On July 8, four days after the devastating fire that burned Café Moxie and the Bunch of Grapes Bookstore, Tisbury defiantly held its summer street fair. Gazette photographer Jaxon White captured the event with a shot of an eight-year old girl on Main street, beaming through new front teeth and swirling a balloon. Her name was Hope. Hope Alwart.

And there was a single-frame metaphor for 2008, adversity and hope.

For those were the two big themes of the news in 2008, here on the Vineyard, as in the country and indeed much of the world. The adversity of economics and the audacity of a Presidential candidate running on hope.

Lots of other things happened, too, of course. A turkey went mad and the police shot it. A car crash stirred ethnic prejudices. A wind farm continued not to be built. A conservation organization allowed a private landowner to mine two of its properties for his landscaping needs.

There was another monster shark fishing tournament and hoax reports of a monster shark. The Island produced a new singing star. A vote on whether Tisbury should remain a dry town or not was tied 690 all. The Island’s only nightclub closed. And, of course, that terrible fire.

But the economy and politics took up the biggest amounts of news space last year, and the economy more space than politics. The very first Gazette of 2008 reported that Martha’s Vineyard Land Bank revenues had fallen for the second straight year in 2007. Transactions were down seven per cent and revenue down five. Things looked bad.

Eleven months later, 2007 looked like the good old days. The land bank figures showed transactions down 20 per cent, and revenue down more than 40 per cent between July 1 and Nov. 30.

It was a year in two parts. In the first, the Vineyard suffered a relatively mild dose of the real estate crisis which afflicted the nation as a whole. Property and related industries such as construction were having a tough time, but there were hardly any subprime mortgages and few foreclosures here. And the summer season came as usual. A midseason report on Island business was summarized under the headline: “Plenty of Visitors; Wallets Are Tight” at the start of August.

Then came the fall, literally and metaphorically. The financial crash of September and October pretty much put an end to suggestions that things here were bottoming out. In a news story on Nov. 21 Edgartown building inspector Leonard Jason Jr. reported building permits were off more than 50 per cent.

Evidence from the banks indicated that Island businesses had not been putting away as much money for the coming winter. Delinquency rates were rising.

But hope was the flip side of adversity, and much of the hope was pinned on the man who became President.

Vineyard voters warmed to Barack Obama early, notwithstanding the Island’s long connections with his Democratic rival, Hillary Clinton. The Vineyard is a political place, and increasingly over the years, a Democratic one. Still, the level of involvement was astonishing. There was an unprecedented rush of people to register for the primary. Politics gripped the Island as never before. Crowds gathered around the televisions in the Steamship Authority terminal to hear Senator Obama’s March 18 speech on race. Some 900 people turned up at the regional high school Performing Arts Center on a glorious August day to hear a 10-member panel put together by the Harvard Law School to discuss race, gender, age and religion in politics. Carloads and busloads of people left the Island to campaign for Obama in swing states.

By election day, record numbers had registered to vote — Democrats outnumbered Republicans more than three to one — and record numbers came out to vote. Turnout was better than 80 per cent across the Island; in Tisbury it was 87 per cent. And when the votes were counted, it was a landslide. Seventy-five per cent of ballots were cast for the Obama ticket. In Aquinnah, he got 90 per cent, making it the most Democratic town in Massachusetts.

So thanks in part to the Island, Barack Obama will shortly inherit two wars, one depressed economy, a broken financial system, a national reputation in tatters, an insolvent car company or two and a terminal health care system. Lucky he’s got hope.

But there were other matters, more purely local in nature.

In January the big story was the release of a draft Environmental Impact Statement on the proposed Cape Wind project by the federal Minerals Management Service. And it was big: 2,000 pages, concluding that the wind power project would have no major lasting adverse impacts on wildlife, navigation, fishing, tourism or recreation. Almost a year later, the final report has not been delivered. But the report’s authors certainly had a lot to do. By early March they had received more than 3,200 written submissions. A public hearing that month attracted some 350 people and ran for five hours. Speakers against the wind farm outnumbered those in favor roughly two to one.

