Growing up on the Vineyard, I long ago came to terms with finding wildlife in my house.

Ticks, spiders, mosquitoes and moths in summer; mice (both in traps and scurrying across dining room floors) in the winter. Once, a pair of baby raccoons camped out in our yard. Had I opened the backdoor, they would have waddled right into our dining room.

But no amount of Island insects, rodents, or bugs could have prepared me for the Cambridge bat.

If there’s one thing that Vineyarders know how to do, it’s throw a good party.

Even when the occasion for the party isn’t the most uplifting.

It’s funny the memories we keep.

There are the expected ones: a first kiss, college graduation, family holiday celebrations. And the not so expected: a sunrise beach walk alone on Christmas morning, the feel of the stiff Florida grass on bare feet used to the Vineyard’s downy lawns.