Note included with a Christmas cassette from 1986.

Now .. this is something else again! Not meant really to be part of the Christmas greeting. But .. there's tape left .. so I thought if I set it a respectable distance from "Runaway" .. it wouldn't get mixed up with the other. If you want to hear it .. just let the tape run. It's one from my growing collection of nightmare songs! You know. The kind that wakes you up in a sweat .. and it takes time to calm down even though you know it's just a dream! Trouble is .. some nightmares seem to feel like they need some tending to .. in order that they don't turn real on us! Songs are just my way of tending, I guess.

Along the East coast there continue to be rumblings about reaching out "just a little bit" into existing harbors and waterways to make more room for land development. In Mass .. some of the bays have become so polluted by chemicals and sewage .. one of the proposed solutions is to just pave them over. This kind of human "progress" hurts the part of me that is the sea .. and I guess that's where this song sprung from. Palpably .. it started from an issue that came up last summer here in Camden when two shoreline property owners wanted to fill in some of Camden Harbor for business purposes. I was amazed when the Town Meeting voted to approve the doing of some of that!

Not pretending to know what's right or what's wrong .. this song just asks .. "Where do we stop??" We seem to be brilliant at STARTING. We're not so good at STOPPING, though!!

This song is called ..

THE SHORELINE CONSTRUCTION NIGHTMARE SONG.

P.S. All you folks who don't live here in Maine .. I guess you'll have to get out your MAPS!! The places are REAL! Only the facts have been changed .. thank GOODNESS!