November Blooms

No doubt encouraged by the mild late fall weather, flowers are still blooming around the Island. Stray purple asters pop up in farm fields here and there, staying low to the ground as if to guard against Jack Frost’s incoming assault. Dahlias are down for the winter in Island gardens but a pot of chives recently divided thinks it might be springtime again and is making small purple flowers, perfect for a salad at suppertime after chopping wood for an evening fire.

Calling Comcast: Service for All, Please

Comcast reported another good quarter this month, announcing a 4.7 per cent increase in profits on revenues of $14.3 billion. Even though it lost 165,000 cable television customers nationwide, it gained 261,000 broadband Internet subscribers. In addition to being the nation’s largest cable TV provider, Comcast also happens to be its largest Internet services provider.

From Gazette editions of November, 1961:

The Foote Memorial Shelter of the Mass. MSPCA at Edgartown needed extra pages for its guest book over Thanksgiving: The sojourning visitors numbered seventy-four, a new high record for an establishment that has seen some heavy demands upon its accommodations. Incidentally, the demand filled on this occasion shows the usefulness, not to say the indispensability of the shelter.

Language has power. In every culture the language the people developed described their world in ways that were recognizable to them, but do not always necessarily translate. Different things matter to different people, and how we choose to describe the world is how we tell all those who come after us what mattered — and what we were about.

For the Wampanoag people whose language, after 400 years of contact with the European settlers, had ceased to be spoken, exciting work is underway to revive the language, both written and spoken.

My friends Jamie and Barbara live in Farmington, Conn. Their power was out for a week after the recent storm. The temperature in their house dropped to 45 degrees. Jamie says they wanted their power back for heat, lights and all the other things that electricity brings. But mostly, he said, they wanted to be able to communicate. Everyone in town was driving around looking for places to charge their phones and laptops.

I’m back in Seattle’s fall but still dreaming of summer boat crossings. Every dream involves the drama of whether or not I will be able “to make the boat.” In an ideal summer I would only make two crossings: one to arrive on the Vineyard, and one to leave. This wasn’t that summer.