Baffled by Adelphia (and/or Time Warner)? Edgecomb residents who want cable television and/or high speed internet service and broadband access, it is time to protest! Send your queries, complaints, desires and impatiences to your Selectmen, c/o P.O. Box 139 or at selectboard@edgecomb.org, who will forward them to Shelley Winchenbach, Area Government Relations Manager for Adelphia, in Augusta.
The Lincoln County Cable Consortium, representing the towns of Alna, Bristol, Damariscotta, Dresden, Edgecomb, Newcastle, Nobleboro, Waldoboro and Whitefield, has been laboring in this stubbornly unproductive vineyard for a good six years now. We cannot understand why these companies are so unwilling to make their products available to everyone who wants them! The two most critical issues are the coverage factor Edgecomb, which at present has barely one-tenth coverage, asks for a density of nine houses per mile and the number and location of live drops, that is, facilities enabling the recording and distributing of our own programs out to surrounding viewers, by way of Lincoln County Community Access TV, Channel 7. Obviously, we want a live drop at the Edgecomb Eddy School, but also at the Town Hall, for carrying live meetings of more than routine importance to you residents!
It is high time the potential customers spoke out! But also, if any readers live in Lincoln County towns not represented by the Consortium, please lobby your selectmen to join LCCC and send a representative to its meetings on this vital but still elusive service! Tell your Towns' managers or selectboards that the Consortium's co-ordinator is Charlotte Davenhill, Director of LCCATV in Newcastle, who can be reached at charlotte@cdavenhill.com, 832.7897, or write her at 559 Friendship Street, Waldoboro ME 04572. Recently Charlotte told me, that after much public nagging, and even under the terms of their franchise which has essentially expired, Adelphia has made new line extensions in Waldoboro. A clear case of Squeaking Wheels getting the Grease!
The Edgecomb Congregational Church invites you to its third Summer Supper of 2005! Come Saturday, August 20, from 5:00 to 6:30 p.m., to a lavish spread of lobster, chicken, corn, salads, baked beans, blueberry cake (dietetic alternative available) and beverages. This supper benefits the self-help programs of HOME in Orland, Maine. Adults $6.00, children under 12, $3.00. For anyone who wishes to help out with preparation or clean-up, call Gail Boudin, 882-7972, or the Church office, 882-4060.
Debbie Boucher has become Director of the Church's new Children's and Family Ministry. Call her at 882-4060 with content ideas or to volunteer. The Ministry will start in September. More to come.
Call Louise Hardina, 563.5236 for details about Clean-up Day for transforming the Church's former kitchen space into its new thrift shop. Donations of clean and usable clothing and accessories will be welcome, for its Grand Opening in early November.
Ninety-nine Bottles of Beer in the Bin: If you want to recycle your beer, wine, soda bottles and cans in a good cause, here are two: The Edgecomb Fire Department has a collection basket at the corner of the station's driveway; proceeds go to the Fire Department Auxiliary to buy equipment and supplies not covered by the Town's EFD budget. Also consider the Edgecomb Congo Church which has just started a collection site to help out their many beneficent projects.
Lea Wait will be signing her books at Maine Coast Books in Damariscotta from 11:00 a.m. to 1:00 p.m. August 26, and at the Round Top Antiques Show August 31 from 9:30 a.m. to 4:00 p.m. Load up on good (Maggie) Summer reading! Her historic juveniles about Wiscasset would make wonderful Back to School gifts. Just out of curiosity, do any teachers around here have statistics on the number of Lea Wait titles showing up in their book report assignments?
The Bigelow Laboratory's Café Scientifique lectures continue Thursday, Aug. 25, 6:00 to 7:00 p.m. at the Boothbay Harbor Opera House, with Dr. David Fields speaking on "The Amazing World of Copepods." So what's a copepod? A cooperative pea patch? A whale commune? Come and find out, and learn how they affect us! Cash bar, no admission charge.
Think kindly of me as I'm driving from Cincinnati to Connecticut, spelling my daughter Daphne, with two grandchildren in the back seat, far from 234 River Road, 633-2978, bonesukl@midcoast.com. This column appears in several local papers, and at www.Edgecomb.org.