The sleet had stopped and the mood was festive by the time the neighbors on Lewis Point Road in Damariscotta convened for their weekly get-together Saturday, March 29.
This occasion was especially chipper as the Lewis Point Road residents on the street were celebrating the fifth anniversary of weekly gatherings for a group they have come to call “Driveway Drinks.”
What started as means of coping with the isolation of the early COVID-19 pandemic has blossomed into multiple, living breathing relationships among neighbors, tended to by regular check-ins.
Most of the residents credit Daisy Greene and Caroline Janover for being the early motivators of the event. Janover said she and Greene both felt the need for community as the isolation of COVID set in in March 2020.
“You remember the beginning when everything was closed,” Janover said. “The bank was open, the supermarket, and the post office, and that was about it. For those of us who live alone, it was very lonely. So we met out here with masks on, and we stood 6 feet apart and you know, we have never missed a Saturday since. Not once.”
Not every neighbor has made every week, but attendance for all is not mandatory. The group has decided keeping the streak intact requires a bare minimum of two neighbors coming together somewhere in the neighborhood for at least two minutes.
According to Janover, the minimum threshold was needed just once, during a surprise spring nor’easter.
“Once it was really dangerous, so Daisy got in her car and I got in my car and we met in the middle of the street,” Janover said. “That was the least we could do and that’s why we have never missed a time in five years.”
Rules for the gathering are few. Although the neighbors call the gatherings Driveway Drinks, there is no assigned meeting place; anywhere on Lewis Point Road where two or more neighbors can say hello will do.
In inclement weather, they have ducked inside a garage. In good weather Jim and Ginger Kutcsh have hosted their neighbors out by their fire pit.
As for the actual drinks, everyone brings their own and any kind of beverage will suffice.
On this occasion, after cheerfully remarking on the anniversary, the neighbors retired to the home of Susan Fisher and Derek Webber for refreshments.
During the reception, Jayne Gordon delighted the assembled with a poem she wrote especially for the occasion titled “Ode to Driveway Drinks.”
Recalling the start of Driveway Drinks in March 2020, Gordon restated how the weekly gathering took on a life of their own.
“And since that day when we got started/We’ve never missed meeting, or parted/From our firm desire/To warm and inspire/Each other before we departed,” she wrote in the poem.
According Gordon, the regular schedule and her delightful neighbors make the informal event a weekly high point for her.
“You know in so many social interactions, it’s like, ‘Oh, we should get together for lunch,’” Gordon said. “It’s like, you look at your calendar, it’s like, ‘Oh, maybe in three weeks.’ This we know.”
