from the editor

Don’t buy it

Buy, buy, buy. Being frugal, and especially in these tough economic times, those are precisely the words I don’t want to hear. So the day my husband David came up with a plan to construct a much-needed hay shelter out of recycled materials, I was game. Read more

back porch

The Way of the Eco-Warrior

By D. CAMERON LAWRENCE

Growing up in southern New England in the 1960s and ’70s—pre-sprawl—I had what many children today do not have: a birthright of outdoor adventure. We opened our doors to a huge, undivided landscape of green fields, tumbling brooks, hummocked marshes and quiet woods. My little brother and I roamed the outdoors like young Balboas, discovery around every bend in a stream. It seemed to us then that our landscape was without boundary and unowned, a freedom that gave us the chance to explore nature and develop a lifelong affinity for the outdoors. That is, until the day we learned what “progress” could take away. Read more

fuss
GOING BROWN

While the rich go green, the rest of us can jump on this bandwagon

By MICHAEL VAN HALL



dog-eared
UP-AND-COMER POETRY

Small Saturday Poem and Waking Me

By CHRIS SHAFER



FICTION

The Gold Star

By G.C. COMPTON



FICTION

Growing-Out Jericho

By WILLIAM R. WOODARD



POETRY

Katrina’s Voices

By JENNY ROOT



POETRY

Miss Lizzie’s Kitchen

By EVE HOFFMAN

NONFICTION

Chilaquiles

By MICHELE NIESEN

HALF-EMPTY MASON JAR

Why—and other questions that get us out of bed each morning

By LESLIE SMITH TOWNSEND

BOOK REVIEW

‘At the Breakers’ by Mary Ann Taylor-Hall

By MARY POPHAM

BOOK REVIEW

‘In the Heaven of Never Before’ by Carine Topal

By LAUREL ANN BOGEN

folks & neighborhoods
GARDEN SPOT OF THE WORLD

A question about the town motto sparks an organization, beautification and community involvement

By SUSAN WILLIAMSON

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