Serving Maine and Lincoln County for over 140 years
Dear friends and neighbors,
I don’t know about you, but for me this last episode of snow and rain with the ensuing mud is getting a bit old. I did manage to do some nice skiing at a groomed area last weekend. However, trying to hike a 2000’ mountain with a south facing exposure turned out to be challenging due to steep, ice covered trails.
It was a dark and stormy night…
This opening line has been a literary “facepalm” since it first appeared in a overwrought Victorian novel by Sir Edward George Earle Bulwer-Lytton, 1st Baron Lytton. It has become synonymous with the Victorian melodramatic style, and the annual Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Contest, begun in 1982 as an homage to this most famous of opening lines, requires contestants “to compose the opening sentence to the worst of all possible novels.”
Gov. Paul LePage was praising Democrats at the county caucus Saturday.
As the high school basketball playoffs begin, we encourage our readers to go out and support our local teams. You can find a schedule on page 15 in our print edition.
Art of the square: “I can’t believe it’s been a whole year since we first met at my art display at the Bristol Area Library,” Walpole artist Susan Bartlett Rice told me in a recent email. Indeed, a year has gone by since Rice’s last Bristol exhibit, and now she has a new exhibit at the same library, which runs through the end of February.
Dear friends and neighbors,
Change of venue: Nita Greenleaf’s community supper will be held this Saturday, Feb. 17 from 4:30-6 p.m. in the Old Town Hall. Ten dollars for adults and eight dollars for kids under age eight will get one a tantalizing meal of roast pork and stuffing, mashed potatoes and gravy, string beans and applesauce, and coffee and tea and dessert. Shake off the winter doldrums and join folks for some food and conversation this weekend.
I would like to thank the young man that stood by me waiting for the police and wrecker to arrive the morning of Friday, Feb. 9 at 9 a.m. on the Pond Road, Newcastle (Eagle’s Nest). I failed to get his name, but he stopped and checked to make sure I was OK and then asked if I wanted him to stay until the sheriff arrived. Shaken up a bit from my ordeal, it was good to have someone there to talk with.
The ways in which humans communicate with each other seem almost limitless. We talk, we text, we email, we call each other on the phone. We give “significant looks” to those we know well. Animals are no less communicative, though I’ve yet to receive an email from a dog.
During the recent snow/ice storms, when all else failed, Waldoboro’s highway department came to the rescue. John Daigle was called for help clearing dangerous ice from Friendship Street and within 10 minutes, Mark Gifford and his big sand truck made four sweeps over that part of the road.
We congratulate the Philadelphia Eagles on their Super Bowl victory.
Welcome, McGrory & Wolf: I had mentioned to several people last year, after attending ArtWalk Waldoboro, that the art scene in Waldoboro seemed to be picking up steam. The addition of Valerie Greene Studio, for one, to the excellent local lineup was exciting.
We love Valentine’s Day. It is one of our top 10 favorite holidays.
I remember taking valentine cards every year to all my grammar school classmates. And every year now I give a lovely card to my wife asking her to be my valentine, often accompanied by a gift of some sort. But this year I’m working on a radical idea. What if, instead of asking someone or ones to be my valentine, I concentrated on being a valentine for another person? And, rather than my wife or my adult children, what if I tried to be an anonymous valentine for an unknown neighbor who really needs a valentine to help them in a really difficult circumstance?
It started with a bold vision. In 2004, Karen Kleinkopf, a mom and first-grade teacher, became motivated to create a change in the community. She saw a need for children in our schools to start eating more nutritionally dense foods and stop eating the foods that were making the community and the world obese. With help from Amy Winston, the Lincoln County Economic Development Office director, they worked together to create a nonprofit organization that would reach as many members of the community as possible and educate them about healthy eating. FARMS was born.
