Island News
EMAIL me at bjohnson@nlis.net
- ISLAND EMAIL DIRECTORY
CURRENT NEWS
September
29, 1998 - What a beautiful day - swam laps this morning and the kids
swam from 3:30 till 5:00- the pool has maintained 79 degrees. Tomorrow is
the last day for the school gym swimming lessons. Tomorrow is also the day
Vika becomes a United States Citizen. She received a note from Bill and
Hillary Clinton congratulating her - It looks like his signature. I wonder
if he really signs them or if they are computer generated or if someone
else signs them for him. Does anyone know?
September 27,
1998 - Last week or the week before when I posted three days in a row
everyone including myself thought that I was back into the internet groove
again - but I fooled you all - who knows maybe now that the moose may be
gone I'll be back. Yes last Wednesday everyone on the eight CTC boat got
a look at a full size bull moose who thought he was leaving Chebeague but
he turned around and spent another day roaming all over the island. I got
a call at 6 am on Friday that he was next door but by 7:15 he was swimming
over to Littlejohns so I think he is gone for good. A couple of weeks ago
the school children saw a younger smaller moose while they were heading
to school on the bus- it was very exciting for them all. There have been
no sightings for the last few days so I think we are now moose free. I'm
so disappointed that I never saw them.
We have been having more thunder showers in the night and early morning
and I understand there are warning all over the state for tonight. Just
a reminder to everyone that when the sky is clear at night you can actually
see the moons going around Jupiter with binoculars - it is really quite
spectacular. It is the brightest object in the sky right after sunset in
the east.
September 14, 1998 - Last weekend was wonderful
with the exception of the mosquitoes - the worst I've ever seen! Although
it is pretty cool at night the daytimes have been beautiful.
I have included on the people page a wonderful tribute
to Marian Wessell written by her husband Nils.
The new pic of the week is the baby
swimming lessons at the pool.
September 9, cont
- This must be the week for birthdays because I missed Lewis
Ross' birthday on the 7th and today is Ryan
Ross' birthday! Did I miss anyone else? yup I did - Cincy MacNeill on
the 7th, Tyler W. turned 8 on the 6th and Donny MacNeill on the 8th, Kendra
Hamilton Mckinnen is today! WOW! Happy Birthday!
September
9, 1998 - There is an article in today's paper
about the June 8, 1997 accident.
September 8, 1998
- Today is David Hill's birthday!
Happy Birthday! I also received this poem a while back written by Joe Martin
"A Heaven Beneath the Sky." He must
have written it just after the Music Festival.
September
7, 1998 - LABOR DAY! - It's back to work and school for the rest of
the world who hasn't already been there. We are heading off for a Sea Dogs
Game today - I hope it doesn't rain. Yesterday was Volunteer Appreciation
Day at the Recreation Center and there was a great turnout - I think over
100 people. All the children who have volunteered one way or another received
certificates, a plaque was put on the wall listing all the volunteers and
volunteer of the year was given to Rob Friedlander who has taken over the
pool running, lifeguarding and swimming lessons as a volunteer. He was presented
a copper fitting swimming sculpture created by Jon Rich. Then he presented
a tee shirt to Ray Newcomb who has volunteered every morning to lifeguard
Rob as he swims his laps. He looked great with his Lifeguard's lifeguard
T-shirt.
Happy Birthday Gail Miller!
(today) and Donna Martindale
(two days ago)!
September 4, 1998 - I thought that
when school started I would have so much time to catch up - but alas - tis
not so - I think I'm falling further behind. Maybe next week will get better.
I want to remind everyone that Volunteer Appreciation Day Celebration at
the Recreation Center is Sunday, Sept 6 from 3 - 5, refreshments and free
pool are part of the festivities as well as special recognition for all
the volunteers and even some awards. All children volunteers will be getting
certificates. It sounds like such a good time!
August 27,
1998 - Lightening and thunder storms have been quite exciting lately.
We even lost power for 24 hours Monday afternoon through most of Tuesday.
