Just Another Friday on Matinicus

The power was out overnight resulting from the most ferocious freightrain winds I've heard since coming here. Clayton said it hit 70 knots at his house, which was mostly standing still. Since the school couldn't open, we took an early morning excursion to see the big surf. Unforecast bright sunshine and warm temps made it pretty nice for the last Friday in February. Down at the harbor, things got a little stranger. The harbor bell, a 12 foot high metal can with a big brass bell, normally positioned a quarter mile outside the mouth of the harbor, was bobbing around right at the shore, wavering towards a couple of shops. It shouold be interesting to watch the Coast Guard retrieve it.

I stopped to check in on friends and helped refasten their metalbestos chimney, the top section of which flew off in the night. The brain trust figured out after a lot of times up and down the ladder that it would be easier to take out the next section down and put them together on the ground. It was easier until the time came to carry the now 6 foot section up the latter to reattach it. Done.

Ryan and I played tetherball with a mooring fender, flew paper airplanes and jumped when some cabin fever dudes dropped a string of firecrackers in the road. At 11:00 a.m.. In February. I guess it wasn't personal 'cause I heard more go off up the road to the north. I issued a hunting license, though I don't know what you'd hunt for right now.

Worked on music with the school kids. Singing, drums, rhythm and possibly the continental U.S's only school ukulele band. Their spring concert will be fabulous.

That's the news for Friday, February 26, 2010.

Hanging out a shingle

I stare at the painted over plaster cracks while running the copier in a dark, 40-something degree building that was once the one room school. I'm finishing a legal project that's taken most of the winter. It's one page at a time. Slow. Wind and February-style rain outside. It's about as dismal and clammy as the hold of a freighter in the north sea. I'll haul wood, go check out a painting job, play some guitar, wrestle my children and do it again tomorrow. This is the way to practice. I'm the happiest lawyer in Maine. Shoes and trousers optional.