These past few days, weeks, months – heck, let’s just say four years – have been full of arrows to our hearts. These unprecedented horrors will go down in history, and not on the proud side. The people that have perpetuated them will not suffer, but gloat, even if defeated. Destruction was their goal. Unrest and distrust, their tools. They haven’t won. Yet. They must be defeated. Soundly, so they can crawl back i...

Local Towns Plan Halloween Events   Saturday is Halloween, and while local authorities aren't encouraging house-to-house trick-or-treating due to the pandemic, there's no outright prohibition against the tradition. Health officials urge people to follow Centers for Disease Control and Prevention protocols for the holiday, which include general precautions such as wearing face masks (not just costume masks, ...

If all goes as planned, rising college sophomores Jan Lapinski and Ian Johnson will set sail on the morning of Nov. 1 for a six-month voyage that will take them down the East Coast to Miami and then east to the Bahamas, the Dominican Republic and finally to the British Virgin Islands. “I am extremely excited,” Jan — pronounced “Yon” – said during a telephone interview last week. “We can’t wait.” Jan, 19, of...

If you walk the bike trail past Monomoy High School on a school day, you might see high school students out in the school's garden, hard at work and practicing the basics of grilling. With the pandemic forcing adjustment in many school activities, Caroline Freitas, the school's culinary arts and nutrition teacher, has come up with an ingenious way of advancing her hands-on curriculum in a safe outdoor environme...

On Saturday, Oct. 24 at 4 p.m. Eventide Theatre Company's Virtual Playhouse will present the regional premiere of Lee Roscoe's timely satire about the rise of tyranny in the United States, “Impossible?” This free, livestreamed event will take place on Eventide's Facebook page, facebook.com/eventidetheatrecompany. “Impossible?” focuses on a group of friends in a small New England town and how their lives are affec...

HARWICH — Back in 1970, singer songwriter Joni Mitchell sang about not realizing “what you’ve got ‘til it’s gone” when she warned about losing wild places to development. Fifty years later, the words couldn’t be truer. As our paradise-to-pavement consumption of forests, meadows, and other natural lands accelerates, many of us risk never even knowing what we’ve got, never mind waiting until it’s gone. In t...

If you’re a regular reader you know I cope with stress best when I can get outside and give myself some time and space to let things settle and think things through. Others may pour a cup of tea or coffee and read a chapter of inspirational prose or poetry while others put on their running shoes. We all want to get away from the source of our angst and have a chance to regroup. Lately, there have been many c...

e end of her memoir. Every now and then, Farber has a student “in whom I saw my younger self, either with their work ethic, their love for school, or their home situations. They are the reason that I wrote the book and why I wanted to share my story.” She wants to give all kids hope for their future. “More than anything, I just wanted to share my story so that kids know that they are not alone,” Farber says...

While we all wish we were not living in a state of semi-quarantine during the coronavirus pandemic, the time spent at home has been good to a certain group of people: Writers. “The pandemic also turned out to be kind of a plus,” says author Kat Szmit, whose first novel “The Sugar House” (Wicked Whale Publishing, 2020) has just been released. Working her day job from home, Szmit found she had more time on her h...

Author Andrew R. “Bob” Black did a bit of preliminary research on the steps of the Boston Public Library before embarking upon his new book “Buried Dreams: The Hoosac Tunnel and the Demise of the Railroad Age” (Louisiana State University Press, 2020). He had been researching another topic when “this Hoosac Tunnel kept popping up. It was a political football,” he recalled during a telephone interview last week....

One of my favorite places to walk is an old farm that was bought by a town as conservation land. They lease land to sheep and goat farmers and there are chickens sometimes as well. The pastureland is kept open, mowed naturally by its inhabitants. There are a few trees for shade though they have no low-lying branches, due to above mentioned inhabitants. It’s a very peaceful place, surrounded by woods and trails th...

Officials are predicting a huge increase in food insecurity on the Cape this fall as a result of the pandemic. And with local unemployment rates still extremely high, many more local residents may face financial difficulties in the coming months. We've assembled a list of local nonprofit organizations that are ready to help local residents in need. Click on the links below to get information about applying for...