Pumpkins are lined up or piled up in front of all the garden shops and farm stands. And I see a pumpkin on every other front porch on our street. But inside the business end of our post office, you can’t help but notice a different color explosion — not orange, but pink. Bright strawberry-milkshake, Valentine’s day, Barbie-doll, brazenly feminine pink. Full sized pink posters cover the walls below the counter, pink danglers wave at you from the ceiling.

The message is meant to make us aware of breast cancer, which is the most common cause of cancer deaths in women. The rate is higher here than on the Massachusetts mainland, and they don’t know why. The best we can do — as this pink reminds us — is make an appointment for a mammogram.

Twenty years ago I went for my annual mammogram and was sent for a follow-up test. I didn’t know the doctor and I still don’t know who she was. But she gently held my hand as she told me the outcome. The early cancer they found was deep inside my chest, and I would never have found it by touch until it was too late.

After two surgeries, six weeks of daily trips to Hyannis for radiation treatment, and days feeling like an emotional bungee cord, I was cancer-free. I was, and I am, truly lucky. And I credit that hulking apparatus, the mammogram machine.

Others were not so lucky. Not long after my experience, some women I knew lost their lives to breast cancer. Jeannie Wallace Fischer, the mother of Andrew and Chris, wasn’t lucky. Neither was Paula Black, who worked at the library. Nor was our neighbor Carol Gothard, who lived a few doors down. Two other Island women, whose names I don’t remember, but who travelled with me to Hyannis each weekday, also died because of the insidious disease. Their stories and pictures appeared in the Gazette’s obituary pages, all within a frighteningly short time.

So ladies, lean into those impossibly awkward postures in front of the mammogram camera and just do it. It is always the easiest option.

Jeff and Nancy Smith, from Vienna, Va., were on the Island for a few days and flew home in time to miss the northeaster. As they do every year in late summer, Jeff and Nancy visited with a number of old friends, and updated us with the latest Washington scuttlebutt. Talk about scary.

Many of the college crowd made it home for the soggy holiday weekend. Others arrived home mid-week for a few days break. They will all be back again for Thanksgiving, wanting turkey and pie.

Happy birthday Saturday, Oct. 18 to Leo Napior and Jim Pringle. Birthday greetings abound on Thursday, Oct. 23 for Caroline Flanders, Emmett Athearn and Alice Early.

Congratulations and happy wedding anniversary on Monday, Oct. 20 to Brian McMahon and Laurie Mazer.