Working Waterfront

Online from Peaks Island, it’s ‘Today in Tabs!’

From his Peaks Island home, Rusty Foster makes a living writing about other writers’ writing. And sometimes other writers write about him. SEE MORE

Working Waterfront

Noblesse oblige, Maine style

About 15 years ago, I had a most pleasant conversation with Linda Bean. I was covering the Maine Fishermen’s Forum for the Bangor Daily News and found myself sitting next to her at a session which had participants gathered in a circle. A fellow journalist had recently told me something… SEE MORE

Vinalhaven's downtown as seen from the water. FILE PHOTO: TOM GROENING

Working Waterfront

When high standards can stand in the way

Recently, I wrote an incorrect answer to a question in front of a group of students. We were learning how to work with variable lists in Javascript and how the rules we established for variables still applied... SEE MORE

Working Waterfront

The magic of music

I keep misjudging people. Last month an elderly woman, four years my junior, put in an appearance at the Vinalhaven Library to sing songs and tell stories. The event had been scheduled weeks before and announced repeatedly in our island newsletter, so as the day approached and it became increasingly… SEE MORE

Working Waterfront

Indulging in doughnuts

The March 23 storm caused icing and power outages along the Maine coast and dumped two feet of snow in the western part of the state. In the Cranberry Isles we got about five inches of snow before the rain took it all away again. By Sunday the trees were… SEE MORE

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Chowder is Maine’s food for all seasons

Chowder season begins and ends simultaneously in Maine. Maybe on a few over-warm days in July and early August it doesn’t taste as good as it does on chilly September nights. Most traditional Maine eateries keep it on the menu all the time. For people truly from Maine, it’s a… SEE MORE

Working Waterfront

An antidote to anxiety?

Getting ready for work this morning, I heard an interview that stopped me in my tracks. Author Jonathan Haidt was speaking about his new book, The Anxious Generation: How the Great Rewriting of Childhood is Causing an Epidemic of Mental Illness. In it, he outlines the connection between the increase… SEE MORE

Passengers disembark the ferry on Islesboro.

Working Waterfront

Feds provide funds for Lincolnville terminal

Sen. Susan Collins announced that the Maine Department of Transportation will receive a grant award of $7.1 million through the U.S. Department of Transportation’s Ferry Service for Rural Communities Grant Program. The funding will go toward upgrading and modernizing the ferry terminal in Lincolnville to better meet current and anticipated… SEE MORE

Leaving Frenchboro Harbor. FILE PHOTO: TOM GROENING

Working Waterfront

Listening led to harbor dredging funds

Last month, Sen. Susan Collins secured $500,000 in federal funding to dredge Frenchboro’s Lunt Harbor. The small island eight miles off Mount Desert Island relies on marine transportation and fishing for survival, so a safely navigable harbor is critical for the island’s everyday function. The harbor, the main point for… SEE MORE

Monhegan School. FILE PHOTO: TOM GROENING

Working Waterfront

The wonder and work of island schools

Teaching a handful of students, each in a different grade, in a quaint one- or two-room school overlooking the harbor on a remote Maine island accessible by ferry that runs intermittently in the winter might sound like complete nuttiness to one person, an interesting puzzle to figure out to another,… SEE MORE