January brought another gloomy economic indicator: the town of Oak Bluffs was facing a $1 million deficit. Island business operators were making dire predictions about labor shortages over summer, because Congress had not approved the usual number of visas for seasonal workers. In Edgartown, Peter Wells was looking to a rosier financial future. He’d just bought the Chappaquiddick Ferry from its longtime operator, Roy Hayes.

Early February saw a fatal car accident and a nasty outbreak of controversy and division within the Island community. The death resulted from a collision between a car driven by a local woman and one driven by a Brazilian immigrant, who had a history of unlicensed driving. An outpouring of hostility toward the Brazilian driver — and Brazilians in general — preceded the facts. The police investigation concluded the dead woman was traveling at 73 miles per hour, twice the legal limit, with no seat belt and had been drinking. He was moving at nine miles per hour. Sober.

On Feb. 15 a report on a study into the Island’s waste disposal system found trash disposal here inefficient and costly and recommended a larger, more efficient regional transfer station and one Islandwide refuse district. An obvious solution.

Over in Oak Bluffs, things were looking worse: the forecast deficit now looked more like $2 million. Then part of the seawall at Pay Beach collapsed — another expense for the town. And the annual controversy about the town’s monster shark fishing contest was heating up early.

The high school selected a new principal to replace Peg Regan. Vice principal Stephen Nixon was preferred to a dozen off-Island candidates. Cape and Islands state Rep. Eric T. Turkington announced that after 20 years, he would not seek another term.

Tisbury was divided over a proposal to allow restaurants to sell beer and wine.

By March, fuel prices were rising sharply, and the Steamship Authority began looking at costs and fares. Even the Chappy ferry operation was feeling the pinch, but there were some people for whom the cost of gas was the least of their worries. Susan McLean, 54, of Ambler, Pa., was in a playful mood when she drove her 2006 Mercedes SUV onto the Chappy ferry on the night of March 25. She sat there, turning the car’s steering wheel back and forth, as if driving the boat. The movement of the wheels dislodged the chocks under them, and she had put the car in neutral, not park. The car plunged into the harbor. She and her two adult passengers were pulled from the frigid water without serious harm. She was later charged with driving under the influence.

April begins town meeting season, and in three of the Island’s four big towns, residents seemed to be in spending mood. Edgartown, as usual, sped through its warrant. Likewise Tisbury. In West Tisbury, it was third time lucky for proponents of a plan to renovate the town hall, at a cost of $5.2 million. Oak Bluffs’ meeting was prolonged and testy search for budget cuts; 12 hours of deliberation and debate spread over four nights.

But the big surprise was the result of Tisbury’s referendum on beer and wine sales. The machine count registered 690 votes for the change, and 690 against, with 21 blank ballots. A hand recount eventually found two more no votes. The proponents of beer and wine licensing, mostly the business sector, promised immediately they would revisit the issue.

The April meeting of the SSA governors decided to hike fares, effective from the start of May, to raise an extra $1.5 million to offset the skyrocketing price of fuel. What else could they do? They had budgeted based on oil prices of $90 a barrel; on the day of the meeting it was almost $114, and would soon rise to around $140. Peter Wells likewise sought fare increases for the Chappy ferry. Fuel costs were hurting everyone from tradesmen to fishermen. A gallon of regular gas cost well over $4 on-Island.

The woes of Joseph Moujabber, of Oak Bluffs, however, had less to do with what he put in his cars than what he put his cars in. It looked like his three-story garage, built in 2003 without permission and dubbed the garage mahal, would be torn down.

May brought a startling environmental story. Large numbers of trees and plants were taken from two prominent conservation properties owned by the Sheriff’s Meadow Foundation, for use in landscaping the Lambert’s Cove property of Dirk Ziff. The Natural Heritage and Endangered Species program of the Massachusetts Division of Fisheries and Wildlife alleged multiple breaches of the Endangered Species Act.

It turned out the Ziff landscapers had been taking plants for two years before it was noticed. Sheriff’s Meadow made a public apology. Negotiations with the state over restoration measures are still ongoing.

