HOLLY NADLER

508-274-2329

(sunporch@vineyard.net)

The Hundred Years War has nothing on the Oak Bluffs sewer and street improvement project. Seems to me they started digging stuff up and creating piles of goo and gunk back around the time of the Louisiana Purchase. The midnight jack-hammering sessions have taken place off and on, which has created new annals in ongoing research into insomnia and the treatment thereof (best prescription: move to Falmouth). Thankfully, we may be reaching the end. A neon chartreuse notice was dispensed on Tuesday, promising “the final curb-to-curb paving on Circuit avenue” to take place starting at 8 p.m. on Thursday and continuing through the night into Friday.

I’m writing this on Wednesday as townsfolk scramble to renew their Ambien prescriptions or make plans to be anywhere but here come Thursday night. Or maybe we should take a more celebratory approach: rent out the Lampost or the Ritz, concoct pitchers of sangria and raise a glass to the pretty new layer of asphalt coming our way.

To give the workers their due — the town water department in cahoots with J. Fletcher Creamer — a very personable man has paved the way, if you’ll pardon the pun, each time there’s been a new incursion. Bob Gowen, consulting engineer from New Hampshire, is about as nice a guy as you’ll ever find as a bearer of bad news. It is he who routinely hands out the gaudily colored fliers and takes the time to prepare storekeepers for another day or night of rip-roaring machinery, orange cones, dust and the smell of hot tar. We’ll be sorry to see him go.

Some important dates sent to us by the Oak Bluffs school: voting day on a series of Proposition 2 1/2 questions is Wednesday, May 28 from noon to 7 p.m. The 8th grade trip takes place on June 1, 8th grade graduation is June 11 and, the best one, the last day of school is June 20.

The library is sponsoring a new photography contest in conjunction with the annual celebration of Della Hardman Day on Saturday, July 26. The contest seeks 14 images featuring Martha’s Vineyard reflecting the theme of Della’s legacy, Savor the Moment. The winning entries will be published in the Oak Bluffs Public Library Calendar for 2009. Please get in touch with the library by phone, 508-693-9433, or visit the Web site, oakbluffslibrary.org.