Southport Column: Halloween fun planned and more

Tue, 10/19/2021 - 8:15am

From Eden Climo comes this fun announcement about “a very Southport Halloween that brings back the tradition of community to Halloween on Southport! Join us for a free to all, costumes encouraged, kick off party at Robinson’s Wharf on Sunday, Oct. 31 at 5 p.m., complete with activities and games for the little goblins, and a beer and wine cash bar for the older monsters. This is in addition to an open to the public ‘Chili
Cook Off’, so be sure to dig out your favorite recipe for a chance to win all the glory and, of course, a prize!

Chili will be served in sample sizes so that “people’s choice” can be tallied in along with our judges’ opinions to determine the winner! For those with more sensitive palates, mac n cheese and hot dogs will be available for dinner. All this fun will be followed by map guided, home-to-home trick or treating! Trick or Treating maps will be available for pick up at the kick-off party. To join the official Trick or Treating Route or to enter your
perfect chili recipe, please e-mail southporthalloween@gmail.com or call Eden at 513-739-2422. For even more information and regular updates follow Southport Island Association on Facebook, or visit the SIA webpage!”

Another piece of Halloween fun on Southport is the large, inflated, orange and black dragon slowly flapping his wings in front of Sweet Dreams Bakery. Next door at the Southport Post Office, Halloween figures and colors decorate the window boxes.

Thanks to Mr. Norton for giving our Southport Memorial Library a coat of white paint. It looks very clean and shinny now except for one front pillar that might need repair from hungry bugs or too much damp.

Absentee ballots for the Nov. 2 voting are available by the voter calling the Southport Town Hall at 633-6311 or coming into the town hall in person. I somewhat hesitate to try to summarize the three issues on the ballot as they seem quite complicated. Question 1 concerns retroactively banning high impact electric transmission lines and requiring a 2/3 citizen vote in the future for such projects. Question 2 involves the right to grow and consume your own food, which I would have thought we always had, unless marijuana has raised the issue. Question 3 asks approval for a bond issue of $100,000,000 to pay for infrastructure repair such as roads
and bridges. Commitment of such money would then leverage federal and other funds.

Our town is still looking for applicants to fill the empty position on the road crew. Decent salary and good benefits! Ashley at the town hall says we do not even want to say the S word until that position is filled.

Entering and exiting the Southport General Store is much safer now that the old telephone pole has been removed with the new pole positioned to allow adequate room for traffic to pass going both ways. The entrance drive and parking lot have been leveled and new gravel spread. Also I chuckled at the stationary black cat staring at me as I parked the car.

For those looking beyond the information provided by signs around the island, you can go to southportislandcommunitybroadband.org to find more information about how the project is progressing and you can sign up for updates.

Although we are only in October, the folks at All Saints by-the-Sea have been busy filming this year’s Christmas Eve service complete with lovely music, biblical readings, and sermon by Kit Sherrill. Thanks to all who worked hard and learned new skills to make this project possible. The service will be able to be viewed on the All Saints website, allsaintssouthport.org beginning on Christmas Eve.

Watch for news in later columns about our Veterans Day’s celebration now being planned.