This petition is to bring back the stars on the ceiling at Stars on Hingham harbor. Stars restaurant has been a staple of Hingham for many years. Patrons from all walks of life gather with friends and family to enjoy hearty meals with laughter and warm smiles. As what feels like a distant memory from another time, there was once a beautiful mural of stars on the ceiling of the restaurant. The breathtaking depiction of our galaxy filled the surrounding area with wonder and dreams for possibility. Some say it took 2 years to paint the piece by one mystery man named Carl, while others claim nearly a dozen people contributed over the span of 12 years. Whatever the case, it was so astonishingly beautiful that it was unwittingly compared to and quite indistinguishable from works done by Michelangelo or Galileo. Legend has it there was even once a young man so amazed at the ceiling that he decided to live in the restaurant, quit his job as a Wall Street executive, and wrote several award winning dissertations on philosophy out of its inspiration. And, Everything was great!  

 Then one day, on a dark and stormy morning, the unthinkable happened. The man who lived at the restaurant woke up one morning and the stars on the ceiling… well, they were gone. The man at first was confused, thought he had lost his eyesight. But he had really good vision so he quickly rejected that idea. “My eyes betray me” - he famously said at the time.  Once he realized the stars were gone, he fainted and collapsed to the floor. A few days later he woke up and mourned for weeks while looking up, gazing, hoping, praying that the stars would return. But, as fate would have it, they never did. 2 months later, he fled Hingham forever. Some say he fled into the Yellowstone Wilderness, other say he lives in an Amish commune with a beautiful family of 7 somewhere in Pennsylvania, and grows apricots. The man, named Will Pellisier, has not been heard from since and had vanished just as quickly as the mural he once worshiped. News of what happened quickly circulated the unprepared town. Vigils were held, songs were song, and animal sacrifices were made, but the stars never came back. 

 After a while, the stars on the ceiling became a distant and faded memory, the townspeople moved on and the years went by. Today, some young folks even claim the stars never even existed, that the story is just myth. A story created for fun they say, those fools, that something so spectacular wasn’t possible or even feasible. But those of us that do remember know the story to be truer than Peter Pan himself. We too, despite all these years, look up upon the ceiling each time we enter and hope that each time, the stars just might be back. It’s what drives us, what keeps us coming back to the restaurant time after time. They have a new drink called the Hingham Sunrise. But in their preoccupation with sunrises it appears they have completely forgotten what happens after sunset (it gets dark and the stars come out in case they actually forgot). The blank ceiling today is now glimpse of what could be, a yearning that one day the stars can come back, that they will come back, that they must come back… 

 That is  why I ask you to sign this petition. To bring back the stars at Stars on Hingham Harbor not for just for those of us that remember, but for those of us that have yet to lay eyes upon their beauty. To restore the sanctity, the humanity of what was once a sight to behold. To make them bigger and brighter than ever. To Honor the name the Restaurant beholds.