Concerned citizens following statewide elections might have noticed how things have begun to heat up. Here at Latitude 59 degrees and some change, we don’t burn up precious electrons reporting on all that stuff. Newsroom central gets about a dozen emails a day from the elephant and donkey U.S. Senate campaigns. Knowing how sensitive Homer people can be, we’ve been sparing you this political sniping. Most of it’s like “You’re a big doo-doo head” and he like goes, “No, you’re a bigger doo-doo head,” and then he goes, “Yo’ mama” and then stuff really gets ugly. The only interesting thing was when at one debate a politician couldn’t place the location of the Salty Dawg Saloon. Ouch. Send that guy a sweatshirt.

Holy Vernal Equinox! It’s only the first week of September. We have two more months of this stuff. Our news team will be reporting on local races and issues, but trust us, politicians tend to be more civil on the lower Kenai Peninsula. If things did get ugly, we’d report that, as tastefully as we can in a family newspaper, but it won’t. Local politicians tend to be friends and neighbors, and they’re unlikely to get mean because you don’t want to make someone angry who might be pulling your Subaru out of the ditch this winter.

Meanwhile, how can anyone get grumpy with yet another awesome stretch of amazing weather? We’re not quite sure what’s going on here, but we don’t dare to ask lest we jinx things. Paybacks can be nasty, and we know that some dark week in January we’ll be thinking back on this summer as we shovel 10 feet of snow. Meanwhile, seize the day.

Even though some politicians might not know where we are, we know we live in the best place in the universe with the best neighbors ever. So enjoy this sweet little town, maybe with these Best Bets:

 

BEST KEEP IT CLEAN BET: If it’s September it must be CoastWalk, time to walk the beaches and pick up trash. Today at 6 p.m. at Alaska USA Federal Credit Union, join the CoastWalk kick off. Sign up for a beach or form a team from work and enter the team challenge. 

 

BEST BEARING WITNESS BET: Carolyn Forché is a force of nature — a poet with a mighty fine voice and a dedication to discovering the voices of other poets who might not get noticed. She’s got the Alaska chops, too, having worked a winter in Juneau, Fairbanks and Eagle River teaching poetry in prisons. She speaks at 6:30 p.m. today at the Kachemak Bay Campus Pioneer Hall.

 

BEST BOATS OF THE BAY BET: Yup, if it’s fall and fishing is mostly over, it must be the Kachemak Bay Wooden Boat Festival. If you have a love for boats made from trees, check out the event. It runs today-Sunday, with sea chanteys, music, talks, the kids building barn and, of course, displays of beautiful boats.

 

BEST ART CRAWL BET: This might be the last First Friday where you won’t have to wear a jacket, and the last art opening this season for some galleries. Catch shows in Old Town and on Pioneer Avenue. Don’t miss the grand opening of Cornish Music’s new location in the Art Shop Gallery building — proof that First Friday also is about the performing arts as well as the visual arts.

 

BEST SECOND GENERATION BET: If you lived here in the 1990s, you remember Fresh Produce, the improvisational comedy group that had Homer busting stitches. They’re back, with director Martin Zeller leading Fresh Produce 2.0, a new incarnation. See them at 7:30 p.m. Friday and Saturday at the Art Barn.

 

BEST BUILD, BABY, BUILD: Here’s your chance to create some awesome community art, the annual Burning Basket. Build week starts Sunday at Mariner Park and runs 10 a.m.-8 p.m. through next Saturday. The basket is offered to the community on Sept. 14 and transformed into heat and light. Swing by the build site to help and coordinator Mavis Muller will put you to work.