A lot of families have left the island for school - we start next Wednesday,
Sept 2nd. The Great Chebeague Golf Club had a huge celebration last weekend
for their 75th anniversary. This Sunday is the Blanchard Golf Tournament
which is scheduled so that all the lobstermen will be able to play. The
Calloway system is used so everyone has an equal chance to win. Last year
the winners were Kathy McCollom and Jarrod Smith. The tee off is 12:00 pm!
August 18, 1998 - Yesterday's ceremony was well attended and very
emotional as we all watched Russ and Elda Gwillim burn the mortgage. That
doesn't mean we don't still have to work hard to run the CRC and we still
need the anticipated pledges coming in as soon as able. There are still
a lot of people who I am sure will want to contribute to the capital fund
- within the next few months we will be getting the plaque up on the wall
with all the contributors names.
I just updated pic of the week - or is it occasional pic of the year
- oh well. The pics I have added are of the School's k-2 Africa Night back
in June.
August 17, 1998 - GREAT NEWS! There
has been a very generous donation to the Chebeague Recreation Center which
will enable us to pay off the mortgage which is not connected to anticipated
pledges. We will be having a Mortgage burning ceremony today at 4:30 at
the Recreation Center - everyone is welcome to join us!
August
13. 1998 cont.- Drug Use and Abuse! - Come to the Chebeague
Recreation Center on Thursday, August 20 from 6:30 p.m. to ? for
a Roundtable Discussion with teens, parents and professionals who deal with
substance abuse.
Laurie Wood and South Portland High School Substance Abuse Counselor
Carol Driggs will facilitate an open forum for talking about how to talk
to your kids about drugs, how to talk to your parents about drugs and what
we should all know about drug use and abuse among our teens.
Please take this opportunity to learn about drug use and its effects.
Come learn some helpful ways for keeping the lines of communications open.
This will not be just another lecture on the dangers of drug use. We will
focus on understanding and respecting the difficulties parents AND kids
face with this issue. Hope to see you there! Please call Laurie Wood at
846-5809 with any questions.
August 13, 1998 - I'm back - but I really have not
been away - just too busy!! Things should be getting better soon - I hope.
Next week all three kids will be in "Lobster Camp". Lobster Camp
is a new program brainstormed by Carol White which the Recreation Center
is offering. It is every day next week from 8:30 to 4:00 and includes studying
live lobster, going to the beach, visits from lobstermen, playing Lobstermans
Lot, watching lobsters being hauled, visit to the DMR Aquarium in Bothbay
and meeting with lobster scientists.
I haven't had a chance to tell everyone how great the Pool Games went.
It was really fun for everyone! Rob Friedlander organized all kinds of races
and games including adult pajama relay races - what a lot of work that was.
Some of us put on a synchronized swimming routine we had learned earlier
in the day from Betsy Wemesfelder. Next year Betsy and I will be setting
up some synchronized swimming programs for kids and adults. It is such great
exercise and we probably will be doing some more next week. If you are interested
in joining please contact me. The drawing took place for the BIG Raffle.
I don't know who won the $3000 but I understand it was a three year old,
$1500 was won by Kit Johnston, the moped was won by Rob Friedlander (no-
you won't see him tooling around on it - he quickly sold it - he definitely
prefers his bike) The two mountain bikes were won by Arlene and Wayne Dyer.
I was there when they picked up the bikes and Arlene was so excited - she
said it was the first new bike she had ever owned.
The CCR, Chebeague Care Resource is having it's third Annual Super FAntastic
Fundraiser Yard Sale 10 - 2, Saturday, Aug 15th at the Island Hall. They
will also have a fabulous raffle featuring donated works of three island
artists: Louise Todd, Shirley Burgess, and Marcia Wood.
August
3, 1998 - Thursday is the Ladies Aid Fair at the CIHCC 12:30 - 3:00,
that's always a fun place to go and get your early Christmas presents.
Wednesday, the Cumberland Mainland and Islands Trust is having their
annual meeting being held at the Recreation Center Craft Room 7:00pm. Please
come and see what the Land Trust has been doing over the last year. We will
be having a slide show also.
Anyone interested in getting raffle tickets for our pool field day you
can contact me or any other director of the Chebeague Recreation Center.
