From Gazette editions of July, 1935:

A familiar word has already entered into the conversation of the cities — humidity; indeed, it is not altogether unknown in the polite verbal exchanges of the Vineyard. Summer brings the moist sunny days and the dripping overcast days. The way of the salt on the table does not run smoothly, lest the shaker has been left near an open window, in which case all may be liquid. The authority of the United States government is inadequate to prevent stamps from curling and becoming decommissioned in the pocketbook or table drawer. One looks for yesterday’s loaf of bread with apprehension, and is relieved if the green mold has appeared only around the edges.

The penetrating quality of atmospheric moisture near the sea is amazing. Even things which are not soluble in water seem to dissolve in the damp air of summer, such as the varnish on pieces of furniture. No room is so closely kept that the drawers of the bureau do not stick and complain, and the doors swell and the floorboards curl at the edges.

Yet the moist air has its good qualities, too, for it may be a sort of herbal infusion, a new kind of tea to be taken through the nostrils. Just what scent or flavor predominates depends on the immediate surroundings. Gardens, fields and woods make their contribution, and all sorts of fragrances become dissolved in the inescapable wetness of the enfolding air.

Not all the apprehension about summer weather is justified. Take fog, for instance. From the standpoint of the fisherman or mariner, fog is always undesirable; but from the standpoint of the summer vacationer, a certain amount of it may be admitted. In fact, no vacation would be complete without a certain number of fogs, some of them the famous pea soup variety such as we have already had in the past week or two.

Fog is impractical, but it is decorative, party as a foil for the bright, sparkling sunshine to which it bequeaths an early morning lustre, and partly in its own right. There is nothing quite like the feeling of an evening when the fog drifts in over the beaches and steadily envelops everything, or of a morning when the fog begins to melt and draw away, to the tune of hooting from light vessels and stations and the long-drawn whistling of passing steamers. Anything which so adds to the range and quality of the human senses must have its place among the assets of country life.

The way familiar objects loom in fog is a stimulating variant of the coastal scene. A venerable shack may take on immensity as it is discovered suddenly through the floating pall, not only immensity, but dignity. The small zones of damp grass and shrubbery disclosed as one forges ahead through the fog are both familiar and strange in a new way.

Summer rains remind the modern generation of the importance of attics. Rain is important to the farmer, but it falls short of doing its duty by the vacationer unless he has an attic to which he may retire to look through boxes of letters, or read old books. The rafters overhead, the cobwebs all about, and the dry, ancient smells, give point to a day indoors, and the man who has an attic with these things in it is seldom found pacing up and down a living room, waiting for the rain to stop.

Cellars are convenient, but they do not equal attics in summer or on rainy days. That is one of the priceless advantages of old houses — if they do not have full-sized attics, they have spaces under the eves, and various places into which someone’s forefathers stored broken spinning wheels, piles of magazines, trunks studded with brass nails, pictures and picture frames, prizes brought home from alongshore, trophies which once had a day in the parlor, and all that sort of thing. The attic is of utmost importance on rainy days.

It is not at all necessary to have a quiet summer. The sea is an incorrigible maker of noise, and no one objects. At times the roar of South Beach is audible over most of the Island, and the North Shore has a gentler voice of its own which is never stilled. The winds are more or less noisy, especially when they have groves of trees to play with, and the birds never fail to set up a clatter just before sunrise. Some birds, like the starlings, tramp over the roofs as if they had boots on. Yet all these sounds, all these noises, no one seems to mind.

Of the sounds made by human beings, too, a surprising number are unobjectionable. The laughter of young people at the beaches or on picnics; the roars of the applause at games and theatres; the singing of carefree but uninspired individuals full of innocent gaiety; complaints seldom come in against these things.

It is unfortunate that the narrower category of noises which are downright objectionable cannot be eliminated. It should not be an unattainable goal to quell excessive racket of traffic, churning engines, tooting horns and that sort of thing. When such few noises stand between the summer public and complete satisfaction, the few should be brought under control

Compiled by Alison L. Mead