oiling the tools?......mom’s fruitcake redux......tired of the train wrecks

This Week in Lincolnville: Finding the Balance

...between reality and everything else
Mon, 11/30/2020 - 3:00pm

     

    I woke up this morning thinking I should oil the tools today. You know, scrape off the caked-on dirt from the spade and hoe and fork. Sand away any rust that’s accumulated, and rub oil over all the metal parts. Hang them from their designated nails in the shed, go inside and check that chore off the list.

    Fact check: I’ve never actually done this.

    That would have to be after writing this column. But should it come before or after the Vote Forward  letters I committed to doing, those hand-written odes to Georgia voters to do this one last thing and go to the polls in their run-off Senate election? The chances that even one of my 100 letters, hand-addressed to what are described as “not habitual voters”, will inspire someone to go and vote seems unlikely. Still, I persist.

    I have to do something.

    I also have to cut down the stalks of the summer’s perennials, shovel out the henhouse, staple that second layer of plastic inside the greenhouse (like I’ve been promising myself for years), make the big wreath for the barn door, trim my hair. Make new covers for the cushions on our outdoor furniture. Order the weather-proof fabric to make the covers.

    Do you keep a “To Do” list? Doesn’t everyone? Mine tends to be aspirational, to use a word I’ve heard more in the past year than in my whole life.

    Oh, and Christmas is coming. As a retired Mom-in-charge of Christmas, I’ve been pretty easy on myself the past several years. I do virtually no shopping for presents. I don’t give any presents, not to my sons and their wives, not to the grandchildren (though I may make a thing or two for the littlest one), not even one to my companion down the road (we made a promise in the beginning – no presents). No cards, though I try to answer the ones I get.

    Baking? Probably just my mother’s fruitcake. I say (to myself) that I won’t this year, then I see the display of candied fruit at Hannaford’s and give in. Just this one more time.

    Mother’s fruitcake used to be my Nanny’s recipe, and we three – mother, grandmother and little girl –  me probably 7 or 8, went to Wieboldts, a long-gone department store in Evanston, to buy the fruit. Whole candied pineapple slices that came in red, green, and yellow, improbably red and green cherries, something called citron, little bitter chunks of candied fruit. You stood at the counter and ordered what you wanted, and they packed each kind and color in those paper containers with wire handles – like Chinese take-out. My mother chopped up the pineapple, added half a box of golden raisins, stirred it all together with a poundcake-like batter, and baked it in an angel food tin, the circular pan with a hole in the middle.

    CALENDAR 

    MONDAY, Nov. 30

    Selectmen workshop with Harbor Committee, 6 p.m., remote 


    WEDNESDAY, Dec. 2

    Library book pickup, 3-6 p.m., Library


    SATURDAY, Dec. 5

    Library book pickup, 9 a.m.-noon, Library


    EVERY WEEK

    AA meetings, Tuesdays & Fridays at noon, Norton Pond/Breezemere Bandstand

    Lincolnville Community Library, curbside pickup Wednesdays, 3-6 p.m. and Saturdays, 9 a.m.-noon. For information call 706-3896.

    Soup Café, cancelled through the pandemic

    Schoolhouse Museum open by appointment, 505-5101 or 789-5987

    Bayshore Baptist Church, Sunday School for all ages, 9:30 a.m., Worship Service at 11 a.m., Atlantic Highway, In person and on Facebook    

    United Christian Church, Worship Service 9:30 a.m. via Zoom 

     

    I make it exactly as she did except that I add walnuts which she didn’t. And it tastes just as good to me at 76 as when I was 9. Let me know if you want the recipe.

    I’m grateful for my busy mind, full of want-to-dos and have-to-dos. Reaching for my contact lens case right after brushing my teeth, I inevitably flash back to whatever I was working on at bedtime, usually some knitting. Something about seeing those arthritic hands up close, trying to pry open the plastic case, reminds me of last night’s hat or mittens waiting by my chair.

