When is “common sense” not common sense? When it is factually wrong.

People live in this area for a reason. Each has their own story of why they stayed here or moved here. Some are attracted by the scenic beauty, others by the high level of services for retirees and still others by the low crime rate. Retirees “from away” now make up a large part of our population and economy.

We think downtown Wiscasset business owners have a legitimate gripe about the Maine Department of Transportation’s plan to install a stoplight at the intersection of Main Street (Route 1) and Gardiner Road (Route 27) in Wiscasset.

I noticed last week that the pylons placed at crosswalks advising motorists, in eye-catching yellow, to yield to pedestrians have reappeared. They first materialized during last fall’s Pumpkinfest. I chose not to complain at the time because I assumed they would disappear with the end of the fest or else be swept into the Damariscotta River by snowplows. I believe the first assumption was correct.

As a monthly contributor to the Lincoln County Animal Shelter, I am both dismayed to hear that the shelter is experiencing such poor management, and grateful that one of their own has had the courage to bring it out into the open.

While I was purchasing a bottle of Oh Be Joyful at Rite Aid yesterday, the clerk at the checkout, the one with the fluorescent hair, told me that the company was instituting a policy of requiring ID for all sales of tobacco and alcohol.

I am very glad I live in an area where both high school and elementary school students can work together to achieve success for both their schools and the planet. Hannaford’s annual CLYNK competition recently awarded $2,000 to Lincoln Academy’s Climate Action Club for first place in their division in the state and Great Salt Bay Community School garnered second place with a prize of $1,000. It is not the first year our town had two winning teams in this competition!

Despite the obviousness of the title we have never, never been able to break away from the touchy-feely granola crunchiness that is Earth Day. We like granola. We like the earth, but the way Earth Day was originally posited to us, it came as some sort of half-cocked hippie idealism and we have never quite gotten over it.

April 18 ought to be Paul Revere Day.

You can call April 21 anything you want. I call it Monday this year. Next year it will have a different name.

A new study appearing at Princeton’s website may test assumptions for some of us readers. For others, it will be a grim vindication of what we already suspected – the United States of America is no longer a democracy, but rather an oligarchy.

I am wondering why the University of Maine’s proposed wind turbine test project, to be located just 2.5 miles off scenic Monhegan Island, isn’t front page news!

I can understand that residents in the neighborhood where Stepping Stones Housing Inc. is hoping to build temporary housing for homeless people would be concerned about strain on town resources, traffic and such, but I was sad to see how the potential clients for this service were described in the April 10 front page article.

Was there ever any bottom line accounting for how much the Boston Marathon Bombing cost last year?

On the corner of our municipal lawn is a monument. Etched on that monument are the names of the many men and women of Wiscasset whose sacrifices have preserved life, liberty, the pursuit of happiness, and the rule of democratic law for all of us.