Thanksgiving morning will find a group of rather insane and wonderfully hearty individuals taking part in the fifth annual Aquinnah Thanksgiving Plunge. It happens at 10 am at West Basin. Warming refreshments will be available to the brave swimmers, so if you’re game, get on out there. Thanks to Matt and Chase Born for getting the word out. I’ll be cheering for them at home with the turkeys.
The big news to come is about the Aquinnah Artisans Fair. It will be held on Saturday and Sunday, Dec. 6 and 7, at our own Town Hall, from 10 am to 4 pm each day. Come and enjoy two days of yummy food (from Orange Peel Bakery), music, visiting with your neighbors, and searching for the perfect presents. Jewelers, potters, painters, woodworkers, fabric artists, and others are all hard at work getting ready. Master Wampanoag jewelers and crafters will be selling there. The brilliant Joan LeLacheur and her daughter Aquinnah Witham will be offering up ocean jewelry and crystals. My Charley has been stockpiling his pottery, and I have been creating little painted canvas ornaments for this. This is the eighth Artisans Fair, the invention of our beloved Gabbi Camilleri, and a small group of us have worked to bring it back in her honor and to continue her support of artists. So come for Gabbi, come for fun, and help to cheer on the creative juices that flow here in Aquinnah.
If you just can’t wait for the Artisans Fair, Joan LeLacheur and Aquinnah Witham are holding a sale of crystals and ocean jewelry on Nov. 28. It will be held at Pathways from 11 am to 4 pm, and they would love to see you there. Also, Berta and Carla will have their shop open for Thanksgiving weekend. It’s your last chance to shop there until next year, so get yourself to the Cliffs this weekend and say thank you to those wonderful women.
In the spirit of giving thanks this week, I have some thankfulness to express. I’ll begin with Bill Lake, who announced the exciting news that Aquinnah has been named a Climate Leader Community (one of nine in Massachusetts) by the Healey-Driscoll administration. This makes Aquinnah eligible for grants of up to $1,150,000 to help cut energy costs, add locally generated electricity, upgrade municipal buildings, and for technical support. The Aquinnah Climate Action Committee has worked hard on several projects for the past few years, which has led to this achievement. Thank you to each of them, and thank you to Bill for his outstanding leadership.
My thanks go to Gerald Green and to Jimmy Benoit for their great words at a recent select board meeting. They spoke in support of putting a new food-waste recycler for our town on the next town meeting warrant. The advantages of this well-designed system were laid out as great for our health, for our land, and ultimately for our budget. I thank them for their clarity and their hard work. They convinced me, and I give the system my vote.
I am grateful to the members of the Up-Island Council on Aging board and the staff there for their continued hard work. They have taken on planning for the next three to five years, at a time when serious problems with the Howes House facility exist, and when we have increasing numbers of senior citizens here who need assistance. I thank them for taking care of us all in this way.
One more group thank-you goes to the staff at Town Hall, the police station, the fire station, the library, the transfer station, and on the roads and the water. Competence. Kindness. Straining to get it right, whatever it is. I am thankful for you.
Birthday cheers this week go to Kate Murphy Kausch on Nov. 27, to Diamond Ellie Vanderhoop on Nov. 28, and to Woody Vanderhoop on Dec. 3.
