Working Waterfront

Thoughts about leaving… way before it’s time

Reflections is 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. ByStevie Kowalczyk My first draft of this piece was terrible. I wrote a nondescript, short essay about projects I was working… SEE MORE

Working Waterfront

Tom Moore and the Midcoast school of wheelbarrow poetry

By Dana Wilde Every Tuesday morning, Belfast’s poet laureate makes his way to the Belfast Free Library, where he holds “office hours.” He doesn’t like the phrase “office hours.” Sounds suspiciously like lectures might be involved. He’s stuck with it, though. Anyway, a group of poets, of all shapes, sizes,… SEE MORE

Working Waterfront

In ‘Searching for Stars,’ physicist tackles perennial problems

Searching for Stars on an Island in Maine,by Alan Lightman; Pantheon Books, New York, 2018 Review by Dana Wilde More than 60 years ago, the British physicist and novelist C.P. Snow stirred up an intellectual hornets nest in a magazine article, “The Two Cultures.” Science and the humanities, he said,… SEE MORE

Working Waterfront

In praise of hearing aids

Usually, I write about food, and hearing aids have nothing and everything to do with the kitchen, the garden, cooking, and eating because no matter what I am doing, I want to hear. I have hearing aids in both ears, and yes, they were costly (about $3,200—I’ve paid less for… SEE MORE

Working Waterfront

Road-trip characters are part of the fun

This is our third trip in Poppy, our 2003 VW Eurovan Camper, a marvelously engineered 18-foot marital and domestic testing ground. During the first trip two people who spent over a month in such close proximity that if one burped the other asked to be excused, made 42-inches by 72-inches… SEE MORE

Working Waterfront

A busy time, as island season changes

Columbus Day is the season opener for a very active time of year. A number of people who leave the islands in August return for this long weekend to do a final check on their homes. Steps to prepare for winter, on an island, vary depending on whether you live… SEE MORE

Ken Spinney is the new principal at North Haven Community School.

Working Waterfront

North Haven principal has small-town Maine background

By Courtney Naliboff North Haven Community School’s new principal, Ken Spinney, brings with him a lifetime of leadership experience and a love of small town life. A lifetime Mainer, Spinney grew up in Bangor and moved to Skowhegan with his mother for high school. “I was highly into athletics. I… SEE MORE

Michael Kerr is a psychiatrist on Islesboro who has written a book about his work on Murray Bowen’s family systems theories.

Working Waterfront

Breaking family ties that bind us to bad behavior

By Tom Groening The image of a patient laying on a psychiatrist’s couch, telling the doctor that his mother never loved him and his father was too demanding, is a familiar one in our popular culture. Another image comes to mind after hearing Islesboro’s Dr. Michael Kerr explain the theories… SEE MORE

Working Waterfront

Waiting with ‘baited’ breath

Reflections is 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. By Dan Debord First, there was the early morning wakeup, lying in bed, wide-awake with anticipation, for an hour until… SEE MORE

Boats in a protected anchorage on Grand Manan

Working Waterfront

Maritime Canada as Maine’s cousin

By Tom Groening One of my college professors, Louis Simpson, won the Pulitzer Prize for poetry in 1964. He was a wonderful teacher, and I sought out his work, even after graduating. One of his poems from the early 1980s has lingered in my memory. It’s from the perspective of… SEE MORE