Heigh ho, here I sit on a soggy Friday, trying to drum up a column's-worth of news from Edgecomb. Edgecomb, my friends, is wet. We are all building arks in our garages, trying to remember what a cubit amounts to, and making the difficult decisions, among several beloved pets, which two to take aboard. Mount Hunger looms above us, but I see no sign of rainbows yet.

This is a real downer, since my Connecticut family is up here, all packed for Vacationland fun, bathing suits, sunglasses, flip flops. Fortunately the kids are big enough to fit into our spare sweaters and slickers. Fuss, fuss, fuss.

They brought along Ben's flute and Kate's clarinet, so we are having musical interludes in between marathon scrabble games. We have watched "North By Northwest" (Cary Grant, Eva Marie Saint and James Mason), which features a sinister cropduster scrambling over the faces of Mt. Rushmore.

The gang has just ventured out to the Maine Maritime Museum this afternoon. If it's not pouring, we'd like to go down to Bowdoin tomorrow (Saturday, June 29) to see the Arctic Museum and anything new at the art museum. Beaches? Not until August. Such is life.

Next column I will report on the July 1 public hearing on the Davis Island sewer, in association with possible considerations of larger commercial uses on the Island. There's a Special Town Meeting in our future on that subject.

On July 3, the Selectmen, Planning Board and Ordinance Review Committee will have met to review the kinds of development that can be supported by Davis Island. I can only hope that concerned citizens managed to get to these two vital meetings, to make their opinions and needs known.

As of June 17 we have a flag committee in Edgecomb, charged with the upkeep and supply of memorial flags for our town's veterans' graves. This is the result of our recent shameful Memorial Day performance. We thank the Wiscasset American Legion Post 54 for its offer of assistance. The Post's Adjutant is Dennis Hill of our town. The committee's next meeting is scheduled for Monday, August 26, at 5 p.m., before the selectmen's meeting.  

A couple of dean's listers to celebrate: Bobbi-Jo Larrabee and Kerrin Krainis, both at University of Maine at Augusta. Well done.

Two of Edgecomb's authors will be at Books In Boothbay next week: Lea Wait with her latest Antique Prints mystery, Tammy Meserve with her latest moose on the loose.

Come on down to the Railway Village on July 13, 12:30 to 3:30 p.m., and do some Christmas or birthday shopping, or load up your own pile of summer reading.

This and the somber weather take me back to my proto-adolescence, stuck in a small dark resort cabin somewhere along the Maine coast, with nothing but battered, dog-eared paperbacks to read.

That is how I got hooked on Nero Wolfe and detective stories in general, reading "Some Buried Caesar," about the suspicious death of a prize-winning bull and assorted humans at a state fair.

Hoping the sun helps us all celebrate the glorious Fourth, yours truly from 234 River Road, 207-633-2978 and jocam@tidewater.net.