Nothing planned for tonight? Come to Café Scientifique! These Bigelow Laboratory lectures at the Boothbay Harbor Opera House are presenting topics vital to those who live around the sea. Dr. Michael Sieracki, an Edgecomb resident on Cross Point Road, will talk about "Plankton in Boothbay Harbor: A Lot is Happening Right Under our Noses!" from 6:00 to 7:00 p.m. The public is welcome, cash bar, no admission charge.
Lea Wait will be signing her new Maggie Summer detective story, "Shadows at the Spring Show," and others of her books, from 2:00 to 4:00 p.m. at Sherman's Book Store in Boothbay Harbor.
Come on along this Saturday, Aug. 13, to the Five-Mile Yard Sale on Cross Point Road! Start your trek at the Congregational Church with a breakfast of bagels and/or muffins and coffee, 7:30 to 9:00 a.m. and then stroll, coffee in hand, down your neighbors' combined casbah/bazaar/souk for the shopping high of the summer!
Got yard sale stuff but don't live on Cross Point Road? $10 will get you a space, $5 more will get you a table. Get in touch at once with Gail Boudin, 882-7972 for details!
The Town Hall has a new photocopier, so the old one is available, price negotiable. It is a Canon PC 980, and comes with one toner cartridge, special paper feed and instructions. If interested in taking it off our hands, call Claudia Coffin, Town Clerk, at 882.7018 during Town office hours (M 7:00-9:00 p.m.; T and TH 1:00-5:00 p.m.).
Bruce is having such fun with the Edgecomb Historical Society website, linked on www.edgecomb.org! He is beginning to get readers' feedback to some of the Ivan Flye pictures; #775, C.L. Perkins' boat, Bob Brown has pretty well convinced him the landing is Poole's, not Williams'; #843, Indian Cliff, is not Edgecomb at all, but possibly the east side of Westport Island. Andrew Roth-Wells, grandson of Audrey Chase, speculates that #879, "The Damariscotta Road," a picture of two well-dressed women, is of his Great Aunt Katherine Chase Owen and friend Thelma Clarke, going to a Mrs. Curtis' party somewhere along what is now Route 1. Andrew doesn't know Thelma's maiden name. Do any of you have this information? #s 862 and 863 also show KCO supervising some work.
The Edgecomb Congregational Church has a continuous bottle redemption project. Bring your cleaned bottles and cans every week! Remember, the Edgecomb Fire Department also has a large basket for redeemable bottles only. Puh-leeze, rinse them all out? Not much work, but saves the workers from yucky smells, insects, molds.
Chat'n'Check news: On Monday, August 15, we will meet in the Congo Church vestry from 9:30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. for blood pressure takings and a light lunch, with a talk at 11:00 a.m. by Susan Stewart, a Laughter Leader, "Humor is Healing!" Take the opportunity to get raffle tickets for the Chat'n'Check Quilt, designed by Dot Brown on Wawenock Road, drawing to be held in October. Watch this Space!
Red-Faced Red Planet Retraction Time: All that exciting stuff about Mars? Forget it. "Mars never has and never will appear as large as the moon, when seen from Earth. Mars is close every 2 years (the closest to Earth in August 2003, appearing as a very bright reddish ‘star'), this year on November 7, when the Earth will be directly between it and the sun." So what is the lesson learned here? Never accept uncritically what you read on the web. Of course, the correction from wwww.earthsky.com was a web message, too.... However, Bruce vouches for wwww.snopes.com, his source for the "earthsky" information, as a voluminous archive of "urban legends," of which the Mars item is a prime example!
Turning my back on Mars at 234 River Road, 633-2978, bonesukl@midcoast.com. This column appears in several local papers, and at www.Edgecomb.org.