As far as set pieces go, the bandstand in Kate Gould Park, when it's occupied by the Chatham Band and surrounded by thousands of enthusiastic concertgoers, is about as iconic as it gets. It's summer, it's families, it's wholesome all-American entertainment; it's Chatham. A key part of that scene for at least the last half century has, however, been overtaken by changing attitudes and should be retired. Heli...

Celebrating Town's Superstars Editor: The Chatham Ecumenical Council Helping Neighbors in Need celebrated founding members Phyllis Tileston and the late Nancy Cole at a tribute dinner on Sept. 21 at the Wayside Inn. We wish to express our sincere gratitude to Shane Coughlin, Linda Kidd and David and Gail Oppenheim for their extraordinary efforts in making the fund-raising event a huge success. David Willard...

What makes for a good community? What are the marks of a town whose people lead healthy, productive, and wholesome lives? What measuring sticks can we use to assess the type of town Harwich is today? Some of the more objective answers are easy to enumerate. A good community is safe; it has strong law enforcement, fire and ambulance services. It serves its residents by making quality medical care readily availa...

Need For Roundabout Editor: This letter was sent to the Chatham Board of Selectmen and Town Manager Jill Goldsmith on Aug. 20. Last Tuesday's (Aug. 15) rather weak presentation by the traffic consultants Howard-Stein-Hudson (HSH) proved to be an exercise long in excuses and short in intelligible solutions. We reside in the neighborhood and over the years have seen the absurd ways drivers have been tryin...

“But it’s a long, long while from May to December And the days grow shorter when you reach September And the autumn weather turns the leaves to flame And I haven’t got time for the waiting game”   One of the joys of my life is hosting a radio program on WOMR-FM in Provincetown every other Saturday. Tina Lynde and I rotate every other week from 6 to 10 in the morning. The theme for her show, “Mem...

President Trump announced Tuesday that he'll visit the hurricane devastated island of Puerto Rico next week. It's about time he pays serious attention to the looming humanitarian crisis in the U.S. territory instead of tweeting about football players exercising their Constitutional rights. According to news reports, almost all of the island's infrastructure was knocked out by Hurricane Marie; power, water, cel...

How many times has a raindrop been recycled? By the time of publication, we should be feeling some effects of Tropical Storm/Hurricane Jose. Changeable as these tracks always are, it would be a fool’s errand to predict what could be happening. If a hundred years of tracking these isn’t enough, the simple past few weeks of the Disaster Movie of the Week (whose programming seems to be stuck entirely on storms) i...

Faced with the possibility of retail marijuana sales, selectmen in both Chatham and Harwich have opted to take similar approaches. Last week both voted to direct staff to develop zoning and general bylaws to ban marijuana shops, an expected and not altogether unreasonable approach, since voters in both communities rejected the November referendum question legalizing pot sales. In July the state legislature voted ...

Mini-roundabout Option Needed Editor: At a meeting in 2015, Massachusetts Department of Transportation official Tom Currier promised Chatham Selectman Seth Taylor that there would be two options presented to the town for the Crowell Road intersection and one would include a roundabout. Instead of which a roundabout has been summarily dismissed, despite the view of Keri Pyke, the consultant’s senior engineer...

It was an ordinary August night, my husband and I engaging in our usual somnambulistic and sleep depriving battle of the snores. Duke, the Boston terrier, arose at 3 a.m. for his decade-old ritual of middle of the night leg lifting in the backyard (why is it we continue to share our lives with these mutts?). Groggy spouse staggered to the back door, flipped the light and released the hound. All of this was custo...

What To Do About Trash Editor: I came from France in 1973 with my three children after the death of my wife. In 1974 I started Au Bon Pain with some partners. Because of the success there are now over 200 locations. I was then hired away with Chicago investors and opened 11 bakery cafés there. In 1992 I was again hired by a major wholesale bakery and distribute their products over 30 states. Bottom line: I ...