Going over the top ..... Memorial Day ..... Beach wakes up

This Week in Lincolnville: Building a Maze

Another crazy idea coming to fruition
Mon, 05/22/2017 - 10:00am

    Am I crazy? Always prone to taking on more than I can ever do, this spring I’m outdoing even myself. Anyone driving by Sleepy Hollow can see it. The garden looks like somebody’s gone wild in a lumberyard. I’m building a maze.

    It started the day I realized this place was mine. That may have been January 29, the day Wally left it all to me. He was, quite literally, my brakes. I’d get an idea – “Listen to this,” I’d say excitedly. “ We could …..” and I’d launch into my latest plan, probably pulling out a sketch of  my proposal. He’d listen, then tell me all the reasons it was impractical, too hard, and more often than not, finally agree to it. But never did he say “too expensive.” Somehow, for a man who grew up teetering on the edge of poverty, spending money on things I wanted was never a big deal. Spending on himself, well that was another thing. A new pair of sneakers every season, a visit to Goodwill for pants, a new chainsaw every 15 or 20 years – those were his indulgences.

    CALENDAR 

    MONDAY, May 22

    Cooking Healthy Meals, 5 p.m., Community Building

    Selectmen meet,

    6 p.m., Town Office


    TUESDAY, May 23

    Needlework Group, 4–6 p.m., Library

    LSD (Sewer District) meets, 6 p.m., LIA building, 33 Beach Road

    CSD Budget Meeting, 7 p.m., Camden Hills Regional High School Committee

    Lakes and Ponds Committee, 7 p.m., Town Office


    WEDNESDAY, May 24

    Finance Advisory Committee, 11 a.m., Town Office

    Yoga, 6:30 p.m., Parish Hall, United Christian Church

    MCSWC Board of Directors, 7 p.m., Camden Town Office


    THURSDAY, May 24

    Soup Café, noon-1p.m., Community Building, 18 Searsmont Road

    Free Swing Dance Lesson, 6:30 p.m., Community Building


    FRIDAY, May 26

    Middle School Concert, 6:30 p.m., LCS


    MONDAY, May 29, MEMORIAL DAY

    Library Plant and Book Sale, 9 a.m. ­– 3 p.m.,, Library

    Memorial Day Parade, 1:30 p.m., starts at LCS, ends at Veterans Park


    EVERY WEEK

    AA meetings, Tuesdays & Fridays at 12:15 p.m., Wednesdays & Sundays at 6 p.m., United Christian Church

    Lincolnville Community Library, open Tuesdays, 4-7, Wednesdays, 2-7, Fridays and Saturdays, 9 a.m.-noon. For information call 763-4343.

    Soup Café, every Thursday, noon—1p.m., Community Building, Sponsored by United Christian Church. Free, though donations to the Community Building are appreciated

    Schoolhouse Museum is closed for the season; call Connie Parker for a special appointment, 789-5984.

    Bayshore Baptist Church, Sunday School for all ages, 9:30 a.m., Worship Service at 11 a.m.; Good News Club, Tuesdays, LCS, 3-4:30

    Crossroads Community Church, 11 a.m. Worship

    United Christian Church, Worship Service 9:30 a.m., Children’s Church during service


    COMING UP

    June 3: Pickling Class

    June 7: Card-making

    June 13: Annual Town Meeting

    June 15: Eighth Grade Graduation

    June 17: Last Day of School and Field Day

    June 24: LWC Yard sale/Bake sale

    So the maze. Truthfully, my daughter-in-law is the muscle behind the maze, the muscle and the determination. It started as a sketch, my sketch, of new planting beds, but she’s the one turning it into reality. We had a pile of two-inch thick, rough sawn green hemlock boards in the driveway (Viking delivers them, along with two foot lengths of rebar they cut to order); these boards, 12-14’ long, weigh a lot. A year or two ago I was able to carry one, carefully balancing it by the middle; this year it’s sinking in that I might do damage to a certain wonky shoulder if I try it. Tracee had them laid out on the ground in twenty minutes, looking a lot like the sketch.

    We set them up on edge, 30” apart, trying to remember what was a planting bed and what was a future grassy path. The width allows for the lawn mower to go between the beds and the wide spading fork to fit within them. It’s a pretty simple maze, actually two concentric crescents with a single, wide bed down the middle. Once we were satisfied we had them right, she picked up the heavy maul and drove a rebar stake at each end of every board.