There are some great prizes and chances of winning are certainly better
than the lottery. 1st prize is $3000, 2nd prize is $1500, 3rd prize a Yamaha
RAZ moped, 4th prize 2 KHS Town and Country moutain bikes!!! - tickets are
$50 and we will not sell more than 400 tickets. It was a great success last
year and we only sold about 300 tickets so odds are good. The Raffle will
be held at the pool next Saturday August 8th (rain date August 9th) where
we will be having pool games from 2 - 4.
July 29, 1998
- A lot has happened since I last reported. We have had a successful
Music Festival last Sunday with all volunteer acts. Last Thursday night
the children 9 and under put on a fabulous play "Alice in Storybook
Land" directed by Rachel Damon and Kate Nyhan. We had the Craft Fair
on Saturday and the Library had a Betty Healy Art Exhibit. Yesterday was
Nancy Hill's birthday as well as Vika Johnson. This Friday and Saturday,
7:30pm at the CIHCC the Chebeague Youth Theatre is putting on "Newsies",
directed by Flora Brown.
July 22, 1998 - It is supposed
to be the hottest day of the year - in the 90's. The Mystery Dinner Theatre
was a tremendous success and I want to thank all those who helped as well
as those who attended. The food was the best and a concerted effort by many.
We also had lots of fun!! I can't help but think about next year but all
the workers and actors are looking at me funny. For those who missed seeing
Gary Varney as the sherrif and Bette Doughty as the crazy jilted sister
can probably get the tape from the library as soon as we get some copies.
The whole program consisted of all volunteers and everyone deserves a standing
ovation.
July 17, 1998 - Hello, there! Substitute correspondent
David Hill here, reporting in the absence of Beverly who is way too busy
today getting ready for the Mystery Dinner Theatre tonight. I really should
be learning my lines, but Bev asked me to update the page, because there
is some really hot breaking news around here today! In a nutshell, the MDOT
has intervened to guarantee at least the status quo as far as the
Cousins Island Wharf landing, parking, and barging on Cousins Island are
concerned. People are pretty excited. You can see the newspaper
article, the letter
from MDOT, and the Yarmouth
resolution. Now maybe we can bury the rhetorical hatchets and get back
to being a friendly, neighborly, multi-island community, the way we were
before all this unpleasantness began.
July 12, 1998
- The Mystery Dinner Theatre tickets are sold out with the exception of
a few isolated single seats so we have decided to have an encore performance
on Sunday night at 7:30 without the dinner. The cost is $5.00 donation at
the door. Hope to see you there!!
David Hill has started a public forum spot on the the Portland Press
Herald internet page which can be accessed at: http://community.portland.com/cgi-bin/cgiwrap/COMMUNITY/netforum/community/a/3--112
July
10, 1998 - I have been too busy to write much lately with trying to
learn 10 lines for the mystery dinner theatre - I have much more respect
for actors - I don't know how people do it. The tickets are almost sold
out for both nights - we only have five left for each night. Therefore,
we will be putting on a Sunday, July 19th night encore performance without
dinner at 7:30 pm. Tickets will be $5.00 at the door.
July
7, 1998 - A lot of people have asked who they should contact or write
to about the proposed resolutions by Yarmouth. The CTC has a page
with all the addresses of State officials and town councilors for Yarmouth
and Cumberland. I hope a lot of people write letters. I wish we had
email addresses for them all but we only have a couple.
July
3, 1998 - Finally, I got away from helping the kids with their float
for the Fourth of July and I've been sworn to secrecy about what we are
doing - but I can say I bet there are at least four more floats with the
same idea. We are all a little waterlogged from being at the pool the last
few days and now I know what Vika's favorite pastime is - swimming! The
POOL is unbelievably terrific - I had forgotten how much fun it is to really
swim. I grew up around a lake and hadn't realized how much I have been missing
- the ocean is just too cold for me. Gail has been putting carpet around
the edges where someday we will have grass, next week we will get the shower
outside which should help with the water in the locker rooms. The Coke machine
is in but we have to have someone down next week to show us how to work
it.
