Vinalhaven Calling
Phil Crossman is an island native, or very close to it, the descendant of its original settlers. His mother penned the original Vinalhaven Calling column for The Courier-Gazette in the 50s and 60s. Phil is a regular columnist for the Island Institute and has published a collection of humorous essays under the title Away Happen, a book favorably reviewed by a New York Times reviewer. He owns and operates the Tidewater Motel on the island.
Additional Column Posts (1 - 20 of 129) Next Page
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A glorious, uproarious Fourth
By Phil Crossman - Jul 07Fourth of July celebrations out here had, until recently, been sponsored by the Vinalhaven Health Council, because laughter is healthy and the ...
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Sea-level rise leads to revival of an old idea
By Phil Crossman - Jun 23On Aug. 17, 1894, the United States Congress passed the latest of many iterations of the River and Harbor Act, which was first enacted in the ...
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Ducklings rescued
By Phil Crossman - Jun 09As near as anyone has been able to tell so far, there were ever only two water-powered granite polishing mills in the world (one may have been in ...
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Good prospects ahead for Vinalhaven School
By Phil Crossman - May 26This promises to be a very good year for the Vinalhaven School. Last year’s Class D Gold Ball winners, the Lady Vikings, have retained all the ...
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Sidewalk side-tracked
By Phil Crossman - May 12In 1987, the Vinalhaven Board of Selectmen hired an engineering firm to design a sidewalk to replace a dangerously deteriorated asphalt walkway ...
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A delicate subject
By Phil Crossman - Apr 28This is a delicate subject but one I need to touch on. I like baseball and now and then enjoy watching the Red Sox. When the occasional seasonal ...
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Children collect trash, putting elders to shame
By Phil Crossman - Apr 14Every state has designated a flower as its own. Maine is the only state not to have christened an actual flower blossom for that particular ...
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Road trip, part 2
By Phil Crossman - Mar 31We did eventually move along from our lakeside berth in Mississippi, but not far. We drove from the southern part of the state to the northeast ...
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Not quite as indisposed as I'd imagined
By Phil Crossman - Mar 17We left the island a couple of days ago on an extended road trip in a sweet little Eurovan and got off to an inauspicious beginning. The camper ...
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Hometown heroines
By Phil Crossman - Mar 02Although to have been at the Vinalhaven ferry terminal when the last ferry docked last Saturday night, you’d never know it, there are people in ...
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Alewife stampede
By Phil Crossman - Jun 30A couple of weeks ago I reported on efforts undertaken by the Department of Marine Resources, the Vinalhaven Land Trust and a handful of interested...
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Here Come the Alewives
By Phil Crossman - Jun 16This week, the Department of Marine Resources returns to Vinalhaven for the second installment of "Here Come the Alewives." As reported last year, ...
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Things looking up at Vinalhaven School
By Phil Crossman - Jun 02Things are definitely looking up at the Vinalhaven School. Grades kindergarten through 12 are housed in a fairly new and generally spectacular ...
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Cure for insomnia
By Phil Crossman - May 19Jack Waterbury passed away last week. He was a former military pilot and had retired from flying jets commercially since. About 30 years ago, when ...
No planet B
By Phil Crossman - May 05Vinalhaven has, in recent years, and in the last two decades, grown a vibrant activist community, thanks, in particular, to a few conscientious ...
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Government rip-off
By Phil Crossman - Apr 21We are getting ripped-off and we don’t have the resolve or resources to do what needs to be done to make things right. The government is not ...
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Road trip, final leg
By Phil Crossman - Apr 07The road trip is drawing to a close. We were in the Great Smokey Mountains in Georgia last week, driving the spectacular twists and turns of the ...
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Road trip
By Phil Crossman - Mar 24Last year we bought a Eurovan Camper. It's a 2003, the last year they were built, has been lovingly cared for by two previous owners who only ...
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The difference is teamwork
By Phil Crossman - Mar 10Vinalhaven’s Lady Vikings travelled by bus back to Rockland after decisively winning the state’s Class D basketball championship last Saturday in ...
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Seeking, and finding, something uplifting
By Phil Crossman - Feb 23Every now and then, when I feel overwhelmed by events, I search for something uplifting. For the last few years that’s sometimes been pieces of ...
