In the autumn of 1992, my father and I packed up the car for a trip out of Lincolnville. It was my senior year at Camden-Rockport High School, and I had spent the spring and summer looking over the piles of information from colleges all over the East Coast filling our mailbox daily. Most amusing were several purportedly from cross-country coaches, trying to recruit me, as if I wasn’t the slowest runner in the history of CRHS.

I think in those days before the Common App, it wasn’t unusual to apply to just a few schools. A reach, a safety, and one somewhere in the middle. Hopefully all schools where you could see yourself.

I’d already spent a night at my reach school, staying with a friend of my older brother at Colby, the school my mom had graduated from, which I loved, but which I also recognized may have been beyond my less-than-stellar high school transcript.

So we drove. To southern Massachusetts, and then up to Burlington. Two nights, staying with a random student assigned by admissions in Massachusetts, and with another of my brother’s friends in Burlington.

It is the time driving with my dad that most sticks with me today. A young man on the cusp of adulthood, speaking to him about my hopes and fears for the future. Laughing and telling stories and listening to music. The beginning of a different sort of relationship with my father.

A friend of mine recently recounted how, when her kids were hitting adolescence, my father told her and the kids’ dad that there is no better way to get to know a teenager than when driving.

He had passed that little bit of wisdom to me as well, something I took into account when, early in my career, I found myself representing State Guardianship for adolescents in foster care. Youth not so much younger than myself.

My supervisor tended to assign me to young people involved with juvenile justice. Kids with strong minds and little regard for rules and structure. Victims of abuse and neglect, and kids that were repeatedly involved with the court system — parents unwilling, and at times, simply unable to provide for what their kids needed.

I’m not sure the state did a lot better. I did the best I could, and, yeah, I spent a lot of time with adolescents in the passenger seat, transporting them from emergency shelter, to foster home, to residential facilities. Picking them up after their release from the Youth Center, now Long Creek, transporting them to medical appointments.

I remember one young woman, fiercely intelligent and fiercely independent, quietly asking me if I would sit with her while she went under anesthesia for wisdom tooth extraction, a rare moment of vulnerability for her.

It was on those drives across Maine that they truly talked to me. Where I learned about their pain, their secret goals, who they wanted to be as people.

My daughter and I just returned from our own trip out of Lincolnville, across Massachusetts and New York, as she solidifies what she wants for her college education. A young woman just over a week shy of 18. 

We had collaborated on a Spotify playlist of music, and can’t you learn a lot about someone through their tastes in music?

In our case, most of our musical tastes are pretty similar, and it is clear that we both have a special love for The Pixies, a group much more rooted in my time then hers.

Best, though, was just having the time to talk — about life and dreams, about our perspectives on the last 17 years. To learn more about each other, as our relationship moves to a different level. She is no longer a child, if maybe not yet a full adult (I always remind youth that that title hits around 25, at least it did for me).

I dropped her off for the evening with a friend one night, and the next with her cousin, just a few months older. Young women from Lincolnville, facing their first years at schools far from home. 

In my hotel rooms nearby I thought about my dad on that long ago trip, what he was thinking after dropping me off to get my first tastes of college life. How much this was going to cost him? Oh, probably, but knowing the Old Man, I am sure he was reflecting on the man I was becoming. I am pretty sure he felt much of the same things I was feeling, and as eagerly awaiting my observations when he picked me up in the morning as I did my daughter’s.

We raise kids to let them go; to college, to the military, to the workforce; to their own lives. To carve their paths. We have to trust that we have done the best we could, and it is their journey from here. They will still need us, but it will be different, and it will be fine.

50 Years of the Lincolnville Historical Society

There was a great turnout at the 50th anniversary celebration at the LHS Schoolhouse Museum. Monday will be the final regularly scheduled opening of the museum for the season, but it can be opened by appointment. If you are fortunate enough to have Monday off, stop by.

Whether you have generations of ancestors here, or just moved up, come check out the artifacts that make up the history of this little town. From exhibits on the Lincolnville soldiers who served the nation, to the more the tools of farming and fishing and domesticity of the 19th century, to the artifacts of the original Wabanaki peoples, there is an incredible amount to see and experience in this little two story schoolhouse.

Library Happenings

Needleworkers will meet Tuesday from 3-5 p.m.

This weekend is the annual Lincolnville Community Library Book, Seed and Bake sale. Stop in Friday from 12 to 3 p.m. The sale will continue on Saturday from 9 to 3 p.m., with a brown bag sale, $15 to fill a bag with as many books as will fit. Sunday will be the final day from 11 to 3 p.m., with a bag of books going for $10.

Lincolnville Center Indoor Flea Market

Saturday, October 18, will be the flea market and bake sale at the Community Building, from 8 to noon. Check out local vendors and baked goods by the Lincolnville UCC Church Ladies.

Fall Fest at the Bayshore Baptist

This Sunday, October 19, the Bayshore Baptist Church at 2636 Atlantic Highway will hold its fourth annual Fall Fest. Beginning after the 11 a.m Sunday Service ends, the event runs until 3. Expecting chili and cornbread, deserts including fresh cider doughnuts, and first class coffee. There will also be a cakewalk, carnival games, and a bounce house for the kiddies. Should be a great time!

This past week marked the first hard frost in Lincolnville, and proof that winter is just around the corner. It also looks like the week should bring us some desperately needed rain. No complaining, we have had a glut of unseasonably warm, sunny days.

Enjoy the week, make a soup, maybe bake something. Be kind to each other, disagree respectfully, and reach out at ceobrien246@gmail.com.

Municipal Calendar

Monday, October 13

Indigenous Peoples Day, Town Office Closed

Historical Society Museum Open, 1 p.m. to 4 p.m., 33 Beach Road

Tuesday, October 14

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

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

Select Board, 6 p.m. Town Office

Wednesday, October 15

Library Open, 2-5 p.m., 208 Main Street

Planning Board, 6 p.m., Town Office

Thursday, October 16

Library open 2-5 p.m., 208 Main Street

Friday, October 17

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

Library open 9-12, 208 Main Street

Saturday, October 18

Library open 9-12, 208 Main Street

Sunday, October 19

United Christian Church, 9:30 a.m. Worship and Children’s Church, 18 Searsmont Road

Bayshore Baptist Church, 10 a.m. Sunday School for All Ages, 10:40 a.m. Coffee and Baked Goods, 11:00 a.m. worship, 2648 Atlantic Highway