    Watching her work, I had only a slight twinge of regret at my own diminishing strength. Turns out, it’s actually quite nice to watch someone else work. She went on to dig up the rhubarb and horseradish patch, saving the horseradish roots, and transplanting the rhubarb to a new spot, a job that would have done me in. (By the way, she later ground up those roots in our Cuisinart, nearly blinding herself in the process, they were that pungent. Mixed in a little vinegar and salt, she bottled them up; you can get some in our barn fridge.) I happily scooted along on my butt by another planting bed, tucking in onion seedlings, murmuring to them about how nice they looked.

    Next thing I knew she had our ancient Troy-bilt rototiller out and was pulling the cord. Bingo. It started right up, and she was off, horsing that thing through the patch we’d reserved for potatoes. She’d never done it before, but took to it immediately. She just kept smiling, reminding me of the exhilaration I felt my first time. Women often react this way to power tools. For most of us a vacuum cleaner or a Kitchen Aid is our only experience of power equipment. My granddaughters get that look the first time they use the sewing machine.

    Tracee’s no stranger to motors, though, growing up with a dad who races cars. She has an understanding of engines that I’ll never have. Watching her with the tiller she moved up another notch in the D-I-L pantheon. (I hasten to add here that each of the women my sons have chosen to marry have qualities I admire greatly, and all continue to surprise me. If there was ever any disappointment in not having a daughter, these D-I-Ls have banished it. And besides, I didn’t have to raise them!)

    It was Wally’s favorite spring chore, tilling the soil for the first time. We usually had a mild disagreement over when was the best time to till. His idea was as soon as the ground had thawed, mine had something to do with squeezing a clump of soil in your hand and having it crumble (probably I’d read that somewhere). The minute my attention was elsewhere, like inside making breakfast, I’d hear the unmistakable sound of the tiller groaning through packed earth. Sure enough, wet or not, even weeks before we could conceivably plant, he was tilling the garden. So watching the fluffy, black soil appear from the turning tines yesterday was bittersweet.

    Last year, sometime in April or early May, he ran the tiller for the last time. Weakness and neuropathy and general illness took up the rest of the spring, and then it was summer, and all his energy went into trying to get strong enough again to push the mower or even start the weedwacker.

    I’ve written before of the fragile barrier between in-the-moment contentment and utter despair: never in my life have I been as aware of my subconscious, of the work that it does, protecting me from the pain of loss. It’s busy all the time, all the while the conscious me thinks it’s in charge, behind the scenes the subconscious me is watching, processing every little thing that might trigger the plunge into grief. So while happily planting little onions, with nothing more on my mind than keeping the rows even, suddenly Wally’s there, and it’s last spring, and the ground’s too wet, and he’s doing what he loves in spite of me.


    Memorial Day Used to be Called Decoration Day

    It’s next Monday, May 29, the day all our little towns carry on the tradition of remembering those who died while in service to the country. The parade starts at the school at 1:30, and ends at the new Veterans Park next to the Library. The speaker will be Frank Carr, American Legion Commander, Post #30 (Camden). After the ceremony in the Center, by 2:15 or so, a short ceremony at Frohock Bridge at the Beach will honor those lost at sea.

     According to a Google search Memorial Daystarted as an event to honor Union soldiers who had died during the American Civil War. It was inspired by the way people in the Southern states honored their dead. After World War I, it was extended to include all men and women who died in any war or military action.” But in reality, it’s more than that.

    Coincidentally with the coming of spring, it’s the week-end that families “decorate” the graves of their loved ones; Decoration Day is the original name of the holiday. Drive by any cemetery in town this week and you’ll see cars parked, trunks open, and people working in their family lots. Geraniums and pansies appear, new flags are set out by veterans’ graves, all veterans, not just those who died in a conflict.

     This tradition of tidying up the graves seems to have died out in more urban areas. My own family’s lot is located in an enormous suburban cemetery outside of Chicago; my mom, dad and grandparents are buried there. Not long after burying my father’s ashes there I started to receive a bi-annual postcard from Memorial Park, suggesting that I buy an evergreen “blanket” for the winter, and in spring that I buy bedding plants to cover the graves for summer. The selections started at some $80 per season.  Families were not allowed to do their own planting; it was Memorial Parks way or the highway.

