The next potluck at the Chappy Community Center is scheduled for Wednesday, Oct. 21. Judy Buss and Paul Cardello will be the hosts with appetizers beginning at 6 p.m. and dinner at 6:30. All are welcome. Bring a dish for six.

My Auntie Babs, Barbara Fynbo, passed recently. She was 93. The youngest child of my great-grandfather Frank Marshall, she never seemed young to me — probably because I entered into her life rather late in the game. But she also never seemed old to me. Babs was not an old lady, even in her nineties. Auntie Babs was a doer — she was always doing something: sewing curtains, fixing a grass mat rug, making a jumpsuit for Uncle Bob, crafting a wooden sleigh.

Beatrix Haven Houghton took her first breath of air at 8:13 p.m. on Sept. 14. Very considerate of her to not keep her parents up all night. She weighed 7 pounds 3 ounces and measured 19.75 inches long. Her mom Jocelyn Filley and dad Graham Houghton welcome her into a large extended family of many aunts, uncles and cousins. Haven is an ancestral name.

All this week, I’d been meaning to ask Peter Wells what the deal was with the excavation project by the Chappy slip. I’d also been meaning to write my column. Fortunately, I forgot to write this column longer than I forgot to ask Peter my question. Apparently, according to Peter, the bulkhead on the western side of the very slip needed replacing. But, as with most projects on Chappy, this project requires the completion of another project first: the removal of a Hummer-sized piece of concrete.

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.

The moon was full last Sunday and has made for a whole week of no flashlights needed at midnight. The moon was also in perigee. Which means that it was at its closest point of approach in its cock-eyed orbit around the earth.

During the month of August The Trustees of Reservations on a day to day and tide by tide basis have had to close off Norton Point to traffic “going by the beach” between Chappy and town for short periods of time. Ocean waves occasionally washed over the narrow part of the beach during the higher of the high tides.

Seems to me like summer is already winding down. Odd, with a full half of August still to be used up. But August always has been the strangest month for me on the Island. I compare this month to a four-course meal in which the entree is hurried to the table, gobbled up with vigor, and then everything that comes after is only vaguely considered on the periphery of one’s overstuffed self.

I’ve been dreaming a lot lately — mostly clouded scenarios of chores unfinished, but peppered amongst the drudgery of my dreamscape have been a few gems. One such jewel was my dream of a Chappy populated by canals.

The newest batch of young terns and plovers growing up on Norton Point have managed to assure the cautious staff of The Trustees of Reservations that they are now capable of getting out of the way of our partially-deflated tires. So as of last Monday you could “go by the beach” to town. Of course you will need the requisite over-sand vehicle permits and a tire pressure gauge. The tide was exceptionally high that first day and with the southerly breeze the ocean waves were occasionally washing over the narrow part of the beach.