And it is not just Clarissa's crazy extended family, the history and the connections go on...

I hope I can make this short and sweet, but, really, it may be difficult, as it is layered and complex...

So, Hancock Point has more than just Thompsons; there are other families, some similarly large and extended. Some families live right down at the end of "the point" (Hancock Point is a peninsula sticking out into a bay. Actually, it is technically an island. But, we'll come back to that later) and everybody sort of knows and sees each other regularly. Other families live down at the end of long dirt roads, and exist only as names, on little wooden signposts, at the tops of the roads. Growing up, I knew certain families, and other families, I only knew of.

The road just before "the Eddy Road" (the Eddy road goes down to the first house my great grandparents ever built and owned here) has a sign at the top of it that says Zabriskie. So, growing up, I knew there were Zabriskies down there, but beyond that, I knew nothing. They kept to themselves, those Zabriskies.

Switch gears a bit now:

Before some family members got into the whole kayaking thing, we had this metal Grumman canoe (I think we actually still have it, stored under the Big House). At that time, if you wanted to go out on the water, the canoe was pretty much the only option. The story I am about to tell features my mom, who, one day, many years ago now, decided to head out in the canoe. Alone. All fine and good, until the wind picked up, by which time she had gotten pretty far out and, all by her self in the canoe, she just couldn't paddle back in the face of that wind.

Well, lucky for her, along comes a sailboat, with some nice people in it, and they rescue her, bringing her aboard and towing the canoe back. Mom knew, at least vaguely, one of the boat's occupants (they were Zabriskies). In the course of the sail home and casual conversation, she discovered that the other two people on the boat had this connection to the Putney School, a place I was either currently working, or had been working at. So, funny small world, here we are on Hancock Point, and there Clarissa was, working at the Putney School, and there are these nice people, with some sort of a Putney School connection, rescuing my mom.

And then there is Ray, who went to Putney School, as some of you know.

Somewhere along the way, Ray and I meet, and eventually we move in together, get married and have some kids.

Here we are, nearly 20 years later.

Now, we need to try to tie up this crazy story...

Back to those Zabriskies, remember? They have a place at Hancock Point, and some of them rescued my mom that day, long ago, and established some sort of a Putney School connection.

Turns out, those other two people in the boat that day, rescuing my mom, were Mike and Rebecca. Who are Mike and Rebecca, you might ask. Rebecca and Ray were high school classmates, both starting at Putney in the ninth grade, so, four years of high school together for those two. Mike also went to Putney, though he is older than Ray and Rebecca, by a few years. Mike and Ray became friends over summers, after they had both finished high school, but were still hanging around in the summers and working on the farm at Putney.

Somewhere along the way, Mike and Rebecca also got married and had kids.

In addition to being a Putney person, and a classmate of Ray's from way back, Rebecca is also a Zabriskie. And as such, has some claim to some time each year at a house here, down at the end of one of those roads I mentioned above. Odd, how it's not that big a place, Hancock Point, yet growing up summers here, she and I never knew each other.

But now, here we all are, almost 20 years later, spending a little time together each summer, here in Maine, on the beach, with the kids: Charlotte and Olivia, and Alden and Milo.