This is the week of the big Mercury and More collection. If you have not been able to get your mercury-containing discarded equipment and materials to the BRRDD transfer station by Wednesday, bring them direct on Saturday, Oct. 26 to the Lincoln County's Recycling (LCR) Department facility on Huntoon Hill Road. Please take this seriously, my friends. Mercury in any form is a serious neurochemical which can cause grave damage to the central nervous system and even the brain. Computer boards and monitors, television tubes, fluorescent lights, mercury thermometers and barometers... If you are not sure which items contain mercury, or have other questions, call LCR at 882-5276, Mondays 8 am to 1 pm, Thursdays and Fridays 8 to 10 am.

The Edgecomb Historical Society meets at Sophie Quinn's, 8 Cross Point Road, at 2 pm, Thursday, Oct. 24. We must plan for the November meeting, and future programs. Bring your ideas and project reports! Call Sophie at 882-9326 for more information.

Get ready for an oogly boogly Halloween! Parents, make preparations to accompany your kids on their trick-or-treat rounds. "What a drag," you say? Hey, when else will you get to be looming shadows, witch queens, warlock kings?. My mother would scare us to pieces with only a sheet and a broom, but she'd shoot the broom up under the sheet so one minute the ghost would be her normal 5'4", the next, eight feet tall! My stepfather, Aage Colby, once appeared all in black, with only a bright red parrot-like beak. He had made a mask from a couple of lobster claws. Truly horrifying!

Your columnist does not like to be a killjoy (Oh, yes, she does!). To my mind, big neighborhood parties are so much more preferable to these dangerous nocturnal driftings. My family gave good ones. I remember a pirate party, with a treasure hunt map we dipped in coffee and let get moldy, to "age" it. And a ghastly game of "Visiting Davy Jones," his bones of vacuum cleaner tubes, his eyes of cocktail olives made. Another year we held an Indian party in the sand pit that used to be in our lower field. Anyone else with Halloween memories? Please share them with me for next week's column!

This just in from the Tax Collector's Office: Registration forms and stickers for snowmobiles are now available in the Town Hall office. Also, next year's stickers are in, for anyone leaving for the winter who wishes to register his or her vehicle ahead of time before leaving.

The Maine Municipal Association, at its Bangor convention last week, voted overwhelmingly in favor of the Citizens' Initiative for Tax Reform. Its immediate object is to relieve property taxes by an equalizing of the tax structure mechanism. Listen up, residents of Edgecomb! Now there is something you can do! 1) Show up on November 5, Election Day, vote! and then sign the petition to put the Tax Reform Initiative on next year's ballot.
2) Starting now, please volunteer to gather signatures on the petition at the Town Hall polls that day. In order to volunteer, you must be a Maine resident, registered to vote in Maine, and your name must appear on the Edgecomb voting list. Call the Town Hall, 882-7018, if you are interested. The more gatherers, the shorter each one's stint on Nov. 5!

Seven ladies from the Edgecomb Congregational Church dedicated a day last week to pack 1,132 Christmas candy boxes for the Maine Seacoast Mission in Bar Harbor. This institution and others like it across the country provide board and lodgings for seamen on shore leave as well as emergency shelter for people rescued from accidents at sea.

You may have noticed four beautiful blue spruces newly planted by the lower entrance to the North Edgecomb Cemetery. These are evidence of the Maro Hammond Fund at work, set up by members of his family some years ago, for the preservation and beautification of Edgecomb's historic places. The Cemetery's officers were delighted to receive the Fund's help with this project, and hope that residents and drivers on Rte. 27 will enjoy the trees for many years!

Frosting the pumpkin at 234 River Road, 633-2978, bonesukl@midcoast.com. This column appears in The Boothbay Register, The Lincoln County News, The Wiscasset Newspaper, and at www.Edgecomb.org.