the fishing gear. Some of the more dedicated fishermen have already been at it for weeks, but if you’re just getting back into it, you haven’t missed too much yet. It’s important to have your gear working...
It's go time

Capt. Chris Willi & Capt. Hank Hewitt

Fri, May 20

Category:

Fishing Report

We are extremely pleased to finally report striped bass being caught from the island shores. Once the east winds subsided and the south and west winds arrived, so too did the stripers. The ‘first fish’ honors go to Ricky ‘The Phantom’ Hall who landed the first reported striped bass last Wednesday...
Amazon on the Neck

Martha Ball

Fri, May 20

Category:

Island Notes

Nature in May is dauntless. Spring has waited too long, it is not going to be off-put by cool days and cooler nights. The maple outside the kitchen window, grown from a wind-tossed seed, has unfurled new leaves, red-tinged green. “Amazon on the Neck,” I think, and wonder how many places there are...
Foundations in the brush

Martha Ball

Fri, May 13

Category:

Island Notes

The sun is shining. There are Canada geese to the east, sitting in the beaten grass of the pond lot behind my house. Their goslings have grown, already the size of small ducks, their baby feathers a fluffy gold, backlit by the new morning spreading across the land. I have not yet seen them down the...
The fluke are back

Hank Hewitt

Fri, May 6

Category:

Fishing Report

To start off this week's fishing report, The Great Salt Pond is beginning to produce. The winter flounder are becoming active. I had decent action fishing over them last week. More and more bait is filtering into the pond, and while putting in some evening fishing time looking for striped bass, I...
Guitar Man

J.V. Houlihan, Jr.

Fri, May 6

Category:

The Ferry Dock Scribbler

“Is the ferry going? It seems kind of windy,” said a guy carrying a soft guitar case slung over his shoulder. He looked very concerned as he stood at the end of the State Pier waiting for the M/V Manitou to be loaded. He was with a group of musicians who were going to play a gig on the island. Ken...
Bridges to nowhere

Martha Ball

Fri, May 6

Category:

Island Notes

Last week we had a Primary in Rhode Island. Block Island almost running out of ballots, having an additional batch sent over on the last boat — which the Captain held until the packet arrived — was a story that got picked up by the national press. It was, in some cases, turned a bit on its side, a...
Highland Farm

Michael Schroeder

Fri, Apr 29

Category:

Trips Abroad

Back in 1996, there was only a single greenhouse “to grow some flowers and make a little money” for his sister, who had recently retired from Electric Boat. Now, Highland Farm, run by Jack Sumner and his sister Martha, is a 30-acre complex with seven greenhouses — and that’s only part of the...
Ambling Muskrat

Martha Ball

Fri, Apr 29

Category:

Island Notes

There is snow in northern Rhode Island, they are saying — in the dead spaces between the swooning over a Presidential candidate who made a whistle-stop in Rhode Island yesterday and confusion about “usual” polling places being closed, and insistence “no one has said anything” when it has been a...
Dewinterization

Capt. Chris Willi

Fri, Apr 22

Category:

Fishing Report

Spring is definitely in the air and the itch to get on the water is becoming unbearable. We talked about getting fishing gear ready in the last article, so let’s move on to getting the boat ready to hit the water. ‘Dewinterization’ is the term used for the spring preparation of a boat. This, of...
Green Haze

Martha Ball

Fri, Apr 22

Category:

Island Notes

Viewing the forecast, so often at odds with the world beyond my door, was my objective, but I am easily distracted today by an “Active Advisory Special Statement” issued by the National Weather Service, mirroring a “No Beach Fires” announcement issued by the local Fire Department. It would be a...
Passover or die trying

Zoe Estrin-Grele

Fri, Apr 22

Category:

Loose ends

It’s April of 2012 and I am a junior in college. It’s approximately 5 p.m. and I’ve just stepped into the school dining hall, which looks like a slightly classier high school lunch room (there’s carpeting and the chairs are made out of wood instead of plastic.) Something is bothering me. Something...
Green Haze

Martha Ball

Fri, Apr 22

Category:

Island Notes

Viewing the forecast, so often at odds with the world beyond my door, was my objective, but I am easily distracted today by an “Active Advisory Special Statement” issued by the National Weather Service, mirroring a “No Beach Fires” announcement issued by the local Fire Department. It would be a...
Wet road

Martha Ball

Fri, Apr 15

Category:

Island Notes

Here is a great swath of green lying along the coast all the way from South Carolina to Maine and beyond into Canada. I think statistics, the disproportionate percentage of the population of this nation living within fifty miles of the coast, the idle musings of someone living with exceedingly slow...
Silver Streak

J.V. Houlihan, Jr.

