I wonder how many of you readers pay attention to the Down East Yacht Club column when it appears. If you do then you already know that the club has made a new designation for its past commodores. That is Senior Past Commodore, and Edgar Reed is the recipient of this first designation. He is the oldest in term of service, having been Commodore in 1976 and 1977 and perhaps in age as well. Congrats! His Thanksgiving meal was served at a local restaurant with Holly and Eddie, and he was floored that the dinner was served on a platter. Included were turkey, stuffing, gravy, cranberry sauce, potatoes, squash and string beans. All of that is very traditional, but his dessert was chocolate cake. How different is that? I'll bet most of us had some kind of pie. He was pleased to even get leftovers to take home.

My family was kind of all over the place. The Ayers flew to Chicago to be with daughter Kate. Matt, Julie and Chase were with her grandmother McCleary in Hallowell, and then Matt came down to Brunswick, where I was with Bruce and Nan and 11 of her family. He had already eaten dessert but when he saw the blueberry pie Molly Bogart had made he relented and had a second dessert. Our gathering ranged in age from 15 days to over 75 years.

Jane McClennan let me know, via postcard, that she would be at Betsy and Brad Hastings where Betsy was expecting 22 for dinner, including some of Brad's family. This has been the traditional gathering place for a number of years.

In trying to trace down a new address for our president, Roland Miller, I had a nice conversation with our clerk, Deb Pierce. They were a small group for turkey with just Balcers in attendance. That was in Belfast. Carl and Lori were with her folks in Benton, Maine. Those people give a huge brunch on the day after Thanksgiving, to which all the Pierce clan is invited, and then they all go out to a Christmas tree farm and get their trees. Friday night back in Belfast Deb and Art had friends from there in for dessert. So much of the time the Pierces are either at the island or Sugarloaf, they enjoy connecting with the Belfast friends.

Previously, in this column, I had inquired of the Millers how they made out in the big storm we had a few weeks ago and Judy replied with a wonderful long e-mail. On the Cape the papers referred to it as a Nor'easter and said there were gales up to 80 miles an hour. The ferry did not run during the storm. The day before it hit, Roland and their friend Bruce hauled several boats from the water, including one owned by a member of their association who was stuck in Boston. They pulled in their deck furniture and located candles and flashlights. The lights flickered once, but never went out. The lady who had done some sewing for Judy lives on a boat and rode out the storm safely. At what turned out to be the height of the storm the Millers and their friends Bruce and Jeannie took a car ride along the Vineyard Haven harbor, out to Oak Bluffs and Edgartown. The sea was wild and water covered the road (just like Ocean Point) in some places. Judy who says she is a bit timid, wondered at their safety, because branches and trees were down, but they made it home safely.

Although Judy had been fretful about the move to another island, the day the moving van arrived she forestalled her mourning, for she felt as though she was back in Eastern Mass., where she was born and spent all her summers. Their new house is every bit as comfortable as the Lenox one, even to having a real garage, two sinks in the bathroom and lots of light in every room. True to form, Roland has been either fishing or hanging pictures. Judy has done things new to her. Tried to make beach plum jelly which turned to syrup, clamming with a rake that Bruce and Jeannie gave them as a house-warming gift, and donning waders in order to scallop in the bright sunshine the day after the storm. She has also found a writing group and a play reading group. Sounds like they are really settling in and she wonders why they waited so long to do it.

Art and Deb Pierce visited as soon as there was room, amid the boxes, for them. In exchange for showing them the sights Art put together a set of shelves Roland had purchased, and Deb did the sorting and organizing of those shelves. Thus the cellar went from chaos to "Now you can find it." The Millers' Thanksgiving was spent with Bruce and Jeannie, as has been traditional for several years. The Eric Millers were in Antigua, guests of a friend and the girls loved swimming in the pool. Probably eight hours each day, and when they got home to Utah, I'll bet there was skiing available to them.