Familiar Roads

This Week in Lincolnville

Mon, 10/05/2026 - 6:49am

Ed O’Brien

Ducks along the shore, as I set off to drive south down the coast. (Photo by Ed O’Brien)

The roads are so familiar. A half century of riding and then driving the same roads, up and down the coast. Sitting in the back of the Saab, the Datsun, the Renault, staring out the window. Driving the old beaters that I had managed to mostly get working, blasting mix tapes. Heading south out of Lincolnville, Route One to 295, to 95, to the larger world outside of Maine.

I made a once very familiar trek this weekend to the little town south of Boston, a place that used to be my home. Though she didn’t plan it that way, my eldest child ended up at the same school that took me out of Midcoast Maine for college. It was parents’ weekend, and I needed to see how she has settled in.

I needed not to worry, she has settled in fine. She showed me around the campus I had once known so well, introducing me to friends, giving me the rundown of her classes. In the basement of the science center was a small computer museum, where the machines I had used in the same spot were displayed as ancient relics. There is, of course, no longer a computer center, and the spot where I typed up my Sociology senior thesis was long ago repurposed. There is, however a Maker Space, full of 3-D printers and laser cutters and the like. I was jealous.

But, like the roads that lead from Lincolnville to the wider America to the south, there is much more that is familiar than changed. The highways are wider, but there are far more vehicles on them, and the speeds have increased. Pulling onto 128 on the beltway around Boston is still a lot of fun, at least on the weekend, when the traffic, still heavy, at least moves. I suppose the town of Norton is a bit more built up, but the college campus remains consistent — a new or refurbished building here and there, but the 19th Century brick and Ivy and the 1960s concrete block dorms which housed generations of women — and from 1988 on, men — remain.

As was my duty as a visiting parent, I took my daughter and a couple friends out to dinner, a reprieve from dining hall food. Their complaints about college food could have been the same uttered by my friends and I 33 years ago. “Our food service company also supplies food to prisons.” Yup, that was true in the 1990s.

The chosen restaurant was a local one I had never been to, but it was clearly running in 1993, and for decades before that. Classic New England Italian, massive portions and reasonable prices, leaving the Wheaton girls with leftovers for their dorm fridges and cannolis to go.

My daughter was willing to wake up early Sunday morning so I could take her for a bagel at a lovely little shop just off campus that certainly did not exist in my day. She related her plans for the day, her upcoming assignments.

Thinking back to my time in college, and how I was able to just be me, no one around to remind me of what happened when I was eight, when I was 13. My little girl is experiencing this, and she is becoming her best self.

Driving back up the coast on the loveliest bright fall morning, I detoured into Boston to stop into that random little convenience store that sells a wide selection of goods imported from Ireland. The brief months I spent in Cork in my Junior year has given me a lifelong taste for the somewhat bland style of sausage so popular on that island.

I wound up Storrow Drive, where orange leaves flew at me in a premonition of the snow to come, over the Tobin Bridge and on toward home. Where the Welcome to Maine sign waited at Kittery, the BFI in Freeport, the old Bath bridge which still stands sentinel alongside the modern replacement, Red’s Eat’s still draws a line, and the final wide stretch of Route 90 still carries me into Camden, and finally up Route one to the Beach, and up the hill to the old place at Sleepy Hollow.

Everything changes, but so much remains the same.

Remembering Billy

High Street in Lincolnville, that odd little neighborhood over looking the town, where I have spent an inordinate amount of time for a boy from the Beach, has lost an icon.

William Dickey has passed, and a true town character has been lost. I have always been fond of the old fella, and he was always a great guy to chat with at High Street gatherings, where we would rib each other about our incorrect politics. So much love to his family, to his neighbors in that unique part of town. I suspect he would want to be remembered with joy, and with a beverage of your choice raised high.

Library Happenings

Needleworkers meet on Tuesday from 2-5 p.m.. MahJonng will be from noon to 2 p.m. Friday. A cool autumn afternoon is a great time to visit the library, enjoy the passive solar warmth and find a book, or meet your neighbors.

LCS-PTO Clothing Swap

The Parent Teacher Organization of Lincolnville Central School continues its planning for the autumn clothing swap, on the 23-25 of October at the Tranquility Grange . This is an amazing event, and such an incredible way to upcycle the clothes you or your kids have outgrown, and get some new stuff. Leave your clean donations at the box outside the LCS front doors, and volunteers will sort and organize them for the October sale. Thank you so much to the Tranquility Grange for offering the space.

Have a great week Lincolnville. Enjoy safe travels on the roads, familiar or not. Reach out at ceobrien246@gmail.com.

Municipal Calendar:

Monday, October 5

School Committee, 6 p.m., LCS

Harbor Committee, 6 p.m., Town Office

School House Museum open, 1-4 p.m., 33 Beach Road

Tuesday, October 6

Library open 3-6 p.m. 208 Main Street

AA Meeting 12:15 p.m., Community Building, 18 Searsmont Road

Wednesday, October 7

School House Museum open, 1-4 p.m., 33 Beach Road

Conservation Commission, 4 p.m., Town Office