Working Waterfront

The bittersweet season is upon me

When I look back on what I’ve written for this column in Septembers past, the theme is regularly similar and the ache familiar, year after year. Do other people experience a September transition like I do in the Cranberry Isles? I’ve wished for something, gotten it and am not quite ready… SEE MORE

Working Waterfront

The problem is ours to fix, so ‘Open your mouth!’

By Laurie Sproul “So, open your mouth lad! For every voice counts!” Dr. Seuss’ logic, expressed in One Fish, Two Fish, Red Fish, Blue Fish, prods us to vote. However, in our complex world it’s difficult sorting through the issues. Take climate change. Sea level rise threatening sewer plants; salt… SEE MORE

Working Waterfront

Island lessons carry through teaching job

Reflections is a monthly column written by Island Fellows, recent college grads who do community service work on Maine islands and in remote coastal communities through the Island Institute, publisher of The Working Waterfront. Maggie Small is a former Island Fellow who served on Peaks Island The dictionary definition of community… SEE MORE

A lobster boat cruises through Portland Harbor with the Nova Star

Working Waterfront

Tweaking a model waterfront

Imagine stumbling onto an undeveloped shoreline. Protected by islands, this mile-long waterfront has deep water at one end and a gravel beach at the other. If that shoreline were to be developed for various maritime uses, how would you organize it? Portland’s waterfront developed the way most have, with ever-changing… SEE MORE

Working Waterfront

Normal is only skin deep

Words like “horror” and “monsters” accompanied the publicity for John Manderino’s new collection of short stories, But You Scared Me The Most. It may be that my sensibilities have taken a turn toward the twisted, but not only did I find the 26 stories engaging and entertaining, most also were… SEE MORE

In front of the Libby building on Congress Square in the 1970s.

Working Waterfront

Portland in the ’80s: ‘Yuppie go home’

Early in 1977, another new restaurant opened in the Old Port. This one on Middle Street had a tongue-in-cheek sign: “Carbur’s: Since 1977.” A tradition going all the way back to this year! Hilarious! The Cumberland County Civic Center opened then, too, a shrewd public-finance deal. In 1979, the Portland… SEE MORE

Working Waterfront

Summer afternoon’s splendors and labors

Henry James famously wrote “Summer afternoon—summer afternoon; to me those have always been the two most beautiful words in the English language.” Summer afternoon. Out in the garden, the peach trees laden with ripe fruit, about to fall off, or turn into a blob of mold. Yes, you can grow… SEE MORE

Working Waterfront

The end of an era, the beginning of another

The end of this summer marks the end of an era. After five years, Bill Trevaskis is stepping down from the position of programs director at Waterman’s Community Center. Bill, who also happens to be my husband, moved with me to North Haven when we were callow 24-year-olds. We’d been… SEE MORE

Working Waterfront

George Mitchell: Much more than compromise

By Douglas Rooks When I began researching Statesman, my biography of Sen. George Mitchell, I thought I knew the man, at least in his public life. After all, we first met in the Kennebec Journal newsroom in Augusta some 30 years ago, and I followed him from there throughout his… SEE MORE

Boathouses on Islesford catch the late-day sun.

Working Waterfront

Waiting to exhale while reflecting on finite spaces

Breathe in… Breathe out… Breathe in… Breathe out. If you are reading this while in the throes of a hectic island August, you might be thinking, “Yes, stay calm. Remember to breathe. Soon this pace of all good things will get slower and slower.” If you are reading after Labor… SEE MORE