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One Man’s Island by Bob Libby

In many ways September is the greatest month of change. Many of us living here know this is the best weather of the year. Spectator sports and politics get more serious, but the opening of schools is the most profound change in our daily routines. All over the island a new schedule is imposed. A new cadre of students joins older brothers and sisters riding the boat each morning to mainland schools. A crew of young girls all assemble in one Islander row and text their way across the bay. Our younger children stand early by the edge of paved roads waiting for Virginia to open the school bus door and say, “Good morning.” If you often return on the 2:50 boat, you know you may sit extra long waiting for the mainland school bus to deliver young scholars to Cousins Island wharf. Just one small bus serves the island, and some of us are old enough to remember all

the drivers going back across the decades: Virginia, Tommy, Doug, Marshall. Some of us are even old enough to remember the legend of Med and Marlene. Think back to your high school days: what teachers do you remember? David Campbell still remembers Jim Chretien, the auto mechanics teacher at Greely High School fifty years ago. All the retired teachers on the island still stay in touch with former students, watching their progress. How many remember when there was a high school on the island? Who recalls which islanders commuted to Portland to go to school? Everything changes. An elemental excitement fills the air of September; the annual opening of school changes everything.

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SEPTEMBER 2016 CHEBEAGUE ISLAND COUNCIL CALENDAR