There is nothing sleepy at the Portuguese-American Club in Oak Bluffs this winter, or any winter.
While many of the Island’s summer restaurants and clubs might slip into a state of hibernation, at the PA Club the music is loud, the television is playing and the heat is on. Someone has a story to tell.
The club, off Vineyard avenue, is the Island’s community living room, dining room and kitchen. For many of members, the place offers a second home, a second living space. The oven is seldom off.
The Club That Does What Needs Doing
By CHRIS BURRELL
Not a drop of Portuguese blood flows in Barbara Humber's
veins. Her ancestry is Scottish and Irish, but hand her a pile of
linguica, garlic and potatoes, and she can cook up a genuine batch of
sopa.
Ms. Humber is just one of a growing number of Islanders who have not
only joined the Portuguese-American Club in Oak Bluffs but now play
pivotal roles in it despite a glaring deficit: They aren't
Portuguese-Americans.
The reasons aren't really that complicated.
They came by the thousands. The word at the annual Feast of the Holy
Ghost was that on Martha's Vineyard, everyone can be Portuguese
for a weekend.
Holy Ghost Feast Honors Heritage of Portuguese
By MARK ALAN LOVEWELL
Two days of celebration begin tomorrow in the annual Feast of the
Holy Ghost. Islanders of Portuguese heritage and their friends will
party, dine and parade in a festival whose traditions date back more
than half a century.
"This is our heritage," said Bobbie Ann Gibson of Oak
Bluffs, president of the Holy Ghost Association.