Fri, Apr 15

Category:

The Ferry Dock Scribbler

“The dollar of our daddies, of silver coinage free, will make us rich and happy, and bring prosperity.” — Williams Jennings Bryan Williams Jennings Bryan ran for President three times – and lost. This is not a political column; however, I’ve carried the above quote in an active file in my...
Celebrate Earth Day

Kim Gaffett

Fri, Apr 15

Category:

News, Ocean Views

Next week is Earth Day. (Friday, April 22, for those of you for whom this date does not come readily to mind.) A day, and a week, to celebrate our home planet. Next week is also spring break here on Block Island. With the Island Free Library, Ocean View Foundation will be marking the occasion with...
Prep Time

Capt. Chris Willi

Fri, Apr 8

Category:

Fishing Report

As Hank warned in the last column, “Don’t be fooled by mother nature,” the weather sent us one more dose of snowy coldness to keep things in check. Don’t let this deter optimism for an end-of-month start to the saltwater fishing scene, however. The last week of April and the first week of May are...
Dragons Passing

Martha Ball

Fri, Apr 8

Category:

Island Notes

The first Sunday in April began a wild, beautiful, broken day. There was a snow squall in the morning, a cloud of white disbelief roiling beyond my window, the not-uncommon flurry but nonetheless evoking a but-it's-after-Easter! protest. These flurries are always a wonder, no matter how many ways...
Sea changes

J.V. Houlihan Jr.

Fri, Apr 8

Category:

The Ferry Dock Scribbler

Picture a beautiful building tumbling down the south-facing bluff on Block Island. This scenario did not play out in real life, because in August of 1993, after 10 years of planning and fundraising, the Southeast Lighthouse was moved 300 feet away from the bluffs. It had to be done; the endgame was...
Point Judith

J.V. Houlihan Jr.

Mon, Apr 4

Category:

The Ferry Dock Scribbler

“Are we in Point Judith?” “Is this Narragansett or Galilee?” “Does the ferry leave from here?” “Where’s the bridge?” These are a few of the questions that were asked by visitors to the Point Judith ferry docks — mostly before cell phones. Back in the day some people — on the cusp of road rage —...
Morning Broken

Martha Ball

Fri, Apr 1

Category:

Island Notes

Last night I wondered that it was so dark before realizing it was almost seven o’clock in the evening and remembering it was March, yet. Later, there was a great wind and, again, I was reminded: March. The sun is moving to the north, spring is real. Easter morning I woke early, even before the dawn...
The bank on the Block

Fraser Lang

Sat, Mar 26

Category:

Trips Abroad

When I worked for The Spring House in the early 1960s, I occasionally had to do some banking business for the hotel. That would require taking a trip to the credit union located in the building that now houses The Darius Inn. As I recall, that credit union was open very limited hours. In the late ‘...
Justin Abrams

J.V. Houlihan Jr.

Sat, Mar 26

Category:

The Ferry Dock Scribbler

“Back in those days we’d sail our Pearson Triton out from Greenwich Bay, we’d take the kids out to Block Island, and that’s how we came to buy The 1661 Inn,” said Justin Abrams. In the latter part of the summer of 1970, I worked for the Abram’s family. They had a little sandwich shop next to The...
Don't be fooled by Mother Nature

Hank Hewitt

Sat, Mar 19

Category:

Fishing Report

The days are getting longer with the sun setting later. The air is warming, and the birds are singing a spring song. These late winter happenings have me awakened from my winter dormancy and seeking the harbingers of spring, signaling the return of the fish I so eagerly pursue with rod and reel...
“He's a Farmer”

Martha Ball

Fri, Mar 18

Category:

Island Notes

It was mild last week and the sweet night music of peepers rose from the low places in the early evenings. They were singing everywhere, all over the island, in other New England states and down the coast. Reports of them was widespread and joy-filled. Dawn came late, a line of deep rose, hovering...
Docks

J.V. Houlihan, Jr.

