“Geyser is furry and he warms you when you are cold. He makes me feel safe. I know he's not going to hurt me,” says 10-year-old Ava from Harwich about the horse she rides at the Emerald Hollow Therapeutic Riding Center in Brewster. Says Ava's mom Sara, “I adopted Ava when she was 19 months old. She had a long history of inconsistent care — a hard beginning to her life. By the time she was six she had panic att...

“I just want to go on record again saying I think this idea is stupid.” Eli had been saying this for as long as the rest of us had been planning, and at this point it was too late to change his mind. We stood at the metaphorical point of no return at the edge of the parking lot at Race Point in Provincetown. Twenty-seven miles of sandy beach lay ahead of us. It had stopped raining but the wind coming off the w...

It is pouring rain outside my window as I write on this dark morning. By the time you read this, an election may be decided, and the world may be changing, at least in terms of hopefulness or despair. Most of the time a few days doesn’t matter when writing on a deadline, but this week it feels odd to be writing without knowing what is going to happen in the days between writing and publication. The one thing I ...

Veterans Day has an especially powerful meaning for parents whose children are stationed overseas, frequently in harm's way. Krissy Frisbie's son Jonathan, a 2018 graduate of Monomoy High School, surprised the family on his 18th birthday. "He joined the Marines!" she recalled. "It was a surprise and at first I was worried, but now I'm very proud that he has chosen to serve his country." Jonathan, who was...

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...