Edgecomb

If your car mechanic says your battery is low, get a new one! Lesson 338q in the Cameron 'Learn It the Hard Way' handbook. We had been trying all month to get to see Heartwood Regional Theater's production of 'Copenhagen,' but weather canceled one attempt. Second attempt, we sit in the car for five minutes before recognizing that we ain't going anywhere. Grrrrr. Got the battery jumped the next day, car performed obediently from there on, and we finally saw 'Copenhagen' at its final Sunday matinee. Phew. Bruce is at the garage buying a new battery now (Monday), as I type.

'Copenhagen' is must seeing for 21st Century Americans. I hope Heartwood will bring it back, or some other group will produce it later on. It concerns, ultimately, the failure of Nazi Germany to develop an atomic bomb. It concerns the bristly question of personal responsibility, direct or indirect. It also, breathtakingly, frames all this within the vagaries of an atom's pathway, identified by one of the characters as 'the uncertainty principle.' Whether you know or care anything about Niels Bohr or Werner Heisenberg, their respective illuminations of the science of nuclear physics have influenced us all. And a full-court curtsey to Fru Bohr, the intelligent layman, who asks the uncomfortable questions, as must we all.

For a talky play -- a play of language, even of equations - No one in the audience nodded off to sleep. I daresay we were all on the edges of our seats from the very first crunch of a visitor's footsteps to the Bohrs' door!

Back to Edgecomb, and lesser but still vital questions of responsibility: A new page on the www.edgecomb.org Web site is devoted to 'Public Meetings.' We've been trying to get this as complete as possible, to comply with the public's right to know. The regularly occurring schedules are all there, as well as several occasional meetings. The Edgecomb Historical Society and the Fort Edgecomb Bicentennial Committee meetings will be featured as well. You all should be aware of two new standing committees: The Utilities Committee (Water and Sewer) and the Town Hall Maintenance Committee. Also, departmental meetings with the Budget Committee will start in February; these are posted on the Web site as well. All of these meetings are open to the public, who have a serious stake in them.

One meeting I missed for this column was the important discussion of school consolidation on Tuesday. It will be well-covered elsewhere in these newspapers, and there will be more activity and discussion on the entire issue throughout the year.

Congratulations, Robin Mc-Cready! Her novel 'Buried' has been nominated for an Edgar Award by the Mystery Writers Guild! Up against four other well-known writers, Robin is the only First Book among the nominees! You go, girl!

Swirling around in the molecules at 234 River Road, 633-2978, bonesukl@midcoast.com.

This column appears in the Boothbay Register, The Lincoln County News, the Wiscasset News-paper, and at www.Edgecomb.org.