The next Chappy potluck dinner will be hosted by Joanne and Bill Brine on Wednesday, April 6. Joanne has suggested that perhaps folks could prepare their dishes using recipes from the Chappy Community Center Cookbook from many years back. Let me know if you have a copy to share after you have decided what you will be making. Call me or text me at the contacts at the top of the column and I will orchestrate a hand-off of cookbooks. Appetizers begin at 6 p.m. with the buffet line starting at 6:30. Please bring a dish to serve six. There are only four potluck dinners after this before summer. Don’t miss out.

Just two weeks and a few days to go before school vacation week in April. That’s also the week when the repairs to the Chappy slip will take place. For a period of eight days the ferry will carry only passengers. No vehicles will be carried on Sunday April 17 and continuing through Sunday April 24 at 6 p.m. Passengers will be carried during the entire time. See the full notice on the Chappy ferry website or Facebook page. You will be able to drive the beach to town without permits during that week and park in town without getting a parking ticket for going over the time limit. The captains have informational handouts. If you have any questions call my cell phone at 508-627-1577.

Darn, I just realized that the Gazette hits the newsstands on April Fools’ Day! I should have made up some halfway believable stories as I have in years past, but I need to submit the column in an hour and my imagination seems to be taking a break. There’s always next year. But a word to the wise, don’t believe everything that you read in the other columns!

The other day I was emptying the candy wrappers out of the suggestion boxes at the ferry and I came upon a little envelope with the words “It’s Simple” scrawled across the front. I opened the envelope carefully and slowly — recalling the anthrax scare of a decade ago. In the envelope was a simple pencil sketch. It consisted of two bold horizontal parallel lines. On each line was drawn a row of a dozen little cars and trucks. The lower line was labeled “ground.” The upper line was labeled “elevated.” At each end of the upper line was a sloped line labeled – “movable ramp”. Suddenly I realized what I was looking at. I’ll explain shortly.

First think back to last spring when we tried out the idea of having a two lane waiting line on Daggett Street. We did a trial run one morning and pretty quickly things went awry in many respects. The problem was that the street is just too narrow for that to work easily.

Now almost a year later I held right there in my hand the solution that should have been so obvious to all of us from the start. It was a conceptual sketch for a double-decker waiting line on Daggett Street. Pure genius! There are many details to work out regarding the movable ramps at the ends, but the Steamship Authority has been operating similar equipment successfully for years aboard the Island Home. I believe that on the whole it’s really a very simple solution.

I met with the highway superintendent to discuss getting started on the design and construction process. I know that the bid process for public works is long and complex. I asked if he knew any companies that would be interested in taking on such a project. I was surprised by his answer. “My guys put together picnic tables and bike racks all the time. This is really just a matter of scale. The same construction methods apply. I may have most of the materials we need to build it laying around at the highway barn already. I’ll see you at town meeting and let you know what I’ve found.”

I don’t know. Seems like a pretty big project to me. Maybe he was just fooling with me.

Send Chappy news to peter@chappyferry.net.