The chief census officer sent me a postcard telling that I had received the 2010 Census form a week earlier.

I had not.

I want to thank the Town of Newcastle Selectmen and Town Manager for sending Glidden Street a “real” street-cleaning truck that did a fine job, creating only a minimum of dust.

We’ll admit it. Last Thursday afternoon, as we were listening to scanner reports of a rabid raccoon attacking the tires of a car in Round Pond, we thought it sounded kind of humorous.

I would like to thank the Waldoboro Fire Dept. for their quick response to a very serious chimney fire.

It is my idea and opinion that we should invest the Wiscasset bypass money in a free train. We need trains here and need them now. We should try a two or three year test of free auto train, train service on a regular scale and sailing specials.

Once again we have to take our hat off to our emergency responders, our volunteer firefighters and our county’s paid professionals who were out in the teeth of the storm last week doing what they could to keep us safe.

I am troubled about the effort to discontinue Bristol’s Highway Department and contract those services to an outside vendor. While to some this may seem like a wise, cost-saving move, I believe Town will see little savings, if any at all. I’m also concerned that the quality and availability of those services will drop.

We like firefighters. We admire them quite a bit, actually.

The amount of work these men and women have to do, and what they do on our behalf, is truly Herculean. It is sort of what Superman’s life would be like if he had to fill out a mountain of paperwork to document how he followed the rules safely every time he saved the world.

Just a few short weeks ago some readers here debated the priorities of the Catholic Church regarding monies raised for Earthquake relief in Haiti versus its funding of the political campaign to restrict same sex marriage in Maine. If any additional evidence was needed to demonstrate that priorities are indeed misplaced, Bishop Malone certainly put his money where his mouth has been when he revoked $17,400 this year and $33,000 next fiscal year for Preble Street’s Homeless Voices for Justice program, which serves the poorest of Maine’s poor every day.

I am not personally familiar with the situation at Maine Float-Rope Company, but I am versed with laws and expectations surrounding contracted workers.

Through a glass darklyTraditionally, this newspaper’s editorials are more or less a weekly position statement for this newspaper’s ownership. As the editor, crafting each one falls to me. Sometimes it’s a collective effort, sometimes not, but the specific wording is always mine.

At the heart of every YMCA are the staff members and volunteers who make a difference, who exemplify the Y’s core values, caring, respect, responsibility and honesty. The CLC YMCA has volunteers in its walls every day making a difference. I would like to recognize some of those volunteers.

This is the first time I felt so much empathy for someone falsely accused of a crime. Karl Tarbox was asked to drive this person home from the Montsweag Roadhouse one and half years ago on Halloween eve, because she had too much to drink.

If 9/11 had never happened, it is possible that the last great American nightmare, our last national “remember where you were moment,” would be the school shootings at Columbine High School in April 1999.