Sat, Mar 12

Category:

News, The Ferry Dock Scribbler

In 1938, on Sept. 9, a storm was forming off the coast of Africa. Subsequently, it developed into a Category 5 hurricane, and it spun up the east coast of the United States. After this storm crossed the Atlantic, it hit the coasts of Haiti and Cuba. Then, it changed course off the tip of Florida...
Time to plant the peas

Renee Meyer

Sat, Mar 12

Category:

Gardening Report

There has been a somewhat dubious advertisement playing over the airwaves of late. To the background song of “Food, Glorious Food,” from the musical “Oliver,” the Cox cable ad would have us believe that in future years we will all be able to use a 3-D printer to print out exactly what we wish to...
There was Land

Martha Ball

Fri, Mar 11

Category:

Island Notes

March 2010 — These days of high tides and high surfs make the last stretch of Corn Neck Road, the southern end, out beyond the protection of the dunes, feel like a bridge the water is so near. We have two roads that tempt the sea, this short stretch where the telephone poles bend,...
Fishing Report: The Best Time

Capt. Chris Willi

Sat, Mar 5

Category:

Fishing Report

One of the most asked questions for a fishing charter business by customers planning their vacation is “when is the best time for fishing?” The answer to this can be the snarky “anytime is a good time to fish,” to the specific “go to the Poop Chute one hour after the top of the outgoing two days...
The big con

J. V. Houlihan Jr.

Fri, Mar 4

Category:

The Ferry Dock Scribbler

A baseball-hatted man dressed in black is walking with a subtle degree of swagger–cocky. He is being escorted into a building while being hounded by photographers — it’s an aggressive scene. Suddenly, he nudges a photographer and he gets jolted back — hard — by another man with a camera. It was an...
No Good Wind

Martha Ball

Fri, Feb 26

Category:

Island Notes

There is no good wind in winter, there are only those days without wind that come as gifts, spreading over the land with the ever-earlier morning sun. They are to be met with gladness and thanksgiving; Sunday, a week after remarkable and unusual below-zero temperatures, was one, a "where-is-my-coat...
A memorable professor

J.V. Houlihan, Jr.

Fri, Feb 26

Category:

The Ferry Dock Scribbler

“Yon can’t focus in class and your head is all over the place. Your work is showing me nothing. Why are you taking my class?” said Professor David Gustafson. It was my final semester as a theater student at Rhode Island College, and this guy had just come down from Canada to teach an acting class...
Hey, Captain!

Capt. Chris Willi

Sat, Feb 20

Category:

Fishing Report

A few months ago we did an article on what to take into consideration when choosing the right charter boat for your trip. After all, if you’re going to drop a few hundred dollars you want make sure you’re going with a safe, experienced, and qualified individual. The preeminent qualification of any...
Breath of the Sea

Martha Ball

Fri, Feb 19

Category:

Island Notes

Sunday, I got out my heaviest wool sweater, scratchy and brown, and officially gave in to winter. It was a from-the-ground-up process, starting with the bulky Baffins, the big blue boots have sat in my bedroom since spring, never making it to the box in the closet — as if they could on their own...
For A Song

Martha Ball

Fri, Feb 12

Category:

Island Notes

The last Sunday in January came the sad news of the passing of Eugene Rankin, southern gentleman, accomplished pianist, teacher, beloved neighbor and friend. He was 93. Seven years ago this March, I wrote to my brother, idle musings on an approaching storm, then, because my heart could not contain...
Geeking out…

Capt. Chris Willi

Sat, Feb 6

Category:

Fishing Report

Every year the largest fly fishing show on the East Coast kicks off in the mid-Atlantic state of New Jersey. Held at the Garden State Exhibit Center in Somerset, the show brings over 400 fly fishing suppliers, retailers, guides, outfitters, authors, fly tyers, and educators under one roof and...
Garden Report: The art of pruning

Renée Meyer

Sat, Feb 6

Category:

Gardening Report

Last weekend gave us zero excuses not to get out of the house and do something around the yard, at least here on the eastern side of the island where all traces of the blizzard known as Jonas have disappeared. Well, not quite all of the traces — there were some tree limbs down, some minor, some not...
Buddy

Martha Ball

Fri, Feb 5

Category:

Island Notes

Last week, long-time mayor of Providence, Vincent “Buddy” Cianci, passed away, seemingly unexpectedly. In truth, he had been seriously ill and we had all known it, all of us who listened to WPRO radio, who gave even passing notice to politics, the blood sport of Rhode Island. Everyone in the state...
Students of the Month

Gloria S. Redlich

Sat, Jan 30

Category:

Inactive Columns

The Block Island School has initiated a monthly program of recognizing two students from the middle and high school grades for outstanding qualities and behavior. This month’s honorees are Chloe Weber, a sixth grader, and Bridgette Keane in grade 11. In statements posted on the main bulletin board...

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