A few weeks ago, a big man burst into the Tidewater Motel lobby mid-morning carrying a half-dozen unmarked white cardboard boxes, each about 18-inches by 18-inches and 4-inches deep. He’d emerged from an unmarked white pickup that held three white chest freezers in its bed, tied down haphazardly with pot warp.

There is a particularly odious saying that gets bandied about from time to time: "Those who can, do; those who can't, teach." Rather than get my hackles up, I let it goad me into action.

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.

“Blue carbon” is a term you might be hearing more often. It refers to marine vegetation that has an inherent ability to sequester carbon and mitigate the consequences of carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions.

Ninety-five percent of climatologists agree that carbon dioxide being pumped into the atmosphere is wreaking havoc with weather systems and driving up temperatures. (A point of reference: if your child were sick, and 95 out of a hundred doctors recommended the same cure, would you seek more opinions?)

It is the solitude and opportunity for reflection that I find myself missing on occasion in the bustle of July and August.

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…

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.