It has been a good summer on the coast of Maine, and for those who like to learn, it can be a place where community members are happy to become teachers, and in the process they lend depth to our understanding of the debates about who we are becoming.

One day we made the trip to Cousins Island and then to Portland, where I got a plastic boat in a department store, maybe W.T. Grant's. When we got back to the house we lived in somewhere on the east side of the island, I realized I had left the little orange boat in a brown paper bag on the ledges at Cousins Island. I knew exactly where it was, lying there in the bag. Maybe I could still find it now.

There were likely many school board members who breathed a sigh of relief when the state announced it will no longer be using Smarter Balanced…

Last year, the town contracted with water transportation consultant Charles Norris, of Norris & Norris Associates in Cambridge, Mass., to assist the task force in identifying various combinations of public and private management and operation plans.

Tracie Littlefield Martin (at the time, Tracie Littlefield.) Martin, a Vinalhaven native, began teaching swimming lessons for the Lions Club back in 1980 as a fresh-faced 17-year-old. First, she assisted the Red Cross instructors, and once she was certified she ran the program on her own. With the exception of five or six years in the late 1980s and early 1990s, Martin has run the program for the last 35 years.

Frustrations are mounting for all involved parties as the Pulpit Harbor Bridge renovation, scheduled to begin in January, has bee postponed for at least a year, according to Maine Department of Transportation senior project manager and project engineer Michael Wight.

I’m curious why tourists never ask what it’s like being a year-round resident in the summer when island populations quadruple, the mailboat is full to capacity, and there is so much more traffic on Mount Desert Island.

Turns out that wood sorrel mixed with domestic sorrel makes a spectacularly snappy sorrel soup.

This book is mainly the 15-year history of the Ubuntu Education Fund, from the most minimal beginnings—supplying chalk to classrooms—to building computer centers and libraries in township schools and creating training programs for health workers.