Southport Column: New hours, a birthday party and the Cuckolds

Fri, 10/24/2014 - 3:00pm

The rising sun is moving from northeast toward southeast, no longer brightening my front porch, but shining directly in my kitchen window about 7:15 a.m. when I head toward the stove and breakfast preparation. Most leaves have fallen in the recent rains. Cold air has replaced the unusually warm October air. When we “fall back” an hour at 2 a.m. on Sunday morning, Nov. 2, darkness will begin to fall, especially on the east side of the island, about 4 p.m. Our cozy season is here.

As the season turns so do business hours change. The Island Store will be open Monday through Friday from 7 a.m. until 6 p.m., but on Saturday and Sunday their hours will be 8 a.m. until 4 p.m.

Barriers are set across the entrance to Ship Ahoy Motor Lodge. Newagen Inn and Ocean Gate are also closed. Robinson’s Wharf remains open Tuesday through Saturday with a new menu, but is closed Sunday and Monday. Fortunately our island library remains open three days and two evenings a week, offering books, CDs, coffee, WiFi, computers, and on Tuesdays and Thursday morning, frivolity. Our life remains good.

I hope life was good for Betty Goulette on Saturday afternoon, and, I hope, remains good for many years to come. On Saturday, October 18, at the Southport Town Hall friends and family gathered to celebrate Betty’s 80th birthday. About 60 people enjoyed good food, a cake, singing and dancing to a live band, Betty joining in with both the liveliness of the jitterbug and the slower dances with friends and grandchildren.

If you are planning to travel in the northeastern United States this fall, you could ask the Southport School children for ideas. The early grades are using their computers to find interesting facts about the states, and then with the help of the older students they will create a brochure for the state each pair of students has chosen.

Off Town Landing Road, Knickerbocker folks are busy plotting easements for water and electricity lines from the Cuckolds project through the property previously owned by Meredith Mitchell, now owned by PGC4, a Paul Coulombe entity.

A system to treat sewage on the island, a German system called BUSSE, will result in water of “rainwater quality,” which will then be directed into an irrigation system to water the lawn recently established on the island.

The permit to lay the electric and water lines between the Cuckolds and Southport allows that work to start Nov. 8, thus protecting salmon who may still be living in that section of our waters. Thus by the next summer season these three utilities should be in place, allowing the temporary solutions of a generator, a water purifying system, and pumping of septic waste to a barge to carry it off island should be able to be retired.

The Southport Bridge project is complete for now, not fixing the bumps at either end of the bridge, but strengthening structural parts of the span, removing rot caused by salt and rain water settling between “sandwich” beams. Fixing the two bumps will be much harder as the central brass bearing on which the bridge turns has worn and been compressed. To replace or otherwise fix that bearing is a job for another day.

We thank Mr. Niemenski and Kim Knowlton for the lovely cart, made by Mr. Niemenski and the flowers planted by Kim that decorate the entrance to our library. The cart is based on a design by Mr. Niemenski’s wife, who he says was the real artist in the family. Thanks to all.

The beauty at the entrance perhaps mitigates the fright to your left as you enter the library. A full sized skeleton rests comfortable in an easy chair reading a book. As we have said, “Everyone is welcome at our library.”