Sun, 02/23/2025 - 6:11pm

Ed O’Brien

My mom recently had a Christmas gift returned to her, 48 years later.

In 1976, my mom, Diane Roesing O’Brien to you, crafted a book, illustrated with the watercolor pictures I remember from her annual advent calendars. It described a year in the life of the O’Brien family at the farm on Sleepy Hollow. She sent it to her childhood best friend Linda Hartman and her husband, Bob, or more specifically, to Linda and Bob’s young children, Christy and Bobby.

Linda and my mom met in their high chairs, her family living across the hall from the Chicago apartment my grandparents brought my mother home to after adopting her. Not long after my grandparents moved to the Chicago suburb of Kenilworth, Linda’s family followed, and the two have remained close ever since.

1976 found the two friends in different places, each raising two young children.

The old farm on Sleepy Hollow could not be more different than the North Shore suburbs of Chicago. Meanwhile, Linda, Bob, and the kids were living in Colorado, where Bob as stationed.

Reading through the story of raising pigs, milking the cow, harvesting the garden bounty — not to mention the harvesting of the pigs — I think our life in Lincolnville was different than a lot of places, including Lincolnville at the time.

As of the mid 1970s, Lincolnville’s agrarian experiment was largely over, and my parents had to learn how to do the whole small farm thing from the few old timers who still remembered.

The little story my mom put together all those years ago is wonderful. I will even forgive that Eddie, my one-year-old self, is the comic relief of the tale, eating worms and fuzzies off the floor, while his older brother, Bill, at four, competently helps in the garden and with the pig slaughtering.

Mostly, it is a snapshot of my young parents making their way through life with a couple little ones, in this little town. While it made me think of my childhood, it also made me think of the time when we had small children, eating dirt and fuzzies off the floor.

I think of the bonds we form, the connections we have to each other which last through years, and distance. My mom and Linda are octogenarians now, but still close, still maintaining that bond forged as toddlers.

I think of my own connections, friends made throughout my life, at a certain place and time, but who remain. Maybe we do not see each other much, or even talk frequently, but the connections are still there. We connected because our moms met at Ducktrap while pregnant with us. We met in that first kindergarten at LCS. She was that shy girl in high school, who was secretly hysterically funny. He and I got tossed into a dorm room together by the vagaries of an early 1990s computer algorithm. We became close as two American kids on a semester abroad in Ireland.

These people, and many others, remain incredibly important with me as we share, infrequently sometimes, the trajectories our lives are taking. Kids and jobs and relationships, triumphs and struggles.

Do I share all my personal values with these people? Of course not, but I love them regardless. Linda and my mom don’t see eye to eye on everything, but here they are, maintaining a friendship of 80 years.

The anger, the fear, the uncertainty of 2025 continues to be an ever present background noise in our world, and in our relationships. Don’t let it get between you and those lifelong connections you make, if you can possibly avoid it.

And that is what I have for you today, Lincolnville, just a little story of long ago. Be kind out there in the waning days of February. Spring is coming. It should be one heck of a mud season. Find me at ceobrien246@gmail.com.

Municipal Calendar

Monday, February 24

Land Use Committee, 4 p.m. Town Office

Select Board Meeting, 6 p.m. Town Office

Tuesday, February 25

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

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

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

Wednesday, February 26

Planning Board, 7 p.m., Town Office

Friday, February 28

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