We are saddened to hear of the passing of T. Curry Jones of Wasque Farm. He was quite a character. He had the good fortune to marry one of the Turnbull sisters, which made him a member of a vast group of summertime Chappaquiddickers. Like many of his in-laws he eventually made Chappy his year-round home. His full obituary elsewhere will fill you in on his vital statistics and many accomplishments.

I just want to mention a few items that may not make it into his obituary. In the early years of his retirement to Chappy he bought a four-wheel drive pickup truck. He was very generous about lending it out to those of us who at the time barely had dependable transportation let alone four-wheel drive. I think that just to be contrary and to make sure that we didn’t get life handed to us on a silver platter he ordered it from the dealer with hand-cranked windows, a standard transmission, and I think just to make sure that we got the message, an AM radio. A radio with just AM channels! There was only one AM station reaching Chappy and the reception was so poor you couldn’t figure out what kind of music it played.

Curry was a research scientist. Part of his laboratory’s work required field-testing products such as the rubber compounds used to make footwear. One of his daughters revealed to me that he once brought home some prototype sneakers which they had to wear around to see how well they held up. They were expected to go to school with them on. Neither style nor comfort was among the criteria on trial. In the interest of the advancement of civilization for the common good the sensitivities of the teenaged Jones girls had to be sacrificed.

Curry was a tough old guy. In his later years, as he began to weaken, I helped to load him into the ambulance in the middle of the night a few times. We had to insist that he allow us to follow protocols by securing him to a stretcher when taking him downstairs and across the lawn in the dark to the ambulance. He would say loudly, “I may be old but I can still walk, damn it!” He was impatient that we made such a fuss over him.

After the initial dismay and sadness I felt upon hearing the news of Curry’s departure I began to ponder the question of his eternal destination. It’s not obvious to me where he should be assigned. Curry had a wide variety of attributes and skills that could be equally as useful to Saint Peter as to his counterpart in the brimstone district. I posed this question of heaven or hell to one of his surviving relatives. The quick response was, “Don’t worry. Curry will talk his way into wherever he wants to be.”

Potlucks at the Chappy Community Center will be held on the first and third Wednesdays with appetizers beginning at 6 p.m. and dinner at 6:30 p.m. All are welcome. Bring a dish for six. Call Lynn at 508-627-8222 to sign up for hosting.

You still have a few days to read Erik Larson’s saga on the 1915 sinking of the Lusitania entitled Dead Wake before the Chappy book club meets on Wednesday, Sept. 23 at 10:30 a.m. to discuss that disaster of a century ago.

The Trustees of Reservations have had to close part of Norton Point to vehicular travel. This is the very narrow section just a few hundred yards west of Wasque. Island superintendent Chris Kennedy hoped that it could be open during the derby but it is actually getting thinner and will have to stay closed off until it builds up enough for safe passage.

Speaking of the derby — when it ends, one of the Chappy ferries has to get hauled out for Coast Guard inspection and maintenance. Unfortunately this year it will be the longer of the two boats that goes out of service. That leaves one ferry to handle all of the traffic and she is nine feet shorter than her sister. That means that only two full-sized pickup trucks will fit aboard at one time. So lines will be longer. Expect this to go on for at least two months. We won’t really know how long it will be until the ferry is out of the water and the Coast Guard inspectors have gone through it with their fine-toothed comb.

Send Chappy news to peter@chappyferry.net.