If there's one subject Cape Codders can relate to, it's water. Our lives cycle in and around local rivers, ponds, bays and sounds. How we connect to water is a subject as varied as the people. Next weekend the Blue Institute of Cape Cod will host two programs in Harwich that illuminate our connection to water. The first, on Friday evening Oct. 18, showcases the winners of the recent "Words on Water" writing co...

Just in time for Halloween comes the pleasurably creepy debut novel “In the Midst of the Sea: A Novel of Paranormal Horror” (Pace Press, 2019), set on off-season Martha’s Vineyard. “Both the Cape and the Islands are so full of history, culture and time, that I almost feel like you can’t help but feel the ghosts around you,” author Sean Padraic McCarthy of South Plymouth said in an email interview last week. Mc...

This week Monomoy Regional High School administrators revealed the results of the latest Youth Risk Behavior Survey, which aims to spotlight the potentially dangerous activities students are engaging in, as well as how they view their mental health. The 2019 survey results were alarming. Of the 522 students included in the final sample, 148 reported experiencing depression in the past year, with 18 attempting ...

Stay Out Of National Politics Editor: As I was reading the editorial in the Sept.12 Chronicle, it occurred to me I was reading the ultra-left Cape Cod Times. Alas, upon checking the page I was dismayed—it was The Cape Cod Chronicle! Until then I was a huge fan of the C.C.C. First of all, our president did not “insist” Dorian would hit Alabama. I have heard his comment several times. Call him a liar again...

I can tell it’s October on Cape Cod. Still warm days, coolish nights and the quiet, insistent refrain running through my head, “By the pricking of my thumbs, something wicked this way comes…” Something wicked good, that is. Hello Halloween! That was a quote from Macbeth, by the way, and also the title of one of my favorite books by Ray Bradbury, which I read when I was 11. The expression was first noted in a 173...

If you have already seen “Wrinkles, the Musical,” why should you see the new performance opening Oct. 18 at the Wellfleet Harbor Actors Theater (WHAT)? Let us count the ways. First off, the cast of the new production is made up of professional equity actors between the ages of 60 and 80 who have performed on Broadway, in award-winning films and on TV. The actors have been nominated for and awarded Tony and ...

ORLEANS — An override of the tax levy limit in the fiscal year beginning July 1, 2022, will be needed to maintain the current level of services, Town Administrator John Kelly told the board of selectmen Oct. 2. With declining revenue from the beaches and hotel/motel tax receipts being shifted to a stabilization fund to help pay wastewater costs, and anticipated higher costs for factors such as benefits and u...

ORLEANS — It’s not easy finding an affordable place to live on Cape Cod, so it shouldn’t be a surprise that increasing the town’s stock of affordable housing is not a simple task. Like homeowners pouncing on every possibility, the affordable housing committee and the affordable housing trust board have pursued a full portfolio of options: purchasing land on which Habitat for Humanity will build homes, paying...

John S. Hardy, 84, crossed over the bar on September 26th, 2019.  Born in Boston, and raised in New England, Jack loved “messing about in boats”; he managed to feed this passion by joining the Navy as a submariner and working in the marine industry for most of his career. He and his wife, Betsy, were never too far from the water and raised their boys, Rob, John, and Steve, first in Cohasset and then in Chatham. J...

Gerald “Jerry” Custodie, 71, of Harwich, passed away on September 17, 2019 of complications of cancer.           He was born in 1948, originally from Chatham, he was an Army veteran of the Vietnam War from 1968 to 1970. Jerry has joined his father Anthony Custodie, his mother Jenny Naylor Custodie, his brothers Anthony JR and Joe and his daughter Jessica in Heaven. Jerry leaves behind his sons Jason and Joh...

BREWSTER – When it comes to living with white sharks, there are many options: stay out of the water, move inland, or, if you're Greg Skomal, a marine biologist with the state Division of Marine Fisheries, you do all that you can to learn as much as you can about the creatures, and ideally save a life or two in the process. Skomal has been doing just that—studying everything possible about white sharks—for more...

CHATHAM — Saying there’s no single action that will help make Chatham an affordable place for young families and other year-round residents, the Chatham 365 Task Force has recommended a varied package of 30 reforms that cover everything from affordable housing to the minimum wage. One proposal, having the school district offer universal preschool, seems to be gaining traction. The detailed proposal is the c...

CHATHAM – The largest annual fundraiser for the South Chatham Public Library, the summer book and bake sale, didn't happen this year. The process of moving dozens of books from the library across the street to the South Chatham Village Hall proved too difficult and problematic for the mostly older volunteers who usually help out. That left the “little library that could,” as supporters refer to the 145-year-ol...

CHATHAM — Though they favor a compromise to save trees at the gateway to downtown Chatham, state officials are still requiring a shared-use bike lane for the intersection of Crowell Road and Main Street. Selectmen still chafe that plans for the new intersection still include shared-use bike lanes, despite the town’s efforts to route bikes away from main roads in downtown Chatham. But not wanting to abandon the...

CHATHAM – A proposal to allow direct instrument approaches to Chatham Airport during poor weather was attacked Monday as a significant change that will lead to greater use of the facility by larger and louder aircraft. The proposal, included in a draft of the airport master plan update, will not make the airport safer, as the airport commission claims, but will change it “from being a good weather airport to b...