One of the best metaphors depicting the fragility of island communities I’ve encountered is the idea of the three-legged stool.

Nantucket native remains islander

To the editor:

And another lesson: Nantucket is so wonderfully preserved in its 19th and 18th century splendor because when the whaling industry died, the island became a ghost town. It was only in the 1930s that...

Strung between Antarctica and the Equator, a thin chain of islands in the South Atlantic Ocean lies almost abandoned by commerce. Once valued for whaling or as stopping points on the way to the capes at the tip of Africa and South America, these islands exist mostly in the minds of history buffs

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!

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...

This is the second of a three-part series recollecting the look and feel of Portland in the 1960s, '70s and '80s by a Maine writer who spent his youth there.

In the 1970s, Portland grew up.

Out of my sight on the west side of the island, truly heroic efforts by dozens of area firemen, the Coast Guard and state forest rangers had achieved what had seemed impossible.

In the 1960s, you have to remember, Commercial Street still stank of the fish meal plant, and traffic barreled unencumbered by rules of the road…