The Chappy Community Center annual meeting is on Saturday, August 16 from 9 to 10 a.m. Show your support and appreciation for the many activities and events the center is hosted this summer. Learn about the details of maintaining the building and opportunities to contribute to the various funds that keep the center going.

Voting for photo entries for the 2026 calendar contest will be on display at the center CCC through Friday, August 22. Make sure to get there before 3 p.m. I heard that it’s a very good batch of photos this year and hard to choose just a few favorites.

School starts on Tuesday, Sept. 2. Watch out for kids waiting by the side of the road for the bus.

When I was a grammar schooler, my family and cousins rented the entire Self compound out a Shear Pen Pond for three summers in a row. Our Simpson Lane house was rented out through mid-September so we got to stay out at Cape Pogue after school started. If the weather was foul, we would come into town in the jeep. If the weather was favorable, we would use the motorboat. Both took at least an hour. Even though it meant getting up much earlier than we had to when living in town, it provided us with a more objective outlook on our day. We got a much broader view of life than if we had leapt out of bed and found ourselves in a classroom half an hour later. It meant that school wasn’t such a big part of our day. For me, it made being stuck indoors while the sun was shining outside slightly more tolerable.

When I started driving the Chappy Ferry I made sure to use the same method for broadening my view. I tried to avoid leaving home and going directly to the ferry. I would give myself plenty of time to go out to the Dike Bridge or to Wasque. Better still would be to walk into town to the hardware or grocery store. Back then they were right down town. Then I would head back to the ferry via Simpson Lane and get a look at the house I grew up in, remembering climbing up on the roof or into the big maple tree in the side yard. It helped to give perspective to the rest of my day. When pondering those years of my life, a six-hour shift on the ferry would seem like the blink of an eye.