In last week's column I mentioned the Forum on Youth Suicide Prevention hosted by the Boothbay Harbor Memorial Library, and suggested that Edgecomb people might take an interest. I did not mean to slight the extremely capable counselors available at the Edgecomb Eddy School and other schools in our town. June Finnegan, the school nurse, and Madeline Olney, the counselor, are skilled professionals, sensitive to the frequently subtle signs of troubled children. My apologies and highest praise to them both, and other youth counselors working or living in Edgecomb.
This from Fire Chief Barry Johnston: The Edgecomb Fire Department would like to thank the Mission Outreach Committee of the Edgecomb Congregational Church for last Saturday's bean and casserole supper, which was consumed by everyone with gusto and relish. It was the best attended such dinner Chief Johnston can remember! The support of the EFD by Edgecomb's townspeople is overwhelming. A most special thanks to Tom and Gail Boudin and all the ECC kitchen angels!
Lea Wait will be signing copies and talking about "Finest Kind," the latest in her Wiscasset series for young people at the Wiscasset Public Library on Saturday, October 14 at 1:00 p.m. Van Reid recently spoke to Lincoln Academy students about the life of a fiction writer.
A most wonderful Edgecomb Historical Society meeting last week! We thank whole-heartedly Alison Carver of Pemaquid Harbor, who presented us with her research and computer-enhanced layouts of Fort Charles, the original fort at Pemaquid, since replaced by Fort William Henry. She showed how the later fort took care to incorporate and enclose the big rock behind which the Indians of the earlier wars had been able to take out Fort Charles with flaming arrows. Her sequence of plans showed us how one's understanding of the past improves as the archaeologists and anthropologists find more traces of how people were living. A special thanks must go to Mrs. Mary Brewer, publisher of the Boothbay Register and Wiscasset Newspaper, who presented EHS with a greeting card featuring an excellent drawing of Fort Edgecomb and a long, 8-stanza poem about it. So, since History is Mystery, our new challenge will be, "Who Wrote the Poem?" Such fun!
The Center for Teaching and Learning, on Cross Point Road, will be holding an open house from 3:00 to 5:00 p.m. on Sunday afternoon, Oct. 15. They invite residents of the mid-coast Maine community to tour the school, meet the faculty, and find out about their nationally-known innovative educational program. Call the school at 882-9706 for more information about the open house. Not relative to the above, but yours truly will have been docenting CTL students on Monday and Tuesday as they explore Fort Edgecomb! Tell you all about it next week!
Don' wanna cook on Sundays? Get in touch with Debbie Boucher, 882-8042, for details about "The Soup Group"! A new venture by the Edgecomb Congregational Sunday Scholars to raise money for The Heifer Project, a most highly regarded charitable effort to give needy folks around the world not money but a livestock animal from chickens to cows or livestock native to the area they live in. The first of these take-out "Sunday Suppers" will be available October 29, a choice of Hearty Vegetable Soup (vegetarian options will be always available) or Hearty Beef Stew plus a generous serving of corn bread and apple cake for dessert. The cost will be $5.00 per serving, but a family serving, enough for four, will be $15.00. Call Debbie to reserve a meal or so, or leave a message at the ECC, 882-4060. If you would like to receive a listing of future "Sunday Supper" dates and menus, leave a phone number and mailing address. Or e-mail your request to ECC@gwi.net.
We went to the Inanna concert last Friday, a refreshing coda to a strenuous day. The six Sisters of Rhythm reminisced about their start, 16 years ago, taking lessons from a drummer living in Alna, and practicing at Lydia Kitfield's. They led the audience in several energetic participations to Ghanaian, Nigerian, Senegalese and other West African rhythms. The school kids performed a kind of quasi-African bunnyhop around and about the edges of the auditorium, and even my stoical spouse was clapping his hands and shrugging his shoulders in time with the intricate network of drummings. During the break we all bought baked goodies to benefit the Mariah Wright Fund.
Bopping on the table top, banging on the stove at 234 River Road, 633-2978, bonesukl@midcoast.com. This column appears in several local papers, and at www.Edgecomb.org.