• (February 4, 1999) - 235th year milestone for the Waterside Third Parish of Newbury's organization as the town of Newburyport
  • the Waterside movement would be launched anew in February, coincidentally between two blue moons in January and March, the 2nd and 31st of both months
    
• during The Year of Coming to Terms (old style calendar year March 25, 1999 - March 24, 2000)
• beginning the contemporary 5-Year term of the Waterside Plan in Motion
  
• (June 24, 2001) - 150th year milestone for Newburyport's organization as a city form of government, with its present bounds (expanded to include Joppa and Belleville sections).
• during The Year of Inauguration (March 25, 2001 - March 24, 2002)
• organize the Sesquicentennial celebration and a "cerebration" to coincide with the 225th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence and the New Millennium, to unfold with
• the completed Master Plan, with its motto Shaping Our Future, Honoring Our Past
• coordinate both "celebration" and"cerebration" with the school curriculum and if possible,
• the Massachusetts Foundation for the Humanities "The Ends of Civilization: Taking Stock on the Eve of the Millennium" reading/discussion program
  • the latter was to conclude mid-November, coincidentally a blue moon month, with the Full Beaver Moon falling on November 30, 2001;
  • a community "orientation" considered, with discourse setting the course to implement the Master Plan and Long Term Elementary Building Needs plan;
  • the motif was to be woven with two fables about the full moon (one original, the other aboriginal) useful as a didactic tool during the Master Plan and City upon a Hill summits.
    
    
• "The Year of Opportunity" (March 25, 2004 - March 24, 2005) - marking 360 years or thirteen generations (of thirty years) since the Waterside's settlement in 1644; 240 years (the ninth generation) since the Waterside Third Parish of Newbury's organization of the separate town of Newburyport in 1764
  • making this the ninth generation of progress for the Waterside people's Plan in Motion
  • also marking the 375th anniversary of the 1629 Massachusetts Bay Charter and
  • coincidentally, the 250th anniversary of Benjamin Franklin's visit to the Waterside in 1754 (Can lightning strike twice?) and the 215th year anniversary of George Washington's visit to Newburyport in October 1789
  • and with the blue moon on July 31st coinciding with the opening day of Yankee Homecoming in 2004 (a full generation after Yankee Homecoming's "Newburyport in Renaissance" in 1974)
    • a Once in a Blue Moon opportunity event was held in a Motion of Comity with Yankee Homecoming 2004 ~ a community gathering to gather momentum for moons to come. Ending one five-year term and beginning the next for a new generation ~ the afternoon gam and gambit and gambol with Lord Timothy Dexter preceded the sweet sounds of music on the Waterfront beginning at 7:30PM and the First Annual Yankee Homecoming Lighted Boat Parade³ which commenced at 8:30 eventide, just as the Blue Moon rose over the Merrimack River (see link within).
      

Become yet more enlightened with review of an article published by the Newburyport (then Merrimack River) Current on November 5, 2004. The piece, entitled "Moon walking" (link within) mentions the Waterside movement. Comity's footnoted annotations (pointer) take the subject a step further, making a distinction about the old and new tradition definitions of "blue moon."

In that light, the aforementioned blue moons ~ being the second full moon in month ~ would be considered the new tradition. And during the current five-year term ~ marked by the new tradition blue moon of July 31, 2004 ~ culminates with the Once in a Blue Moon opportunity on New Year's Eve 2009. Both both old style and new style blue moons are as follows:

• July 31, 2004 (new-style tradition, being the second full moon in month) ~ beginning the first 5-year term of the Plan in Motion for a new generation of the Waterside people (link within)
• August 19, 2005 (old-style tradition, being the third full moon in a season of four full moons)
  
• May 31, 2007 EDT (new-style tradition, being the second full moon in month) ~ a mid-point benchmark/orientation in the 5-year term (link within)
• May 20-21, 2008 (old-style tradition, being the third full moon in a season of four full moons)
• December 31, 2009 (new-style tradition, being the second full moon in month) ~ A Once in a Blue Moon opportunity on New Year's Eve will end a 5-year term and begin the next

And so on. For it follows that during the Newburys 375th milestone year in 2010, we shall behold the old-style tradition blue moon in November (Sunday, the 21st before Thanksgiving). A milestone to anticipate.

¹ Emerson said that there are always two parties: the establishment and the movement. In the beginning, the Waterside people were ahead of the wave --- merging both influences and emerging with a Plan in Motion that was progressive yet practical. While from time to time, the Waterside people have suffered what Lord Timothy Dexter would term Life's "hie tides and loue tides"--- it is "hie tide fer a see change." The Ship is Ready and the peradventure begins.

{Wonder of Wonder! Whose Spirit takes the helm in love?}

² These three are phrases from the 1629 Massachusetts Bay Charter that (in part) impart the logo, the motto or identifying statement for the organic movement of the Waterside. Adopted as the complimentary closing above the signature line when forwarding communications, "Motion of Comity" is a actually ply of two terms:

"Motion" is adopted from the clause "further Grace, certen Knowledg and meere Motion" that opens the passage in the 1629 Massachusetts Bay Charter which ascribes the planters a voice in local government through town meeting and representative self-governance in the "state-level" General Court --- including the "naming and setting of all sorts of Officers … needful for that Government and Plantation, and the distinguishing and setting forth of the several duties, Powers, and limits of every such Office and Place … for the directing, ruling, and disposing of all other Matters and Things, whereby our said People, Inhabitants there, may be so religiously, peaceably, and civilly governed, (in) their good Life and orderly Conversation ..."

"Comity" is inspired by the provincial spelling of the word "committee" in the early 18th century records of the Waterside Third Parish of Newbury --- and the "comity" to "enable community" and replace the "disquietude" of partisanship, as mentioned in the petition to establish the Waterside Third Parish of Newbury as the separate town of Newburyport in 1764.

³ The Ship has long been deployed as a metaphor for the Waterside and Newburyport --- both the ship on the stocks and the ship in full sail, as depicted on Newburyport's city seal. Some have asked if the markers for the "historic wayes to the Waterside" were intentionally designed as part of this motif. Nowise, this must have been an arrangement of special grace² or a conspiracy of the universe. The coincidence should not be found profound, however, given there are numerous artistic impressions of a clipper ship under a full moon about town. The original source of inspiration remains a mystery for now ...