The really big news of course is Yarmouth's latest resolution. I have
linked a couple of articles everyone needs to read from yesterday's and
today's Portland Press Herald. Yesterdays is called "Council
to consider removal of parking for Chebeague ferry" and today's
is "Testy
exchanges mark session on Cousins lot". I hope anyone who has a
neighbor, acquaintance, a friend who is a taxpayer in Yarmouth will ask
them to support Chebeague's Island Population which I am sure will be gone
for ever if such a resolution should pass. It is as though Yarmouth were
never present at any public meeting or workshop or anything having to do
with this issue over the last 40 years. Some of the Yarmouth counselors
discount anything which comes from someone remotely connected to the island.
The chairman even commented that the inconvenience to their own lobsterman
doesn't matter because there are only four or five of them.
July
1 cont. - Sorry, sorry that I didn't include island carpenters, electricians,
mechanics, store owners, plumbers, etc below - we are all going to be in
a terrible situation! (in Maine fishing is like apple pie & motherhood)
July 1, 1998 - Thursday night the Yarmouth Town Council will have
a workshop open to the public on a proposal to close the Cousins Island
Parking lot, install a gate and institute busing only from the area to an
offsite parking facility year round. I feel that this would certainly make
it very difficult to live year round on Chebeague and would be a terrible
hardship for lobstermen and families. David Hill
has written a letter to the editor which should be appearing soon in
the Forecaster which coins a new word "communicide!" People really
need to let Yarmouth know how ridiculous their proposal is.
June
27, 1998 - We're back! I took my kids for a hike they will always remember
up and across part of the presidential range ending on the top of Mt. Washington.
The weather was beautiful and it was the best views I had ever seen travelling
across Mt Pierce, Eisenhower, Munroe and Washington. We stayed at Mizpah
Hut and Lakes of The Clouds Hut.
CHEBEAGUE RECREATION CENTER OPEN HOUSE - TODAY from 5 to 7 with
the annual meeting to follow. Come up and enjoy the festivities, the children
will be putting on a short demonstration of their tumbling, there will be
food, refreshments, coffee, punch, raffles, games.... See you there!
An interesting proposal
was presented by Randy Perry, a Cousins Island Resident, to the Region 6
Regional Transportation Advisory Committee - I hope people will write
or call the Cumberland Town Council, Yarmouth Town Council and the Transportation
Committee with your feeling about this proposal. I feel that this would
be the end of living year-round for many families!
June
20, 1998 - Happy birthday Beth Williams!
June
19, 1998 cont.- Tomorrow night the Historical Society is having its
annual meeting at the CIHCC and will be having a program on the History
of the District
9 school also known as the old Town Garage.
Volunteers Jimmy Stewart, Don L. and Gail Miller worked all day on the
grounds of the rec center moving topsoil and crushed rock. Wayne delivered
gravel for tomorrows work crew so things are moving along. Gail will be
planting trees funded from a memorial fund established in the memory of
her Uncle Eddie MacCormack.
I am getting the tickets ready to sell for the Dinner Theatre July 17
and 18. Donna has the cast all ready to start rehearsals and learning their
lines and I have set up the menu and details with the help of Fred and Donna.
I will officially start selling the tickets on June 27th at the CRC Open
House. There is limited seating of 60 per night and you will be able to
chose your day and seat. You can take a look at the internet ticket which
I have set up for people who want to check out the
seating and menu and order tickets on the June 27th. I will be away
most of next week hiking in the White Mountains with my kids - I can't wait.
The play we are doing is "Let's Hang Him and Read The Will" by
Pat Cook and adapted for islanders by Donna Damon! Donna will be contacting
all the players some of whom are Mabel Doughty, Nancy Chamberlain, Lauren
Miller, Louise Doughty, CarolLynn Davis, Nancy Caldwell, Gary Varney, Rob
Friedlander, BJ Abrahamson, Vail Traina, Bev Johnson, Ramona, Boopie Doughty,
Lucille Ferragamo, Rachel Damon, Barbara Marks, David Hill, Marty Trower
Rossoll, Mary Holt, Banu KomLosy, Jamie KomLosy, Bob Leon, Bruce Bowman,
Joan Robinson, Chip Emery, and a surprise cameo appearance.
