When I became a member of the Newcastle Fire Company in 1983, Paul Bryant was fire chief and Clayton Huntley was First Assistant Chief. At that time we had two meetings a month, the first was a business meeting and the second was training.

Bremen town meeting is next Sat., March 28. I urge all voters to attend.

My last letter addressed two warrant articles that could conceivably alter the waterfront and the commercial fisheries district. It seems that one article, 52, has been re-drafted and will be added as an amendment to the warrant – right under the wire. This article is particularly pernicious. It has the potential to destroy bit by bit the commercial fisheries district.

I am a concerned citizen who cares about public safety. I live just north of Pine View Restaurant, one of the busiest intersections in our region. I sit at my window and watch the traffic coming north on Rt. 1 and on Main Street coming north out of town with no headlights on.

A year ago the 150 foot setback was voted in at the town meeting. The main concern obviously was to provide more protection for the waterfront as well as the four ponds that are in or are part of Bremen. One does not need scientific data to know that every foot counts.

The Newcastle Selectmen article in last week’s Lincoln County News had several inaccurate or misstatements that need to be addressed.

The position of Fire Chief is not a new position. The Newcastle Fire Company has elected and had a Fire Chief since its founding in March of 1876.

I would like to bring to your attention what you will be voting on March 31.

Because there were not many people at the March 19 Public Hearing, I want to make sure that residents know what they are voting on, as the language on the town warrant is so misleading.

The Queen is gone; our Muriel, Queen of Jazz and the coffee shops, friend to all of us in the Kingdom. Though with a heavy heart, we want to shout, “Long Live the Queen!” from the rooftops, looking around we ask, “Who is there to replace her?” Indeed, it will take a big soul to fill those tiny slippers.

We need to appreciate what people do for the community, and how hard they work. Dr. Christine Welch, she’s the best.

When you think about the history of the Jazz Idiom, few musicians have exemplified this way of expressing a quintessential “natural swing” the way that Muriel Havenstein did.

Next week, famed mountaineer Ed Webster comes to Skidompha Library in Damariscotta for a talk and book signing. The amiable Webster will discuss his five years in Tibet and highlight his pioneering of a never-before-climbed route up Mt. Everest.

To read the national headlines, it seems 2009 could be the year that the newspaper industry goes the way of the Dodo.

However, now would be the time for us to raise a shaky finger and say something like, in our best Monty Pythonesque voice, “But we’re not dead yet.”

It’s hard to tell how fitting it is that we lose two local icons within days of each other this past week, but our losses are certainly in keeping with the tone of the current times.

I want to take the time to thank Barb Bowers, the Board of the Lincoln Theater and those that generously contributed in order to bring the Metropolitan Opera Live in HD to Damariscotta.

We citizens of Wiscasset have tried the town manager form of government for half a decade.

As a taxpayer, I think we voters should go back to a three person select board comprised of people who comprehend the particulars of an historical coastal town intersected by major arterial routes.