The real estate market continued to be moribund. But Memorial Day was coming, the fish were biting, the weather forecast good, local traders hopeful.

The weekend was pleasant, except for those stuck in a traffic snarl caused when the Lagoon Pond drawbridge ceased to function for several hours. The problem: the old bridge, which will be replaced some time this millennium by a temporary and ultimately a permanent new structure, shifted on its piles while it was open and then would not shut. It does this from time to time, and they shave a bit off it each time.

In June came another dark report on the Island economy. A study for the Martha’s Vineyard Commission on the Island’s future foreshadowed a slowing of growth, an aging population, a likely shift to lower-paid service industry jobs, and noted a cash economy which undermined wages here.

And the month brought another story of the type that is unwanted in a beach resort. Two charter captains reported sighting a great white shark, in one case just about 50 feet off the beach at Menemsha. There was no reason to doubt the sightings; both Buddy Vanderhoop and Scott McDowell are experienced captains.

Still, the news was not all bad. The Gazette ran an upbeat story about an enthusiastic young couple, the new owners of Café Moxie and their plans for the coming season. Follow-up stories were planned.

Mid-June also brought one of those great only-on-the-Vineyard stories, summarized in the headline: “One Wild Turkey, Four Gunshots Lead to Three Assault Charges.”

The story began when two employees of Bear Baby Equipment rentals arrived at a house in Chilmark to drop some stuff off. A turkey named Tom so frightened them with his aggression that they just dumped the equipment from the car window and called police. But when the law arrived, Tom chased them. Patrolman Jeffrey Day pulled his gun and fired four shots, two of them while the turkey was in retreat. But the matter did not end there. Local resident Jonathan Harr, who claimed to have befriended Tom, rushed the police. He was not shot, but was charged with assault and battery (later downgraded to resisting arrest).

Experts in turkey behavior were consulted. Naturalist Gus Ben David said the police took the only action they could. “Some turkeys just turn bad,” he said. Evidence gathered later by the Gazette suggested Tom was the head of a gang of violent turkeys terrorizing a Chilmark neighborhood.

July brought another sobering report from the Martha’s Vineyard Commission. A study found 3,200 buildings on the Island could be inundated by a category four hurricane. The story ran in the Gazette of July 4, but the paper was barely on the street before the threat of flood was trumped by the reality of fire.

Every table at Café Moxie was booked for the night of July 4. The special that evening was to be fig encrusted rack of lamb. Austin Racine was preparing in the kitchen around 9 a.m. when he noticed smoke seeping from the basement, where he had been working earlier.

The first emergency calls went through at 9:21 a.m. The firemen got there fast, but the fire moved faster through the old timber building. Tisbury fire John Schilling made a decision: Moxie could not be saved. Instead, the brigades’ focus was on saving the adjoining Bunch of Grapes bookstore. And they did it, although for a time it seemed they might not. Among the crowd of hundreds of shocked onlookers, Mr. Racine and his partner Katrina Yekel watched as their new business burned. It was determined later that a faulty gas water heater was the cause.

Moxie was demolished. The Bunch of Grapes stood, badly damaged, but its stock was destroyed by heat, smoke and water. Jon Nelson, owner of the Bunch of Grapes, and Mr. Racine both expressed determination to rebuild, but they were out of business for the season. The fire was a disaster, too, for the other stores in town on the biggest business weekend of the year.

The town rallied. The street fair went on as planned. A donation box was set up outside the remains of Moxie. The Gazette ran a picture of a man making the first donation to it. His name was Ken Garde. The family name was to appear in print many more times before year’s end.

There was good news, too, reported on July 4. Katie Ann Mayhew, 16, of West Tisbury was in the finals of the Boston Pops High School Sing-off. She had started out as one of 200 contestants from across the state, and after the winnowing process was complete, she was unanimously judged the winner.

July also brought controversy about the summary dismissal of two long-time employees at the Boys’ and Girls’ Club Second Hand Store in Edgartown. There were waves of outrage. But the decision stood; the club needed to maximize its take from the store in hard times.

