Word spread fast along High Street Sunday evening, the awful news that Dave Barrows had been killed working on his land. Apparently his tractor overturned on top of him. His wife, Darlene, found him some time after the accident.

Neighbors up and down High Street arrived on tractors and in pickups to go down in the field to help, though there was no doubt that he was dead. Firemen and first responders were, of course, soon on the scene.

Suddenly, the tragic accident had happened to one of our own. You’d think we’d become immune to sudden death in these awful COVID days, but it turns out, we’re not. Our thoughts go immediately to his wife and to their children, adults all, living near and far from Lincolnville.

Any wife who’s waited anxiously for her husband to return as darkness falls, return from the woods or out in the fields, knows that pit-in-the-stomach dread, watching the minutes tick by.

Dave, living in the house where he grew up, was well-known throughout town in spite of his quiet manner. A selectman for several years, his voice was always heard asking the sensible questions that gave pause in discussion of the thorny issues that come before the town.

Chances are you knew Dave if you shop at Rankins, where he’s been a regular behind the counter and helping customers find things for years. When we were turning our barn into a weaving shop, I went to Rankins for advice on wiring it myself. Dave took me through the electrical department saying “you’ll need some of these and this and those…” as I filled my basket, and he walked me through the steps I’d have to take. I probably wrote them down on a scrap of paper.

“And when you’re done, have an electrician check your work,” he said, ringing up my order. I may have gone back a time or two after that with questions which he was happy to answer.

With tonight’s Selectmen meeting postponed, the phone’s been ringing, the sad news from High Street spreading around town the old fashioned way, person to person.

At the Shore

At the other end of town yesterday afternoon another potentially tragic incident was averted when Nick Heal and his crew were able to rescue a fellow whose catamaran capsized.