By the time our youngest child, Abbey, appeared on the scene, my wife and I had been parents for 17 years. Abbey was number six. So I had already had nearly two decades of addressing the ubiquitous children’s question: “Why?”

We both find that as the years pass by we find ourselves remembering past events that took place in our childhood days here in the Damariscotta and Newcastle area. So many of the local farms had their own vegetable and fruit stands by the roadside in front of their farms.

Any nation that justly prides itself on having free speech is quick to learn that guaranteeing free speech also entails guaranteeing a considerable amount of uninformed, ignorant speech. Any election in any country will ensure that such speech is never in short supply.

We normally can observe five terns in Maine, ranging in size from the larger Forster’s tern to smaller least tern. The Forster’s tern can be identified by its distinctive comma-shaped black ear patch and is restricted to breeding and wintering along coastal marshes.

“Sibling relationships need much more support and celebration than they receive in our culture. Often, as adults, we find that our siblings are the people who have known us the longest, know the most about us, and share the most life events with us. Particularly in our mobile society, sibling relationships offer us a shelter that few other relationships can provide. If we are lucky, our siblings are our built-in lifelong friends.” — Mary Pipher