The census enumeration for Matinicus appears a random-ass attempt to count noses on some arbitrarily chosen day and reflects nothing useful.

No answer to any question about life and work on an island is simple.

Island time is all that time we waste—ahem—spend, pacing back and forth in front of the telephone, waiting for the air service to call, checking various weather forecasts every ten seconds, and getting no useful work done in the meantime.

Of course, I myself am all sweetness and light at the dump (oops--I mean the transfer station). I’m going for Customer of the Year.

The roadside between here and the post office smells like apples, which is delightful. Our telephone rings considerably less (also delightful).

Don’t hold anything anybody says in March against them, because it’s just March, and everybody’s like that.

A radar map is an amazing thing. Just imagine how our ancestors would have reacted to such a tool. 

Matinicus Island is getting less boony all the time, for better or worse.

On some of this island’s roads, before I got there in mind to count the kilowatts, there were no tracks at all.

We still have not perfected the Snowy Owl cocktail.