Which brings the story to the subject of charity. Across the nation, the recession brought with it both increased need and decreased resources for the charitable sector. But here, donor fatigue was not obvious last summer, although patterns of giving seemed to change somewhat. The Possible Dreams auction, which funds Martha’s Vineyard Community Services, raised $560,000, compared with more than $800,000 two years earlier, while a telethon in support of affordable housing took in more than $1 million.

The Martha’s Vineyard Museum spent the year reconsidering its ambitious $27 million plan to move from its Edgartown home to a new site at West Tisbury.

Time will tell if charitable giving holds up in the coming months, but what is already becoming clear is that need is increasing. Just before Thanksgiving, Community Services reported they had given away 40 turkeys with trimmings to needy families, the same as in 2007. But this year, they could have done with 60.

In August, Ken Garde’s name was in the news again; he came before the Tisbury selectmen as a result of repeated escapes by his family’s husky, Storm, a killer of poultry. The dog was banned from the town. Four days later, Storm escaped again, and killed four chickens. On Sept. 5, same thing again, except this time it was in Oak Bluffs.

There was some perplexing news on the environment. About 1,000 acres of oaks were found to be dead this year, killed by drought and attacks by caterpillars. Is it part of some natural cycle, or does it indicate something is out of balance? Scientists are studying it.

In September it was announced that an Island landmark, the Outerland nightclub, formerly famous as the Hot Tin Roof, would close, effective Nov. 30.

Co-owner Barry Rosenthal sent a letter to creditors that said the club was in debt and for sale. He blamed demographic changes, saying there were fewer and fewer people in the 21 to 30 age group.

On the rainy, misty night of Friday, Sept. 27, a Cape Air flight took off from the Martha’s Vineyard Airport, bound for Boston. There was one person aboard, Capt. David D. Willey, 61, who had been a pilot since he was 15 and who had flown all around the world, as a navy pilot, a crop duster, delivering aid. The Cessna had only been in the air a couple of minutes before it came down, scattering wreckage over a wide area in West Tisbury. The cause is still being investigated.

In October Paul Currier, owner of the Café Moxie building, announced he was at last ready to rebuild. On Oct. 24, Vineyard Haven resident Dawn Braasch closed a deal to buy the Bunch of Grapes from Jon Nelson. His mother Ann Nelson still owns the building and already has begun renovations. Ms. Braasch reopened in November in temporary spac e on Church street.

And November of course brought politics, and not all Presidential. In a heated four-way race Tim Madden was elected to fill the seat of Representative Turkington. A huge turnout on Nantucket put Mr. Madden over the top.

There were issues on the ballot to be decided too, including whether to scrap the state income tax, whether to decriminalize the possession of small amounts of marijuana, whether to outlaw greyhound racing and whether health care should be considered a right. Vineyarders voted no, yes, yes and yes, respectively.

A little bit of pot might be no crime as far as most Vineyarders were concerned, but the Island was collectively shocked in November when six people, three of them members of the Garde family, were arrested on felony drug charges after one of the biggest heroin busts in Island history.

Then in December, a West Tisbury junior high teacher was charged with five counts of furnishing alcohol to minors, assault and battery and two counts of dissemination of obscenity.

And then, just days before the first snow of the year, Connie Teixeira at a meeting of the Tisbury selectmen raised the plight of the homeless. She said there were at least a half dozen in that town alone.

Heroin? Teachers abusing their positions of trust? Homelessness? On the Vineyard?

And finally a story about someone who has the whole money thing in perspective. In November 2007, Sandy Grant of Edgartown won $10 million, the biggest prize in the history of scratch lotteries. At the time she said she would probably get a haircut, a better type of pet food, and a new flyswatter.

A year later she was interviewed to see what had changed. And the answer was precious little. She still lives in the same modest modular home, still works and rides her bicycle. She might take a cruise this year, but otherwise, there is no extravagance. Except that sometimes, if she’s at the store and spies someone who doesn’t have a lot of money, she will pay for their order. Instead of putting a dollar in the Salvation Army collection kettle, she’ll put in $5 or $10.

“I think about [what I’m going to give to charity] all the time,” she said.

“There’s a lot of bad stuff going on out there.”