    It was like that for Harry Swanson I bet. Harry, who with his wife Marion, ran H. Swanson Studio and Gallery at Lincolnville Beach for many, many years, passed away last week. They’d moved to Tennessee to be closer to their family, but Marion has stayed in touch with Lincolnville friends. Harry was an artist, painting landscapes and seascapes in oils, acrylics and watercolor. Harry never stopped painting. Even when it became more difficult as he aged, he painted every day. It was his life’s love; we should all be so lucky to have a passion that lasts all our lives.

    This business of waking up with the day’s to-do list at the forefront isn’t the whole story. Ticking off those concrete chores competes with my phone, handily all charged up on the night stand. Yes, I reach for the phone. At 3:15 in the morning, which is about when I generally wake up, I snuggle deeper under the covers and click on Apple News and there it is. The whole panoply of disaster and prediction and who said what to who and what it means for our future on this planet.

    Of course, I promptly head for “Politics” where my human penchant to watch a train wreck hasn’t abated after the last four years of wrecks. I suspect it doesn’t matter which side you favor (and lord knows, we’ve chosen sides), the drama has been continual on both sides. I read every last story that I don’t have to subscribe to (Vanity Fair, Wall Street Journal and the LA Times are out) including Slate, Politico, CNN, NBC, Fox. I read until, feeling vaguely sick, I shut it off and go feed the dog.

    I never meant to become dependent on that damn phone. It’s become so commonplace to see people sitting in their cars at the Beach, ostensibly there to watch the sunrise, intently focused on their phones, never once glancing up to watch the miracle of the earth turning and the sun appearing once again. Appearing as it has for thousands of years, over Islesboro and Penobscot Bay and our own Camden Hills – Gerry, Bald Rock, Frohock and Ducktrap.

    So this morning, hours before dawn, I put down the phone and watched the moon, the Beaver Moon, Corelyn reminded me, as it slowly made its way behind our pasture’s tree line. The room was flooded with its cool, peculiar light, even as the phone’s equally peculiar light blinked off, forgotten amidst the blankets and snoozing cats. A much better way to start the day.


    Town

    A special Town Meeting is called for Dec. 15 to elect a selectman for a term ending June 2022. This is to fill the vacancy left by the death of Dave Barrows. Two candidates are on the ballot: Jordan Barnett-Parker and Jason Trundy.

    Contact the Town Office if you’d like to receive an absentee ballot. The election will be held at the school on Dec. 15 with the polls open from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m.


    School

    LCS is going remote this week after a number of close contacts with Covid-positive students and/or staff were reported. The decision as to whether to go back to in person learning or to stay remote will be discussed at the next school committee meeting, Dec. 7, 6 p.m. This will be a remote meeting; to get the link email Wendi Tricomi.


    Beach Schoolhouse to Change Hands

    The next step in the sale of 33 Beach Road, the home of the Historical Society and the Improvement Association, is the closing, which is imminent. The Town will be selling the building to the LHS for $1 (plus $24 closing fees!).

    Last week’s chili pick-up dinner was a great success putting more than $1200 in the coffers of the LHS’ renovation project for the building. Stay tuned: there may be more to come!


    Covid Christmas

    United Christian Church held a Christmas decorations fund-raiser on Saturday selling wreaths, centerpieces, tree ornaments and luminaries all made by church members. Most everything but a few ornaments sold out; the ones remaining are available at Sleepy Hollow Rag Rugs with proceeds going to the church.  

    Also available in the shop’s entryway (aka our barn, 217 Beach Road) are the Maine Farmhouse Advent calendars, $15 each, with proceeds going to the Beach Schoolhouse Renovation Project. Stop by and get one for the little guys in your life.

    Sadly, we don’t have the annual Beach Tree Lighting to look forward to this year. The big crowd, the enthusiastic singing of the old favorite carols and Christmas songs, the jam-packed Beach schoolhouse where we sampled each other’s cookies and met Santa are all wrong in so many ways this year.

    I fervently hope to see the day when we can gather together again and not be afraid of passing on or getting the Virus. And just as fervently, I hope for the day when our political leanings no longer define us in each other’s eyes. I’m so over that and hope you are too.