June
19, 1998 - Saturday there will be another "POOL WORK PARTY"
at 8:00 am to prepare the area around the pool for concrete. Please come
and bring your shovel and rake. We have so much to do around the building
in preparation for grass and plants. Last weekend a group of hardy, wet
souls worked all day in the rain - what dedication!
The tumbling group is working on a demonstration show at the Rec Center
for Monday evening at 7:00 and we will also be doing a short demonstration
at the Recreation Center Open House which will be June 27th from 5 to 7
with the CRC Annual Meeting to follow.
June 15, 1998
- Everyone is probably wondering if we got washed away this past weekend
- not quite but it is pretty WET. We need the rain but it hasn't helped
with all the work we need to get done - especially around the pool. During
the week Gail is hoping to get some people to help around the pool area
so that concrete can be poured next Monday.
Last Thursday the K-2nd graders put on "Celebration of Africa"
at the rec center where the students also performed traditional African
dances, songs and rhythm pieces for a crowd of proud parents and community
members. Students wrote their own original "why" stories and performed
them in the oral tradition of Africa. It was quite a time and the children
as well as the adults have learned so much.
The time is getting close (tomorrow in fact) for Cookie Reed to do his
350 mile bike ride he sends: "thanks to all who have supported the
efforts to help those and their families affected by HIV/AIDS. I (Cookie)
have raised over $4k!! Also logged 1100 road miles in the past seven weeks.
I (Cookie) head to Raleigh,NC on 6/16 and will begin the 350 mile trek back
to DC at 5:45am on 6/18." GOOD LUCK!
There is a review
in the Boston Globe today about Lisa Carey's book Mermaids Singing.
June
10, 1998 - CONGRATULATIONS TO: Nancy
Hill who won a seat on the Yarmouth Town Council. The voting results
were Turner 897; Hill 662; Weinstein 567; Carter 365; Charbonneau 341; DiPietro
147. Great showing for Nancy's first time running for office. Turner had
been on the Council a couple of times before and has a law office in town.
June 9, 1998 - Happy birthday to KayKay
Hill, Eric Ross, and Jennifer Vittener
June
7, 1998 - The pool is on its way to being finished - Saturday a group
of people worked around the pool under the leadership of Doug Damon - Gail
Miller, Al and Vail Traina, Betz and Eldon Mayer, Robert White, Etta Hill,
Kellie and Christina Joyce, Lauren Miller, Thomas Damon, Jonny Miller, David
Rich, Chris McCullum, Zach Doughty, and Josh Doughty. Today I joined Gail
and Etta at the site and helped them do more grading and getting the forms
for the concrete forms built. My hands are only a little black and blue
but we felt quite accomplished when we realized how much we could do in
three hours.
Gail is organizing another "pool work party" to finish up the
grading and clean the area up so the slabs can be poured. She has even promised
to have muffins and coffee for SATURDAY MORNING AT 9:00. Pleeeeese come,
bring your shovel, rake, wheel barrel and self "many hands make light
work". I'm so sad I can't be there because of my nephews graduation
- cause I know it will be a blast!!
I have just added pictures to pict of the week of the rescue of Raymonds
boat off the ledges on Little Whaleboat.
June 5, 1998 -
Yesterday another article appeared in the Portland Press Herald: "Cousins Island
dock dilemma still eludes solution".
NEWS
FROM FEB 98 THROUGH MAY 98
NEWS FROM DEC 97 THROUGH JAN 98
NEWS FROM OCTOBER THROUGH NOVEMBER 1997
NEWS FROM MAY THROUGH SEPTEMBER 1997
NEWS FROM FEBRUARY THROUGH APRIL 1997
NEWS FROM DECEMBER 1996
AND JANUARY 1997
I would love to have any news, poetry, stories to add to my news page
so please email with anything you think would be of interest to islanders
around the world - yes Singapore, Egypt, Mediterranean, Boston etc. checking
out the news page everyday! So please email me at bjohnson@nlis.net
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Chebeague Island Anchor Page
