Working Waterfront

The Outer Bell

By Phil Crossman (The perspective is that of a Maine State Ferry on a day in 1973 when I was reminded of its involvement in our island lives.) A cocky young man from away who one of our girls has brought home strikes a jaunty pose on the bow and,… SEE MORE

Working Waterfront

Hank Williams and my blue period

By Phil CrossmanWhen I was a teenager, I endured a blue period. Well—truth be known—it was a blue era, several years. And I was reminded, in recent weeks and particularly on the night of Saturday, Oct. 5, of what a companion country music had been during that long and anguished… SEE MORE

Working Waterfront

Church and community have become intertwined

By Phil Crossman When I was a teenager, I lived in the Moses Webster House on Vinalhaven, a wonderfully impractical six-bedroom Victorian Mansard next door to another, equally beautiful Victorian structure. Impracticality aside, it was the first time that I and my three young brothers each had a bedroom of… SEE MORE

Working Waterfront

Making my political values official

By Phil CrossmanIn 1958, my grandfather, Ted Maddox, then our representative to the Maine Legislature, brought Sen. Edmund Muskie to Vinalhaven to attend the Fourth of July celebrations. Grampa escorted the senator up onto the speaker’s platform. I was loitering in the alley across the street because a mischievous uncle… SEE MORE

Working Waterfront

The ‘mostly’ universal allure of water

By Phil Crossman My mother was possessed of a resolute conviction that people were good. Certainly, in spite of mounting evidence to the contrary, she felt my three younger brothers and I were clear examples, obedient youngsters whose first concern was to behave ourselves and do nothing that would meet with… SEE MORE

Working Waterfront

Remembering my dramatic friend John

By Phil Crossman A few years ago, my friend John called to say he was in distress and having a hard time breathing. I called the ambulance and then went right up to his place, a couple of miles out of town. He was lying on the floor and, gasping,… SEE MORE

Working Waterfront

Wary of being told I’m ‘looking good’

By Phil Crossman I’ve been reminded, since a January column disclosing I have cancer, that an update is called for. Since treatment began, little irritants have become routine. My nose runs continually. I carry a roll of toilet paper with me everywhere, in the truck, a less obtrusive one in… SEE MORE

Working Waterfront

A father’s values shine light over decades

By Phil Crossman We used to live in, renting, a little Cape down by the old ballfield. It was called “The Bucket,” short for “The Bucket of Blood,” something about an ancient murder or suicide, a sobering but constant and compelling reflection for a 12-year-old at any rate. The house… SEE MORE

Working Waterfront

The merits of living on Vinalhaven when illness strikes

By Phil Crossman Late last year I began to experience a pronounced discomfort in my abdomen and, towards the end of the year, on several occasions, it became much more than simply discomfort. I was sent to the Penobscot Bay Medical Center’s emergency room in Rockport for tests. Thus began… SEE MORE

Working Waterfront

Childhood memories, and valuable land, preserved

By Phil Crossman When I was a Vinalhaven youngster, I lived on the western side of Armbrust Hill. It seemed enormous. A little pond, the Trolley Puddle, was nestled under granite cliffs in a natural amphitheater on its northwest flank. It assumed magnificent proportions and fairies lived in and around… SEE MORE