I am tremendously excited and honored to take on the leadership of Lincoln Academy as its 44th head of school.

Imagine the delight of this 80-year-old lady (with a bad shoulder) this past weekend as I experienced the prodigious and enthusiastic efforts of several Lincoln County (and some Sagadahoc) kids, with their adult overseers, as they swooped in to rake my yard.

Three people living on a back road in South Bristol died within two months between Dec. 11 and Feb. 3. Their average age was 90 and the average duration of each person’s only marriage was over 60 years. They lived within shouting distance of each other and set the gold standard for the way they loved their families and a plot of land they had called home for most of their adult lives. Their heartfelt obituaries could not cover all of nine decades and a missing message was how special these three were as neighbors.

In last week’s Lincoln County News, Frank Slason had a letter to the editor supporting President Trump’s plan to “shut down the ports.” Toward the end of the piece, Slason referenced “true Americans.” To me, the question of how we define who is a true American is at the core of so much of the current vitriol, divisive rhetoric, and nationalistic fervor.

The Lincoln County News recently had a front-page story, “Damariscotta Planning Board approves farm-to-table restaurant” (Jan. 17). A photo showed the old wooden building, overhanging the river, perched on pilings at 23 Main St., Damariscotta.

On Tuesday morning, Jan. 15, I had a stroke. I live in Bristol and am very fortunate to be located only five or six minutes away from our local hospital, the Miles Campus of LincolnHealth (formerly Miles Memorial).

I was so impressed by the quality of the articles recently published in the paper by students in Kelly Girard’s eighth-grade language arts class at Great Salt Bay. As a writer and place-based educator, it moves me whenever I read about a teacher bringing community engagement to her curriculum. I found the writing to be engaging and informative.

I do not know who the “layaway angel” at Renys is, but I must thank you!

I write to send my thanks to all those who braved the treacherous conditions Dec. 11 to help me.

It was a quiet, sleepy Sunday morning in a tropical paradise 2,000 miles off the West Coast of America. At 7:55 a.m., fighters and bombers marked with the insignia of the rising sun swooped across the harbor, bombing and strafing. By 10 a.m., the surprise attack was at an end, and so too was the innocence of a generation.

On Dec. 4 of last year, I fell through an opening in the floor of our house and landed on rocky boulders in our sub-basement. I don’t remember any of the fall or the three following weeks, but my husband has given me the details. I kept asking for them over and over, trying to piece together what had happened to me.