Vinalhaven’s lively baseball history, Frenchboro’s annual lobster dinner, oyster culture in the Damariscotta River, Linda Greenlaw’s newest book, the ACE Olympics on Cliff Island: each speaks of tradition and community vitality; each, like summer itself, is worth celebrating.
On Aug. 14, Frenchboro will put on its 42nd annual lobster dinner, an institution that draws visitors from far and wide to support that island community. Shellfish aquaculture has been an important institution on the Damariscotta River for nearly 30 years, celebrated each fall with a festival. Linda Greenlaw’s career writing best-sellers now extends back for nearly a decade, and the appearance of a new book this summer marks yet another step in her development as a Maine institution. On Cliff Island in Casco Bay, ACE has been putting on its summer Olympics for 30 years, bringing together the island’s residents in friendly competition. And on Vinalhaven, the many decades when baseball was king and the Chiefs were champions are evidence the community institutions aren’t a new invention.
It takes a good idea to create a lasting institution. New ideas are being hatched all the time, and if the past is a valid guide, a few of this year’s crop will become institutions and even traditions. That’s how optimists, at least, look at the world.