Even though we all know that growing old is not for sissies, in my younger years I looked forward to becoming a senior, which guaranteed certain privileges. I even thought I might become one of those eccentric full-fledged sassy old women who wear purple and speak before they think.

In my last column, I put out a call for readers to submit their suspected mountain lion encounters. I wasn’t disappointed. People reached out through email and social media to share their stories. A common thread among the sightings is geography. Several reports came from northern and central Lincoln County. Waldoboro alone generated three sightings.

With each New Year comes a chance for a fresh start and new resolutions. It seems that the majority of them are doomed to failure because we’re either not fully committed to them, or they’re too different from our normal routine to stick with them for more than a short time.

Do mountain lions roam the woods and back roads of Lincoln County? Officially, the answer is no. Eastern cougars, Puma concolor cougar, as mountain lions are formally known, were declared extinct by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service in 2018.

“Hindsight is 20/20” is a saying coined from the mid-1900s, a phrase meaning the clarity that someone has about their past decisions and/or actions. It’s the act of looking back over something and understanding how it could have been said or done better.

The “12 Days of Christmas” certainly had their appeal in the Middle Ages, with an extended period of celebrations with food and revelry starting on Christmas Day. When Charles Dickens published his “A Christmas Carol” in 1843, he was concerned that this custom was fading from England and gave it a boost for years to come.

Early December in Waldoboro 145 years ago saw a prosperous, exciting village enjoying the advent of winter and the Christmas season. There was a great deal to be proud of and to look forward to, according to the pages of the newly instituted local paper, The Lincoln County News.

If you’re looking for a way to lower your impact on the environment, consider composting. If you already compost, you can expand what you choose to divert from the garbage. For those unfamiliar with the term, composting is the recycling of organic materials. Backyard gardeners and farmers often compost, as they use the final product on their gardens. I also compost because I want to reduce what I throw out.