     No wonder I fell in love with Maplewood Cemetery, which our son, later Wally, and then Wally and I mowed for nearly 20 years. I came to know, with a real fondness, the individual lots and their occupants. Willie Keene, dead at 21 in January of 1907, mourned by his parents; Helen Butler, whose correspondence with her mother – 169 letters between 1870 and 1884 – occupied Connie Parker and I for most of one winter, transcribing each letter – someone always plants her grave with a single red geranium; the Wade siblings (Connie, Dorothy, and Preston) have small stones left on each grave by those who visit.

     When families are left to their own devices they manage to convey something special about their loved one, or their own connection to him/her. We carefully mowed around a wine bottle, a favorite hat, solar lights, bird feeders, a staked crabapple tree, a giant slab of rose quartz, a couple of millstones, special lilies carried down from a mountain cabin in a backpack.

     Since I never got a chance to “decorate” my parents and grandparents graves, I’m honoring Wally in the way he wanted: “put me in the garden” he always said. Today, thanks to his cousin and wife, we prepared the perfect spot for him, smack in the middle of my maze. Fighting off black flies on a beautiful May morning, Steve edged the bed with the bricks he’d saved from construction jobs, doing it for Wally, he said.  And I know it’s exactly how he’d want it done, by family he loved, doing it ourselves.


    Library News

    It’s needlework time at the Lincolnville Community Library this Tuesday, May 23 from 4 to 6 p.m. Bring a knitting or other handwork project to work on and enjoy chatting and sharing ideas with others. People at all levels of experiences are always welcome. 

    This coming Monday, Memorial Day, the Library holds its annual Plant and Book Sale from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. at the Library in the Center. Shoppers will be able to choose from a large variety of hardy perennial plants and healthy flower and vegetable seedlings, including many donated by local gardeners. The book sale will include a great selection of popular novels, historical fiction and nonfiction, gardening and cookbooks, children’s favorites, and more. There’ll even be a fifty-fifty raffle . All sale proceeds will benefit the library and its many programs and services. For more information, call 763-4343 or email.


    Free Swing Dance Lesson

    Sam and Marjorie Bartlett, who have been teaching foxtrot and waltz at the Community Building, since February, are hosting another free dance lesson this Thursday, May 25. All are welcome, both singles and couples. No experience necessary. Introductory swing dance lesson starts at 6:30, followed by open dancing — practice the swing moves you just learned, or dance your own style. For more information, call 491-0444. The Community Building is located at 18 Searsmont Road/Route 173.


    Lincolnville Women’s Club

    The LWC elected new officers for 2017-2018: President, Edna Pendleton, Vice President, Doreen Hadley, Secretary, Peggy DiGiovanne, and Treasurer, Dotty Lanphear, with Doris Packard as Chaplin. Installation of the new officers will be June 20th at the Offshore Restaurant.

     The Women’s Club will be holding a bake sale/yard sale at the LIA building on June 24. As you clean out this spring, set aside things you could donate to the sale (no clothes, appliances of electronics).


    June Card Making

    Edna Pendleton’s monthly card-making class will be June 7, 9 a.m. to noon at her house. She’ll provide the materials and instruction for six cards, $10 fee. Give her a call, 763-3583 or email  to let her know you’re coming.


    Beach Waking Up

    Lincolnville Beach is apparently the place to be these first warm days of May. Week-days are especially popular; the place was packed according to a workman at the Lobster Pound. “Not so much on the week-end,” he said, explaining that they’d worked right through Saturday and Sunday putting a new roof on the building. Don Shirley, who along with his wife Erin, are now the owners of the Spouter Inn, pointed out the new oak barrel planters to me the other morning on Frohock Bridge. The old ones were beginning to deteriorate; these, made of thick oak staves and stainless steel hoops ought to last for years and years. The six oak barrels, donated by Cellardoor Winery were sawn in half, sanded (now there are 12, if you do the math) and meanwhile, the old ones had to be emptied and carried away. New ones put in place on the bridge, filled with dirt and finally planted. The volunteer crew that accomplished all of this, under the able direction of Lee Cronin, were Brian Cronin, Marietta Schreiber, Lillian Amborn and staff, Eric and Moses, and Rob Newcombe. A great example of how our town works together: the LIA and businesses - Whales Tooth, Chez Michel, and Cellardoor getting something done for all of us. Now watch the flowers grow and bloom this summer in those beautiful casks.