It wasn’t the brilliance that captured our attention. It was what was in the sky. Every morning, since April, I have been taking a moment to drive down to the overlook at Lighthouse Beach and check in. It used to be a habit of mine, years ago, to once a weekend drive to various town landings around town and see how things were going. Not there for more than a minute often. Just an exercise to touch base, like a c...

Vital Help For Library Editor: Recently the Friends of Brooks Free Library sponsored a raffle to benefit the library’s Vision Impaired Technology Assistance at the Library program (VITAL). An afghan that was knitted and donated by members of the library’s Knit Lit group was won by Harwich resident Bev Thatcher. I would like to thank the Knit Lit group for providing such a beautiful raffle prize, the many vo...

It is appropriate that Halloween and Election Day are only a couple of weeks apart. Mysterious October skies portend the reality of brooding November just around the corner. It is the season for change, when we embrace the light or the dark, good or evil. The hanging of glowing Halloween lights and choosing costumes precedes the spooky night of All Hallows Eve. In the spirit of the season, immersed in the afor...

Chatham clearly needs a new council on aging building. The current senior center on Stony Hill Road doesn't even come close to meeting the agency's needs, and never has. It always seemed a forced marriage between form and function. Built as offices and apartments, the COA's operation was shoehorned in from the beginning. Where to start with the deficiencies? No real meeting space; poorly arranged offices; three l...

After my kids graduated high school and left to pursue higher education, my wife and I discovered a truth about Cape Cod that its visitors, and some of its residents, have yet to learn: summer is busy – spring is uncertain – winter is long – but autumn is its best season. During our first post-Labor Day vacation in 1992, we learned that its benefits outweigh any drawbacks. Days may be shorter but the sunsets a...

Watching The Waters For All Editor: Friends of Chatham Waterways (FCW) would like to thank the 2016 Chatham Water Watchers for all their hard work during this year's Coastal Water Nutrient Monitoring Program. On five separate mornings this past summer, using various scientific instruments (Secchi disks, refractometers, dissolved oxygen meters and Niskins), volunteers measured water depths, clarity, salinit...

Readers will notice a few new additions to this week's paper. Along with stories focusing on Chatham and Harwich, we're including some additional coverage of the town just to the north, Orleans. There are several reasons for this move, but the most important one is that it's something that residents and businesses in Orleans have been requesting for some time. It's not something we're doing blithely, either. W...

Although the recent decision by the Attorney General's Office regarding an Open Meeting Law complaint filed by a resident against the Chatham Airport Commission was technically correct, we are concerned that the narrow interpretation of the law could lead to the limitation of public debate. Chairmen of town boards and committees are, for the most part, generous in allowing public comment at meetings, sometimes...

Details Of W. Chatham Plan Lacking Editor: This past weekend, I watched the meeting sponsored by the Chatham Planning Board and HBDC to learn what landscaping was being proposed for West Chatham. While the DPW director spoke about the limits of work, he never addressed any specifics of MassDOT’s 100 percent design. The announcement stated this meeting was “to review proposed landscaping – West Chatham Roadw...

Donald Trump has gone to great lengths to protect his “brand,” which has appeared on everything from steaks to hotels to the failed Trump University. But as the Republican nominee for president, Trump's name is now more or less public domain and now graces some quite interesting properties. Together with an entirely new sub genre of news coverage that is barely indistinguishable from entertainment reporting, they...

Harwich's Hometown Parade is a delight. It's everything a small-town parade should be: local, quirky, quaint and fun. But it is also too long. The more than two-mile route the parade took last Sunday – from Harwich Port to Doane Road to Sisson Road, to Route 39 through Harwich Center to Oak Street – was exhausting, according to many marchers, which perhaps explains why so many of the participants were ridin...

Bill Could Ruin Neighborhoods Editor: In the proposed National Register District called Captains’ Row in West Harwich, it was advocated for affordable housing to be included. The model was to use the existing homes to create affordable housing and/or adding on to the homes. This would keep the neighborhood livable without changing the footprint to any great degree.  Currently our state proposes to take c...