This has been a very hard week here. Our deep well at the church can be pumped dry in a few minutes. I have had to disconnect the hose and have been carrying lots of jugs up to church, where I fill a few while I watch the gauges. I can only fill a few at a time.
Now you understand that this means lugging water for the chickens, the garden, and the house. It is boring and tedious work.
Folks, I have shared my life here for years and years, leaving out very little. You have followed here the building of the monastery, the earth-sheltered house, and the large greenhouse, and have seen photos of all the above. It has been good to have a weekly audience to spout at about gay rights, to teach organic gardening, and to share my life with Robin. He has gone from an uptight, cap-wearing trucker and logger to a long-haired, well-groomed, and gentle person. I am grateful that one more person has come to accept who they are and relax and be happy.
Unfortunately, DHHS has also been reading them. At the last meeting he had in Rockland recently, Robin saw a wad of my Lincoln County News columns in his interrogator’s briefcase. They are looking for reasons to deny his scoliosis disability claim. If I say Robin helped fill the wood box, they go “Aha! He can work.” So folks, I have decided to stop writing about our personal lives, and since that doesn’t leave much else to share with you, I guess it’s time to stop.
Also, so you will know, I have acute digital neurosis, which means I have no feeling in my fingers and it is making it very difficult for me to type. It is also very frustrating, as I can type very fast. But with numb fingers, I hit extra keys and spend half my writing time correcting my spelling. Also, I have hit the wrong key and two times I have erased a whole paragraph that I just finished writing.
When I lived in Scotty my house was full of folks most of the time. After school the kids would land at my house to hang out. Many of them had folks that worked and there was no one home. So I had a chance to parent many kids and young folks. But when I moved to Whitefield it was like being jerked 20 years backward in time with redneck attitudes and kids afraid to be seen here.
So I decided to write my weekly column and you have shared my life for many years, including my becoming Maine’s first openly gay foster parent. I spent 10 years raising other folks’ difficult children. The papah followed it all.
I would like in my last column to express my deep gratitude to the Roberts family, especially Sam and Abbie. Many of you don’t realize how touchy a subject homosexuality was years ago. I came back from college where I learned that I was OK and started to work on gay rights. I attended committee meetings and legislative sessions to adjust the laws of Maine to reflect modern knowledge. The LCN printed every letter to the editor I ever wrote and stood right behind me. I took up the subject occasionally in my column trying to show all that intelligent, decent, Christian gay folks could live happily in our community as equals. It is also interesting that I have never discussed the topic with any of them. The only thing I have ever been told by them or the editors is: no, you can’t call DHHS obscene names.
I want to thank all the good folks who stop me on the street. I so enjoy the smiles and approval. So folks, I think we are entering another whole era that has turned its back on the hometown values we enjoyed for so long. Like I say, it is going to be interesting.
Maybe I’ll get up the gumption to write something at Thanksgiving and Christmas. Until then, friends: so long, it’s been good to know you. Love and blessings to all: from Doug Wright.
(Doug Wright lives over Head Tide Hill. He welcomes feedback at douglas.wright22@yahoo.com.)
