It happens every August: Our chickens come home to roost. Make that children. Our children come home to sleep in their childhood beds. August is the month they descend on us, unless they came in July.  

What is it about Maine that draws them back? It’s an old tradition, this coming to check on the old folks, they being the ones, old or not, who chose to make this place home. I can show you old photos of farm families getting in their hay, helped by their offspring who’d left for Boston or Connecticut years before.

Austin Wade brought his young family up from Lynn to the house he grew up in (the last house in Lincolnville on Atlantic Highway) every summer in the early 1900s to help out his fisherman cousin, Osborne. That and while hanging out on the rocky shore with the kids, he also photographed the decaying sawmill, dam, and kiln at Ducktrap, leaving us the best record we have of that once burgeoning little pocket of industry.

“This is the only real home our family’s had,” according to a lifelong summer resident, dismissing her other, out-of-state house(s) as of no emotional significance.

So, these family members of ours, and I loosely define family to include not only the cousins, nieces, nephews, aunts and uncles that make the trip most summers, but the old friends, and even the offspring of old friends who maintain an abiding affection for this place.

What do they see here? What do they see that we may miss or have grown used to? What are they overlooking (or ignorant of) about life in Maine – endless gray winter with not much spring, bad roads, 4 p.m. sunsets, spotty employment and poor housing for many?

For one thing, they see us in August when our roads wind through leafy tunnels or along sparkling Megunticook, when the flats stretch out forever at low tide, and a bright white schooner might sail by.

Our temporary refugees from city traffic scoff at the brief bottlenecks we locals bitch about. They’re just happy to be here, settling in to our routine. At this house it can mean collecting eggs, canning tomatoes, or playing with a four-year-old. At my partner Don’s it’s trimming around Christmas trees, cutting brush along rock walls, and a new coat of paint on his house.

They hike on our trails, climb Bald Rock, swim at Fernalds Neck. They marvel at the way we work together to put on those berry fests – strawberry and blueberry, and then give us donations.

Life looks simpler to people who are immersed in high population areas, commuting to work at stressful jobs, unconnected to their neighbors. They really buy in to Maine as “the way life should be”.

So do I. And so do most of us lucky enough to have a roof over our heads, food in the fridge, and friends we can count on. For us Lincolnville is, as the late Tom Sadowski put it on his Town Seal submission some 20 years ago, “Just Right”.  By the way, does anybody have a copy of that one?

But even as Maine signifies home to some, for too many, both lifelong residents and actual refugees, our state – as well as our little town – offers scant chance to get a home. There really is a housing crisis going on, one that hits, well, close to home. House and land prices have risen way beyond what a young working family can afford. Add in the number of dwellings that are summer rentals only (read here, high rents) and there’s nowhere to go.

Word has it that there’s land, etc., to be found in, say Burnham, nearly an hour away from the coast where much of the work is, and we’ve got a problem. A healthy community can’t just be made up of folks with, what we used to call, mailbox money. This had the connotation of somebody’s investment income, but must also include Social Security checks, disability payments, pensions.

It’s what I live on mostly, along with a couple of side hustles like rag rugs, writing a weekly column, and emptying trash barrels at the Beach.

But most people, particularly younger ones, depend on the work of their hands and brains: carpenters, teachers, fishermen, plumbers, clerks, woodcutters, small business owners, call center workers. Incomes range all over the map.

So must housing. To be a healthy community Lincolnville has to think this thing through. We’re well on our way to becoming what one Knox County Housing Coalition member told me is Camden’s Pearl Street, where many (most?) of the houses are dark in the winter.

Here’s where the town’s Comprehensive Plan Review Committee and its endorsement of the Community Heart and Soul Project might make a difference. We can come up with creative solutions to making actual affordable housing a reality. The first step is imagining it, and the next is finding ways to implement it.

A visiting jogger passing by my house often looks confused when I say “good morning”; I do it on purpose to remind them we’re all in this together. So let’s get to work.

A Brief Swipe at the Visitors We Don’t Welcome

I’m thinking of the cranky folks who post nasty Yelp reviews if a waiter or a meal doesn’t measure up to their standards. Restaurants are seriously understaffed this summer; the wait staff, cooks, and kitchen workers are incredibly stressed, to say nothing of the folks who own or manage these places. How about cutting them some slack?

And Gratitude to the Ones We Do

This past Sunday a parishioner at United Christian Church spoke of hearing a canoeist that morning across Coleman Pond singing hymns; “what a beautiful voice!” she said.

Center Indoor Flea Market

LINCOLNVILLE CENTER INDOOR FLEA MARKET will be held on Saturday, August 20th from 8 a.m. to noon in the Community Building located at 18 Searsmont Road, Rt 173. This event is sponsored by the United Christian Church.  There will be a wide variety of merchandise for sale by church members and vendors from the community.  Items include antiques, crafts, puzzles and games, wool yarn, books, and interesting curiosities.  Church members will be offering homemade baked goods including fruit breads, muffins, and cookies, breakfast casserole and quiche, as well as baked beans and American chop suey all packed for take-out.  Covid safety protocol will be followed and masks are recommended. All welcome.

Condolences

I was sad to hear that another Beach Road neighbor, Earle Dearborn, passed away. Earle had been a resident at Tall Pines for several years, and he figures in my early memories living here. Sympathy to his family and friends.