Mon, 02/23/2026 - 12:20pm

Ed O’Brien

Mouth of the Ducktrap. (Photo by Ed O’Brien)

Late in the workday Friday, I received a text from one the boys, asking if I minded if they went to the regional championship basketball game, where Camden Hills would face off against Brunswick in the Class A North final in Augusta. I answered in the affirmative — this is after all, the last winter before their older sister graduates in June.

Stopping at Wentworth Market on my way home, I could smell snow on the air. This is a thing, right? The smell of snow? My weather app confirmed my suspicion and I shot the boy a text, asking if they knew snow was coming tonight.

Back home, the kids were not dissuaded, my daughter was confident about driving home from Augusta in a snowstorm. The old minivan has studded tires, and she has been driving independently for a year now. Their mom and I talked to them about driving tips, and avoiding side roads if possible. So we sat, anxiously watching the snow come down outside outside the windows, tracking their progress on the Find My app. I again wondered how my poor Mom did it without being able to track my teenage self.

They made it home safely, with a CHRHS victory and a bonding experience. These three little beings, forever connected by virtue of a relatively short time span between their births, cheering on their school’s basketball team and surviving a drive home in the blowing snow. My daughter agreed with my wife, the veteran of uncountable snowy drives home down Route 3 during her years working in Augusta, it really is like being in a Star Wars spaceship going through hyperspace — the snow coming at you like stars in a fictional universe.

My kids really haven’t experienced the snow of my own childhood. I always chuckle when I see an old friend gripe on social media that back in our day we didn’t have snow days. We absolutely did, and I remember at least one June attending school on a Saturday to make up for days taken off in the winter. There was, however, a heck of a lot more snow in the 1980s.

What makes this year different is that the one major snowstorm we have had never really melted, allowing for cross country skiers and snowmobilers to actually participate in their activities for once.

With a storm on its way up the East Coast, I have been reflecting on the snow of my youth. My dad was a teacher, so he was as invested as us kids in the school cancellations, listening to the radio as they went through the list of who could go back to bed. The “no school” dance when it was announced that SAD 28 and the Castine Adams School was canceled.

One of my earliest memories of snow was likely the Blizzard of 1978. My big brother and I had trudged around to the back of the house. In those days, the door to the back porch was sealed off in the winter, to prevent the ever present drafts that plagued Sleepy Hollow in my earliest memories.

I had somehow managed to climb the stairs to the porch, but could not get myself back down, with the snow and wind whipping across the back yard. I would have been just three and my six-year-old brother left me, alone and scared in the driving snow.

Spying my father, coming around the corner of the house, having been alerted by my brother, and being carried to safety, likely placed in front of a warm woodstove.

Thirty-nine years later, in the particularly snowy February of 2017, this vision came to me as I shoveled out Ma’s house in the driving snow just a few weeks after my father had passed. He wouldn’t be coming around the side of the house, but he was still present somehow.

A pair of Easter snow bunnies, their eyes jelly beans, bleeding neon tears of food coloring down their faces. The massive cave my brothers and I had dug into the snowbank at the end of the driveway, expanding it until the whole thing came down on my head. Snow forts and snowball fights. The April 1 storm that canceled college classes and shut off power to the campus, leading the fire alarm system to bray all night long. My wife has stories about the ice storm of 1998, but I was safely living in Boston for that one.

As much as I have enjoyed the bright sunshine and temperature crawling north of 32 this week, it does seem that the most snow tends to come in late February and March. Bring it on. The plowguys need their paychecks, and the garden will be all the happier come spring.

LCS Book Sale

Fill a bag with used books this Saturday and Sunday at Lincolnville Central School during the annual book sale to benefit the Parent Teacher organization from 9 to 2 p.m. There will also be a bake sale “cafe” to get your fill of treats. As I referenced in my column about old cookbooks, Lincolnville knows its way around cookies and cakes.

Sympathy

For Brian Feener, my neighbor up the road on Youngtown.

For Clair “Sonny” Fields, a long time presence in this town.

And for Jean Brakewood, formally of the ChesterDean Road, a back-to-the-lander before the term was coined.

Love to their families and friends.

Okay, Lincolnville, get ready for a late winter nor'easter. Stock up on bread and milk, as is tradition. I think I might bake bread on this quiet Sunday, but I’ll probably still end up at the grocery store. I like Sunday grocery runs.

Be kind, take care the people you love, extend an olive branch to the people who annoy you. Life is too short to do anything else. As always, reach out at ceobrien246@gmail.com.

Municipal Calendar

Monday, February 23

School Committee Budget Workshop, 6 p.m., LCS

Select Board, 6 p.m., Town Office

Tuesday, February 24

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

Thursday, February 26

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

AA Beginner’s Meeting, 7 p.m., Lincolnville Historical Society, 33 Beach Road

Friday, February 27