On Sunday, August 26 from 5 through 7 p.m. all Southporters are invited to the wedding tent at Newagen Inn, that's the big white structure down by the water, for the Southport Island Association's annual meeting. Refreshments, both liquid and munchies, will be available as we elect officers and transact any remaining business for the season. This important meeting is not the final event for the year. That event will be a walk and potluck supper on September 22. More details later.

The few families I know who contemplate spending half a million dollars spend much time gathering data, asking questions, considering options, and agonizing over the decision. The Town of Southport often feels like a family as we meet at the store, at church, the school, or shopping at the Firemen's Auction. And like most families we do not always agree, especially when the issue is spending that much money.

Wednesday, August 29 at 7:30 p.m. at the Town Hall this island family is called together for a special town meeting to decide whether or not we want to negotiate such expenditure for the Earl W. Pratt property in Cozy Harbor. We have had three formal opportunities for our discussion and debate. Several clear and thoughtful letters to the editor of this paper have set forth arguments for and against this purchase. Next week the decision time will come. The notice of the town meeting and the articles on which we will vote were published last week in this paper and, I assume, are published also this week. We need to elect a moderator who will guide the registered voters of Southport through votes on three additional articles as to whether we will authorize the Selectmen to negotiate the purchase of the said property, whether we will authorize the Selectmen to secure financing for said purchase, and as always to hear and accept the minutes of the meeting. You must be a registered voter in the Town of Southport to vote.

If you have questions about registering to vote, you can call or stop in to pose them to our Registrar of Voters, Donna Climo. She is in the town office from 9 a.m. until noon Monday through Thursday. Her phone number is 633-6311. Sixty-eight registered voters will constitute a legal quorum for the meeting. If you want a ride to the meeting, please call Jennifer Wickline at 633-2445 or Sarah Sherman at 633-7161.

Remembering the familiar slogan, "Not to decide is to decide," should spur us on to attend this meeting where we can participate, even if we just listen, in the debate and vote, rather than staying home and letting others decide for us. I am also thinking of two opposing types of personalities reflected in our household and, I suspect in others: Person A who approaches a decision by gathering ever increasing amounts of information, and Person B who comes to a decision more quickly with only a few data points. At this meeting person A is probably going to be frustrated because we can think of so many more questions for which we want answers, while person B wants to make the decision and get on with the next steps before someone else buys the property and the opportunity is lost. As we come together I can imagine the strengths of points of view and personalities clashing, so I pass along the exhortation Mary Jo Zimmerli gave at the opening of the Boothbay Harbor town meeting last spring, that participants "remember the manners their mothers taught them."

In other island news the Antique Mothers' Club, spearheaded by Alice Thompson and Lydia Elliott, hosted a breakfast last Tuesday, August 14, at Andrews Harborside for Mechelle Spencer. Tables were decorated with floral sachets that were given as door prizes drawn from self addressed envelopes all attendees put into the hat. The envelopes will also be filled at a later date with a letter describing the shopping trip to Portland the hosts have planned for Mechelle financed with contents of a lovely hat box available at the breakfast for donations. Although insurance will cover much of the loss Mechelle and Sonny suffered when their house was destroyed by fire earlier this summer, the intent of the party and the shopping trip is to lighten the hard slog of remembering and listing all household contents and reestablishing a home. The bonds formed among parents of children in the Southport School continue long after the children are grown and are expressed by this group in thoughtful and often humorous ways.

Island households have been enlivened with the younger generations in residence. Anne Seltzer writes that daughter Marna is spending the summmer with them at their Christmas Cove home along with her daughter Penelope (age two). Marna is the managing director of the Salt Bay Chamber fest in Damariscotta, which opened with a concert August 14. Marna's husband, Zach, has been commuting from New Haven, Connecticut on weekends, a drive he says is well worth the effort. The Brinegars said a sad goodby to their granddaughter, Isabelle Abaldo, who returned to Delaware after spending her first summer sailing season with them. Our house seems very empty as granddaughter, Maddy Sherrill, returned to her family in Damariscotta and grandson, Peter Rosasco, settled at home in New Jersey. The Southport Yacht Club sailing season seems over so soon. I awoke to the cool air Sunday morning thinking, "at least the green leaves are still on the trees."

I cannot do justice to the memory of Norma Smith in the space I have left in the column this week. Her familiar face heading her obituary two weeks ago shook out many memories. As parents of young sailors and novice adventurers on the water ourselves, we looked at Norma not just as an instructor but also as a guide to us and as a surrogate parent for our children. She filled these roles with a calm grace, patience, and humor. Not until I gained more maturity did I begin to appreciate her situation more fully. On top of her responsibilities as the head of the sailing program, she was a wife and mother of three children. Much of the time I knew her, her husband was seriously ill. She would finish her duties on the water at 4 p.m. and often head to St. Andrews Hospital where she worked the evening shift as a nurse. Where did she find the energy and strength to fill all those roles? She was a legend among East Coast sailors and perhaps beyond.

One evening when we were living on Capitol Hill in Washington, D.C. and eating dinner at a neighborhood restaurant, a woman dining next to us overheard our conversations about Southport and Maine. "Do you know Norma Smith," she asked? When we replied, "yes," the woman continued with fond memories and praises for Norma's abilities to coax young people into little wooden boats and teach them about the wind, the currents, the points of sail, and racing techniques. "I owe my love of sailing and of the sea to Norma," she said, and so do so many of us.