To the Editor:

Two weeks ago in this space I invited the sunset crowd to reconvene at the landing when the wind turned, to watch an unremarkable yellow sun go down completely unassisted. I am pleased to report the event came off Thursday evening, and I write to file the results.

Attendance: perhaps two dozen, which is to say most of the smoke crowd plus a few who had heard there was something to see and were told, correctly, that there wasn’t. The sun went down plain yellow, on schedule, into a blue sky it had no business improving. Nobody’s chest felt funny. The taco truck was there, it being Thursday, and the line reached the boat trailers, which I am informed is the truck’s preferred unit of measurement. My wife had the al pastor and has asked that this be printed.

At the end — and I want the record to show I did not start it — the crowd clapped. For an ordinary sunset. It was, I grant, a little much. It was also, I will argue to anyone, exactly right. You do not know what a plain yellow sunset is worth until you have spent nine days admiring a borrowed red one and feeling funny about it.

We are not making it a weekly thing. That would ruin it. But I am told the plaid lawn chair that entered the lost-and-found during the smoke has been claimed, by its owner, who came back for the sunset and left with the chair, and I submit that as proof the system works.

J. Sandvik
Misquah