Sun, 04/07/2024 - 4:00pm

Ed O’Brien

District 3 Honors Choir (Photo by Tracee O’Brien)

A kid enjoys time off screen on a typical April afternoon. (Photo by Ed O’Brien

District 3 Honors Choir (Photo by Tracee O’Brien)

A kid enjoys time off screen on a typical April afternoon. (Photo by Ed O’Brien

So a thing happened this week that I don’t want to give anymore attention to, so I won’t. April snow has been known to happen, but it is over and melting, and hopefully everyone has their power back.

My lovely wife had the opportunity to work in New Jersey last week, which left me alone with the small pack of adolescents who inhabit this house with us. For those of you who have young adolescents, or did at one time, you know the joy that goes with kids who are involved in many activities, but are not yet licensed drivers.

Which I guess brings me to what I do think I will talk about today, how the activities our kids are involved with interact with these tiny computers most of us carry on our person at all times. There is a lot of noise about how all kids do these days is stare at their phone. There is some legitimacy to these concerns, but it is also true of many adults. And I generally don’t agree that is fair or true.

Kids are still doing stuff in this community. In the summer they are gathered at the beaches, meet ups made so much easier by those phones they all carry. Getting together at the Snow Bowl, trips to the movie theater, fishing trips, cruising around town on their bikes. All the stuff I did when I was young is still happening.

Cell phones were the things of science fiction when I was a kid, but I see the benefits that come with all the draw backs. For one, I always can figure out where my kids are, and a text is much more effective and conveys more information than that bell my Ma used to ring. I have one kid who has a tendency to take off on his bike whenever he is bored and the weather permits, and I can track him down. It is so much easier for us parents to coordinate rides for our kids, even when they just told you they have to do something five minutes before it happens.

In my own life, my three kids seem to constantly have something going on. Sports, Scouts, music lessons, theater. And they are mixed between two schools in two towns. I remember relying on the old pay phone in the lobby of the old Camden Rockport High School, and hoping someone was by the landline. Of course this meant we could get away with a lot more back then.

We got our kids cell phones upon entering the sixth grade. Have there been issues with them? Of course. And there are sound arguments that this is perhaps too young, but heck, we all have to parent our own way. By this time all three had demonstrated the responsibility to be home alone, and my wife and I are working full time. Pick ups need to be arranged, chore reminders often come via text. And it is so much easier to share words of encouragement and support, photos and jokes.

There is always the worry of cyberbullying, inappropriate conversations, and many of the other scary things that our extremely online society presents. But this is the world that they live in. It is different, but most of it is so much similar to the world I grew up in, as my childhood was both different and similar to that of my parents. And it is so much easier to help a 12 year old learn to navigate these challenges than an 18 year old.

And as I am sure I have said here before, I think the kids are alright. Or they will be. It is up to the parents and the community to support and guide them, in any way they let us. The same increased communication that the kids have is also there for the parents. And we talk. Like when I was a kid and an adult in the community saw my friends and I doing something stupid and told my folks — that is so much easier now.

So there is good and bad being a kid in the 2020s, same as being a kid in the1980s, or the 1950s, and all the way back through time. If you know the story of the Ancient Greek philosopher Socrates, well… We worry, we are parents.

But one more little anecdote. I got roped into chaperoning the LCS Middle School dance the other week. I can promise that most of those kids had a phone on them, and access to more computing power than existed when I was young. And sure, there were kids looking at their phones. But very few, and often it was a group, sharing something likely amusing and incomprehensible to the adults in the room. And mostly, they were laughing, and dancing, and being awkward. Except for the music, it could be 1989 in the cafeteria of the old LCS. And that gives this middle aged man comfort.

Lincolnville Kids Perform

There were two (that I know about) musical performances involving Lincolnville kids this weekend. The Camden Hills Regional High School band and chorus had their long planned trip to New York City. They were able to leave a night early, Wednesday evening, to avoid the event I don’t want to write about. Huge thanks to the CHRHS administration for helping to make sure they wouldn’t miss this amazing trip. They took in Broadway shows and performed at the Riverside Church in Manhattan, with other high school musical programs from across the country. They explored the city and took a nighttime boat tour of New York Harbor. Some very tired young people returned home Sunday evening.

Saturday was also the District 3 honors music festival. Seventh and Eighth grade students from participating schools audition for the chance to perform with the band or chorus. This year seven LCS kids were selected: Esme Tobiasz with the band, and Piper Brenton, Lily Fishman, Emma Killough, Lucy Morgenstern, Andy O’Brien, and Violet Prime with the chorus. Normally a two day program, circumstances forced it to be all done in one long day. Students from twenty schools gathered at Mt Ararat Middle School in Topsham to learn how to perform the preselected pieces together, putting on a fantastic performance that evening to a packed auditorium.

So much respect, once again, to Susan Iltis, the K-8 Music teacher at LCS for encouraging and supporting a love of music in the kids of Lincolnville, and sending them on to the fantastic music programs of Craig Ouellette and Drew Albert at Camden Hills Regional High School.

Condolences

To the loved ones of Betty Lord, who passed away last week.

So my thoughts on cell phones may be as controversial as my thoughts on chickens as pets. Feel free to reach out at ceobrien246@gmail.com if you have something to say. Enjoy the upcoming spring weather, and watch out for lost outta-staters Monday. The eclipse seems like it will be cool, but do not look directly at it! Talk to your neighbors and be kind.

CALENDAR

Monday April 8

Recreation Committee Meeting, 4 p.m. Town Office

Select Board, 6 p.m. Town Office

Tuesday, April 9

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

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

Heart and Soul Team, 12 p.m. Lincolnville Library

Budget Committee, 6 p.m. Town Office

Wednesday, April 10

Library open 2-5 p.m.

Planninng Board, 7 p.m. Town Office