Working Waterfront

Prepping like it’s 1885

Remember 1999 and the big worry about the Y2K bug? Everything civilization rested on would collapse in a heap when the clocks all ticked over to 12:01 a.m. Jan. 1, 2000. The world’s computers would all crash and we’d be enveloped in darkness as the grid went down and mayhem… SEE MORE

Working Waterfront

Caught by COVID, help in escaping

After two years, two months, and some number of days that I’m too tired to count, I finally caught COVID. Or maybe it caught me. Either way, I’m writing this from bed. I had identified a ten-day window in my schedule where it would be somewhat less inconvenient to be… SEE MORE

Working Waterfront

Have you taken your broadband speed test?

In July of 2020, Maine voters overwhelming passed a $15 million broadband bond. This fall, we will see $150 million in federal funds, and at least another $100 million, awarded for projects improving internet infrastructure. What follows is a recap of the status and how you can help Maine secure… SEE MORE

Working Waterfront

Coastal Maine: A sense of place

Before Maine, the Midwest was home for 30 years. It is again, now overlooking Minnesota farmland, not the Maine coast’s dark skies. Each vista, Midwest and Downeast, stunning in its own way. Throughout those 20 years, seventh-generation Downeast neighbors would inevitably ask why in the world People From Away move… SEE MORE

Working Waterfront

My wife can’t throw a flatbar

My wife can do almost anything, really, almost anything. I mean mechanical stuff, electronic stuff, and carpentry stuff, plus all sorts of things that involve thinking, like philosophical and ethereal stuff. Further, she’s a marvelous painter and runs her own very successful gallery. She also knows (she reminds me now… SEE MORE

Workers at Rockland's fishing pier. PHOTO: PEACH FREDERICK

Working Waterfront

Fishermen at risk without health insurance

On July 1, 1966, I arrived “from away” to begin my medical residency at the Maine Medical Center in Portland. One of the first patients I was called down to see in the ER was a fisherman complaining of depression. This didn’t jibe well with the idyllic view of Maine… SEE MORE

Colleen Haskell, DEI's education director, poses with Hannah Greene. PHOTO: LESLIE BOWMAN

Working Waterfront

Teacher turns the tables on herself

Reflections is written by Island Fellows, recent college grads who do community service work on Maine islands and in coastal communities through the Island Institute, publisher of The Working Waterfront. Over the past few months I’ve collected stories from students, past and present, who participated in Downeast Institute’s education program.… SEE MORE

Working Waterfront

At graduation time, thinking and re-thinking

Imagine that when you were 25, everyone you worked with was also in their mid-20s. At 45, it’s the same—all your colleagues at work are in their mid-40s. It probably wouldn’t be an environment conducive for growing and learning, right? Yet in our public education system, that’s just the way… SEE MORE

Working Waterfront

My dumb kitchen

When you read about smart kitchen appliances, what you learn is everything about them except “Why?” My life is blessedly free of smart toasters, coffee makers, voice-controlled faucets, and automatic stirrers. I probably wouldn’t even think about them except a favorite foodie website hawked, “Smart Kitchen Tools You Need Right… SEE MORE

Working Waterfront

It’s the people

After 17 years on North Haven, some elements of life have achieved a pleasant predictability. After the first heavy spring rain, the peepers will begin their insistent shrieking from vernal pools and roadside bogs. Dandelions and violets will be the first to bloom, followed by strawberry blossoms, thickest in the… SEE MORE